Poor Percy

I had to scratch Percy from the Sno-King agility trial last weekend due to an injury. He pushed his way out the front door and down the path, over the little fence to go and fence race with the German shepherd next door. I went out and collected him and brought him back in. Then I noticed the blood on the carpet! His right rear foot was bleeding and quite profusely. After a lot of styptic and pressure I got the bleeding stopped and left a dressing on it for a while. I wasn't able to really tell where the bleeding was coming from with all the blood and styptic, but when I removed the dressing, it became clear that he had ripped his entire toenail off--ouch! He didn't act like it hurt him at all that night. We even went to obedience class and he didn't show any signs of limping, but by Saturday morning he was not putting weight on it. We went to the agility trial anyway, just to see if he could shake it off and we could compete, but not surprisingly that didn't happen. I visited with friends, and worked as a bar setter in the excellent standard ring (my apologies to everyone whose dog thought it was important to great me--especially Diana and Merlin). It was sad not to compete, but better not to let the poor boy injure himself more, or think that agility hurts. He is still limping a little today, but I expect (hope) he will be ready for AKC obedience in Monroe on Saturday!

Percy and I attended the ASC of WA show in Shelton on October 24th. We only went for the afternoon shows, as there was no obedience in the morning, and I didn't really want to get up that early anyway, lol. Percy did a really nice job in Nov. A (that was our last time for ASCA) and even got 1st place and High Scoring Aussie in Trial under judge Karen Brearley. We were beat out by a cocker spaniel for High in Trial, but he was a Nov. B dog. Then in conformation we got 1st place in the Open Blue class under judge Gary Dunlop and I showed Percy myself which I haven't done in a while since Kathy Peycke and Laura Pearson have been helping me out. It was a really fun show.

Percy and I had the most awesome time at Nationals. It came at the perfect time for him as he has been doing so well in all venues lately. On the first day of pre-shows we earned 2 new titiles! In agility he got his Open Jumpers (RJ-O), and Novice Regular (RS-N), and then in obedience he earned his Novice A (CD) with a 2nd place to boot! Besides the titles we earned about 20 ribbons all in all, Had some really nice agility runs. Qualified in all obedience runs (except for the one where he lay down on his sit stay at 59 seconds )0:). He also took 4th place in conformation in one pre-show, thank you to Kathy Peycke for showing him so nicely! We had a really nice time staying in a house in Fort Collins with Kathy and Diana. Percy had a great time playing with all of Diana's boys ( well, not so much with his Daddy, Magic, since he feels that Percy is a snot nosed brat that needs more manners--and he is kind of right :p). Then I decided that we would drive home through Yellowstone Park. It was very cold and a little snowy, but gorgeous. Then came home through Montana, stopping in Spokane for lunch with Uncle Howard and my cousin Reed before completing the journey home. It was a really nice trip and so glad that we went!

I have been very negligent about updating things here, but am going to get back to blogging! Percy and I have been concentrating more on obedience this summer than agility. Once again we are going to the ASCA Nationals this year so I have had to limit the trials I could enter. Percy now has 2 AKC legs toward his CD, 2 ASCA legs towards that CD and as of last weekend, 1 UKC leg towards his UCD. He also got his first Novice Rally leg for UKC last weekend. We are doing lots of obedience at Nationals, so we should earn our ASCA CD there. I am very excited. Then when we come home we can work on finishing at AKC and UKC as well. We will be doing agility at Nationals too, and we have the opportunity to get several agility titles as well. I will report again as soon as we get back. We leave on Wednesday for the show which is in Greeley Colorado. Then we will return home through Yellowstone park, arriving home probably on October 8th--hopefully with a handful of ribbons to show for it!

Since our last posting, Percy and I have been very busy going to dog shows and trials. Percy has earned several new agility titles. He earned his NJC (NADAC NOv. jumpers) on Feb. 15th, then his JS-N (ASCA Nov. Jumpers) on March 8, his NAC (NADAC Nov Regular) on April 18th, and today he earned his NAJ (AKC Nov. Jumper's with Weaves)! What a good boy he is! We also showed in Obedience at the Collie club trial on Feb 22nd and got our first leg in Nov. A. Yea! Next weekend we are entered in the German Shepherd club for Obedience on Saturday and we will hope for another leg there. Then on Sunday we will be heading south for Vancouver and an ASCA show. Our friend Kathy is going to show Percy in conformation and maybe she can do a better job than I can and get Percy some points! If not it will just be a fun trip.  

We are making plans to go to the Australian Shepherd Club of America National Specialty again this year. It is the last week of September/first of October in Greeley Colorado, so I only have 3 or 4 shows planned for the next few months. Going to Nationals is fairly costly with the price of entry fees, housing, food, gas, and whatnot, so I have to save for that, but it is worth it. I hope to visit 2 of my brothers, who live in Colorado while I am there.

DEC 27th and 28th

Percy and I went to the Boston Terrier trial in Elma, WA the weekend after Christmas and had a blast! It was a really fun trial and we did pretty well. On Saturday we started out the day with a jumper's with weaves run.  WE started out great, but then I got lost on the course and Percy figured out I didn't know what I was doing so we lost our connection and missed a few jumps and didn't qualify. The course felt kind of random when I was walking it so I wasn't really surprised that I got lost, but we tried hard anyway. That afternoon we got to do our standard run, which as close to perfect as we could get. We qualified and got 1st place! That was our second qualifying standard run, both of them in 1st place to so I felt very good about it! On Sunday we struggled in the jumper's class again, probably I was just late with my signals, but again we started out nicely but somehow lost our connection. We had another flawless standard run in the afternoon. This time we did not finish in the placements as we were in 5th place, but we still qualified and that gave Percy his first agility title. Yeah for us!

Percy and I just came back from Las Vegas where we competed in the ASCA National Specialty. We had such a good time. We shared a house with our friends, Diana, Merlin and Magic, and Kathy, Keagan and Alec. Our house was really nice, 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, with a pool and hot tub. It was really nice to have a kitchen and laundry facilities as well. We arrived in Vegas on Thursday, Nov. 6th and got settled in our house and our stall at the South Point Hotel and Casino, Equestrian Center. On Friday we were entered in conformation it the CASC pre-show. Percy showed very nicely, but the judge didn't place him. On Saturday we tried Obedience. We did sits and downs first. Percy did a really nice job on his sit, but his down was a disaster. As soon as I turned around across the ring from him he started sniffing, I knew we were in trouble when he started looking over his shoulder to sniff and he just sniffed himself into a stand. At the most he stayed in his down for 15 seconds--not much of the 3 minute requirement! Oh well, since you can't qualify if you don't pass the sits and downs, I was pretty relaxed when we went into the ring for the individual exercises. Percy was a little distracted during heeling, and I went ahead and reminded him that he needed to be heeling a few times. He did really well on the stand for exam and recall though. I think we might have passed had we not failed the down. Sunday was a day off for us, although we did spend time at the ARPH booth selling raffle tickets and visiting with people who stopped by. On Monday we were entered in the Nationals Obedience trial. I figured we had it made this time, we had practiced some sits and downs where I was able to correct  him for sniffing and he knew  what his job was. We passed the sits and downs with flying colors so all we had to do was get through the individual exercises. We did the heeling on leash fine, with some minimal distraction and no sits, but as soon as we started the figure 8 a dog started barking--not just barking, but crying in distress because he wanted out of his crate. Percy was very concerned about him and so he stopped to look and I couldn't get him around the corner. He did start working again when I asked him, but every time the dog would start up again, Percy would stop to look. It really worried him because I had a  hard time getting him to sit before any of the exercises and that is not like him. Once again he had nearly perfect stand for exam and recall, but he was somewhat distracted by the dog again for the heeling off leash. I have to give him credit though because every time I asked him to return to work he did. The judge felt  he was too distracted to pass him though and it was certainly her call. I had felt that he was really distracted as well, but when I watched the video it really wasn't as bad as I had thought. We work through a lot of distractions in class, but we have not had a dog in that much distress to worry Percy before, so all things considered I think we did really well and while we didn't get a ribbon or a leg for it, I still will consider it a good run for us. We had the next two days off from competing, but we spent time in the ARPH booth again. We entered the raffle, but didn't win anything. I did enter the STAAR (Second time around Aussie Rescue) raffle and won a blue merle scarf, so that was fun. On Thursday we had our first day of agility. We had both our nov. jumpers runs. The first one was okay, we were less than 3 seconds overtime, because of a couple of missed jumps that we had to reset to get, but all in all a good run. We still placed 15th in a class of 21. The second run was much better though, we were a full 7 seconds under time and we qualified in 9th place! We got a really pretty green rosette.  Friday we were to do nationals conformation and our regular runs in agility. I didn't want to have to worry about being in the conformation ring when my class was walking or running in agility so I asked Kathy to show Percy in conformation. She took Percy into the conformation ring, and as soon as I was sure I had time, I went in to see how it was going. Percy looked really good out there with Kathy, but after a little while I saw Kathy holding Percy and petting him and I realized that he had thrown up in the ring. Multiple dogs had had a virus or something during Nationals and apparently it was Percy's turn. After they had cleaned up in the ring, Kathy took Percy around one more time and he looked okay, but the judge moved other dogs in front of him so he didn't place--I am not sure she liked him anyway, but I am sure that getting sick in the ring did not help him any. I took Percy of a little walk after he came out of the ring and he seemed okay, but he spit up a little more when I got him back to his crate. Kathy said he wouldn't take any bait from her so he definitely was not feeling well, and he was not  his bouncy usual self.  I didn't want to push him if he wasn't feeling well, but didn't want to miss competing in Nationals so decided to wait and see  how he was doing. We still had a few hours before our first agility run. When it was time I figured I would take him out there and if need be we would just quit. He was very slow, but seemed to be following and enjoying the agility so we did the full course. It took a few times to get in the weaves and when he did get in he did them backwards, starting on the left side of the first weave, but I chose not to push him on it and went on. We were 14 seconds overtime, besides the course faults but at least we finished. The second run was better, and I thought we might have qualified, but we were still to much overtime. At least we tried and had fun. Percy did the best he could under the circumstances so I couldn't ask for more. It was too bad our week had to end that way, but hopefully next time will be better! We are going to do a fun match on Dec. 6th for more practice in obedience and then we will see what we will enter next!