Picture Day

I grabbed my camera and took some pics for Kenny's website today.  We've had a good run as of late and it's fun to immortalize it.

Darbi's son Turq (Backwater Smokin Turq).

On the right: Darbi's daughter Meg (Elmingo's Prime Suspect), along with "Danny", who we train.

And the three two year olds we qualified for the Canadian National.  It's pretty impressive.  Two of these pups are Miikka kids and I'm very proud of them all.

Left to right:  Zink (Elmingo's Little Man), Libby (Elmingo's Flip Your Lid) and Riot, whose a riot (LKY's Controlled Chaos).

If you remember, it was just over a year ago that I took a pic of the same three "amigos" for finishing 1st, 2nd and 3rd in a Derby in Missouri...they have come a long ways.

So...the elephant in the room...Darbi is the only dog we took up there that didn't qualify for the Canadian National.  She's been running "up and down".  She went 8 series one week-end in Canada, and then went out in the first series both days another week-end.  Kenny tells me that is entirely normal for an "old" dog.  They are unreliable and generally only do what they feel like at this age.  Darbs will be 10 in a couple months.  But she's finished 3 of the 6 US Opens she's run so far this year, so it's not all bad.  We'll keep going forward with her, and I may make another swing up to Canada in a month or so if I feel like she wants another shot to qualify.

But Darbs has been put on a long term arthritis medication for now.  After a long examination and talk with my wonderful vet, we decided that it was best for Darbi.  She doesn't have any obvious lameness that people can see with their older trial dogs, but she does have some aches and pains and general body stiffness.

Darbi owes me nothing.  When she says she's done, she's done and that's that.  But she hasn't told me that yet...she bounces at the door to get on the dog truck and go training every day and she come off the truck at training a little (too) exuberant sometimes.

The vet said he saw no obvious issues with her eyes and it appears she sees mostly fine.  I guess she only looks at what she wants to look at.  I have no problem with it.  Every day I get to spend with her, trialing or not, is a bonus with a senior dog.

Whatever she wants to do is fine by me.