Little Shadow

We just got back from our annual camping trip. This year there were no dropped cameras, concussions, ear infections or wasp bites - great success! Ryan has always been the token dog on these trips. As I've noted before, Abby requires a bit more vigilance than Ryan (ie. I need to keep an eye on her at every.single.moment or she will go make her own fun) so she stayed behind with Lucy and my parents.

Much to Ryan's dismay, he wasn't the only dog this year. Brinley the 3.5 month old Berner definitely stole the spotlight - and became Ryan's shadow. He pretended she didn't exist even though she followed him around for 5 days straight.

Ryan was exhausted by the end of the trip! I let him out in the Target parking lot for a pee stop and he stumbled out of the car and into the nearest lap. Very un-Ryan-like!

Gratuitous Abby shot because of my guilt about leaving her behind.

True to my Word

So when I said that I just wanted to have a fun weekend at nationals, no expectations?

Well...it's a good thing Ryan and I still had fun LOSING! 

We didn't just miss the top 10 podium placements, or the top half of the 22" specials placements...

We came DEAD LAST. 

Yay!!! (photo by Kristi O.)

This is me getting lost in our first standard run. Losing all 100 standard points in that run helped to contribute to our grand 154.78 point final score. That's about a third of the points Ryan got to qualify for nationals. 

Photo by Kristi O.

I don't even know what happened, really. I mean, I got lost twice...but there were a few runs that I felt were so close to brilliance if it hadn't been for my slow handling causing off courses. Ryan did manage a 5th place in Gamblers (without doing the main gamble - but doing each mini twice, perfectly). He got all of his contacts (except for a major dog-walk/teeter confusion teeter fly-off), all but one set of weaves perfectly, only knocked a few bars...to sum it up, good dog, BAD handler!!

Oh well, we really did have a fun weekend of agility and camping. Our campsite was right on an estuary and at the end of every day we went for a long walk and a swim. Abby wasn't limping so fingers crossed that we can do some agility soon!

Ready? Set?

GO!!!!

We're heading to Nationals today for Ryan's second shot at Canadian Victory.

Ha! Yeah right. 

We'll just be satisfied with a fun, happy weekend where I get lost a minimal number of times. 

Abby won't be running this year because of that whole cancer-shmancer massive leg surgery thing in January. 

 I'm pretty sure she thinks she's ready for action...

Ryan might prefer to stay behind anyway and eat from the Loic treat-dispenser.

Too late! Ryan and Abby are already in Nanaimo with Emma, 7, Cooper and Odd. She very nicely offered to take them over in her car so that I can walk on to the ferry after work today and sit up in the non-dungeon (aka non-dog) section. 

I definitely need to repay Emma somehow, considering the text I got yesterday at 5:20am:

"7 and Ryan are too happy to sleep. Abby pretends to be annoyed but then starts humping 7's head."

She then missed her ferry reservation by 4 minutes that day and had to sit in her car in the sweltering hot ferry line up for 2.5 hours with 5 dogs. 

Then, she heard Ryan throwing up in his crate and went back to discover that he had thrown up blood. Maybe he cut his mouth on something? We were both pretty worried but apparently he's acting fine today and hasn't thrown up since. 

Oh, and then Emma's tent (which she was sharing with the 5 dogs) turned out to be teensy-tiny and she forgot her pillow. 

Maybe I can repay her by taking Odd off her hands?

I drove down to Washington with Emma a month ago to pick Odd up from a rescue. Her mom looked like some kind of Yorkie mix. Odd is a bit of a (most adorable thing ever!) mystery.

Puppies everywhere...this is Brinley, my friend's new Berner puppy. I puppy-sat for her for the evening a couple of weeks ago. Abby and Ryan were slightly less than impressed.

And Lucy! I can't forget Lucy. My parents and I went to LA at the end of May and picked out an adoptable dog from the South Central shelter (like Erika and I did with Paco last year) to find a home for here. 

The only thing that's different from how things worked with Paco...

...is that my parents still have Lucy. On purpose. They seem to have fallen in love with her and are back in LA on vacation (with Lucy) right now. 

I'm not sure exactly when or how the dynamic switched in the last 15 years from me begging for dogs and my parents saying no...to them telling me all the reasons they want to keep Lucy and me trying to dissuade them. It felt like a strange alternate universe. 

It's not that I don't want them to keep Lucy - it's just that, as adorable and friendly and awesome as she is, she has a slight (huge) tendency towards bratty-ness and I want them to know what they're in for. 

I love her, though, and so do Abby and Ryan. If I wanted a third dog I would keep her for sure. She's energetic and feisty and funny and perfect :)

Good thing I already have my hands full with energetic, feisty, funny and perfect Abby.

Wish us luck this weekend!