so long since we last spoke!!

Wow it has been months without an update, so here comes a very newsy one!

Back in October I packed the entire crew of dogs to go to the ASCA Nationals in Shelbyville, TN, where I set up a booth for art sales and watched the shows. I roomed with Julie Rigby in a converted school bus/RV that she located on AirBnB and it was terrific and fun!

Ribbon and I, oblivious to the danger in the sky behind us. (It was Halloween week). 

I only had Ribbon entered, in veterans, and we did a respectable showing with class placements several times. She looked great though!  Thumper was along for the ride only, as was Ziva.

And Flash. I felt I couldn't leave Flash in someone else's care as he had been having worsening vestibular episodes and his dementia seemed to worsen as well. By Saturday night the first weekend in TN he was deteriorating, with serious confusion and apparent discomfort, despite pain medications and close tending, and the decision to let him go became clear to me. To the end he had an amazing appetite and so he went out with a lovely handful of treats and a lot of hugs and loving from me, with the help of a marvelous vet who came into his office on Sunday to help us along. My sweet old man was 14 years and a few months and I think he had a good life here with me, and hopefully a good death.

The last good photo of my baby, showing his head titl from vestibular disease. 

Anyway with that sadness past, I was also able to watch Julie Rigby's Favor (Satin's littermate) run agility and also show in altered classes. They are a terrific team in both venues and, IMO, should have had more success in the Breed ring than they did, but such are the vagaries of subjective judging. 

I also saw Satin son Ticker, also belonging to Julie, show in the breed ring. He is a lovely little sound dog, but emphasis is on LITTLE here and so his conformation career concludes, lol. He will be a dynamite agility dog though, a rocket. Young still though, not ready for competition for many more months. 

Thats Ticker, up front.

So that was our Nationals week. 

Meanwhile the Satin puppies from the Jimmy breeding are doing well, with Christine's 'Lux' debuting in the Big Boy Breed ring in AKC last month. He showed well but wasn't the judge's cup of tea, but he is very puppyish at this time. I expect he will follow in his Uncle Uno's footsteps as an awesome obedience dog . Which brings me to Uno!

Uno and Lux, doing one of the things they do best.

Uno debuted in the AKC Obedience ring 2 weeks ago, first time for his owner as well, where they garnered a 2nd place in Novice A and a 196 for their first Q! So proud of them both, the owner is an excellent intuitive trainer and has trained all his life just for fun, without any interest in competition until just the past few months, but now is quite fired up!  Stay tuned for further ring reports!!

Uno and his 2nd place ribbon 

I think that is it for this post, further reports coming on the next post!