Long-Awaited Update

I am so sorry to my readers (if there are any, lol) for not keeping this blog up to date lately. A LOT of crazy things have happened since the last time I wrote, and as a result I lost the motivation (and time) to keep up. But, things have settled down somewhat now and I'm feeling the itch to blog again.

I don't want to leave anything out, but at the same time I don't want to write several posts for each individual event, so I think it's best if I just give one big brief summary of everything that's happened since last winter.

Racing: The two big announcements are that Pi finished his GRC in March, and Rietsu earned her first GRC points by going High Score at her first ever race meet! We can't wait to see how she does as she gets older and more experienced.

Photos by Nolan Cromwell

Lure Coursing: Unfortunately we don't get around to doing much lure coursing, but we did have two trial weekends back in March and May with the RACE AOK9 program. In March, Rietsu ran for her certification and passed with flying colors, allowing her to enter the trials in May. The first day of the May trials, we had three MAs and one Saluki running in a stake. The scores were very close in the prelim runs, but I don't like doing run-offs with my dogs so I forfeited. That left the final results for the day being Rietsu in 1st, Bukra in 2nd, Pi in 3rd, and Gil in 4th. Gil was a little lame after the first day so I scratched him from Sunday's trial. Sunday we had four MAs and one Saluki in the same stake. Again, the runs were very competitive and close. Final placements for the day were Bukra in 1st, Pi in 2nd, Rietsu in 3rd, Gator in 4th, and Patti was NBQ.

 Photos by Ruthye Cole

Conformation: At the end of March, Rietsu competed in a UKC show down in Fresno. With no other sighthound competition we weren't expecting much, but she thrilled us all with an awesome Best in Show win under Judge Gary Andersen! That gives her one competition win towards her UKC Conformation Championship.

 Photo by Jairi Rai

Dock Diving: Pi has competed in a few dock diving events this year, but hasn't really done anything noteworthy, lol. Still, he enjoys it and when temperatures get really high it's one of the few dog sports we can partake in.

Well, I think that's mostly it (except for one other thing which I will make a separate post for). I promise to make a concerted effort to keep the blog up to date, especially as we head into the fall and winter months when sighthound sports really get going.