New CHAMPION Sky!!!!

Huge congratulations to Debbie Moody for finishing Sky, new CH Grayhart Lightfoot Early Morning Rain, RN,JH,TD,NSD,NRD,CGC, VX!

Sky finished, owner handled, at the Furniture City Kennel Club show today, in Winston-Salem, NC.  Not only does this win give Sky the final point to earn her AKC championship title, but also earns her the WCA Versatile Excellent (VX) title.  This win also gives sire Parker, BISS GCH HiBourne's It's All About Me, his 8th champion and qualifies him for the WCA BROM award.  

Sky is Trixie's, CH GraytSky's I'm Not Really A Waitress, CD,RN,OA,NAJ, V BROM, 6th champion and 4th to finish in 2011.

We are so proud of Debbie and her beautiful and talented girl, Sky!

Friday Flashback

 Trixie was the star of Banana Republic's Black Friday cashmere promotion in 2009.  With her two daughters, Jam and Savi, making their mark in the modeling world, I thought I'd share one of my favorite shots of the original gray supermodel!

Weimaraner Wednesday: Happiness in the field

Savi - pure joy!

 Yes, it's Thursday but we had to post these shots from a great day in the field on Weimaraner Wednesday.  After a week off due to the freak snow storm, the dogs were raring to go and enjoyed running in the fields and hunting.  The bonus was a day of incredible weather.

 Savi above, and Jam below, have such enthusiasm and love running in the fields.

 My girls, Trixie, Jam and Savi, had the preserve to themselves.

 Then it was time to get to work and train for the Senior Hunt tests in the Spring...

Jam on point...funny how she does that lip thing!

Intense point from Savi!

Savi has what my trainer calls a Master Hunter retrieve - enthusiastic, direct and retrieves to hand - just fabulous!  She is exciting to watch and has such talent and drive.

Gap: I Want Candy Holiday 2011 Collection with Savi!

 Savi, Grayhart's Shear Genius,JH,NSD,NRD,CGC, (Clay x Trixie) looking fabulous with all the adorable kids in the Gap's new "I Want Candy Holiday 2011 Collection".  This was shot in September on a hot day in Brooklyn, New York, with lots of fake snow!

 These shots are part of the Gap's ad campaign and used for mailers, Facebook, website and in-store displays.

Excellent JWW Agility leg #1 for Jam!!!

We had perfect fall weather for this weekend's Staten Island Companion Dog Club's agility trial.  Jam, CH Grayhart's Purple Haze,CD,JH,OA,OAJ,SD,VX, (Parker x Trixie) made me proud with her jumpers runs and earned her first qualifying leg on Saturday, in the 24" Excellent A class with a 3rd place!  To earn the AXJ or Agility Excellent Jumpers title, Jam needs to earn two more qualifying legs.  Jam also has one AX or Agility Excellent standard leg so she is on her way to earning these high level titles.

She came very close to qualifying on Friday in JWW, with a terrific run but slipped on the mud and missed the tunnel entrance at the end of the course.  The standard courses were a challenge for us with a very difficult weave pole entry on Friday, that wasn't doable for us and on Saturday, Jam slipped off the teeter.  She did manage to nail her weaves in three of our four runs and had awesome start line stays.  We'll be working on speeding up her weaves as well as teaching independent weaves and difficult entries; important skills at the excellent level, especially if we want to be competitive.  I also tried to apply some of what we learned at the Tracy Sklenar seminar and I feel that although we are a work in progress, Jam was more responsive and my handling was improved.

A highlight of the trial was seeing many friends that I have not seen for awhile since we have not trialed locally in a long time.  It was exciting to see how well their dogs ran and cheer them on. 

Snowtober!

Not everyone was upset by the freak snowstorm that enveloped the Northeast at the end of October.  Whitmore, Grayhart's Millionaire Matchmaker, (Clay x Trixie), had a blast playing in the snow.  Thanks to his owner, Chris McNeil, for taking these amazing shots.

Life goes on...

We are on day four without power and missing many of the conveniences of modern living, such as electricity, running water, and heat, and can't forget crazy stuff like TV (Food Network, Real Housewives and the Today show!). Life is good and we are enjoying the comraderie of our fellow powerless neighbors hanging around the town library vying for plugs to charge cellphones and laptops and waiting on line at the YMCA for a shower. Even being on the priority list, the local high school is still closed and my daughter is enjoying her "vacation" with the dogs.

Life still goes on and we needed to keep on schedule and Trixie had her physical therapy appointment today at Aquadog in Flanders, NJ. If you've notice that we haven't shown Trixie much in many posts it's because she had been recuperating from an Iliopsoas Strain. You can read about it at the link but with rest, stretches and strengthening, this injury, common in performance dogs, has a very high rate of complete recovery.  We expect Trixie to be back in agility very soon.  Today, Trixie was introduced to the underwater treadmill:

After her workout, Petra of Aquadog, showed us some new stretches and strengthening exercises for Trixie, using a box and a peanut ball.  Petra is thrilled with how well Trixie has healed and prognosis is great.  Trixie was her typical ham, doing every trick for the treats as she was shown how to do the stretches.  Trixie offered silly behaviors like jumping all the way up on the ball or cheating by stepping on the treadmill for support.  Anyway, I know what our homework is and away we went with our newly purchased peanut ball and list of exercises.

Due to the big storm, field training is cancelled for the week and we're not sure when we'll be able to resume.  Lots of other fun and important things to work on while we are home.  More tomorrow!