New Title and New Beginnings

Solo had been entered at the Fort Smith, AR shows this past weekend. After a series of minor mishaps combined with the nasty weather Saturday morning (and the show committee debating on whether to cancel Saturday's show), Jill made the decision to come home after having been on the road for 3 weeks.

Well, we took our lemons and made lemonade...and took Solo along to WindyGlen for the NOTRA meet after having spent a nice Saturday there. And today, Solo earned his needed point to finished his Oval Racing Champion title!

Also, his daughter Nox (out of Duri) had nice practices the previous Saturday at the GIT meet and ran on the following Sunday in her first meet and earned her first point. Saturday at Windyglen she earned a bit more towards her GRC. Peepers (bred by Mary Childs and Susan V) also practiced and ran the previous week and ran Saturday as well and earned her first GRC point, but we're going back to some training for her, as she had a bit too much interest in one of her yardmates (Demi) - although the second program's finish was beautiful with her and Nox running shoulder-to-shoulder and heads straight while crossing the finish.

Pumpkin (Nox's sister) practiced during the GIT weekend and showed more promise than ever, so we had her along this weekend as well and on Sunday she learned to run with a muzzle on and we also did a test run with her sister Nox (to see if they would play nice with each other, which they did) and today, she and Nox were introduced to the oval (practice) and did very well.

So we're excited to have some new, young racers to work with in the coming months!

Puppy Potential - Racing Practice and New Stack Shots

We managed to take puppies to GIT's LGRA meet to get some practice in this past weekend. The "Boogie Babies" (Solo/Monkee) Wulf, Buster and Faina attended, along with Pumpkin (Solo/Duri) on Saturday, and on Sunday Pumpkin and her littermates Nox and Azchyl came along. We also brought yearling Peepers along both days to see if she agreed more with straight-racing, since she seemed completely offended by turns at coursing practices previously.

Nox has a successful practice
I brought along my little digital camera that I had purchased for the trip to NYC - since it was too burdensome to attempt to bring the SLR and tote it around, I had wanted something I could stuff in my big ol' purse. It's turned out to be a pretty handy gadget - so I brought it along to take some pictures of the pups practicing and to attempt some new stacks. I also tried my hand at some "artsy" photos with Wulf and Buster and got some really pretty results.

Wulf
All the "Boogie Babies" had promising practices - I sure hope they keep it up! Peepers had a really nice practice on Saturday and so-so on Sunday, although she became more determined after she stopped for a tinkle. Of the Spells pups, Nox showed the most promise - then Azchyl and then Pumpkin. But Pumpkin definitely showed more interest than our last session with the lure toy at home - so hooray!!


Azchyl
We also got some nice stacks and head shots of everyone that came to practice. I hope to have them edited and online in their albums in the next few days. All in all - a fairly productive weekend!

February Straights with GIT

Solo, Demi and newcomer Sugar
GIT hosted their first LGRA meet of the year in McKinney, TX so we hauled a few over to Myers Park for the event. Our visitor, Beaudreaux, seems to have screwed his head back on (after some frustrating coursing outings where he was clearly not thinking about the job at hand) and put in some good races both days, winning the meet on Saturday and coming in second on Sunday. Demi was doing well on Saturday then tossed it all in the 3rd program and also didn't put forth her best efforts on Sunday, developing a severe case of the looky-loo's in the second program (although never veering from her path - she was just overly curious about who may be running near her). I think she's getting ready to come into season - a shame she did not take advantage of the hormonal speed rush [sigh]. We ended up bringing Solo to play on Sunday and he managed to earn another GRC point. He's getting harder and harder to get off the lure at the end - he has figured out how to grasp it in between his front feet and just curl his legs around it. It's somewhat amusing to see his tongue hanging out of the muzzle trying to get an extra hold on what he considers his toy. Someday I need to get someone to take a picture of the wrestling match to get him away from the squawker lure.