Friday we started Freestyle level II! Woot! Sierra was soooooo excited to be there again I'm suprised she didn't explode into a million bitty pieces. Good to see everyone and we've got another Aussie in class! Yay the Aussies! Hope also got in a bit of practice after Si's class and reminded me how much smarter she is than Sierra. Jeeze louise... I'm so used to working with Sierra now (who is a very sweet, highly bidable but NOT one of nature's brain trusts) I'd forgotten what it's like to have a dog who isn't a spazoid! FOCUS, ATTENTION, SELF-CONTROL... gosh I love this pup!

Saturday we had a lovely day at the Pet & Animal Expo Show. Hope was entered and did okay but her handler was a real doofus! LOL They called us in in catalogue order and bugger it all but that meant I was in first! Couldn't see the steward to see what was said (which, I learned too late was to take them all the way around once, then set them up) and didn't hear it, so I blanked and thought,"Oh s***, what the HECK did she have the class before do?!?!" Hopefully didn't hinder the others too much! Miss Hope behaved decent despite her owners doofus-status and ghe got 3rd place. I can't gripe because the pups who got 1st and 2nd were utterly cute little tykes! Also hung around the Aussie Shepherds booth at the Expo bit, which made for a lovely afternoon! Hope got an astonishing lot of petting from the breeds meet-n-greet stall! She took it all in stride, huzzah for puppy socialization! (The lovely Leah and Audrey and Shae and Tannah stopped by to say 'hi' as well!) I didn't find the herding guy but took Laurent to see a small round pen of sheep there. It was standing next to a bandstand with some guitars, keyboard, singer etc. Darling Bubby La promptly climbed the sheep fence, reached over and yanked the cord that was plugging in the electrical supply to the band. Instruments and mic instantly went dead. Um. Opps? Sorry guys... we quickly plugged it in and moved on. Heh. We left when La was getting too upset and drove out to Kalista to sign papers for the offer for the house... so fingers crossed for a quick agreement!

Then today we were back bright and early and LATE. Good thing it's a 10 minute drive! Peeled in, brushed her quickly, chucked my arm-band on and after a few minutes in we went. I didn't have to go first this time! *phew* Hope did wonderfully for me, was such a good little girlie! *coos and admires my pup* So tickled with her! I also did a fair bit better and was happy that I managed to keep everything relatively straight in my head! Leash up against the neck and blending with the fur, collar in the proper position, hand in the right position, fingers in the right position to cue without too much movement, cues delivered in proper order (verbal, body, leash) and time, don't gait too fast or too slow and fudge up her trot, keep the leash arm loose at the joint so it's not pulling on the lead, the other arm tucked in so it's not waving all over, don't break stride during turns, hand stack in a way that doesn't cause the judge to move you around to examine the dog, stack the dog correctly, double check, bait for expression, don't fumble the lead, don't trip and oh yes... remember to BREATHE. ;-)

In we went, set up, Hope stood pretty steady for the judge during exam. Did a triangle, finished up,

... round about and the judge pointed one, two, three. We were third place. Picked up my pretty girlie, twirled her, cuddled her, hugged her and thanked her for a job nicely done and got lots of puppy kisses! :-)

"Oose my girlie? Oose my good Hopeie puppy! Such a good baby my girl is!" (Attack of the kissy puppy!!!)

Spent a little bit of time at the breed booth but not too much because Hope was still pretty tired from it all and instead of greeting every person was simply scouting out the prams for kids. Visited with Helen at the Poodle booth. I adore her dogs but alas she didn't bring Tyger (wah! I loves Tyge!) though she had a Jordan daughter there to admire. I gotta say, I do love the Standard Poodles... not a fan of minis or toys but I love the Standards! I'll probably never have one though because I'd like to show and the grooming for a show Poodle cut requires more skill than I'd probably have in a million years. LOL

Now, while our results weren't too exciting, I have to send out
HUGE CONGRATS!!!!!
to Amanda on Leo and Kinta, who BOTH got BEST IN GROUPS for their respective classes!!! Holy moley, betchya you didn't have to take the car home on account of floating there!

Mini-brags on a few of Hope's relatives as well. Her half sister (mother's side) Jahz has had an AWESOME few agility trials and come away with some freaking AMAZING times!!! I really kind of am crossing fingers Hope is a liddle bit slower... else I'm going to have a hard time keeping up with her! Her litter-brother Floyd, aka Cuebiyar Body N Soul was Best Baby of Breed in 2 recent shows which isn't a bad start either.

Also found the herding fellow I'd been interested to see today and watched him do a short demo. Different guy than the other days demo apparently. This guy is a kelpie guy and recomended as being very positive methods. After a bad experience with Sierra some years ago and a few that were good but not as positive based as I'd ideally like shortly after it, I really wanted to look for someone who was on my wave-length. Liked what I saw of this guy, he had a nice soft manner with the dogs, very calm, very steady and I never saw one of his dogs even look a bit uncertain what was expected. He had a few kind words to say about Hope which was nice to hear from that (working) POV and another fellow, older British fellow who worked for (?) the VCA in some manner caught us as we were leaving and commented that he'd seen us in the Baby Puppies class and really caught his eye on her and she looked like she was going to grow up into a nice little dog. I rather agreed with him but then I'm slightly prejudiced and reckon she's the best little dog around! ;-)

Mister Bubby Lala had some fun but unfortunately found it hard to nap and got the grumpies come the afternoon. However I did get one classic shot of him... Mister Vegemite, eatting his sandwhich... vegemite smeared all over his face, shirt, pants and hands due to the enthusiasm of it! I have another I've got to do, which is of him enjoying the big plush bed I got for the dogs. He lays on it and pets the suede-like fabric! LOL


And now, I'm going to go join my dogs, child and husband in flopping for a nap! ;-)