And a new year has happened

 

Hard to believe that my last post was before Christmas last year.  To say that 2012 sucked would be an understatement of massive proportions.

2013 has been a kinder place for us.  Lots of changes. 

I am no longer a raw feeder.  I hate the kibble thing, but clearly the goals I set out to achieve by raw feeding were not met.  In spite of my beliefs that I was doing the right thing, I lost 2 dogs to things related to gatro-intestinal stuff.  RockIt to cancer (and a rare one at that), Fiesta to gallstones.  

All dogs look fine on kibble - Aidan and Focus are both allergic to grain, but that's easy enough to get around.  So off the podium and into the crowd of kibble feeders I go.

Started trialing again - it is my 2nd generation of dogs now - 8 inch corgi is now Poppy and 20 inch border collie is Voodoo, not much comfort there with the 2 of them yet, but it will come.  Ben will run one day at the GSD trial next month, but he is primarily retired now (very hard to even write that), but the blessing in that is he is around to be retired - the last few months have taught me that there are sadder outcomes than that.

I am going this week for my 6 month check up mammogram.  Trying not to get paranoid, there is nothing to do but go with the flow however it turns out - so why worry so much?

Had the brief and fun thought to breed Poppy with a magnificent corgi named Hogan.  The best jumper and most graceful corgi I have ever seen.  However he came back 'at risk' for DM and Poppy is a carrier, so the thought has been erased and Poppy will be spayed at the end of agility season this year.  It's a wonderful thing to have the genetic test in place to find these things out, but secretly I think that Poppy would have made an awesome mom!

Interesting how the dynamics have changed in my house in going from 11 to 8 and not necessarily for the better.  I think it became easier for everyone when Harley left because he had become so confused and upset all of the time, it must have been a constant tension for everyone, but apparently Fiesta and RockIt were more in charge of emotional content than I would have thought.

Today I  spent the day in a karma reduction workshop with Satyabhama who is the widow of Thomas Ashley-Ferrand - I have actually never chanted with a group of people before - cool stuff. 

And also - Poppy earned her first big girl dbl q last weekend - nice to accomplish and good to have everyone in excellent.  I have resigned myself to always having an 8 inch and 20 inch dog (which implies a long trial day no matter what venue) - but at least we are all collected in excellent where I can keep track of us. Having misc dogs in different jump heights and differing classes is hard for the brain and makes for even longer days.