Monday, October 26, 2009

Dog Show pic

Ollie wanted me to post a shot of him all cleaned up and pretty since he's been at dog shows lately. We haven't gotten his latest show pics but here's one of him a little over 3 weeks ago at a show in MD. Mom is bribing him to stand still and look pretty but it isn't working!



He has so much to learn... and after he gets home all he wants to do is jump in the garden and get DIRTY. Well, he's learned something after all!

Love,
Rudy

Friday, October 23, 2009

Post-Montgomery Earthdog Test

Hi again --

Mom's getting lazy in her old age and she can't use that 'no camera' excuse anymore so I don't know what to do with her! I'm laying on her foot so she can't leave this PC without blogging something instead of visiting that social networking site she seems to love more than ME. Arrrrrr....

Here's a better pic of me and my little girl Shana from Connecticut when we met at the all-terrier agility trial. I'm a proud papa! She's a cute baby --


My Bedly pal Titus earned his MACH title, like I said earlier, and Mom made me sit next to his MACH bar (awarded to every dog who MACHs) so I'd know what I'm supposed to be working for... ahem... hey I can't qualify on EVERY run! It was chilly so I was wearing a snazzy sweater.


So we got home that Thursday night, and the following Monday morning (Oct. 5) we left at oh-dark-30 (4:30 AM to be exact but who's counting) to get up to the day-after-Montgomery Earthdog test in NJ. It's always held the day after the Montgomery Kennel Club all-terrier dog show in Pennsylvania.

Josie and Ollie went with us; Josie went in Senior for the first time and I did Master as usual. We found another Bedly pal of ours from Pennsylvania named Savanna and guess what -- she qualified in Junior! We met her in May at a practice at this same place. yeah! One more leg for her JE title! She participated in the Earthdog demo at the AKC Meet the Breeds in NYC on Oct 17th and 18th.


There was somebody walking around that Mom knows with the coolest Earthdog-type hat. Guess what's on it. She and her Lakeland Terrier got a ribbon -- should've gotten something for that hat too!


This was the Senior Earthdog tunnel set-up that Josie did. The judge and rat steward are on the right and the handler and dog are at left near the tunnel entrance. I have a lot of fun there, but on warm days everyone would rather be over by the swimming pool in the background!


Josie tried her best but she left the rats in Senior too early, thinking she had heard Mom calling her out of the tunnel. Check your hearing aid, you silly girl!!

And there was a cool vendor that Mom likes. They have a line of Earthdog collars, leashes, and shirts that we get, plus you can see a ton of neat-o collars and things. Love that red tent!


I love to sniff the daylily planter area just in case. One memorable day we were standing around it listening to the judge do his orientation speech and lo and behold a RABBIT bolted out of there! I instinctively went to chase it but >MOM< had a leash on me and wouldn't let me go for it. What a buzz kill!! Her friends said she should've let me go even though Bunny ended up running right through the Junior tunnel area where some dogs were working at the time. It would have been exciting to say the least.. so I come every time and reminisce...


And to top off the day, I qualified in Master again for the 22nd time! (it's only 4 legs to get the ME) I just love it, Mom loves to watch me do Master. You can see all the stickies I picked up from running around in the underbrush. Good thing I'm not a show dog anymore, that would've been awful... We didn't see those dog cookies that the judge was holding. Were they really people cookies and she ate them herself?? Hmmm..



It was a good day all around and Mom was really glad she brought us. Ollie says he wants to come do this next year. Then Mom will have 3 dogs to run in Earthdog! She better start working out ---

See you later!
Love,
Rudy

Thursday, October 8, 2009

Our week at the All-Terrier Agility Trials!

Hi everybody!

I've been offline a while I know but Mom broke down and bought us a CAMERA so we're back in the game! About time, we've been busy...

Last week was the big all-terrier agility trials in PA that we love to go to. Nothin' but terriers. Usually at a 'regular' trials the bigger dogs outnumber us, but last week there were more 8-inch dogs running than the usual 20's! It was amazing. I saw some of my Bedly buddies there and met some new ones -- well let's start with the pictures --

The weather was great, nice and cool like I like it. This was the scene first thing in the morning. Already there are people waiting for the action to begin.


Our tent was just to the right of these tents. Mom says it was like Woodstock for terriers. OK I'm too young to remember that Mom, how about you????

It's our ol' camping tent but we had a hotel room at this event!

This lady had 2 Airedales to run and she did a great job with them. Here she's running one in the Excellent FAST class where you make up your own course and have to send your dog 'waaay out (compared to the Novice course!) and get points for doing that 'send' right.


Here she is again later on in a Standard run -- it's hard to produce a good action shot with this digital camera, but you can see her Airedale at the far left on the dogwalk!


And there he/she goes off the dogwalk!!! woohoo! (oops this is from another course -- see if you can tell the difference...)


This was the Open FAST course on Tuesday; it's similar to the Novice one I ran with a little less distance. I think I could've done that Open send too which is good 'cause I got my Novice FAST title with our run that morning. Yea me!


Well there was quite a wait for me while Josie ran her Open courses so I just hung out 'til then...


Our Scottie pals Jeep and Einstein were there, so here's one of them getting ready to run:


OK Scotties don't fly as fast down dogwalks.. so what...


He sure was cute going through the weave poles...


I got to meet my baby daughter Sheyna from Connecticut. She's 4 months old and her people just adore her. She was kinda shy so I just stood there 'til they could catch her being still!


One day our Deerhound buddy Mr. Darcy got his mom (our breeder) to bring him up to see us run. He's heard so much about our agility stuff he wanted to see. This is Josie's sister's mom holding him. He wanted her to come see too!

We kept telling everyone that he was a Scottie on steroids... heh heh..

Our other Bedly buddies also ran -- this could be Daimler or Bogie getting ready to run. Wonder what's in that BAG?? Did they go shopping too?


And we saw the most amazing thing last week -- there's a fire station on the show grounds and they took out this truck and stretched it Waaaaaaay tall! Hey there's a guy up there! How's he going to get down now? A little boy and his daddy stopped to see that sight --


We had some little visitors too --


We sure were tired at the end of each day. Josie and Ollie are hogging Mom's bed at the hotel. I had the bed with Mom each night - those two had to sleep in CRATES - ha ha!


Our pal Colby who lives with Sheyna had it best -- at the trials he napped on his own air mattress. I just had a dog bed in a crate. No fair!


I did let the others share the bed when Mom wasn't in it.. Ollie's on top of the covers...


Now and then at the trials the timer wouldn't work right and the judge had to come help. It happened in one of Josie's runs, the judge said the timer wasn't working so they just gave us the standard time as measured by the judge. We just wanted that qualifying ribbon!


Josie did really well -- she got 4 blue ribbons and 2 more legs each in Open Standard and Open Jumpers and got both titles! She also got some rat toys as seen at her feet. I don't think Mom's going to let anybody chew 'em up though!


We had a group photo made of all us Bedlingtons. Mom's at the far right holding Josie on the left, Ollie in the middle, and I'm on the end, lying down patiently waiting for these crazy dogs to hold still!

BTW the dog on the far left and his Mom got their first MACH title (Master Agility Champion) so we celebrated!!! You have to get sooo many points and qualify soo many times for it, it's a real achievement. It'll be YEARS before Mom and I get that good! Yea Titus!!! (he's from Boston)

That was our awesome week -- we hated to have to go home. We'll be back next year!

More later (we did Earthdog on Monday after the big all-terrier dog show, too)
Love,
Rudy