Quick Tip:

When hiking a bunch of dogs in the mountain, in the rain, you must remember a few things. If you are suddenly overcome with feelings of doggy love and general wellbeing you may feel inclined to break into song. This is normal. BUT, and this is important...first remove your hood. While a hood provides wonderful protection from icky, wet rain and has surprisingly good acoustics, making your rendition of "You light up my life" sound absolutely fantastic! It also unfortunately creates a cone of silence.
You will not, for instance, hear the man walking directly behind you. That is until, he clears his throat LOUDLY. You see, he will have been trying to get past the weird (but vocally gifted) girl walking with her giant herd of dogs for quite some time. However, you are wearing brand new boots which make you feel a bit unbalanced. Smartly, you will be walking with wide, swingy, balancey arms on a narrow trail, making casual passing impossible. When his LOUD, painful sounding throat noises finally get through your soundproof hood, try not to startle too violently. Those new boots will be unable to keep you upright and you will fall sideways into a puddle. Noisy throat man will then take his opportunity to jog past you, because, who in their right mind would help up a girl who is getting her face washed by numerous dogs while laughing hysterically.

...You're welcome.

Awesome Dog is Awesome.

I'm a little late with this post as it's about something that happened over 2 weeks ago but, whadayagonnado?
So, 7 went 7 out of 8 in his first agility trial ever...*pauses a suitable length of time to allow mouths a chance to return to normal, closed positions*
Needless to say I'm a little proud of the baby dog! The first day, Saturday, was one of the best days in agility I've ever had. It wasn't so much that we Q'd in all four runs (that's super nerdy agility talk for "we had four perfect, fault-free runs) but that 7 maintained awesome drive and focus throughout the day and still remembered all his extra boring criteria like where to enter weave poles and how to stop at the end of each contact 'till mom says "break!" He is a dog who really likes to grab life by the cojones and a super exciting, loud, stressful trial environment is just the sort of place I could expect him to lose his mind completely until all his brain can manage is "look at that!" "Ohmydog is this dirt!?" "Are those WALLS?" "I can't believe the AIR I'm breathing right now!!!"
I was very happy with his ability to keep it together. Sunday was a little more exciting as that was the day Jesus Christ decided to visit us at the barn. Also known as Ryan...7's personal saviour.



I mean, look at him! How do you expect 7 to keep his focus when THIS angelic creature is in the vicinity? I can barely keep my composure with Ryan around!

We still managed to pull 3 q's out of the 4 runs on Sunday mostly due to the fact that these were starters courses so there was some leeway given when 7 would be running furiously down a line of jumps and then all of a sudden get a wiff or eau de Ryan or hear what could be a "I'm in trouble and only a Vizsla can save me!" bark, and veer off course for a bit to check it out.

Our only faulted run of the trial occured when the trial organizers in their infinite wisdom scheduled Ryan to run right before me in the Snooker run! I mean, come on! Everyone knows 7 needs at least a half a day to recuperate after watching Ryan fly whimsically through a course, while singing operatic criticisms and congratulations at his mom's chosen handling path. I knew we were about to break our streak when I had to hold 7 by the scruff of the neck at the start line while he sat craning his neck around me trying to catch a glimpse of Ryan sailing out the out gate.
I didn't mind not Q'ing Snooker as it's my least favourite class and I don't mind staying at the starters level a little longer just to avoid the more difficult courses facing us at the higher levels. As for the rest of the weekend, we moved up in Standard as well as Gamblers. We also technically would have moved up in jumpers but you have to get 2 Q's under 2 different judges and unfortunately we had the same judge for both jumpers classes.
Here's a pic of 7 with his ADC ribbon which he got under judge (and super awesome auntie!) Julia.



Here's a video of Saturday's runs.