I Love Fall

Fall and Spring, the two best seasons. Fall may be a little bit my favorite though, as I REALLY like it when Summer finally fades away. We’ve had some just perfect days, October is a magical month. The leaves in the forest are just starting to change, the crisp evenings, the beautiful skies. Makes me happy.

Trialing is so much more fun in the Fall as well! No more struggling to run in the heat, and the dogs love it too. We have a busy October planned, but it’s easy to relax and enjoy it all in the Fall. Today we had AKC, and the courses were very, well, AKC. But it’s not like I expect otherwise, we enjoyed ourselves.

So much goodness from the dogs! I barely know what to do with this Bright these days. No more weird freestyling, she’s back to her very consistent self – but better. Today was an epic day for Bright, there was a little girl running leashes for her first run and the girl tries coming up and HANDING the leash to me at the end of the run. And what did Bright do? She just ran up to the child, grabbed the leash out of her hands and brought it to me, like it was no big deal. Like she never used to try and run out of the ring if there was a child watching. I was just so happy to see her suddenly deciding not to be a dramaqueen about it all, there was much celebrating after that run – mostly just because of that moment!

Wasn’t even a fluke, check out this video and the kid standing RIGHT BEHIND Bright at the startline – and she didn’t even care!

So that just made my day right there. And Bright ended up qualifying in 3 out of 4 runs, we bobbled on a serp in Premier Jumpers, but other than that she was Little Miss Perfect. Even had two nice independent stopped dogwalks. I liked the schedule today, which started with the two premier classes. Which means they’ll probably never do it again.

And lots of good with Navarre too, I don’t think he did any sightseeing that I remember. He seemed a bit off in the weaves, kind of awkward and not driving like he can. I thought he missed a pole in jumpers, but the judge didn’t seem to think so – who am I to argue? He was trying really hard! He had his last T2B class for a while, it’s a great class for babies, but he’s now officially in Masters – we’re moving to Premier instead! Navarre finished off his AXJ today, he’s officially no longer a baby dog in AKC. Oh, and he beat Bright in jumpers, not by much, but he did – and Bright was her normal very efficient self.

The agility Navarre was doing well, but he was sort of acting weird otherwise. Admittedly, I expect him to act weird when I do a raspberry at him, but he was just being SUPER DRAMATIC. It’s his weird thing, normally a pretty solid guy, he just hates it if anyone does a even a tiny raspberry sound. But we have  been working on it, as I have been using it all the time with him, and he barely acknowledges it anymore … but this was different, apparently. He wouldn’t even look at me, he was being so dramatic he could have been a girl.

Also, before the raspberry incident, we were out walking with Carol’s dogs and Navarre had been right with us the whole time, nothing out of the ordinary. I stopped to take my camera out and the dogs are milling around and we hear someone way down in the ravine. Carol’s like, “Do we have all the dogs?” and I’m like, “yeah, they’re right here” – and they were … except for Navarre. He had gone way down into this forested area and I call and he finally comes running back … being chased by this GIANT intact mastiff, probably 140 pounds. And Navarre is like, “Holy shit!” as he runs back behind us. Demi to the rescue, Briards are ready to take on any giant mastiffs that come running up to them. Luckily the mastiff was reasonable and had no interest in tangling with Demi, went back to his owner and his other dog, a giant St. Bernard mix. Who had been innocently walking on the path down there before MY dog went and harassed them. A-hem. Yes, I was one of THOSE owners, I felt terrible – and it certainly could have gone very badly.

So after much apologizing we went back on our way, and suddenly Navarre was just on a mission, he just kept running off into the distance for no apparent reason, looking for god knows what. He’s normally so good, I had no idea where this sudden change of behavior came from. And he would come back when I called, but where he thought he was going, I have no idea. Of course, once we got back apparently there was a coyote spotted hanging out in that area. Maybe he thought after the mastiff he’d try taking on a coyote too. Hmmm. And he’s been, um, frisky with the cats and he started looking really pervy with a puppy he met as well. He may be having some Male Moments.

A fun day with the pups, though Haku thought there should be more Haku Time. Not to worry, Haku, your trial is coming up …