838/ 2 days = A Weekend

This weekend Ben and I covered a total of 838 miles for dog events which meant a lot of time spent on the road, not a lot of sleep, copious amounts of caffeine and most importantly spending lots of time in fields, but at least it was sunny and warm. You might be asking yourself  what would cause us to do this, well we enjoy doing these activities with our dogs and seeing them grow in their abilities and of course spending time with our friends who are also into doing dog activities. If we had kids we would probably be those parents that were running their kids to all their different activities/play dates but since we don't, we have dog activities.

Saturday was the craziest day with Ben and I heading in separate ways, each with a dog. Ben was heading to Koopman Farms in Oakville with Odin for his Master Hunter test at the Puget Sound Vizsla Club's (PSVC) hunt test at the lovely hour of 4:30am since he had the first brace of the day. I had the luxury of getting to hit the road a little later at 6:30am with Loki to head to the Northwest Pointing Dog Association's (NWPDA) Field Trial which was being held at the Shillapoo Wildlife Area in Vancouver since we were in brace 1 of open puppy.

Ben and Odin were braced with our friend Andy and his Irish Setter Chase so it made for an interesting run since both Odin and Chase have been having some struggles this season. Andy and Chase had a very short run and took themselves before he every got to the bird field. Ben and Odin did a little better and at least got to the bird field before they had issues and were eliminated.

Loki and I were up for an adventure as I was handling him in the field trial for the first time ever since our trainer wasn't able to be at the event. While I had thought that maybe I would see if another handler would run Loki for me I decided and ultimately knew that I would never hear the end of it from our trainer and the other guys who we see at each event so off were were for 15 minutes of what everyone said would be a fun time. After making our way through 5ft tall grass, blackberries and thistle, a few hiccups with the run and some cuts (on me not Loki) we were done with our run. When the judges stared to announce placements and withheld 2-4th in the open derby I knew we weren't guaranteed to get a placement unless we earned it and were happy to walk away with our 4th place finish in open puppy. While Chris would have been able to get the 1st with him since Loki was on and running good I am happy with our 4th place since I did myself.
                                        
Sunday, we both headed back to Koopman's with both Odin and Loki since they were both running in their respective classes. Odin and Ben had a much better run but and made some improvements in areas before Odin decided he knew better and headed straight for the bird field since he knows the course too well and punked Ben so they were sadly eliminated from the test. Since Odin is going to take a while to finish his Master Hunter title (average for people is 2-4 years to accomplish it) we decided that Ben should run Loki and get his final pass to finish his Junior Hunter title. Ben and Loki had a good run despite Lok's running very big and on the edge of the field for the most part, but he did find two birds and got his pass. This last pass completed the 4 he needed to get his Junior Hunter title.
                                        
Now he's back to field trials in pursuit of his puppy point before he hits 15 months old in August while Odin and Ben continue to work on master hunter.

Junior Hunter

Yesterday Ben and Loki wrapped up his hunt test season by running in his last junior hunter test at the Puget Sound Vizsla Club's hunt test at Koopman farms. As usual Loki ran big and on the edge of the fields but had two good points and handled well for Ben which resulted in him getting his 4th and final pass to earn his Junior Hunter title.

Pending AKC confirmation, Loki will get a title after his name and will now be know as- Lacey Mtn's B Campbell Little Jester, JH "Loki"

Double, Double.

This weekend we headed to Koopman Farm in Oakville, WA for the Washington Brittany Club (WBC) and German Shortharied Pointer Club of Washington's (GSPCW) doube, double hunt test event with Odin and Loki. We entered the boys in one event each day since we didn't want to over-run them and we were also not eligible to run in one of the WBC's events since Tina Tewes who is our trainers wife was a judge and it would cause raised eyebrows if we ran under her and passed. 

Saturday when we arrived our first order of business was to connect with Chris and determine where Odin was in his his honoring skills since he had spent the last three weeks with the trainer working on this. We decided that since Odin has been having some tough tests lately and had been listening to Chris lately he should run him and Ben would have  fun run with Loki since the grounds were less than ideal for the test. What should have been a fun run for Ben turned out to be a little nerve wracking since he only had one point at the very end of the 15 minute test and ran much bigger than Ben would have liked but they had fun overall and most importantly he got a pass. Odin sadly didn't have a positive run and had one of these freak situations that you can't really train for happen with a bird and bombed his Master Hunter test.
                                       
Sunday we were up bright and early to make the 2 hour trek again to Oakville (why didn't we stay the night south?) since Loki was running at 9:30am. Since we were on the same course as the day before we decided that it would be better for Ben to run him again and hopefully have some fun before running Odin. Since the other course required the dogs and handlers to be driven to the starting line I didn't get to see it again but when they came back, Ben was happy and reported that he had been offered to collar Loki before time expired since the judges saw everything they needed from him and he had two points and the judges wanted to give the other dog a chance to point a bird. Needless to say Loki earned his 3rd leg towards his JH title. Ben had a decent run with Odin that afternoon as well with him actually doing an honor and he showed signs of improvement in some areas.
                                          
Next up is another round of hunt tests this weekend for Odin and Ben who will be back at Koopmans both Saturday and Sunday and one last one hopefully for Loki to finish his JH Sunday after already being in a field trial on Saturday with Chris down in Vancouver, Guess it's gonna be a busy weekend with lots of driving but at least we have both boys home again.

Happy Father's Day!

Wishing our two fathers, Howard & Gary, and all of our friends who are dads lots of joy and celebrations with their families today.

Going to the birds

Ben's pigeon loft residents arrived this weekend...all 15 of them. Yes, that rights we now have 15 homing pigeons living in the loft and so far they are eating and drinking and seem to be acclimating well.

Last night Loki got to finally see the new residents since he has been hearing and smelling them since he came home and boy ways he curious. He ran around the loft a couple of times, pointed the birds and generally was quite perplexed that he could see them but couldn't get to them. Based on his reaction to the pigeons we can only imagine what Odin will think when he comes home on Saturday.

Almost First

It is definitely the season for field trails and hunting activities since we headed to Vancouver again (Sauvie Island is still under water) for another early morning FT. This weekends event was being put on by the Oregon Wireharied Pointer Club and was worth 1 point in the open puppy class since there were seven puppies entered. Loki's run was great for the first 12 minutes according to Chris but a little less than perfect for the last 3. Chris reported that he wasn't surprised by this sicne all puppies have at least one less than stellar run and wasn't sure if he would place this weekend.

When the placements were being announcned and the 4th place finish went to another dog we all figured he was out of the ribbon placements but to all of our surprise he ended up getting a second place finish and Chris found out from the judges that had it not been for those last 3 minutes he would have been first. We were all just thrilled that even with the less than stellar ending he was still able to finish 2nd. Up next are another round of hunt tests to hopefully complete the Junior Hunter title and then back with Chris for a week of prep for another trial at the end of June. 

Chris Tewes of Double Gun Ranch and Loki showing off his
2nd place finish in open puppy at the OGWPC FT



The Toy Arrived

The toy, I mean tractor was delivered yesterday morning and Ben couldn't be more happy. As expected I came home to him running driving around the yard with it and finding anything that he could pull out of the ground with the bucket to use it. Thankfully we have lots of blackberries and brush that can be cut back to keep him entertained for a while.

Baking Ben

One of the great things about our new house is that since it was older it already had a very large garden area with 4- 4' x 12" raised beds, onions, blueberry shrubs, and rhubarb. Since we never had the space at our old house since we were happy to see the space for growing a garden.

Over the last few weeks our rhubarb sprouted up from very small stocks to very large stocks so Ben decided that it was time to harvest some. After a few minutes alone in the garden he came back with an armful which was way more than I was expecting and needing for a pie which is about the only thing I know to use rhubarb in other than jam.

Ben decided strawberry rhubarb pie was in order since I had bought strawberries earlier and got busy with washing and chopping the ingredients.  After a quick look through the cookbook we found Betty Crockers rhubarb pie and modified it a little sincee we were adding strawberries. After making a mess of almost every mixing bowl in the kitchen the pie was ready for baking. An hour later when I pulled it out I was surprised to see that it hadn't exploded all over the oven since Ben loaded the pie way above the crust. Guess Ben can make the pies from now on since this one tasted great.

Yeah For Loki!

This past weekend Loki competed in his second field trail in the open puppy class with  his trainer Chris Tewes of Double Gun Ranch. The German Shorthaired Pointer Club of Oregon (GSPCO) walking field trial was supposed to be held at Sauvie Island but due to flooding they moved the event to Vancouver Lake.

There were 8 under 15 month old puppies this weekend in the open puppy class at the triall so he had some good competition and his brace mate ended up being one of the dogs he was braced with at the hunt test a couple of weekends ago. The weather was also on the warm side so this was the first time he has run in an event in 70+ degree weather which can make a dog sluggish especially when they have lots of fur like he does.

We are happy to report that once again he is proving he is a great little hunter at 12 months old since he placed 2nd in the group at the trial. Here's looking forward to this weekend's field trial and hoping for a first place finish with points :)

Boys and Their Toys

The one thing I have learned over the year's is the men never really grow up and still are little boys at heart but now their toys cost a whole LOT more. This weekend Ben proved this as we headed down to Brim Tractor in Sumner to look at you guessed it, tractors.

Ben has been talking about needing a tractor to maintain the 5 acres of fun that we bought back in October before the ink was dry on the papers but decided to wait a while to make sure he really needed one and could justify the cost. For those of you who have never bought or would ever need to buy a tractor a brand new one can be more expensive than some cheap cars. So after making it through the winter and all of the snow we had without one and after doing plenty of research on John Deere's, Kubota's and New Holland's Ben finally decided that he wanted a New Holland tractor, so we headed to Brim to look at the model he had landed on and to discuss the details. After about an hour of discussion between Ben and the salesman, a walk around the lot looking at the different models and features available Ben is now the owner of  brand new 2011 20hp, hydrostatic 4x4 New Holland tractor and two New Holland hats.

His new toy gets delivered this Friday after work so I am sure he will find a use for it right away even though we mowed the lawn this weekend.