Happy Birthday Tia!

Today is Tia's 7th birthday! She is now officially a veteran. Tia loves birthdays, and feels that she should be treated specially every day. According to tradition, she will get to choose a toy - as you can see from the photo, Tia takes her toys very seriously!

This past Saturday Mom drove down and we both attended the Breeders' Symposium held at the Baker Institute by Cornell. It was an enjoyable and informative day, with talks covering all things canine health and reproduction. I had to laugh during the Canine Health Information Center presentation when the speaker mentioned how many hits their website has gotten recently - their data is probably inflated from me looking up potential stud dogs! Mom had brought Queezle along. She was perfectly happy hanging out in the car during the talks and was thrilled to see me. Her undercoat is starting to come back, but we don't have any conformation shows planned for a while.

Happy Birthday Queezle!

On March 4th, Queezle celebrated her 5th birthday. She has come a long way from the little ball of fluff I brought home from Oregon in a Sherpa bag! On their birthdays, our dogs always get a special treat of some sort (a turkey melt this time) and then get to choose a new toy. Needless to say they think birthdays are pretty cool!

On Saturday I drove up to Syracuse for the last weekend of the Syracuse Obedience Training Club's agility league, which Queezle and I have been participating in. We had some really nice runs on very tough and twisty courses, though I did have to make her re-do the a-frame once when she cheated and jumped over the contact zone. After the official festivities were over, I ran Flash through the course just for fun and we practiced some contact obstacles.

In other news, the Cornell women's hockey team won its first ever ECAC Championship this past Sunday! We have also had four straight days of sun and temperatures reaching 40 in Ithaca, which has many of us wondering if the world has ended and we've all gone to heaven. I am really looking forward to spring, though hopefully we can go straight from snow to grass, and skip the mud stage - even though in the dorm I don't have to worry about keeping dogs clean, I have a bad habit of going cross-country when the paved walkways aren't the most efficient path. The one sad thing about the coming spring is that it will be the end of the snow igloo in front of my building.

Lots of Good Things

I know, I know - I've been slacking again. But I've been busy! Firstoff, on February 25th Queezle's puppies turned one year old. They've come a long way from the little munchkins that could eat out of a muffin tin!

Second, this past weekend I met my mom in Syracuse for an agility trial after watching the Cornell hockey team beat Union 4-1 Friday night (Go Red!). I gave a couple other pep band members a ride to the game, which was good because the guys dug the car out a three foot drift that night as opposed to me doing it at 5:30 the next morning!

As always, I had a great time at the trial. Flash was her usual wild self, and although she didn't qualify in any of her runs, for the most part they were really nice. At this point in her career I'm just glad she's still active and having a good time - qualifying runs are icing on the cake. Tia started out with some very lackluster runs, but rose to the occasion for our last class of the weekend and had a nice run with only one error.

Queezle decided to celebrate her puppies' birthday and her own approaching birthday by earning her second Excellent Jumpers with Weaves leg with a first place! She was the only 20" Excellent A dog to qualify. Her weaving is really coming together, and she was very good about following my cues. She has also figured out that I often appear when Mom takes her to Syracuse - Mom said she went nuts as soon as they arrived Saturday. I'm sure right now she is mad at me for having disappeared again. That said, I know that she got a hamburger on the way home for her clean run, which must have made her very happy.

So Happy Belated Birthday to Lexi, Rebel, Joy, Mozart, Demi and Tenor and congrats to everyone else who did well at the trial!

Happy Valentine's Day

In many ways this is a bittersweet day for me, as this is the first Valentine's Day since 1998 that I haven't been able to celebrate Flash and my anniversary with her. We have both come a long way from that day 12 years ago when my little bundle of trouble came home, but I can honestly say she was the best Valentine's gift I ever got (and probably ever will!). She really is an awesome dog, and hopefully next year we'll be able to eat cookies and sit around together.

I was, however, able to go up to Syracuse for an agility seminar with Tracy Sklenar, where I met Mom and Queezle. The Q was very happy to see me, and we had a good time and learned some things we need to work on with her jumping style and confidence (Mom didn't bring Flash because it was too cold for her to be outside and she would have just barked like crazy the whole time if she was inside).

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

February Already?

Sigh... I've been slacking. In my defense, I was attending 3 extra classes on top of my actual 5, so the world will just have to forgive me. The good news is, after two weeks of going to four different Creative Writing classes, I got in three! I was then able to pick the time slot that made the most sense for me and politely declined the other two offers. So I am now down to 5 classes and 18 credits, and I'm even enrolled in all of the classes I'm going to!

In other news, I finally found a reason to be glad I don't have any dogs with me. Yesterday coming in after my last class I discovered that there was barbecue sauce all over my sneakers - by sticking my hand in it as I went to take them off. I washed most of it off but they still bring back memories of summer picnics, and would be very enticing to any canine companions.

I haven't seen my own beasts since January, but I did have a brief run-in with an elderly Border Collie near one of the dorms. When I first saw her she was moseying around in the open area between two buildings, and then she headed to one of the doorways. She looked kind of lost and there were no other people around, so I went up to her to see if she had contact information on her collar. She wagged her tail and smiled at me, and as I checked out her star-studded collar a man talking on his cell phone opened the door, said, "That's mine," called the dog in and shut the door. Granted, I was not going to steal his dog, but a college campus is NOT the place to leave your dog unattended! I haven't spotted them since, so I don't know if they live in that building or if they were just visiting.

Workin' Hard or Hardly Workin'

Well, I survived Week 1 of Semester 2 at Cornell. Apart from Queezle's hysteria at being left behind, moving back in was painless, and I am taking full advantage of the heating - let's just say my dorm room is the tropical paradise that Ithaca, NY is most definitely not. I have an awesome schedule: 9th Century Baghdad on Monday/Wednesday, and The Gothic Novel, Renaissance Poetry and Chaucer on Tuesday/Thursday. I love this stuff, and having Fridays off is extremely exciting.

The one complication in my schedule is Creative Writing. Apparently everyone and their mother wants to be in it. I didn't get in during the initial enrollment period, but the day that Add/Drop began a spot opened up. I immediately sent an email to the department, and after that yielded no results decided I would just show up at class on Monday and claim my spot.

Wrong. Firstoff, the class is actually capped at 18, rather than the published 21. Second, 43 people showed up for those 18 spots. That session's professor said that we should get on as many waiting lists as we could (there are 13 sessions of the class at different times and on different days), so I took up a new hobby: stalking any and every Creative Writing class that I could possibly fit in my schedule.

Amazingly, 9 different sessions fit my schedule, in 6 different time slots. On Monday I attended two sessions, and emailed the professors that I had missed because I hadn't realized just how desperate the situation is. Tuesday only had one class that I could fit in, but go I did.

I was gearing up for 5 sessions on Wednesday, 4 of which were right in a row, when I started to get email responses. Several professors said that there was no hope for me, especially since I'm a freshman. This was probably a good thing, as it saved me from getting an overload - I only had to go to 3 different sessions. By the time the second class had rolled around, the numbers had dropped to more reasonable dimensions - ranging 21 to 27. I decided I'd stick with it through the first two weeks.

The catch to all this is that I'm doing work for three versions of the same class. Combined with my "real" classes, I'm doing the work for a 24 credit schedule! My friends think I'm nuts, but if I get in, it will have been worth it. It's a good thing I enjoy writing!

Queezle's Back in Blue!

Between the litter, losing coat and my starting college, Queezle didn't get in the breed ring much in 2009. Literally, we got to two days of shows! This was a huge drop compared to the previous two years, where we showed enough for her to be ranked as one of the Top 25 Belgian Tervuren in the US. So you can imagine that I was excited for the three-day Nickel City Cluster in Hamburg, NY.

It felt so good to be back at a show. As Queezle and I walked in the building, I relaxed, and I could see her go, "Oh! A dog show!" and settle into the routine. She is very good about walking through the crowds - either she follows me or goes straight ahead, not bothering any of the other dogs and occasionally sniffing people's pockets to see if they have food. We crated with some other Terv people, caught up on how everyone's dogs were, and settled in for the weekend. On Friday one of the male specials (term for dogs that already have their Championship), Wayne, took the breed. I cheered for him in the Herding Group with all the other Terv people while Queezle snoozed in her crate.

The next morning Tervs were on early. Though I don't like mornings much, I can handle them for dog shows. Queezle just needed a quick fluff and puff after her thorough grooming the day before, and we were ready to roll. In Best of Breed there were three male specials and the Q. After going over all the dogs and having us gait around the ring several times, the judge pulled Queezle and I out to the front! He then called out the Winners Dog (the best male who doesn't have his CH yet), choosing him for Best of Winners. Next he pointed to one of the male specials, intending him to go in the third slot as Best of Opposite. Instead, the handler tried to bring his dog up in front! Queezle and I both puffed up, but luckily the judge corrected him before I had to. In the end Queezle was indeed given Best of Breed, which meant we could go on to the Group!

Queezle and I both love showing in the Group. For the Groups they open up two of the rings, so there is plenty of room. This is great for large dogs and ones with good movement, as you have tons of space to stretch out. And to me at least there is very little pressure - once you've gotten out of the breed, anything beyond that is icing on the cake. You have already gotten a stamp of approval.

So in we went, making sure we were behind the larger and faster dogs such as the German Shepherd and Bearded Collie. As it turned out, our position in the lineup put Queezle and I at the corner, where there is a diagonal strip of matting that meets the two long mats. I like getting the corner as it allows you to set up your dog so that it can be seen well no matter which side of the ring the judge is looking at - and in the Group ring getting noticed is often the hardest part. I also sometimes tell Queezle to stay and then step back so I am hidden by the dog in front of us, which draws attention because it looks like she is in the ring all by herself. After the first look, the judge started going over the dogs and Queezle and I settled down to wait, which consists of doing tricks to entertain both Queezle and the crowd and, whenever we were at a good point in the matting, posing the Q so the judge would see her while watching another dog do its down and back.

When the dog ahead of us went for the down and back, I stacked Queezle for her exam. Our judge, Janet Turnage Nahikian, asked us to do the down and back going the long way of the ring. As Queezle is very clean coming and going, we went all the way down. When we got back to the judge I had Queezle freestack. Her front was off, so I told her, "You can do better than that!" She fixed it and the judge laughed, then sent us around to the end. After that we were on break for a few more dogs.

The final look is when the suspense really builds, with all of the handlers trying watch their dog and the judge at the same time. She went down the line slowly, pulling out some of the dogs. She pointed to Queezle! Glad to have at least made the cut, we joined the other selected dogs at the other side of the ring. Once she finished her cut, the other dogs were excused. She looked the six remaining dogs over, then sent us around again. After looking at the dogs a moment more, she pointed at Queezle and I and said, "One." I beamed and we flew out to the little Number 1 sign, Queezle leaping in the air and our friends outside the ring screaming!

Though Queezle and I have won the Group before, it is still incredibly exciting, and I was on cloud nine. I had been hoping for any placement, and never would have expected getting first! After doing our photo I put Queezle in her crate to rest up while we waited for Best In Show. All of our friends were thrilled, and I called my mom at home to let her know the good news.

Sadly, we did not go Best In Show. The judge ended up going with the very nice Rottie. Queezle didn't mind - in her opinion she is always Best In Show. One of these times we'll get it.

The next day Queezle took the breed again, and while everyone else packed up to go home we lounged about waiting for Group. Just because we did well the day before didn't guarantee anything, so I didn't have my hopes up too high as we entered the big ring once again. After examining all the dogs, the judge pulled out the Australian Shepherd, Queezle, the Old English and the German Shepherd. After looking at the lineup once more, she said, "That's how I want it - one, two, three, four!" The only thing better than getting the Group II was seeing the face of Bryan, a friend of ours who was showing the Aussie. He couldn't believe it! Since it was getting late, Queezle and I ended up heading home after wishing him luck in Best In Show. The results still aren't up, but I don't think he got it because there haven't been any posts to our local Aussie list.

Two Group placements, and one of them a Group I, was a fabulous weekend. In honor of her stardom, I got Queezle a large roast beef sandwich on the way home. She says it's about time she got some appreciation!