I think I need a weekend to recover from my weekend!

Friday afternoon I packed up Laurent and Hope and headed out to KCC for the agility nationals. We're not entered but being nationals people are coming from all around the country and among the number of people I've 'met' online but not in person that included Sam and the fantabulous Jahzara who also happens to be Verity's litter sister and Hope's half sister through their mum Tilley. After having chatted online and found a number of aspects of Jahz to sound very similar to both Hope and Veri, I was very excited to both meet them and get to watch not only Sam and Jahz run (!) in person but also a number of other people who are very talented at this whole agility thing. La behaved himself mostly aside from a few tantrums (including a rather spectacular one that had people peering around their cars to see if I wasn't torturing him with hot pokers at the start) although as is typical - having La along means I did more La watching than agility watching. ;-) He did give good amusement with his variety of dog behaviours though - including one that popped up a month or so back which involves scratching his hair with his leg like a dog. ~_~' Strange, strange child!

Saturday was all mine though - Nic was home, La stayed with Nic, Veri and Hope came with me for a day out. It's so funny how so often I'd be looking at Jahz and go, "Now THAT is Veri!" or "That's Hopie all over..." They are also different of course but you could see the relation in them for sure! Kellie who was there with Fyre but who also owns Hope's half brother (same sire, Courage) and found a number of Hope's traits very much like her little man Kruze. I was also pretty pleased with how Veri handled the busy environment, she was pretty good all day albeit occasionally a bit worried and had an unfortunate incident where a man walking backwards stepped on her poor tail. She was supremely convinced Sam was just the coolest though - Sam has VERY good bikkies and was willing to give sharesies! LOL Typical Veri, firmly governed by her stomach! I'm still in awe of watching all the lovely dogs and fantastic efforts on the part of both the dogs and their handlers tbh... both inspired and left with a deep pity for my poor dogs to be stuck with ME as a trainer/handler!

Then Sunday was straight off to Euroa. Another chook auction, supposed to be some large partridge wyandottes. One was nice, one decent and not as nice but one was constantly head-flicking and the other slightly fluffed. So I put in my bid but pulled when it hit the bid hit $140. So instead I came home with a lovely bunch of daffodils courtesy of Tim (whose family owns a gorgeous daffodil and bulb farm) and spent the day chatting with everyone inbetween cuddling Cami to keep warm when it started raining and getting into discussions with everyone in their brother about how I was really, truely, honest to godly sure she WAS an Australian Shepherd and NOT a Koolie and no the breed was not made up or a 'designer' mutt. ;-p Can I also say I really, really, really wish we could change the name to AMERICAN Shepherd... honestly, I think there are a number of people convinced the Yank is trying to have one over on them! ^_^;

After we got home I pretty much collapsed on the couch, combination of being up early and down late for three days while trying to ignore my stomach being queasy, eatting junk (fries, though Veri helped!) and my body trying to turn me into a narcoleptic. I was soon joined by La and dogs. After a few moments of adjusting the blanket to his liking La patted my face to get my attention and said, "Aw, mum... so cute and sweet!" Rather flattered I said thank you La, that's very sweet of you to say to me. He looked at me, pointed at Sierra curled up at the back of my knees and said in a very plain tone said, "No mum! SISI is cute and sweet." Hn. Silly me, of course you were talking about the dog!

I've got heaps of pics for this post so grab yourself a cuppa and settle in! ;-)

First up, I've got a few more of La's pictures from his b-day prezzies. The first is Sir I-Can-Do-It-Myself attempting to put together his ride on tractor, starting with the steering wheel. I thought that was rather clever!

Next - Sir now has a cricket bat and ball. He is steadfast it's used as a golf club and won't have a bar of using it as a cricket bat.

Okay, this one is a bit of an announcment more than just a pic... I've decided to do a seperate blog for the chook stuff as this one was intended originally to be about the dogs.So if you want to see the chooks from here on out, go to "Fowl Play". There will be a link on the sidebar.

It will be updated more sporadically than this one but contain pics of the chicks as they mature etc.

Here are two pics of the iris currently blooming, so pretty! These are Tempo Two bred ones.

And now for the bulk of the photos, from Saturday's ASCV show! I didn't take show photos of every dog this time, just a few. I wanted to focus more on taking snapshots to sketch so they're more casual/interesting poses than nice, well composed pics! ;-) Here's a few of the ones I snapped for reasons other than sketching.

First (because I always find seeing my dogs relatives nice!) is Tilley, Hope and Verity's mum. (Pics taken by Nic.) I'm sure you would never be able to guess where my girls gets their sooky lapdog qualitites from would you!!!

It was a nice surprise as I'd not thought they were coming but after we got there Nic looked around and said, "Hey, isn't that Amanda?" Well it was and she had Tilley and Rush so I got to see them again.


I had a good cuddle with Tilley who was quite pleased with three extra sets of hands to pet and feed her. It was so cute when La requested cookies to feed her and got a piece of chicken. Tilley went straight for it, obviously where Veri and Hope got their chowhound nature from too! La gently told her, "No... no..." every time she nudged his hand closed around a bit of the chicken, waiting till she backed up a bit to click (he does a terrific tongue-click) and open his fist, chirping "Ah! Good girl! Here! Good girl!!!" He did it several times till he ran out of bikkies. Aw, just made me melt, how cuuuuuttteeee!!! He just turned two and he's already a clicker trainer!!!

A few more nicely posed shots to show the serious side! ;-)

And Rush, Veri's brother and Hope's half brother.


I'd brought Hope and Verity with me as well, though they weren't entered of course. Miss Hope's leg is finally looking nice, so she enjoyed the outting thoroughly. Verity is my real brag though... she did sooooooooo well the whole day I was almost set to burst! Both girls got to go see their breeder again. No doubts at all about if Veri remembers her "first mum and dad" or not! After they left we did a bit of a tour and she was chilled out... several points she just laid down ringside, playing with Hope, rolling in my lap for plays and cuddles, mooching treats, went for a romp with Ashley (blue merle dog five pics down), got pats from several people and wasn't even phased when a certain someone did his booga-booga razz'em thing. LOL I couldn't have been more chuffed if she'd won BIS, that's great progress!

Now these are a few dogs who caught my interest, so in no particular order...







Blog readers who've heard me refer to Amanda and Kinta, here's a face and fuzzball to go with the names. ;-)

Recently this young fellow got his new juniors dog and the initial photos on the list were so lovely but it was a treat to see them in person. IMO for a child to have that bond and partnership with a dog is something priceless. It's that kind of bond I want La to have with our dogs. I also felt a bit like if I'd been out there we could have had the dog show version of "Are you smarter than a 5th grader"... "Can you handle as well as a junior"! (Hn, maybe better I wasn't entered! LOL)





I didn't get any pics of the 2nd show or sweepstakes or anything because my memory card was full of sketch snaps! ACK!!!

All in all it was a beautiful day. Started out a bit damp but turned into a nice day, full of nice chats and seeing people I've not seen in ages since I'm not showing atm. I missed being out there and the whole atmosphere of the shows! Even if I'm not showing it's still the best way to spend a weekend! Ah well, that's it for now.