Mia (=Maya) is here

...and is she ever cute! She's about Abby's height (could be a tiny bit taller, hard to tell), and a lot chubbier. I would estimate her weight to be about 40 lbs, which is 10+ lbs more than Abby.
We went to pick her up at the airport on Friday night. My plan was to have Abby meet her through a baby gate. I knew Abby could jump over the gate, but I assumed (stupidly) that Abby wouldn't jump the gate to 'go after' Mia. So I locked Abby in my bedroom and brought Mia into the house, and I set up the baby gate. Abby heard/smelled her come in and was barking (at 2:00am). I grabbed some treats and let Abby come down the hall to the baby gate. Mia kept her distance since Abby was growling at the gate. I kept calling Abby back and giving her treats...then she suddenly jumped over the baby gate and leaped on top of poor Mia, growling and snarling! I pulled Abby off (she was making lots of noise but not actually 'doing' anything). A few seconds later Abby was prancing around trying to get Mia to play with her. That is obviously an unacceptable way to greet new dogs, but it's a bit late to practice using Mia as the new dog...since they have been playing non stop ever since the meeting.


Mia makes Abby seem like an old lady! I've never seen Abby get tired before another dog, or seen another dog pester Abby to play (she's normally the one doing all the pestering). She is getting a lot better about settling in the house - she is actually sleeping next to my bed right now (I'm dog-sitting while my roommate is in class). I even managed to get have a bit of a nap this morning with both her and Abby in my bed. When I woke up, they started rolling around and chewing each other. It was adorable. It's really good for both of them to be able to tire themselves out by wrestling. I have a feeling that Mia will be adopted pretty soon. She's young, doesn't have any real issues (she barks at things that she's unsure of, but is really friendly with people and dogs when she gets over her initial surprise), and is, I would say (from my very limited experience) a typical young Border Collie.


Abby and I were gone at a trial all day yesterday. We were supposed to do 4 runs, but it was getting late and I was exhausted, so we skipped the last one. It was Masters Jumpers, and I have trouble enough remembering the course when I'm fully awake. The first run that we did was Advanced Gamblers. Abby was in typical first run of the day mode - very fast, a little confused, and definitely not listening well - which was fine for the beginning where we could do any obstacles. She did both mini gambles; one was a hoop -jump, and the other was weaves-tunnel. I was so happy about the weaves! She hesitated for a second on the entrance, but did a perfect weave! Yay! We didn't get the end gamble, but nobody else did in 22" regulars, either - and Abby had the most points. So 1st place ribbon for that!
The next run was Advanced Standard. That was a bit of a gong show...I knew the course really well, luckily, or I would have gotten lost after Abby went up the Aframe instead of into the tunnel. After that mistake I was going way too close to everything, and she started popping out of tunnels and out of the chute. She ran super fast, as usual, and still managed to get a 4th place (obviously without a Q). The third run was Advanced Snooker, and it was flawless (well, practically). She ended up with a 1st and a Q....which puts us in Masters Snooker - scary!!

Abby only missed one target in all the runs, and I made her redo it and she got it the 2nd time, so I think those are coming along nicely. She didn't bark at me too much (only when I wasn't handling very smoothly). She also got lots of compliments for being cute, and someone told us how she was watching our runs and had noticed how well trained Abby was. That made me very happy.