More Excitement!

The last two weekends have provided us with more excitement. Solo won Best of Breed two of the three days at the Dallas cluster, got pulled in the group on Friday and then received a Group 3 on Saturday. Oddly enough, the judge who had pulled him in the group opted to ignore him in the breed on Sunday. Heard it happened in a LOT of breeds too and one person mentioned to me that he was in a "giant killing" mood. Although Solo is faaaaaaaaaar from being a giant (although I will admit he's a bit too tall for me ).

This past weekend the shows were in Rosenberg, just southwest of Houston. Solo won Best of Breed both days and won the Hound Group on Saturday! He was also pulled in the group on Sunday - just about giving me heart palpitations! Bugg won Reserve Winners Bitch both days, and Wulf....well, Wulf was a naughty child. But he's still beautiful!

I also got to have a nice visit with my father and we went to dinner with a group that he belongs to called Lifeline, which is for widows and widowers. It was nice to see that he has a wonderful support group to fall back on and they keep busy with various social activities. After such a long day, having got up at 3:30 that morning to drive down, the warm company and excellent food (sirloin and lobster...yum) were a great cap to an exciting day.

Great Beginnings!

Well, we've started out the New Year with a bit of a bang at the Nolan River Kennel Club shows in Glen Rose, TX! Not only is there conformation shows both days, but lure coursing as well - which made for interesting scheduling efforts and running back and forth. Ick - it also made for *VERY* early ringtimes - not fabulous for someone who is definitely NOT a "morning glory". We also debuted the two "Boogie Boys", Wulf (Gryffyn's Aeyrie Rock Me Amadeus) and Buster (Gryffyn's Aeyrie Bust a Move), from Monkee's May litter sired by Solo. They were originally to debut at the November TSE event in Houston but managed to bang and bruise themselves up beforehand - so evaded that working weekend. They weren't so thrilled about seeing flat-faced breeds like Pugs and French Bulldogs - and REALLY gave the eyeballs at Bulldogs, but they made it through without too much of a scene. On Saturday, Buster decided he had a time limit for trotting his fancy self around the ring and proceeded to throw on the brakes (brat) and Wulf decided that his good behavior on stacking at home, would remain at home and managed to crouch and post and alter his standing outline in a myriad of ways. On Sunday the boys were markedly improved - although they still weren't thrilled with Bulldogs. Victor showed Buster and I showed Wulf - and they both trotted around the ring reasonably well, and I couldn't believe I was stacking the same pup I had attempted to the day before. Wulf even defeated an older male in the Bred-By class (we dared not enter them where they would be in the ring together - can you say CHAOS?).

Solo did well in conformation, winning Best of Breed both days in an entry sporting the most specials we have seen in a while (5d/3b entered). Points in both sexes qualified for majors too. Then comes that running back and forth part...We showed in conformation, then out to the field for some "hurry up and wait"(HU&W) - run in prelims - HU&W - drive back to the building to show in Groups - back to the field and run Finals.

Sunday brought more excitement, with Solo taking 4th in the Group - after Jill thought that maybe I should just stay out on the field with him, not expecting the judge to use him . Glad I opted to have him there! As soon as we got back to the field, he got out of the van, got blanketed and went straight to the line for his Finals course. His performance on the field that day garnered him compliments from his competitors, who figured it to be between him and a new, fresh JC courser. But it was not to be.

Magik, on the other hand, finished her AKC Field Championship from the Veterans Stake. She had been searching for that last major for a seeming eternity - becoming more and more coursewise (and frustrating). We realized we had our own major of veterans and opted to bring some of them. Sassi had shown a bit of discharge, so her and Magik's father, Arthur, came along to the field. He put in a nice run for an old man approaching 10 years of age - can't wait to get the pictures. Magik was being obviously deferential to him though, plus he came off the course holding up his left foot, having hit a bad spot (the field is notoriously lousy for coursing due to its size and obstacles, like bleachers). Monkee was her usual creative self, and Doodle opted for about half a course before, well....doodling on the field. Flareon - obviously unhappy with being pried off the couch, turned in her two runs and was ready for getting back to help hold down the sofa. So Magik is now formally known as DC Chataqua Gryffyn La Magie Continue, MC JOR GRC FCh.

New Site Design

Latest project was the redesign and updating of ISWS's Silkenfest web site. Pretty happy with the results - just need to figure out how to fix the header so that it acts like a framed page and stays fixed on the screen when scrolling down. The former design had utilized frames and I wanted to get away from that.


Noodling on a redesign for the ISWS site as well since there's been plenty of growth since the original. This time around I am going to work on mapping out the navigation first then the layout. Likely similar colors and layout, but heavily updated coding and arrangement. We'll see what happens!

ECards Are Back!

I used to have a really nice E-Card program at the Borzoi Central web site. When I moved to a new server after getting a reseller account with my web host (made hosting for all my various domains much more affordable) the script would no longer work despite being the same domain name and all. Instead of providing support for the script or allowing a re-install, the script's creator insisted that I would have to shell out $250 for the new, updated program and that they no longer supported the other (interesting since there was no effort in installing it other than providing a download link). So I had to ask myself...why am I going to pay $250 for a program that one day they will decide they no longer want to "support" and insist you pay an exorbitant amount for the updated version. Considering I had already paid around $150 for the previous version, and that I provided the service at absolutely no charge on the site, I could not justify further expenditure. So...that said...beware of ECardMax unless you get thrills by flushing money...because eventually, they will pull the rug out from under you.

So Borzoi Central has been lacking in an ecards program for a while and I occasionally would do a little googling to see if I could find a comparable script. Finally, a month ago, I found something that looked promising. I came upon Maian Script World that had several different PHP scripts to choose from, including an ecard system. I was thrilled to see it was PHP - the former having been CGI driven. I finally had a chance to install it on the site and got some of my pictures uploaded for use. The only thing it lacks from the earlier script is the Java effects - otherwise it trumps the expensive program in spades. Hoorah!

In the future I will be checking out the other Maian scripts such as the blog and the recipe exchange. In the meantime, I will work on getting more and more pictures uploaded for the ecards, and the graphic icons created. So far - the program has received several nice reviews from users.

Coursing Bits

Victor went down to Richmond (TX) for the AHCGH AKC trials this past weekend. Boudie had come back for a running season visit a couple weekends ago and apparently was rarin' to go - his return to the field heralded by winning a 5-point major towards his LCX title at Saturday's trial. Victor said he was in fine form and some fabulous pictures taken by Dan Gauss showing his elasticity. He is an amazingly flexible dog. Unfortunately he introduced his foot to a cluster of stickers during prelims on Sunday which affected his run tremendously - and although he turned in a nice Finals run, it just wasn't going to be enough. Solo more than made up for it by turning in two lovely runs and coming away with his first coursing major! Victor forfeited BOB with next weekend's AKC trial in mind - although it could get a bit nutty attempting to juggle showing Solo and running him on the same day. I guess we can only wait and see what the day brings us!

Catching Up

The holidaze and the accompanying chaos that it brings, has made me somewhat remiss in posting. I hope everyone had a wonderful and joyous Christmas! Victor and I drove down to Houston to visit my father and some of the wonderful in-laws from his second marriage. I am so thankful that they keep in contact with him after Margaret's passing earlier this year. I did reminisce a bit with Dad about some of our past Christmas's when Mom was alive - especially our "tradition" of opening up a nice yummy box of Chocolate Covered Cherry candies each Christmas eve. Houston is about 4 1/2 hours away, and we didn't have a petsitter - so it was something of a "drive-by Christmas". We only got to spend about 4 hours down there, but had a wonderful meal and good company.

As to doggie news - Ginger came into heat (she's in Washington to be bred) and was bred to Harper about the time we were munching on the Christmas ham. Also, the litter Tyler sired was whelped in California, with the result being 1 girl and 4 boys. All boys are chinchilla colored too, a favorite for me. Mom is our Duncan's sister Cinder. I can't wait to see how the little darlings turn out! You can see current pictures on their page in the Talisman Hounds web site.

We also managed to get more pictures of our pups playing out in the yard - both Duri's litter and Sassi's.