Liebester Award

Joey and I were honored when Samantha and Rugby gave us the Liebster Blog award. So now We're passing it on.

The rules of this award are:
1. Thank the giver(s) and link back to the blogger who gave it to you. So thank you Samantha and Rugby.

2. Reveal your five picks (with less than 200 readers) and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog. In no particuar order:

Gingersnaps - My Sister and her German shepherd Ginger.

JaMi Performance Maltese, Home of Super Soda!- The blog of Soda and Roo. They also train in Obedience, Rally, and Agility.


Spaniel Training- Two Spaniels who train in Agility, and also some Obedience.


Improbable Dreams- The blog of three Pappillons and their handler.

History In The Making-The blog of Rucker the Dachshund, and his training.

Is okay when winners do not pass on to 5 blogs.  Maybe one or two.  Self, had many many blogs that loved, and some have nearly 200 readers and some only have a few.  And did not check if any had won Liebster before.  But is okay, because is not about the official or fanciness, but is about all the love!

3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

Two Novice A Legs

Last weekend we had a trial in Southaven MS. We entered two runs in Novice A obedience. This trial was very big, we had all the obedience dogs, the rally dogs, and tons of conformation dogs everywhere. I had forgotten how noisy a show can become with conformation dogs. There was hairdryers blowing everywhere and the conformation dogs barked 24/7. We drove up Friday for a match, but by the time we got there the match was filled up, so I ended up just letting Joey walk around and get used to all the noise. We did our run Saturday morning and Joey was still a little nervous with all the noise so he lagged some, however I was very happy to see how solid his stand for exam was. After all that trouble he gave me the stand is now his steadiest exercise. Joey did his sit and down stays perfectly and we qualified and got third place with a score of 189.5. 

Joey was much more used to the crazy show environment on Sunday and he seemed much more relaxed. On Sunday we ran at the very end of the show, and everyone was packing up and leaving so it was very detracting. However, Joey did even better Sunday than he did on Saturday. He lagged much less and seemed more relaxed in the ring. The only thing that could have used some improving was the recall. Joey did a very good example of Newton's law of inertia. "An object in motion (Joey) tends to stay in motion unless acted upon by a force (my knees)." We have to work on his recall. Everyone who watches his recall says Joey is so cute the way he runs on the recall but his speed leads to problems such as bumping me or sitting crooked. Anyways, Joey did his stays perfectly again, and we qualified with a score of 189.5 (again). I kind of felt a deja vu there. Our Judge on Sunday, Howard Gladstein, was very nice, but he graded pretty strictly. However, out of the seven dogs also entered in Novice A, everyone but me and Joey got disqualified, so we managed to win first place.



Overall, I am very happy with Joey. There are still some little things I can work on but I feel that Joey learned how to work for me under stressful and distracting situations.

BN title!

Last weekend we had a show in Jackson MS.This trial had four shows in two days, and I entered Joey three times, two times on Saturday, and once on Sunday.

This was our first time competing in BN so I was pretty nervous.

We got there Friday evening and Saturday morning bright and early, I was outside the starting gate with Joey trying to calm my show jitters. I hate show jitters! Our first run was pretty embarrassing, I caught my self talking to Joey then got so nervous about over talking that I missed the slow sign in the heeling. After getting a RA title with Joey, I couldn't believe I messed up my first BN run by missing a sign! Anyway, We managed to Qualify with a second place and a score of 186. However, the person who won had a score of 187, so I felt a little better. 

Our second run was a little better, this time I was confident about the pattern, and did not over talk but Joey was tired of competing and he lagged in the heeling and the figure eight. We Qualified and won second place with a score of 193. My mom and her dog beat me by two points. 

The Third run was the best one. This time everything went smoothly and the only trouble we had was Joey lagging on the inside circles of the figure eight. Surprise! Joey had been lagging on the outside circle so we had worked on that like crazy, then we compete and he lags on the inside circle. But that was probably my fault. We finally won first place with a score of 198 and earn our BN title. The best thing was I did not get nervous on this run!

This weekend was I learned not to run Joey more than twice a day because he gets tired, I also learned to bring a camera battery charger. My dumb camera ran out of battery on the way up to Jackson. For my final lesson, I learned not to mess with deleting items on the video camera.(I accidentally deleted all the Saturday videos. My runs,  my sister's runs, and my mom's Saturday runs.) Oops, that's one way to get your family mad at you. Clearly not a great technological weekend for me. However, once back home I did get a picture of Joey and his ribbons.