Autumn Splendor

Just thought I'd share a few photos of Tess and Jazz with some of the fall foliage in our yard.

Rally Pairs

We've just wrapped up a Rally and Obedience weekend at the Golden Triangle Obedience Training Club trial. This was Tess and Jazz's Rally Pairs debut, and, as promised, I'm including links to the video from their two Rally Pairs runs. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Blogger to upload this video, and when I did it through YouTube, it cut off half the video, so just follow the links below to view it on YouTube. I'm sure this is all because of my lack of video upload experience, so my apologies!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSl8P0OFsHQ

Saturday was quite the day for us. Tess finished her Rally Novice title with a third place finish and Jazz got her third RAE leg, qualifying in both Rally Advanced and Rally Excellent. The girls then competed in Rally Novice Pairs and finished in first place!! To top off the whole day, Jazz went on to finish her Beginner Novice obedience title and was once again High Scoring Dalmatian in the trial. Way to go, girls!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEp3Go9SpWs

Sunday was also a good day. Tess got her first Rally Advanced leg and Jazz got her fourth RAE leg. The girls once again competed in Rally Pairs and had a very nice run. They tied for first place, but the other team had a faster time, so we got second place. We had a great time with Rally Pairs and can't wait to try it again! We may even get brave enough to enter Rally Pairs Advanced, where Tess and Jazz would compete off leash!

Here are the girls with the spoils of their victories! We're actually missing a qualifying ribbon in the picture because the club ran out of them. I LOVE the Rally Pairs ribbons. Because it's a non-regular class, the first place ribbon was pink and the second place ribbon was brown...our favorite colors! We had a successful weekend at the trial and enjoyed spending time with friends and their dogs. I've taken the plunge and entered Jazz in Novice A Obedience in November, so we'll be training hard until then! I'd also like to get Tess into Beginner Novice Obedience, but there are only so many hours in a day...and too many of them are spent working to earn the money to pay for the entries in these trials :)

WCOTC Rally and Obedience

We had a great weekend at the Westmoreland County Obedience Training Club's Rally and Obedience trial. Friday and Saturday were beautiful fall days, and although it rained on Sunday, we still enjoyed a weekend filled with good friends and their canine companions. I was ever so grateful to have many of my new instructors and classmates from WCOTC there to give me guidance and support. They're a great group of people!

Tess made her Rally debut on Friday, earning a fourth place qualifying score in Rally Novice B. Tess also qualified in Rally on Saturday. Tess was a bit confused about why Jazz got to run in two classes in Rally and a class in obedience, but she was a good sport about waiting for her turn in Rally and worked nicely for me. Good girl, Tess!

Jazz's weekend was a whirlwind of green qualifying ribbons! On Friday, Jazz got a third place qualifying score in Rally Excellent B, along with a qualifying score in Rally Advanced B, earning her first RAE leg. She also qualified on Saturday in Rally Excellent B and Rally Advanced B, getting that second RAE leg. Only eight more to go :)

On Saturday, Jazz made her Obedience debut, competing in AKC's new optional titling class of Beginner Novice. I was a bit nervous about this, as we had a potential conflict in rings for Rally and Obedience, but we finished Rally just in time to walk into the Obedience ring with only one dog ahead of us! I was very pleased with Jazz's run in Beginner Novice. She was happy and confident, and after a run-off with a very skilled Lab and her handler, Jazz was awarded first place with a score of 195.5! Jazz went on to win a stuffed toy for High Scoring Dalmatian in the trial...and then won a large trophy for High Scoring Non-Sporting Dog in the trial!! Wow, what a day!

Sunday was Obedience only at the trial, so it was just me and Jazz, back for another run in Beginner Novice. Jazz was obviously worn down from two days of Rally and Obedience, but she again had a nice performance in Beginner Novice, scoring 192.5. She received a crystal apple-shaped bowl for being High Scoring Dalmatian in the trial, and also got an address book and journal for being High Scoring Non-Sporting Dog in the trial.

I'm very encouraged by Jazz's performance in the Obedience ring. She seemed to enjoy it, and we're looking forward to competing again in two weeks and hopefully finishing up her Beginner Novice title. We'll also be working on a couple more RAE legs with Jazz and trying to finish Tess' Rally Novice title that weekend. The girls will also be competing in Rally Pairs for the first time, so I'm going to try to get a video of that for everyone's entertainment!

Easy Rider

Every Thursday evening, Jazz and Sammie go to class together. Tess usually stays home with Jim. Yesterday, Jim was in Philadelphia for work, and since I didn't want to leave Tess at home all evening after being home all day while I was at work, she went to spend the evening with her "Uncle Jim." Tess got to go walking in the park with Jim, and since we take my car to class, she got to ride in Jim's van in Rocky's special seat, wearing Rocky's seatbelt harness! I'm sure Tess just loved sitting in the passenger seat facing forward to look out the windshield. She usually rides in the back of my car with a view only of where we've been, not where we're going!

I'm not sure how Rocky's going to feel once he realizes that a silly spotted girl was riding in HIS seat and wearing HIS harness. Rocky is 14 years old, and while his trips to the park to walk may be over, he is still about the coolest dog in the world, which is why I nicknamed him John Wayne! He is wonderfully calm and confident, and both my girls are very respectful of Rocky. Thanks, buddy, for allowing Tess to ride in your seat and spend the evening with your Dad at the park. Thanks, too, to Uncle Jim for taking Tess to the park so she didn't have to spend the evening home alone!

Tess - MX! ** Jazz - NAJ!

We had a wonderful titling weekend at the Westmoreland County Obedience Training Club agility trial! On Saturday, Tess started out with a 4th place Q in FAST. Then she went on to qualify in Excellent B Standard to earn her Master Agility Excellent (MX) title!! Woo-hoo, Tess!

After working so hard to earn that MX title, Tess took a well-deserved mental vacation and didn't qualify the rest of the weekend. She needs two more legs for her MXJ title, so we're hopeful that she'll finish that before the end of the year.

Jazz had a great weekend, too. On Saturday, she qualified in Novice FAST and got a 1st place qualifying score in Novice JWW! Then on Sunday, she got a 3rd place Q in Novice FAST. Today, she got another 1st place Q in Novice JWW, earning her Novice Agility Jumpers title with three 1st place legs! Jazz also got a 1st place Q in Novice Standard today, with just one more leg to go for her NA title. Not bad for a baby dog!!

Of course, the girls had a fun time visiting with all their friends this weekend. A few of our buddies have puppies, and both Tess and Jazz enjoyed a little puppy play time, especially with Katie, our friend Linda's adorable little Cocker Spaniel pup. While we're sorry to see summer go, we had an enjoyable Labor Day weekend at the trial.

Ohiopyle

Since most of the summer has been hot and humid and today was predicted to be a sunny day in the mid to upper 70s, Jim and I decided to take the day off of work and take Tess and Jazz to Ohiopyle State Park.

Here are the girls in the falls area of Ohiopyle. You can see part of the falls behind them to the left.

Tess and Jazz enjoyed a fair amount of frolicking in the water below the falls.



Tess and Jazz on one of the large rocks near the water.




One of the big treasures of the day was this large stick that the girls played with. Amazing how a floating piece of debris can be so much fun!!




Tess would even swim out and retrieve the stick!



Jazz with some of the local flora.

After the girls romped in the water, we enjoyed a picnic lunch and headed out to hike on the trails. Here's one of the two large bridges we crossed on the trail. These bridges are actually former railroad bridges converted for hiking and biking on a portion of trail that connects the Pittsburgh area with the Washington, DC, area (we didn't hike quite that far)!

Here's the view of the river from the bridge where we were hiking. We had a most enjoyable day with Tess and Jazz at Ohiopyle. The weather was perfect and the girls enjoyed playing in the water and hiking in the woods. Sure beats going to work!!

Tess' Perfect Weekend

Tess and Jim had a perfect weekend in CPE agility at the Splash 'n Dash K9 Sports trial over the weekend. Tess had 9 qualifying runs over two days and is now just 3 runs away from her C-ATCH, which is the championship in CPE. Jazz also did well, qualifying in 7 out of 9 runs over the weekend.

To make the weekend even more special, our friend Leslie and her Keeshond Kiwi earned their C-ATCH. Leslie and Kiwi are the first team from Splash 'n Dash, our training club, to get a C-ATCH, and it was so cool that they did it at our trial. Congratulations, Leslie and Kiwi!!