Successful Weekend

Tess and Jazz had quite a successful weekend! On Friday, we started out with Jazz at AKC Rally Obedience at Westmoreland County Obedience Training Club. Jazz ran her first Rally Advanced class and qualified with a very nice score of 94!

Then it was off to USDAA Agility with Splash 'n Dash K9 Sports. Tess had four first place qualifying runs, a second place qualifying run, a first, two second, and a third placement, and her Performance II Gamblers title! Whew! Needless to say, the girls were quite tired today after their weekend adventures!

Jim also got to rev up the Ferrari again when he ran Sammie, our friends' Border Collie. Jim and Sammie had an awesome third place qualifying run in Masters Standard that was a joy to watch. Once Mariann is well again, I'm not sure Jim will want to give back the keys to her little red Ferrari!!

Driving the Ferrari

Our dear friend Mariann is sidelined with a medical issue and can't run her Border Collie Sammie right now, so Jim, as he put it, was handed the "keys to the Ferrari" and got to run Sammie in a USDAA trial yesterday!

The video below is from Jim and Sammie's Gamblers run, in which they qualified and got first place!! This is the very first time that Sammie has run in a trial with anyone other than Mariann. You can see him looking for her at the start line, but once he and Jim started running together, Sammie did great! Jim did a pretty good job, too, considering he's used to driving a slow and steady sedan, not a fast, flashy Ferrari!!

Sammie is an awesome dog, and Jim had a fun time running with him yesterday. He did double duty, as he also ran Tess, who got a first place Q in her PII Standard run, along with first place runs in PII Gamblers and PII Pairs.

Tess - AX Title!

Tess earned her AKC Agility Excellent (AX) title today at the Golden Triangle Obedience Training Club trial in Cheswick, PA. Tess and Jim had a beautiful first place run and are now in Excellent B in both Standard and Jumpers with Weaves. Tess will be working on her MX and MXJ titles, each of which require 10 qualifying scores to title. Go, Tess!

Circus Fun

The Greater Pittsburgh Dalmatian Club held its annual Fun Day in the Park this past Sunday. This year, it was a circus theme and we all were supposed to have a circus act with our Dals. Below is Tess, the clown, and Jazz, the man-eating, liver-spotted Dalmatian lion!!

This is Jazz's mom Gia (on left) in her pearls and circus tutu, with Jazz (on right) in her lion mane. Doesn't Jazz look like her Mama?

Jazz and Tess clownin' around


Jazz and Tess in the circus collars that our Fun Day chairperson had for all the dogs

It was a beautiful day in the park and a really fun afternoon for us and our Dals (we even had a pair of Whippets, a Basset, and a Yorkie in attendance with their Dal family members). Thanks to the folks at GPDC who put this all together. I know my girls had fun learning to be circus dogs!!

More photos and a link to the slideshow from the Fun Day at the GPDC blog.