Living it Up

The Tailwaggers club was hosting a three day USDAA trial down in Vero Beach this past weekend. Since we could not afford to do all three days, and what we really needed were standard, pairs, jumpers, and maybe a Grand Prix Q, it worked out perfectly that these classes were being offered on Sunday. We still need two snooker Super Q's, but snooker is offered more frequently than pairs certainly, and usually we only end up doing jumpers once as well. My friend Terri and her lovely dogs were there for the weekend, and she very graciously offered for me to crash with her Saturday night at the Motel 6 where Kaylee and I used to always stay. That sealed the deal.

We did some practice Saturday morning, took care of some chores and shopping, and hit the road around 4pm that afternoon. It had apparently rained buckets on the days previous, and the weather folks were predicting more. I was fortunate not to encounter any storms along the way and made great time to the hotel. The best thing, well perhaps the only good thing, about the Motel 6 is that it has lots of grass to walk the dogs on. Of course, since it is dog friendly, it is also a minefield of poop. In spite of that, we had a nice walk and stretched our legs before going into the room with Terri's dogs. Xander has been around my friend Lara's energetic dogs, and loves to play with Sting, but typically he ignores other dogs. Due to his difficult relationship with Kirby, I am always a little hesitant of his reactions to other dogs if they act dominantly toward him. I was blown away by how wonderfully he behaved in the tiny hotel room.

Terri has two border collies of her own, and then travels and competes with two of her clients' dogs, a pair of lovely aussies. Harley is a big, goofy, loveable red merle that is a little over two years old, and very much a puppy still. He and Xander had a wonderful time wrestling on my bed, and in my lap, before Harely was put in his crate to allow Bella to play. Bella is a gorgeous black tri and a huge flirt. Xander thought she was VERY sexy and put on his best show of posturing and the two of them had a long wrestling session with occassional attempts at humping.

Eventually, everyone settled down. This involved Bella pushed into one side of me, and Xander curled up on the other near my head. Needless to say, I did not get lots of sleep, but enjoyed it just the same. Terri and I talked about food and travels and dogs until late into the night before we finally went to sleep. At around 4am, Porsche, the eleven year old began pacing in the tiny bathroom. The bathroom was so small that the door would not close unless you lifted the tiolet seat first. Terri woke up fearing she was having a stroke, but we soon heard the cause of her anxiety when a loud crash of thunder and lightning knocked out our power and thus the extremely loud air conditioning unit. The storm raged for a while, but passed before our phone alarms woke us at 6am. Our power was not entirely restored however. I'm not sure how, but we had enough power for our lights to flicker dimly, but not to come on completely. It was like getting washed and dressed by candlelight. Agility is always an adventure.

The rest of the day was gorgeous. The sky was blue, the sun was warm, but the temperatures were mild and made for delightful agility weather. Although the trial is undercover, when it does rain, the tin roof makes a deafening noise and the crating areas tend to flood. I was glad I had arrived just in time for good weather. The big dogs ran first, which is always my preference since it doesn't give me time to psych myself out. We hadn't competed since early March, and at that time I was stressed out about the potential job and could not relax or focus. Our performance suffered obviously, as did my enjoyment level. This day was like a bonus and I had no expectations and no reason to be stressed out. I was only thinking of the two weeks until our wedding and honeymoon, and how much I enjoyed hanging out with Terri as well as regulars such as Kelly and Gail. I love USDAA folks. Previously, we have suffered from "one little thing" syndrome in standard and could not buy a Q. We had one, but single bars, tires, and other minor things had been keeping us from a clean run. Sunday morning we went out and had a beautiful clean run that was even good enough for 2nd place! Finally, our second standard Q was in the bag! One more and we will have our MAD!

After this came pairs, and for some reason, Xander and I have issues with it. Fortunately, Terri and Vette had issues with their half as well, so it wasn't one sided for either of us. It didn't bother me though, since the standard Q had made my trip worthwhile all by itself. Next up was Grand Prix, another class where we could never seem to qualify, although we don't run it terribly often. We had earned one last September, which was enough for our ADCH requirements, so this was just for fun mostly. We did Q, although it was not smooth enough to place and our lovely Vette won the class! Funny enough, I came home to look at our competition record and realized it was the last tournament Q we needed for his Tournament Master title! Good job Xander!

Finally, jumpers was built by around 1pm. It was so awesome to have four runs in about five hours, my kind of agility trial. We had two jumper legs going in, the course was fun and fast, and we came through with another 2nd place Q! That put us at three out of four runs for the day, a definite success! This means we need two snooker super Qs, two jumper, three pairs, and three standard Qs for our ADCH. Not bad for our fourth time in Masters. He really is such a good boy and does so well when MY head is in the right place! Best thing was, we made it back to Jax in time to go swimming at the dog park and wash off the clay. They all had "cheeto feet" after running in it. We were home before 6pm and in bed by 8pm. It was a great day.

Now Terri has convinced me to go to the regional to team up with Vette and Donna Brian's lovely dog Sting. Perry in June, our first regional event, why not?!

Time Keeps on Tickin

In a little over two weeks I will be married and heading to Cozumel for a six night stay at the Palace Resort. Pretty awesome.

In the meantime, life has been pretty steady. Making plans and slowly getting things taken care of. Buster and I bought our wedding bands a few weeks ago, and went downtown to get our marriage license. Both activities were much easier than I had expected. We have the food and the location and many of the minor logistics figured out, and things just keep getting checked off the list. I am feeling very good about it all.

I am still in the same job, resigned for the moment to a life of underachievement while I look forward to time away. Still no official word on the final open position I had applied for, but it's fairly safe to say that's not going to happen. Given the timing though, if something were to come through, I would rather it be after the honeymoon anyway. Stranger things have happened.

Buster and I have taken up disc golf, as we have a lovely course at the park down the street where we walk the dogs. After a week of chaos at his job, Buster finally enjoyed a normal evening of throwing the discs last night. He works SO hard, and cares SO much, and is still amazed when his bosses praise him for being fabulous. I just shake my head and wonder how he doesn't see it for himself.

We continue to love our townhouse, and have a backyard full of plants and grass and a garage now equipped with an inexpensive but highly fun ping-pong table. The barbeque gets regular use, and I still love every morning to open the backdoor and let dogs out to potty without having to walk them.

After devouring the "Hunger Games" trilogy, I have found an insatiable appetite for reading on my phone's Kindle (which is awesome). I just finished another reccomendation from a friend after a couple of days, and am moving on to the next one. I am also looking forward to reading another Stephen King "Dark Tower" book that is perfectly timed to be released so I can take it with me on our honeymoon.

On the agility front, Xander and I are heading to Vero Beach on Saturday evening to crash with my good friend Terri and to attend Sunday's USDAA trial. We are pairing with Terri's little red rocket Vette, as well as running in jumpers, standard and Grand Prix. We haven't competed since mid March, and I'm not sure when we will get to compete again, so this should be a fun little mini weekend before the big event.

Counting down the days until I become Mrs. Bonnie Pruett!