Blake’s Blog

Here’s a slightly more updated picture of Beamer.  He’s a little bigger now, but I haven’t taken pictures in a while:

(photo by Lanelle Rachel)

Well, it’s official!  I’m getting the male from the Spur x Bryn litter at Rival Kennels (http://www.rivalkennels.com).  Very exciting!  Here are some pictures of him:

Front Puppy

He’s just what I ordered! 

Day 1

Fun courses.  I got Gumbeau out to run him, and he was limping…turns out he partially tore his pad somewhere.  Needless to say, I didn’t run him.  Nor did I get to run the Standard course at all.  Bummer. 
I did, however, get to run the JWW course quite a few times.  I ran Sue Cohen’s BC Zip, who had a spectactular run, but knocked the second-to-last bar.  I did try and handle with all of the info I’ve learned on the Awesome Paws handling list, and I thought I did a pretty good job.  The video will be on YouTube shortly.  I also got to run Lanelle Rachel’s great sheltie Mick, who had an incredible run with a second place finish.  In 12″, I ran Lanelle’s sheltie Darby, who was a little hesitant to run with me.  I did, however, manage to hang on and get the Q.  Lastly, I finally ran my own dog.  Echo missed one jump in the JWW, but otherwise had an excellent run.  She needs one more JWW leg to finish her AXJ, and this was her 4th time in Excellent at all…not bad!
I put some New Skin on Gumbeau’s pad, so we’ll see what he does tomorrow.

Day 2

Same story in Standard…no dogs for me.  I’m going to try and run Gumbeau tomorrow, as his pad seems to be healing nicely.
In JWW, I ran Sue’s BC Zip, Lanelle’s Sheltie Mick, and Echo.  Zip had a fantastic run, and was about 1 sec of off fastest time (and didn’t get a placement!).  Mick had a bar, but otherwise a nice run.  I tried a lateral send with Echo to give me the ability to make a FC, but she pulled off of the jump (I need to work on jump commitment with her). 
So all in all, a pretty good day.  I can’t wait to run Standard tomorrow!

Day 3

I did run Gumbeau today, and, for a change, only my dogs all day.  Gumbeau had a great Standard run on an interesting course. 
In JWW, Gumbeau got a Double Q…working on our next MACH!  Echo had one bar (the second bar), but I really rushed it and was talking to her.  Bad bad bad.
All in all, a good day.  Wish I had run more, but when that BC comes, I won’t need to beg for more dogs :o)  More tomorrow!

Day 4

Gumbeau was sick all night, so I didn’t run him today.  I did, however, run both of Lanelle Rachel’s shelties.  Mick and Darby both had great Standard runs.  Mick placed first, and won the class by 1.5 seconds!  No one touched his time in 16″.  In JWW, going for Double Qs, Mick skipped pole number 3 in the weaves, and Darby ran around one jump.  Echo also missed a jump due to a poor rear cross. 
Very tired!  Great show!

I’m currently looking for a BC pup, and I’ve got my eye on a particular litter.  I’m not going to publish the name of the kennel until it’s certain that I’m getting a pup…but I will say that he’s born, and awful cute.

Gotta come up with some names…I really like Beamer.  Looking for comments or suggestions!  And it’s a boy, BTW.

Well…it seems everyone is getting a blog or a journal.  I decided to jump on the bandwagon.

I haven’t been able to upload videos to YouTube, so no fun there, because the quality of the videos is far from viewable.  I’ll need to look into it before I try and upload.

So for now…it’s just words :o)