Indie Pix of Duri's Mob

We took individual pictures of Duri's pups and they now have their own page on the Gryffyn's Aeyrie web site at http://www.gryffynsaeyrie.com/litter_achillesduri.html

The Pups Have Arrived

Sometime between 11pm Thursday and 1am Friday, Duri began delivering her puppies! In total, there were 13 (5 boys and 8 girls), although 1 little girl (#10) was stillborn. All in various shades of red or gold, some brindle, some not. After pup #11, she was taken to the vet as we thought she was finished and wanted to be sure - x-ray revealed the final 2 and a shot of oxytocin brought them into the world (one on the way home). I will take individual shots later, but for now....here's a picture of the crew!

Look Out! She's Gonna Blow!

3 days before her due date - she looks like she is about to explode!

I Did It Myself!

This past weekend Jill went to Mexico for her son Phillip's christening. David wasn't headed to the Houston shows either and we had 2 Borzoi breed judges - a rare occurrence! Even rarer - there was also a third on the panel who had not originally been assigned to judge Borzoi, but was when Saturday's judge couldn't make it.

I went ahead and entered Solo and showed him myself. Well....on Saturday we won Best of Breed (the judge was Ron Spritzer who had bred Borzoi years ago. I opted to take a picture so that I had actual photographic proof that I could get my own special out of the breed.

So I was REALLY a wreck when it came to showing in the Group. At least I had the same judge, who had said I had done a fine job of handling when we were taking that picture and I had joked about my abilities (or the lack of them). The group was packed with some heavy-hitter handlers too - so I wasn't feeling overly optimistic about my chances at ALL! At least I was standing next to a friend with her Irish Wolfhound who had originally not wanted to bother with the groups - hers had been the only entry there. I had told her...if I can show mine, you can show yours!

OMG - Solo got a Group 2!! Can't wait for the picture of that one - I did it all by myself .

Nox was reserve both days, defeating older bitches too. She was a bit fazed by the first day's "enthusiastic" exam and backed off a bit on Sunday, but settled in once Sunday's judge saw she was a bit apprehensive and went over her very gently and slowly, saving checking her mouth for last.

To top it off, Victor took what we thought were completely hopeless boys to the lure coursing that weekend...and came back with 3 newly minted Junior Coursers. There's hope!! They had such short attention spans in various practice sessions previously - he said they all did nicely! J/T, Buster and Wulfie are now AKC JCs. J/T also ran in the trial on Sunday and did well, although he's still trying to figure out where all his legs are.

All in all, quite a nice weekend!

2008 Race Nationals (LGRA/NOTRA)

Our local club, GIT (Gazehounds in Texas) hosted the 2008 OB LGRA/NOTRA nationals (straight- and oval-racing) this past weekend at WindyGlen in Boswell, OK. Victor had gone up Friday mid-day, and I went up after getting home from work and ex'ing and feeding the rest of our crew, and giving Arthur a bath so he could look all fancy for his appearance in the Legends event. Nothing like driving around at midnight in the middle of nowhere on super-dark country road on Hallow's Eve! It was a bit spooky, and on at least one occasion I thought I had missed the turn - it looked completely different in the dark!

We had set the Zoibus up for camping, and even splurged on a plug-in so we could have a/c if we needed it (we did!) and I was quite content to pass out on the air mattress up on the platform - it seemed like I had just settled in when the alarm clock buzzed at 530am. Yuk! I had two Monster energy drinks before noon - I needed an intravenous caffeine set-up though! I had volunteered to work the boards, in addition to having handled the formatting of the race catalog and any advertisements, and of course, we had the girls to run. Nox had a few meets under her, but this was Pumpkin's first official meet after having had training practices with sister Nox at the last WindyGlen meet. Also along were Buster, for some socialization, and Magik, whose ear hematoma had burst earlier in the week and we were treating it (antibiotics and 'drainage maintenance').

Victor walking Buster in the way-too-early morn
In the first program on Saturday, Nox came in 2nd and Pumpkin 4th. In the pictures, you could see Pumpkin contemplating the box a bit - she had pretty much been introduced to it that morning as Victor hadn't practiced her on Friday afternoon during the scheduled time. Thankfully she wasn't too completely fazed by it. Both girls finished 4th in the 2nd program (Nox had moved up to a higher race), and then in the 3rd program, darned if Nox didn't decide to try and get Pumpkin to play about halfway down the track. So much for being able to run the sibs together! At least Pumpkin kept on going and she got the Turtle award for the day (with a new toy).

For me, the highlight of the day was the Legends program. I had entered Arthur, so folks could see that the #1 racing Borzoi waaaaay back from 2000 is still up and around with a bit of get-up-n-GO! Check out the pictures in the online album - the ol' man can still kick up a dirt trail, he's not just loping easy down the track, hes still diggin' in at 10 1/2 years of age. Although he did learn that he can't stop and fling himself down on the squawker like he used to. But he'll still pick it up after having his muzzle removed - and be really proud of it too!

Saturday after the racing (we finished early thanks to everyone's hard work and efficiency), I attempted a brief nap before the FEAST that arrived. Fabulous slabs of medium rare prime rib, baked potatoes, salad, brownies...I gorged myself. Haven't had beef that good in a while. We also sat and chatted with some folk for a while before finally wandering back to the van to crash. We also got an extra hour of sleep (although it never seems enough to me) thanks to turning the clocks back that night!

On Sunday, Magik ended up being recruited to run in place of Pumpkin since we figured it wouldn't be a good idea to let the sibs run together again - which was unavoidable as both were NOTRA FTEs. The night before we asked a friend of ours if she could pick up some knee-highs at the Hugo Walmart to try and hold down Magik's ear so that it wouldn't bother her by flopping around. It worked - but the visual was hysterical. I don't think Magik was particularly amused - but she always looks pouty.

Magik shows fine form for a Veteran racer, despite the funny headgear
In the first race program, Nox ended up being the cream in the oreo cookie between one dog fouling another - after holding her own between them for a while, she stopped at the backstretch and came back the other way. It was disappointing, especially considering that she had not shown this tendency in the practices she had - we hoped it was just that she couldn't handle whatever behavior that resulted in a foul on another racer and just left its proximity - so we left her in for the 2nd program. The 2nd and 3rd programs she did well, finishing each race without incident...although we did have an interesting occurence. At the end of the 3rd program, as she was closing in on the finish line, her head was lifted and she seemed a bit distracted. My heart sank and I prayed she would cross the finish (she was several lengths in front) - which she did, and then squatted almost immediately after the finish line. You can find the answer to her mysterious distraction HERE - she was taking care of business while...taking care of business. Dan Gauss (Shot on Site) caught the moment in several frames. We were laughing hysterically when we first noticed this while going through all the photos and making our choices to take home. Nox's DNF precluded her from getting any points, but we're still proud of our girl.

Magik came away with the Best Veteran Award (and the Turtle) and got some nice bling for her trouble and Nox and Pumpkin got some nice runs in and we've got our fingers crossed for the future.

Duri's Packin'!

We pulled an x-ray on Duri to count skulls/spines on the pups contributing to the massive expansion of her belly. The vet did two films - 1 showing 10-11 pups, the second showing 11-12. WOW!

We will be getting her whelping area set up this week - she's due around the 15th, but with that many on the way, she might decide to pop early. Although her last brood was delivered right on time.

Fingers crossed for an easy, problem-free delivery!