Shimmy goes to the Beach

Shimmy had a super fun weekend going to Galveston and the beach. I can't stress enough how proud I am of my little girl. She's not a big water dog, but we worked on being comfortable swimming and the waves coming at her. She's still not a huge fan of the waves, but is starting to enjoy it more and more. Debra's girls, Jenni and Shelby, are avid beach goers and showed Shimmer that the water and the beach really aren't that bad. Yesterday, she did a lot of swimming and we rode the ferry to and from Bolivar Island. Sadly, dog have to stay in the car, so Shimmy didn't get to watch the dolphins with me, but she did get to ride on a ferry! Today we just spent a little while at the beach, and then headed to The Spot, for lunch. The dogs were allowed outside on the patio so they really felt special being able to come eat lunch with us. The food was awesome, by my standards, and I think Shimmer really enjoyed the bits and pieces she got as well. I posted some but not all pictures to facebook and will add a few here. Got lots of great shots though, and a very tired dog now. She's been laying under my bed sleeping and dreaming since we got back about 1 hour ago. Also, puppies turn one week old tomorrow. I can hardly believe it! They're growing up quickly. I'll be getting a weigh in update as well as pictures later. Might post those, might not. It really just depends. Doctors appointment and what not tomorrow. Then Tuesday night we have agility class, we might head back to College Station Thursday to get some more things up there, since I have accumulated a shitload throughout the summer. That's still a maybe though. Then it's one more weekend in Houston. We go back to College Station August 19th. School starts in 3 weeks and 1 day...um ew. Hopefully, I'll be able to survive this semester. Omelette Dog is going to have to start brushing up on her Calculus, Physics, and Organic Chemistry so she can help me with homework!

By PUPular Demand...

Several of you have asked me, "where are the individual pictures?" I was going to save them and just have them in the video, but since you won't know who I'm picking until I post that, I figure I'll be nice and post the pictures. :) So many wonderful puppies to chose from! All have been doing really well today and eating lots. These next couple of weeks are going to fly. Anyone have any favorites? Feel free to share and let me know why. Of course I'm going to wait to make my pick until the personalities come out and I see more of them, but so far I have my 2 favorite boys. :)

Edit: Melinda and I just gave the litter their theme and named them all. The theme is The Wrecking Crew. All have Texas A&M related names... :)
Female 4 (White)
Female 3 (Maroon)
Female 2 (Wildcat)
Female 1 (Howdy)
Female 5 (Reveille)
Female 4 (White)
Female 3 (Maroon)
Female 2 (Wildcat)
Female 1 (Howdy)
Female 5 (Reveille)
Male 4 (Whoop)
Male 3 (Hullabaloo)
Male 3 (Hullabaloo)
Male 4 (Whoop)
Male 2 (Gig 'Em)
Male 1 (Aggie)
Male 1 (Aggie)
Male 2 (Gig 'Em)

Welcome to the World

Today was a super eventful day with going up to College Station, Tx, picking up the key to the new place, moving some of my stuff in and what not. It was great seeing the place empty and really getting to check it out. I can't believe school is right around the corner. I've got almost all of my stuff out of storage already, so the weekend we move in shouldn't be too terrible seeing as I've got a head start. But, this was the bland part of today....

Piper had her puppies today. I got a text at 2:34pm, from Marisa, letting me know that Piper was beginning to have the pups. We got home and not soon after that puppy number one was welcomed. She had about 10-15 minutes between the first 5 puppies (2 girls and then 3 boys). Then came the break, and we suspected one or two more. 2 little girls came out back to back and we thought that the count was 7 and that was that. To our surprise, Piper had another little girl come just a few minutes later. Surely, that was it, we thought. Piper, being the generous momma she is, gave me one more boy to choose from. Although looks aren't my main priority, this last boy has a full white collar and both front legs are black. He should be a looker, and I can't wait to see individual pictures. We should get those later tonight, I'm just waiting for them and will post them as soon as I have them. For now, these two pictures will have to do. One is a bit blurry, but it's a picture nonetheless. 5 beautiful girls and 4 handsome boys thanks to Piper and Jake. I can't wait to watch these little ones grow up. I'm so excited to finally get to go through the puppy experience. It should be an adventure! Welcome to the world little ones! The journey awaits...

Any Day Now...

It's almost puppy time! I'm still debating back and forth between names and which one would work and which one wouldn't. What sounds good, what will work, though I'm sure I won't know until I know for sure who I'll pick. I'll be pretty busy for the next couple of weeks though, so hopefully my mind will someone be kept off of *constant* puppy thoughts. Beach next weekend with Shimmy, Mom, Debra, Jenni, and Shelby. Should be a great weekend filled with fun in the sun and on the sand. I'll be sure to get tons of pictures. Facebook I'm sure will get bombarded with a) beach pictures and b) puppy pictures (depending on when they are born). August 20-21 is the weekend Shimmy and I officially move into the new place at College Station. It'll be a busy weekend and then Gig 'Em Week followed by school starting on August 29th. Is it really almost time for the torture again? I'm sort of not ready. I'm also fairly certain I was either drunk or high when I picked my classes for this semester...did I seriously think this would work? Eh, we'll see how I do. The sooner school starts though, the sooner I'll get back into the busy rhythm and it'll be great to have about a month to get back into the swing of things before I have a psycho little border collie running around the house. For now, I'm just continuously enjoying my best little Omelette dog. I do treasure just the moments I have with her. She's my best girl. Currently drying up from her bath after the dog park (yes we still went because I don't want to be unfair seeing as she loves it so). Of on another topic, we went to IKEA today and purchased my shelf for super dog stuff organizing, and maybe a couple of textbooks will be worthy of sitting on the shelf as well. Knowing me, the textbooks will most likely get dumped somewhere in a corner (but up high so that the puppy doesn't decide that they're a snack). That would be bad considering I'm poor by the end of the school year and I'll need to sell my books back. I'm excited to decorate my new room, but it's not nice that anything that's not "normal wear and tear" which does not include nailing anything to the wall is not allowed. I wish I could hang the dog butt up again...I now have two-one for each dog. Also, there will be no hanging of other stuff. I might try tickytack or some other kind of adhesive stuff. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to share. I kind of like having my walls not be completely bare. Either way, I'm sure I'll find some way to make the room unique. :) Lots of fun stuff coming up for the month of August!

Omelettes and Agility Classes

So, I figured I'd do a post about agility class last night. I figured Shimmy would still be up for class, but be a bit chill since we had just finished 4 days of showing. I was sort of wrong. As Renee put it, "She's on fire!" And, I really think she enjoys class. It's so great being able to drop in, she gets so excited and really gives me her all. She loves seeing all of her friends, dog and people. After running our sequences she even ran towards the teeter on the side of the field as her own reinforcement...my dog has made huge strides. We were also able to go into the other field to practice a bit on our own afterwards. Shimmy wow'ed me as usual. Her contacts were super speedy and she read me so well. She had one of those fly over the aframe moments. I guess low-fat omelettes are light enough to do that occasionally. :) We can't wait to do it again next week! I'll be so sad to go back to College Station because I'm really going to miss the occasional drop in, but hopefully we'll be able to come by during our winter break. It's been great to practice and see how she grows. She did great on the first sequence and surprised me by being super perfect on the tricky part that a lot of dogs were having problems with. Of course I messed her up on the easy part. Shimmy says a new handler just might be in order if I can't get my act together. The second sequence was a tad more flowy though my arms were sort of everywhere. Thanks to Renee for reminding me to not epically flail while running my dog. That's kind of a plus...She rocked that one as well though. She did great and had that super big smile on her face. I'll try to be good and get some clips at class next week if my camera decides not to be difficult. It's unpredictable though, so I can't make any promises unfortunately. Not sure why it's having a midlife crisis....

Ranting on Adulthood...

It occasionally sucks. I look back and realize now how carefree and cool life was when I was a kid. Sure, not everyone told you everything, you had to be good, go to bed on time, you couldn't buy what you wanted all the time, but life was pretty darn awesome. I think what gets me most about financial aid, the fact that they send you an e-mail, you have no idea by what time you need certain paperwork filled out, and they just give you a website url. Then it's up to you to scavenger hunt the website for hours, trying to find what paperwork you need to fill out and then second guess yourself. Of course, you can always call the people at the financial aid office, but even they don't know exactly by what day you need this and if this paperwork applies to this loan or what not. Why not just send me an e-mail with a link or download to all the applications you need, the addresses to which they need to be returned to, and the deadline for each. My wonderful cousin was going to help me, since she did last year, but sadly she's on a business trip until beginning August, and being the worrier I am, and distribution starting on August 20th, I don't want to be late or miss the deadline. The sooner you get things in, the quicker you get your money distributed to you. But, no, they have to make it super complicated. So now I have 3 or 4 different forms pulled up, none of which I'm sure I even need, except maybe the one...but that's still a maybe. Aside from that, the social responsibilities of figuring out how to set things up for the new house and the lack of communication there is really doesn't help the situation. I kind of just want to crawl back to bed and sleep for a while, but no, adults don't do that. They deal with things...all I can say is, "This sucks."

Reliant (Sunday)

Day 4 was a bittersweet day. This is our favorite show of the year, and to have it end so quickly was really sad. We did our best to enjoy the last day though. We only had Exc A JWW as well as Open STD. I'm glad I didn't do T2B because someone was super tired! Poor girl worked hard. I'm really excited because we found a comfortflex for her that was maroon and her perfect size. One very good purchase made at Reliant along with oodles of treats for my girl. Here are the results from today's show.

Exc A JWW-NQ
She had a refusal at the second jump. Totally my fault for not encouraging her enough for a quick start. We redid the jump though and ran the rest clean with a good amount of speed. She handled the crowds well today. We also made the super tough weave entry a lot of dogs weren't getting, so I was very happy with that.
Open STD-Q/1st
Exhausted by this point, we started out really slow and had the most pathetic weaves you'd have ever seen. She had a great performance on each contact obstacle though an read me well. We still came out with the Q though. Only one more Q until this girl is in excellent standard...who'd have thought it?

All in all I was incredibly amazed at her ability to handle the show this year. She ran 7/10 runs clean with 6 firsts, 1 third, and her NA title. Out of the three NQs, the first was a minor mistake made by me, the second was due to stress which we overcame (yay), and the third was due to another minor mistake by yours truly. One more Q for her AXJ, one more Q for her OA, and one more Q for her OF. Hopefully we'll be able to do one AKC in October or something. Next thing is hopefully the USDAA in September in College Station. My girl and I have worked really hard and are getting to where we want to be. I couldn't be happier with her right now. I have the best little dog. Truly do. She tries so hard and it really shows. This next week we'll rest up after this crazy show and just enjoy relaxing. It was fun, but we're definitely ready for some good sleep! Farewell, Reliant...until we meet again next year. Let the countdown for Reliant 2012 begin! :)