What a wonderful weekend we had! One of the clubs we belong to (Longs Peak Dog Training Club) had our agility trial up in Ft. Collins this weekend. It also just happens to be Jenny’s birthday weekend — and what better way to spend it?
We still have Brandi right now as her new family went on fall break. We have to admit, we were pretty excited we got to keep her for an extra week. But since it is such a full house, combined with the fact that FTC is a good 1.5 hour drive, Jenny opted to stay up with Heather, Gunner, and the fam this weekend. What would make it extra fun? Having Grandma Jamie come visit!! That’s right, Gunner’s breeder, and Karma’s Daddy’s breeder would be in town Friday night!
So Jenny loaded up Karma and Halo and hit the road Friday night. After arriving at Heather’s we headed up to Ft Collins to get the rings set up, equipment unloaded and laid out, and set-up our crating space. With many helpers, the chores went quickly and we headed back to have dinner, meet up with Jamie, and head out to a neighborhood Halloween party. (Where, we should add, Jamie won 3rd place in the costume contest.) Back to the house, the girls stayed up MUCH too late catching up, especially considering there was agility the next morning!
Jamie headed over to her judging assignment at the crack of dawn and Jenny and Heather loaded up Gunner, Karma, and Halo and headed North. First up for both GG and Karms was FAST. (As a reminder, you can learn more about the AKC agility games here.) Neither one has ever qualified before, so we were antsy for these runs. Turns out there was nothing to worry about — both red kids picked up Qs! Gunner placed 3rd in the 24” NF class and Karms placed 2nd in her 20” group. Starting the day off with Qs is always great! Before our next runs, Jamie made it over to watch for several hours. Having her there was great…she’s a big agility competitor herself and had great perspective and tips for us. We ended up the day with Gunner getting a NF leg and a T2B leg and Karma picking up her NF leg, MXJ #5 (and 10 MACH points,) and a T2B leg. Our friend Ginger ran her “old” girl Savannah and won the Open Fast class, and Jazz & Chili were their usual awesome selves with Dale and Katherine.
After Time to Beat, our friends had planned a little dinner celebration in honor of Jenny’s birthday. It was a little overwhelming to see how many people took time out of their weekend to come celebrate — what a great reminder of how lucky we are to have such a great Vizsla/Agility family. After cupcakes and presents we headed back to Heather’s and were literally asleep by 9:00pm.
Sunday, Karma had several — that was a beautiful run except for… — moments. A gorgeous Standard run except for a popped weave (Jenny’s fault) was the big heart breaker. We’ll get there. She did pick up a Q in T2B on a super fun course 🙂 It was a big day for our friends too — Krista and Roka picked up a QQ, Ginger finished Aja’s OAJ title with a 1st place, and Heather and GG walked out with 2nd place and their first OAJ qualify, and Sarah and Idgie not only got a Q in standard, but 3rd place in the 20” class.
Halo was also a **HUGE** star this weekend, everyone LOVED her! Our trainer, Sarah, is loving her tug skills and said our exceptional puppy needs to start taking shaping and clicker training lessons this week. Ginger was kind enough to bring this huge, heavy x-pen, and we hardly needed it — she spent almost the entire trial in someone’s arms. She met men, women, children, people with face masks, costumes, glasses, beards, earrings, etc. She was up in the grandstands and literally watched all the 24” dogs run in standard. It was so cute to watch her little head follow the dogs around the course. She heard the teeter slam 60+ times and never flinched. She met a few select dogs and had a playdate with Dale and Katherine’s new puppy Barsoom. She also terrorized Mary and Steve’s Chaz. People commented about how scrappy and spunky she is — yep! Then the few times she was in the x-pen, she spent some time with Karma too. This was a turning point, as Karma finally started to really play with Halo — we think she has been accepted into the pack!
After tearing down the jumpers ring, we tore down our crates and hit the road. What a fun weekend and a great group to celebrate a birthday with!
Here are links to runs from the weekend – thanks to Dale & Katherine for filming and sending over the videos!
Karma NF leg #1: http://youtu.be/3qFiMV-f3Xo
Karma MXJ leg #5: http://youtu.be/qWd5ZYE7Iq0
Karma T2B Q #3: http://youtu.be/fTxRKS9bE3k
Karma T2B Q #4: http://youtu.be/hXZpFL3YX8s