Just You And Me

I love this trial site, After 4/4 NQs at Dream Park last year we came and got most of our Qs here at Barto. This year she started off with 2/2 Way to go Lilly-girl! Knight stayed home, it was way too cold for the little man.

Turn It Upside Down

Knight's sister, Gucci, won B.O.B over two specials today :) Does he come from an awesome litter or what?

Tomorrow is the day! CPE trial here we come :D

We Could Make It Better

Lazy morning, crazy afternoon for the HeavensGlory Paps. Fridays are usually pretty crazy, I have X-team practice (archery) from 6:00-8:00 before I rush to agility from 8:30-10:00 ending with me getting home at 11. Today I decided to switch up the crazy a bit and try the new 4:30 Novice Agility class.

At 3:40 I loaded up the van, tossed my bow into the middle seats (I had left the string and limbs on because I'm getting used to the heavier weight) and decided to put the paps in the back in their crates. Knight has always been great in his crate in the van. He'll cry for a few minutes, realize I'm actually going to keep him in there, then curl up and sleep. Lilly is a different story. She'll stop crying for a while but she does not fall asleep and just stresses herself out...

So when we got to class she didn't feel like running agility too much. After a couple tries to motivate her I realized my mistake and just let her relax and do some heeling and tricks. Knight on the other hand was really great!

He listened very well, was blazing fast, and did some beautiful rear crosses. I'm getting excited for his first try at AKC Jumpers in March :) Overall a good day, I learned the importance of not crating Lilly in the car on the way to agility, and had a lot of fun running my little man!

With a Crash and Burn

So... Bad news, The CPE trial is filled for Saturday. So no DOS entries are available for Sat. The good news is, it's a three day trial, and I have off school on Monday so I can still go two days. That means we only have one shot to get our Snooker Q though, level 2 snooker usually isn't too hard. I just need to make sure I don't mess Lil up! Then we'll be all set for Nats.

I took some time today to go hunting on the internet for pictures of dogs from Knight's pedigree. It's been really interesting, I only wish I could find more of the dogs that are in it. I think I'm going to poke around a bit more, then maybe e-mail some breeders and see if they have any pictures laying around. I'd love to have at least to his great-grandsire and dam filled in.

This is what I have so far:

That's an older picture of Attie (his dam) and an older picture of Knight too. So I apologize for that. I don't have any more current stacked pictures of either of them. It's been pretty fun to make :D

I just got a reply from Letty (Knight's breeder) giving me the okay to stay at her place when I go down to Richmond for the Silvia Seminar! SO excited. Getting to spend a day before with the Patuxent Papillons before heading off to spend a day learning more about dogs. Life is good!

To The Open Stream

So, not sure if I mentioned it yet but, I'm hoping to jump back in to the AKC conformation ring with Knight starting in June. To get us back into the swing of the show ring I think I'm going to sign Knight up for the UKC.

The UKC does not allow professionals to handle dogs that aren't their own,  in general they have a much more beginner friendly way to get a Ch on a dog. I know Knight's not perfect, but I think he's a pretty good looking papillon. At the end of April they have 4 conf shows over the span of two days. That will give us plenty of time to decide if going back into the AKC conf ring is something I really want to do, and something Knight would enjoy.

I still need to mail out my archery form for the end of the month... Should probably do that tonight or my coach will be one very unhappy woman haha. I'm itching for this weekend's CPE trial to get here, Lil's ready to do some agility after all this snow too :)

From the Wrong to the Right Light

 Last night I got the e-mail confirmation for Knight's first agility run :) I had a mental war with myself for weeks trying to decide what I wanted to do. When it came down to 2 weeks before closing I just circled Novice B FAST and mailed it out.

 I just entered him for Sunday FAST and miss Lils is staying home. The Novice FAST 8" class is going to be dominated by papillons haha. Arrow, Knight's brother, is running, and Boogie, one of Letty's paps is running too. I'm half nervous, half excited haha.

 The dead-line for CPE Nationals is quickly approaching, Lilly just needs a Snooker Q and one Q in any class. This weekend there's a CPE trial at Flexi so I'm going to run over there Saturday for a DOS entry. I love tossing in a CPE between AKCs every now and then. CPE has such a laid back atmosphere, Lilly really picks up on that and just goes crazy xD Crazy in a good way haha, she goes tearing around the course. Last one I went to... was way back in August. It's been too long!

I also tried Jumping Knight at 12" today, just to see how he'd like it. The first clip is of Lilly so you can compare. Just for fun :)

On A Silver Platter

Ready to go Home?

Guess who's officially enrolled in Silvia Trkman's "Foundation for Excellence" workshop! Knight is!!! Finally got ahold of them today to confirm that I had a spot before mailing out the check. Last night I tried to call her but she couldn't hear me at all on the phone. Today she called me and it worked just fine.  I'm so excited, I can't believe this is actually going to happen :D

Here's a brief discription of the workshop: "Covers all foundational pieces that Silvia teaches in agility including handling, jumping, contacts and weaves poles. Appropriate for novice level
dogs or handlers looking to apply Silvia’s methods to their training program. Dogs should be able to do all obstacles."

It will be indoors, and from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. It sounds like there will be a lot of BCs there, I'm hoping some fellow pap owners go haha but we'll see. Please pray that Knight behaves while we're there.... I don't know if I mentioned it on blog, but he's gotten a tad.... snarly? with other dogs. Mostly when I'm holding him though, once his feet hit the ground it quiets down a good amount. Agility people are usually pretty good with respecting other handlers so I'm just going to turn down any requests for "doggy hellos". I'd really hate to get kicked out because my 5 lb dog is snapping at 30+ lb dogs.

The workshop is Tuesday, February 8th. That gives me a month to work out where I'm going to stay... Knight's breeder's house is the closest, she's just about 2 hours away from Richmond so I'll ask her first. I also have some friends in Baltimore that I'm sure would take me for a night or two so I should be pretty good on that front.

I'm also on the list for a private, they're taking place on February 13th. I'm waiting for more details on that. If I get in I'll be bringing Lilly along aswell :)

In non-dog news, I worked out the classes I hope to take to finish up the rest of my credits. Here we go:
-Intro to Screenwriting (.5)
-Intro to Short Stories (.5)
-Intro to College writing (.5)
-Sociology (.5)
-Introduction to law (.5)
-Criminal and consumer law (.5)
-Buisness Math (1)
-Cinematic Review (.5)
-Latin 2 (1)
-Emerging Genetics (.25)
-Forensics (.25)
-Marketing/Advertising (.5)
-Money Management (.5)
-Intro to computer programing (1)
-Premiere 1 (1)

Plus the classes I'm currently enrolled in. When I write it all out like that it seems like a really odd selection of classes... It breaks down to: English credits, Social Studies, Math, Fine Arts, Electives. I'll have to double check with my IS. I might of forgotten some credits I already have... but better to overplan now then add more later. In May I'll be done all 3 of the science credits.

I have lots of writing classes because my older sister was constantly writing papers for college.... I hate writing papers D: So might as well get over my hatred now and learn to write something half-way decent.

I'm also going to start calling local boarding kennels toward the end of Feb and see if anyone is hiring. I haven't told my parents about my KPA plans so I need to have enough set aside for it if they decide they don't want to pay for it. They're paying for my college, the least I can do is pay for furthering my canine education. There's also a Suzanne Clothier CARAT (Clothier Animal Response Assesment Tool) seminar coming up in November 2011 that I'd like to go to. Suzanne is big on Relationship Centered Training, I've read a few of her articles and she seems very interesting. So I'd like to set aside some money for that too.

With so much to do its easy to forget to stop and enjoy the little things in life. Lil kindly reminded me I was spending way too much time working, so I drove the paps over to the park for a nice long walk. There's nothing more enjoyable on a cold day in January than watching my paps chasing each other around in the snow :)