in a word... beat

The weekend was great, but physically taxing to say the least. :) The tournament went oh so much better than we thought it would, despite the number of obstacles that were there. First, and I'll keep this brief because I'm still pissed off about it, Christine couldn't come to the tournament on Saturday (I should add that we only entered 2 teams because she said she would), but promised she would be there on Sunday to relieve some of the pressure for some of the dogs. Well, she never showed up. Nor did she call. Being the drama queen she is, I'm sure we'll hear about some tragedy that took over her life and prevented her from coming. Now, if something really bad did happen, I'll probably feel bad (hmmm...maybe not....), but I think a phone call would have been warranted in any situation. I have to stop there or I'll go on a tangent and never shut up.

Moving on, I was completely surprised and thrilled that Steffi ran for Kate all weekend! She's getting more adaptable as time goes on, which is awesome. Towards the end she started doing her running up and down the lane thing, but I guess that's understandable since she was overworked! I mentioned in earlier posts that all of the dogs had double the number of races they usually do in a 2 day tournament. On top of that, about half of them did double duty - running on 2 teams.

Scarlet held it together all weekend, which is beyond incredible for a green dog in their first tourney - especially with double the number of races. There were a few times where she could have reacted (other dogs chasing her) and she didn't - Kudos to Scarlet!

Koffan, an 11 year old Belgian Shepherd, ran cleanly all weekend. Usually he comes in as a backup because he's older, but we needed him to run full-time this weekend because of Christine and he did stupendously.

Jeter and Freddie ran full time on their teams and then switched back and forth on the other team to fill the position left vacant by Christine (grrr...). I'm so proud of my little man and Cindy should be just as proud of Jeter! They both ran about 14 or 15 races over the weekend - unheard of - and still kept it clean!

Freddie was in quite a mood by the end of the weekend. We were sitting for the awards and he was being so silly. I laid back to get away from him giving me kisses and he thought that was just grand so he gave me even more. He was acting so cute though, I couldn't bear to stop it for the first minute. :) I'm sure his little nub of a tail was going a mile a minute too. I'm so happy he came into my life - another reason to make my heart smile. :)

Freddie and I crashed on the couch around 6pm. I wish I knew the names of the muscles in my legs, then I could tell you what was so sore. :) The bruises from running him in the start dog position (launching off of my legs) are pretty impressive too. :)

We slept a solid 10 hours last night, which we both really needed. The other pups weren't that thrilled, but they didn't put up a fuss. :)

And now that I've spent a huge amount of time venting in blogs, IM, and email, I'm going to go do some actual work! lol

D