The dog show was good...not great but good. I was pretty tired after 3 days of showing and was really ready for a day OFF. My dogs did well with both Jonah (Ital. Greyhound) and Katy Did (Whippet) earning their titles. Dusk and Ivy my Aussies worked at a higher level and earned "legs" towards their titles which will come later. Judy came to watch on Tuesday. As luck would have it when we went over to check out the group rings, the hounds were showing. Zoolander (Lori G.'s greyhound boy) was in the ring strutting his stuff. The group ring is a lot of work and Zoo looked great!! Many of you may remember meeting Zoo at the picnic.

All of the greyhound girls are here with me now. What a nice bunch of girlies. It is hard to pick a favorite!! Tomorrow starts the shuffle to get them all to the vet and ready to start their look for homes. And of course we still have wonderful Ducky waiting!! We will be getting pictures of the new girls in the next day or so.

For those of you who missed the picnic or want to remember it... Darrin put a snip of video up on You Tube. There are such classic moments as Kerry and Barb getting their picture with their four greyhound boys....this is before the little girl pup arrives to turn their world upside down. Our girl Katie telling us about her fund raising efforts and of course Brent masterfully playing the crowd and donning on "The Psychedelic Dream Socks"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iiUPgI_U3-Y

Good news bad news..... The bad news is Farley will not be coming to Montana....the good news is the reason is he has HOME!!! So we are back to 4 girls.

Here is the web site so you can watch them cross the country http://k8nkc.com/June20-2008/

.

OK I can't resist....check this out http://www.idodogtricks.com/index_flash.html Give him commands like dance, sing, play dead, roll over and don't forget to ask for a kiss!!

Dogs are coming this Saturday night!!! We are getting a total of 5. If you want to be on the call list to come meet them and help bathe them contact Carol at tripps@bearcreekfjords.myrf.net Be sure to email her your phone number. It will probably be late....they are saying 11 PM but that can shift a couple hours either direction depending on what happens en route. So here is who will be coming in...

Prima Intrepid - 9 year old Fawn Female - We don't have a picture of her. Kate in Kansas practically begged us to take her. She said Intrepid needed to move!! So we will scootch over and make a little room for a little red headed old lady.

Spazz is a 4.5 year old black girl. She will be shopping for a new name soon I believe. She is small and sweet tempered.
Skipper - White with black female. Her race name was Jill Walker she is 5 years old and loves loves people. Her father is related to Judy and Brent's old girl Frosty. Skipper's dad is Frosty's uncle. So I guess that makes them cousins. She has 5 pups on record and had a decent race career. Now she will retire to Montana.

June - Black 4 year old female. Happy and cat tested fine (of course we will retest her). She had a full race career running in mostly "A" and "B" races. She was in the money a lot. With a race name of Love in June how could you go wrong?
UPDATE....Never mind.....Farley was spoke for and is headed to a HOME....he won't be headed to Montana
Farley - He raced under the name of Dutch Farley. They refer to him as a "Brushstroke Brindle" as he only has a few stripes. He is very super friendly and cat tested fine. Kate said he was just awesome!! It is funny how attached you start to get to the dogs that are ordered for here. Each one you feel is going to be the best one ever. It becomes hard to pick a dog who you are the most excited to meet. I will have to wait to meet them....Sunday kicks off the big dog show in Missoula and I will be busy showing 4 dogs. So all the pups will head to Tripps for the first few days then come to my place after the show on Tuesday. BTW if anyone wants to come to the show but needs to know what is going on the schedule is posted at http://www.fivevalleykennelclub.org/ The show is Sunday, Monday and Tuesday....if you want to see much you have to come out early. Itis not at all uncommon for a show to be wrapping up by about 1 PM.

The picnic was a BLAST!!! I wish more folks had been able to come out...but we were having too much fun to miss you...AND we made some $$ for the hounds. Katie B. came out and told us how after she met the greyhounds at the mall she decided to put out donation jars for greyhounds. She collected a nice sum for donation. I am impressed with her initiative. Speaking of which thanks of those who rounded up the donations for the auction. As soon as Run was adopted her new family started asking for donations and they rounded up some great gift certificates...Thanks Jen!! Also in the crowd was Amber, a referral from Jen...love that new adopter enthuasiam!! Amber just turned in her application and came out to meet some of the available hounds...it wasn't long before she and Merlin were swooning...she is anxious to have her home visit done so she can ADOPT. Foster dog Ducky made the debut of her adorable collar that has little rubber duckies on the fabric. Thank you to Ducky's Auntie Glenda at Collar Closet in NJ. She also donated a couple of cute collars for the auction.

The auction was well stocked with a variety of things, a nearly new complete dell computer, gift certificates, artwork, dog coats and even a cherry pie!! Kathy B. brought her insanely wonderful red pepper jelly. Trish brought some wonderful pendants handcrafted by her son who is a glass artist in Bozeman and she brought Stroopwafle cookies....YUM...a new addiction!!! I made some wild colored socks with a matching fleece dog coat for the auction. Remember those black light posters that were popular in the 70's? This is where the fabric got inspiration for it's colors, black background and wild oranges, yellows, blues and purples. Somehow in Brent's effort to raise the bid he said something to the effect that for a price he would model those crazy socks...then it became for $50 he would wear them the rest of the day. Bek was trying to rally the crowd to throw in together and come up with the money. Then out of the noisy banter came Lou Elmore's quiet steadfast voice...."I'd like to see that...I offer $50!" The bidding ended and Brent pulled on the socks while Lou looked on with eyes dancing. Judy was thankful there were only socks and not any underwear in the auction!! But that is another story....a true story...better left for her to tell. Then came what I thought might be the saddest part of the day....the stained glass that had graced my window for a couple of days came up on the auction block. All my hopes of them forgetting it were dashed. The bidding took off and as it slowed I jumped in. When it ended I had the winning bid!! WOOHOO!!! The stained glass will stay right where it is to be treasured!! As the day wound down I cruised over to the Collar Crazy's booth just to see if they had a collar I couldn't live without. Of course it took me all of 30 seconds to spot the perfect collar for Tava...yes another one!! I also scored a candle and some dog cookies from Big Dog Spa. Next year we are looking at the second week end in July. Put it on your calendar NOW and start a little piggy bank for next year's auction. In the meantime if you are feeling sad you missed out be sure to visit our donors and soothe your need to spend money.

The greyhound picnic is TOMORROW!!!

I can hardly believe it is here already. Tripps stopped by yesterday and brought a load of things for the auction including Carol's gorgeous stained glass greyhound artwork. We hung it up in my window in the training room...already I am attached to it...I will be sad when some lucky person buys it. There will be some good things in the auction I can't wait!!! Tripps also brought by the new GPA crate bank for here. I need to get plywood cut for the floors but it is here so everyone can see it. We bought it with money from the Belle Toll!! It is really nice and will house my foster pups.

Last Sunday was a tracking test up near Clearwater Junction. Dusk (my aussie boy) and I were lucky enough to be drawn to participate in the "Track Dog Excellent" test (TDX). It is a upper level test with a 800+ yard track over varied terrain with several corners and multiple articles for him to find. The articles can be anything from a glove, wallet, sock or anything fabric, plastic or leather. As if that isn't hard enough the track is aged over 3 hours AND it will have cross tracks. A cross track is two people who will walk across your track in 2 places. It is a difficult test with only a 15% pass rate nation wide. But Dusk is a fabulous tracker and I work hard to be a good handler and team mate for him. The morning was cool and wet but at least it wasn't pouring. After watching the first dog fail before he even got off the first leg of the track I was more determine than ever to focus. The first leg of my track followed under some power lines. The lines were humming and snapping in the wet weather. Dusk was not bothered by the static but I knew that this is why the first dog who is sound sensitive failed. Dusk did his first corner with out a problem and we sailed through the second leg. Another corner and we started up a slight slope. I saw him working his cross tracks by carefully checking them and then he was back on his track. Before long I saw his head dip and he blew air through his nose in a snort but then he kept going. I got to that spot and looked around but failed to see the first article. Dusk indicated but not in his typical way. We missed the first article....a plastic checkbook cover. We flunked at that point but since Dusk was tracking strong we were allowed to keep tracking without the judges but with the person who had laid the track. Another corner and we went along the side of the hill where he found the a ratty slipper which he grabbed and bought to me. This is how he usually indicates a article with a good retrieve!! Then our track turned up hill. It was a bit of a climb and I was puffing...busting a lung. When we crested the hill we had a panoramic view of the valley below with the filtered sun making diamonds of the rain drops. It was breathtaking!!! I wish I could some how capture it for all of you to share. I called to my tracklayer "This is Heaven!!". I felt such partnership and peace with my dog and the whole world. Dusk continued to track along the ridge until his head dropped down and he brought up his final article a leather glove. There is such joy in tracking with Dusk...my heart was full. Tracking is unlike any other dog sport in its demand for partnership. We didn't get our title this time but honestly I feel very satisfied with our work. We will try to get into the tracking test that will be held in the fall to get our TDX title. Working with a dog at such a high level is both exhilarating and humbling...I am a lucky girl.

REMINDER - June 7th is the big Greyhound Garage sale in Billings. Contact Trish or Bek if you need more details. They still need people to help out on the day of the sale.

The foster dog scene seems to be changing around here almost daily. Merlin, Gold and Chili are all spoken for!! Merlin will be heading north to Kalispell. He was chosen as a companion by a woman who needed a sweet and gentlemanly greyhound. Hopefully connections can be made this week end for him. If anyone is traveling between Missoula and Kalispell and can transport a pup please call Carol and Dan Tripp to make arrangements. His home is waiting to shower him with love.

When the Bjarko family of Sydney suffered the unexpected loss of their beloved greyhound boy Reese they felt the need to fill that hole with another greyhound boy. The problem became which greyhound boy. While mom fell in love with Gold the boys could not get Chili out of their minds. So they decided to jump in and adopt BOTH!! They are hoping to make the move this week end via a leap frog system of transport. It is all set up except the Great Falls to Havre leg. I for one am looking forward to the pictures of that homecoming!!

Dori will also move this week end. Kathy B. of Missoula has agreed to foster Dori. She goes into this knowing it likely will turn into a long term foster. Dori is very sweet but really needs a steady routine and prefers not to have men in the home. We were going to wait until the picnic for Dori to move but the more we chatted the more we got to thinking why wait? Dori may as well make the move and settle in. Tripps have given Dori excellent care and send her into her new foster home with a lot of love....they even say she can come back if she isn't happy...but we all have the feeling she will blossom under Kathy's tender care.

I have visited Run in her new home and she is settling in. Her name has been adjusted from generic Run to feminine Karly. Karly will learn her new name but I am not so sure I can be retrained. I need to call her by her right name after all I am her dog-god mother. She is doing wonderful and her new family are certain they got the best dog in the world. Which is exactly what every adopter should think.