Forever Borzoi

I got word yesterday that my story submitted for inclusion in the Forever Borzoi book has made the cut! I wrote about what a huge turn (for the better) my life took when I brought Nikki into my home and heart. I had two stories included in the Being Borzoi publication - that publication won an award too! It's a great collection of stories about living with and sharing one's life with Borzoi from various individuals. My stories were about Miss T's adventure when she got loose in the "wilds" of Lancaster, TX and our searching for her with a Bloodhound, and her recovery; and a story about Burni's interesting ex-pen habit we discovered at a show. I had also submitted several photographs so I will be interested to see how the publication turns out!

In the meantime, check out their web site, and consider purchasing one of the books! They donate a portion to NBRF or the CHF Donor Advised Fund (depending on which book you purchase).

Unbelievable

Yesterday morning...early early yesterday morning...I took Lumos (Solo/Duri) to the airport for her to begin her journey to her new home up in Oregon. I groggily arrived at Continental at a quarter after 5, parked the van, and took her traveling crate into the office and came back out to get her and her traveling papers. By the time I got back out, someone had parked to the right of me (super-close I might add) and had just opened their door into the side of my van. I was even less impressed when they promptly went to the back of their sedan...and opened their TRUNK! Filled with tiny crates all set up for traveling (little bags of food taped to the top)...and pulled out one with a puppy inside of it!

????????????????

I carried Lumos inside and set her up, much to her chagrin, in her crate and awaited my turn in line. The fellow parked next to me came in - he pulled out a little parti-dappled dachshund pup and proceeded to dress it up in a little bandana. The counter guy was talking to him as he made copies and then went out to get a cart for the folks that were ahead of me and who also had a large crate. He apparently had seen this guy on many occasions for shipping pups. They began discussing his Christmas "business" and he mentioned that it was way down.

After getting Lumos set up for her day's adventure, I got back in the van to head to work. I noted the license plate on the sedan - Oklahoma. So that meant a minimum of 2 hours away. I am left thinking, if someone constantly had puppies available to ship and could refer to it as "business", why on earth didn't they have a proper vehicle to bring their "commodity" down to the airport for shipping?! With all the pseudo-SUVs out there, they don't even need a van - use a Honda Element, or that cool HHR vehicle. Our Astro van has been a wonderful vehicle - but I would much prefer being able to toodle to work in a Mini Cooper or something else smaller and sportier instead of being in the "soccer mom" category with a minivan! So I was pretty much disgusted at the thought of this fellow hauling puppies in the trunk of his car for the rest of the day.

On a good note, Lumos' flight was uneventful and she arrived safe and sound in Portland (albeit a bit messy) and is now with her new family.

Annual "Rabies Round-Up"

Yesterday we had what I've come to call our "rabies round-up". Our vet comes to the house and gives the majority of our dogs their annual rabies vaccination (some of them, due to their birthday or when they arrived here, get their vaccine near summertime). We also do any exams on those dogs I would like checked - Arthur and Perci were just overjoyed at their prostate exams (not!). Flareon got her stitches removed from her surgery a couple weeks ago (all pathology came back benign - hurrah!) and Lars got looked at for limping (left shoulder - muscle strain/pull).

This time around I also opened up my box of microchips and we chipped several of the Borzoi and Silkens. I have a HUGE fear of needles - they have to practically hold me down to do any bloodwork on me - and I project that fear to the idea of inserting that big bore needle into one of my dogs. Just can't do it - although I give vaccines to the dogs regularly (the combo shots, not the rabies vac).

Now I will likely be in need of medical attention once I get the bill!! Ouch - that hurts!

Eukanuba '07 - A Touch of Success

Solo attended the 2007 AKC/Eukanuba National Championship Show in Long Beach, CA this past weekend. He was dual qualified, having finished from the Bred-By Exhibitor classes, as well as ranking in the Top 25 at the time of the deadline (he was at #4). Sassi had also received an invite from her ranking - but was in no condition to attend thanks to her fancy whelping haircut.

I didn't have the vacation time to spare, so we managed to hitch him a ride and flew Jill out there to show him. Maybe next year I will be able to attend and compete in the Bred-By competition (the invite for that lasts for 2 years).

Super pleased that our "lil boy" won an Award of Merit under judge Dr. Robert Indeglia! There is a candid picture taken during his photo session for the AOM online HERE.

Holiday Field Trials ("trial" being the key word!)

After a week full of very mild winter weather - a cold front decided to sweep through in time for our field events. ICK. The Lone Star Borzoi Club's ASFA trial was the Friday after Thanksgiving. It was overcast but in the mid to high 30s, with a brisk north wind to top it off - at least it was dry. Nothing like trying to do paperwork while it keeps attempting to escape the table (I had on my Field Trial Secretary hat). I was also very rusty since I had managed to avoid performing in the FTS capacity for a while - but I pretty much just got stuck with it this time around. Got through the trial ok - but it remains to be seen as to whether or not I survive getting the trial records ready to mail in to ASFA. At this trial we only ran Magik - the ever-creative Magik, who is still in disagreement with the course designers. She tends to be a better 2nd day runner - so we were hoping for a less Picasso-esque performance at the next day's Regional. We did bring the Monkee-kids for practice - Wulf, Buster and Faina all turned in promising runs, with Wulf showing the most interest in killing the bags at the end. Peepers was a huge disappointment - I was expecting much more after Victor told me how well she did at earlier practices. She failed a certification - and had a pooper of a practice run after that - quitting after the first turn. Harli was a mess too - and then we had to catch her. She has apparently been speaking to the Pharaoh Hounds about how to avoid being caught after a run.

Saturday morning arrived much too early...as did the rain. And roll call - an hour earlier than the day previous. We had 3 entries for the day - Solo, Monkee, and Magik. We weren't really expecting anything all that competitive from the girls - but Solo was another story. Despite a nice performance from him in an attempt to win a trophy for the bench champions (it was our region's invitational trial) - he received some dreary results to go hand in hand with a dreary day. It's a bit upsetting to see a dog that did not finish the course in finals before I had already picked up my runner in the course, score higher than one that did. Granted it was due to a tumble about 3/4 of the way through, but still, it took a long time to get to the finish, and not in working style. But oh well - there's always next year (or maybe when Solo's a veteran ).

Sunday I opted for a day at home while Victor attended the trial. I had had enough of the cold and wet (I don't like to be cold, nor do I like to be wet...both - forget it!) He just took the ever-creative Monkee (she and Magik share their opinion of course designers) - and she opted to go back to her enormously creative state, although she had shown an inclination to follow much more than usual at the Regionals.

Our Thanksgiving

We had a somewhat untraditional Thanksgiving...in terms of the food at least. Certainly we thought of those things for which to be thankful for, of which, despite any daily grumblings, are a-plenty. We were tied close to home for the holiday since our club (Lone Star Borzoi Club) was hosting a lure trial the next day and there were other trials the rest of the weekend, including the ASFA Regional Invitational. After ticking through the logistics - it just wasn't feasible to leave town for the day.

Not being much of a homemaker or cook (I'm an "open-box-add-water" kinda gal) I could not bring myself to cook a turkey for just Victor and myself. Since we had a huge package of stew meat in the freezer, the day before feast day I googled up a recipe for a Spicy Beef Curry Stew. I didn't exactly follow the directions to a "t" - except for the spices used, and they were multiplied to fit with the quantity of beef (4.3 lbs - I said it was a HUGE package!). I set everything up the night before and through the night the house filled up with exotic spicy scents.

Towards lunchtime I just threw some sweet potatoes into the oven to bake while Victor and I took to the yard to attempt some photo updates. We brought out the lure toy for the Spells pups to play with. Ascensio, Nox, "Whitey", and Boy #2 are really wanting the "bunny" - closely followed by Pest and Monkee's daughter Faina. QiQi also got into the midst of things - although we hadn't been able to get her interested in a race practice at the beginning of the month when we attended GIT's LGRA meet.

After the hour-long (or more) photo session, we returned into the cozy temps of the house for our late holiday lunch. We ordered "Evan Almighty" on pay-per-view as our entertainment. That was about as close to a holiday movie as we could get - and I couldn't talk Victor into watching "Mr. Brooks", and teased him with the idea of ordering "Hostel" (no thank you!). The stew turned out pretty darned good and the meat was falling apart in the slow cooker. We topped it off with a low carb, crustless pumpkin cheesecake.

We then prepped for the trial the next day - but definitely an easygoing and somewhat relaxing day. Thank goodness for that ;)