All photos in this post courtesy of Liz Werner.
Beautiful shot of Jadzia waiting for me to play with her in the runback after a heat - we gave up on tugging for anything but a recall long ago, instead I toss the ball and have her spin and beg and play once she completes a run for her reward.
Flying over the jumps, beautifully flat - not bad for an eleven year old girl! :)
And racing down the jumps in her final race, where she was put in start position for one last time. Jadzia had great starts all the way until the last heat, when the other dog false started first, then Jadzia false started with a -0.005, then we had a clean race on the third try. She ran in the high 5's and low 6's all weekend, clearly feeling great and enjoying herself, which is a great way to retire.
Jadzia retires with over 60,000 NAFA points and the titles FGDCh-60k and Iron Dog from NAFA, and with over 6,000 UFLI points and her TFE-II title. She started her career as a 14" height dog, ran in a total of 95 tournaments, and competed in two countries (USA and Canada) and five states/provinces (BC, WA, OR, CA, AZ). Jadzia was our first flyball dog, and she's the reason we are border collie people now and is why we play flyball to this day and moving into the future.
We will still let Jadzia play a bit at practice with our new club to help train the newer dogs, as well as hopefully sending her in to play with her old friends in Veterans classes once or twice a year for fun. Her active racing days are over, though, as her stamina and strength is slowly waning with her age even as her heart and attitude are still as bright as ever. I look forward to many more years walking and playing with her and her happy smile.
In addition, I haven't posted much about our newest puppy, Ignited's Order of Kahless, call name Martok, who is out of Singed and Fetch. Singed is Ezri's 3/4 sister (Race/Dazzle to Ezri's Race/Prancer), so Martok is essentially Ezri's nephew. He was born on February 27, 2013, firstborn of six (four girls and two boys), and we brought him home on April 25th. Here are a few photos taken at the tournament last weekend, showing his beautiful markings and his goofy puppy antics.
Flailing around and trying to bite/chase a leash on the ground...it rattled and he found this fascinating.
He's coming right for us!
And pouncing on the leash again - Martok is very much a play-motivated puppy, even more than his littermate Sirius (who also lives in Seattle), and it's pretty funny to watch him a lot of the time. Look for many more posts about him in the future as he grows up and goes through flyball training in preparation for his flyball debut next spring!
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This past week has been one of the hardest of my life, as we adjust to a life without our bright, beautiful boyo Curzon. The hole in my heart is still raw, and I still look for him to come to me when he always did, like when paying bills as he hoped for me to run the shredder for him to bark at. Both Chris and I are working on a memory photo book to keep his memory alive, and that is helping but it's not enough. The girls and Martok are lights in the darkness, but they're not Curzon and they never will be. It's a whole new reality for us, one where we must live without that handsome brave boyo, and navigating these waters will take time to learn. We're concentrating on appreciating the other three for their own special personalities and abilities, as we know none of them can replace our boyo, but it is still hard. Right now, I'm mostly thankful that Martok's eyes are nothing like Curzon's, as I don't think I could bear it if they were.
I miss him so much.
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