Halloween Flyball

Last weekend was the annual South of the Boo!der tournament hosted by the Cascade Comets at Argus Ranch down in Auburn. While it is nice to not have to leave the country or travel much for a tournament, it does mean that we have to get up ungodly early due to the hour-long drive from our house down to the facility. As usual everything we brought was just covered in dirt, as it is a soft dirt-floored barn that doesn't pack down well, but thankfully we had no canine or human injuries.

All three of our dogs ran very well all weekend, with Jadzia running as height dog again (13") with the new rules change. Her times were slower than I would like, with her best time only around 5.3", but that soft footing made her lose a lot of speed especially coming off the box and causing her to double-step between jumps 5 and 6. I had Carol take a look at her midday on Sunday and Jadzia does have some tightness in her spine, so I think I'll take her to see the vet and see if she needs any chiropractic work. She's also still chunky despite lowering her food, so a thyroid test may be in order as well. Curzon ran well all weekend, with only one bobble on Saturday and that was still a clean run, so it looks like our "throw the ball at his head" drills are helping him with catching the ball out of the box more reliably. Phoebe ran solidly both days, and this was the first tournament in two years that she didn't run every heat of every race, as both Siena and Taben were also on her team.

Perhaps most exciting of all, at least to us personally, was the presentation of title awards on Saturday after racing was over. Chris got the ONYX plaque for Curzon, and I received the Flyball Grand Champion plaque for Jadzia. The FGDCh plaque is huge and really gorgeous, and I'm just so tickled to finally have it - she earned the title on June 29 after all! Unfortunately the title pull was just before Phoebe earned her ONYX, so it'll be another six months or so until I get the plaque for that title. Julie and Tango also got their ONYX plaque, and there's at least two other dogs closing in on the title so hopefully we will have at least one more achieved before the next title pull. I hope to get both plaques up on the wall in the dog room tonight - Curzon's ONYX plaque will go below Jadzia's, but I think I am going to move some art around to put the FGDCh plaque up next to the bulletin board. We might move other things around too, and re-hang the individual photos of the dogs with their ribbons as well, depending on how motivated I turn out to be.

Ezri is doing beautifully and is fifteen weeks old today. I plan to write a longer post tonight with pictures after I've taken the weekly set this evening at home.