That’s how it goes when your dogs rock, with alternate handlers, and you have to hide and try to film at the same time.

Highlights from this weekend’s CABTC AKC trial:

Xen, with Rob handling, got her first Excellent B JWW Q, with a 4th place finish!!!

Video:
Xen and Rob, CABTC 8-12-12 20\" ExB Q 4th place

And, my friend (and Jett’s friend) Cindy ran Jett in a trial for the first time. Jett ran fast and happy, and they Qed with a third place finish in 16″ ExB Preferred JWW.

Photo:

Video:
Jett and Cindy, CABTC 8-12-12 Excellent B Preferred JWW, Q and 3rd place!

This is Pteri. She’s a Piliated Woodpecker, and now a two-time sighting at our feeder.
Welcome, Pteri!

Trials.
And Qs.
And Kate getting to get re-acquainted with littermate Brooke.
And Xen’s birthday.
But at least there are sort of pictures for the last two. And maybe some video. Somewhere. Which might, or might not, get posted sometime.
But for now, we hiked.

We including Rob, Hanna, Xen and Kate. We named the rock from the last hiking post “Kate’s Kalamity Rock.”
We didn’t take a picture of it.
Xen wasn’t entirely, always, on board with the guest list and game plan.

Xen thinks maybe Kate should’ve stayed home.

Some of it, she was okay with me, at least.

It was a lovely day, not too hot, and there was wading and swimming (if one was a border collie) and even Kate swam some, and she’s getting better at it.
She was Big and Brave in the deep bit where she freaked a bit last time we were here.

I wish I had the capability to capture decent quality video of some of the leaps they both managed, rock to rock, today. They’re just lovely!
As we were leaving, hiking up out of the lower ravine, to the stairs that take one the rest of the way, the grrrls were wrestling each other, and checking out a kid hiking down in. They didn’t come right away, so the kid hiked back up a bit to redirect them. Thank you, Dog-Savvy Kid at the Waterfall Today.

And the company which cleverly employs me recently bought one of those programmable LED signs, like a mini-electronic billboard. It’s on top of the roof of the building, and I’m the employee who makes the slides to display on it. It’s actually on a fairly high-traffic street (West 150th Street, in Cleveland) and I’m told that at night you can see the glow when you get off the interstate two blocks south.
And the owner told me I could display a birthday slide for Xennie!
Here it is:

And here’s how it looked on the sign:

Happy Sixth Birthday, my Xennie!

This was taken at our lesson at Cheryl’s last night.

Tonight, we went out for dinner, in part to celebrate Xen being A Very Good Dog, both in the agility demo, and even more so, at Canine Affair Center’s table.

Some of you know me from Indiana and CPE in western Ohio, particularly Dayton’s excellent club, Gem City. And many of you know Xen as the afraid-of-children Border Collie, who flipped out at a trial when some little boys were  around being little boys. Being dog-show-savvy little boys. They were NOT hassling my dog. They never even LOOKED AT my dog. They were not running and squealing and generally acting like prey. They were kinda bouncing at each other, and being friendly-playful.

Xen lost it, alarm barking, crouching, hiding behind me, just flipped out.

Zoe, in Spencer Indiana (can she really be going into the 5th grade this year??) worked with Xen and me (and got to run Jett on television!) and we got Xen okay around kids.

Yesterday, she was fine (really fine, not just holding-it-together fine, but FINE) for a little over two hours. She was doing her “chair” trick, in front of our table. Craning her neck up and out toward her adoring public, young and old, for pats and ear scritches. The first time folks came up to her and she turned her head away, instead of leaning toward, I packed up and we all went home.

The local Mexican restaurant that has always been okay with Xen in the past, has recently changed hands. The new management/staff seem even more inclined to cater to their Canine-American clientele than even the previous owners were. Yay! So our waiter came out to get our drink orders, and ask if we wanted chips, already bringing a glass of water (no ice) for Xen’s bowl.

“Oh, you remember us?” asked Rob?

“How could I forget a beautiful dog?” asked the waiter. Good waiter.

Not so difficult being A Good Dog when there’s no really interesting food.

But even when there is…

THAT, my friends, is A Very Sane Border Collie With An Off Button, Who Still Has Drive.

I just love that little sleek dog!

I’m too sexy for my fur,
Too sexy for my fur,
Too sexy by far,
And I’m too sexy for my crate,
Too sexy for my crate,
All the haters gonna hate.
I’m a showdog, you know what I mean,
And I do my little run on the dogwalk,
Yeah, on the dogwalk,
Yeah, I shake my little tush on the dogwalk….

So, Jett and Xen and Kate and I went to Working Dog Weekend at Lake Farmpark. Kate got to do a pretzel tunnel, which she thought was pretty cool, and both Jett and Xen participated in the agility demo (which included the pretzel tunnel.) Both  dogs showed VERY well, and ran happy and fast and clean and made me look like an awesome agility handler.

Here is Jett’s turn:

Xen, though, was far and away the star of the show. When she was working at Canine Affair Center’s table later, everyone recognized her as “the one who went so fast in the agility.”

And here is Xen’s turn…

As you can see, the fame has gone to her head. The above song is what I heard coming from Xen’s crate when I left for work this morning….

Last weekend was BRAG Agility’s wonderful June USDAA trial at Liberty Park, near Columbus, Ohio.

The trial at which Rob and I met four years ago, and at which we were married, two years ago. Our anniversary trial. This is gonna be a nice trial, no matter how our dogs do. And these days, for this trial, we camp! Yay, tent-camping! Now, this year, new-and-improved, with FIVE dogs! At a state campground, with a two-dog limit per site!

This means, basically, that we all have to be Very, Very Good Dogs. And that I have to arrange the campsite to screen the dogs as much as possible. Rob chose a perfect site for us this year, and all five dogs were fabulous. It was Kate’s first Camping Adventure. The dogs get an EZ-Up, EZed out to full size, but not so much Upped. Four crates (Xen and Kate shared) Friday night, then five crates (Xen glared) Saturday. Kate slept basically though the night both nights, and there was minimal fussage, even when Some Dogs got to Go Somewhere while Other Dogs stayed at Where We Where Staying. Hooray for Good Dogs!

Also, there was the actual trial. In which Rob handled Jett to her first and only ever Performance II Gamblers Q. I have been chasing this Q since October of 2008.

No, really. I have been.

Since then (by which I mean, including then), I have run Jett in  P2 Gamblers 14 times. We have NQed each of those times. Twice, we have gotten the points and the gamble, but been over time. Once, by literally .01 seconds. No P2 Gamblers joy.

It was a nice P2 gamble. I found out tonight that Rob handled it Not At All like I’d planned to handle it before a I had the walkthrough for a Team thing for Makoa With a Dash of Xen, and Rob said “Hey, you want me to just run her in Gamblers?”  and I said, “Yeah, run the old dog. I need to focus on this.”

And they got it. I did get to see, but did not film. And she went out there and was all Big and Brave (TM) and just did it. She was running fast and happy and clearing those 22″ jumps (at 12 and 1/2 years old.) It was fabulous.

And Xen’s aforementioned Team, put together at the last minute,  was Makoa with a Dash of Xen, comprised of my Xen (duh!), Linda Randall’s Dash (a fast, handsome, very Dashing red rough), and Jane Fornty’s rough tri, Makoa. Jane and Makoa are from the Pacific Northwest. We had shirts, and they were fun, and I’ll post pictures later.

We were okay in Gamblers, which was first. Then we all Eed in Jumpers, which was suckful. That was Saturday.

Then on Sunday, we were okay in Standard, and really okay in Snooker. And then Jane learned How BRAG Handles The Ribbons. Which includes a drawer with the sticker sheets.  Thusly, we discovered that Makoa had been scored incorrectly in Gambler’s, and thus, we went from 4th place and below-the-line to 4th place but above-the-line.

So, going into Team Relay, we had a chance. Not so much a great chance, but a chance.

And all went well. And Jane and I, both running the same bit, first and last, layered a jump and got  dogs through a fast tire aimed Right At a Chute, and around one jump, to the farther out jump. And all Rocked. And we apparently took First in Team Relay, and we all Qed and finished Third Overall in the DAM  Tournament.

And it was A Great, Awesome, Super Weekend.

With no pictures.

Okay, so Xen came into season weekend before last, when we were at my Dad’s house. I had to pull her from the GTOTC trial, and leave her with my Dad and my Stepmonster for the weekend. Thanks, Linda! You’re the bestest stepmonster evers!

Indy and I hit Petco on our way home from the trial Friday for some bitch britches.  (Xen spent Thursday night and Friday in a pair of my polka-dotted bikinis, with the waistband safety-pinned to fit and a tail hole cut in them. It was a stopgap measure at best. Thanks, again, Linda!!)  What they had, in size Xen, was a two-pack of dark blue denim bitch britches. We purchased them.

She’s got a dark blue pair, and a light blue pair that I purchased for Kinsey, but now Kinsey’s spayed, so they’re Xen’s. I decided that we needed to bling her new ones up. I got the little hand-held adhesive crystal setter, and a couple of pre-fabbed iron-on designs, and had at them over the weekend.

These are the ones she wore out to dinner at our favorite Mexican eatery. She sits on a chair at the (outdoor) table, and is stunningly well-behaved there. The staff has gotten accustomed to her, and they are all good when I say things like “And the young lady would like a refill on her water, please.” I call them her Tramp Stamp Bitch Britches.

For the second pair, I got a pre-fabbed pawprint pattern, then added her name in blue crystals (to match her left eye, of course.) She wore them to agility class tonight, and she looked FABULOUS!

See? (click for larger images)

…since Kate wasn’t actually the ONLY dog there…

And it’s a lovely place to play…