finally home.

yep, tractor and i (and his sisters!) are all back from our very LONG trip to chicago. i figured the dogs would be EXHAUSTED after the long three weeks they had.. but not tractor! he's already making it very apparent to me that he wants that busy, busy, busy schedule back!

while we were out there, while staying with our great friend and one of the vp's favorite aunts, brittany - we got to do a lot of trips to the dog parks, ponds etc. then once we made it to whitney and grant's, we had class 3x per week and event after event. we even got to spend an entire day at the farm practicing EV! it was a very exciting day (thank you grant and whitney for your patience!), as tractor grabbed a 7' jump! it made me very hopeful that he would at least attempt it at the next dock event.


as i mentioned, we had that lab specialty trial in beloit, wi - and while we had a great time, we didn't Q. :( that's alright, we'll have four akc trials this fall to work on those novice titles. hopefully come 2009, we'll be in open standard, open jww and open fast!

after that agility trial, we headed a couple more hours west, to dubuque, ia where there was the annual river fest. this event was a dock dogs event, sponsored by the outdoor channel. whitney managed to somehow get us signed into EV at the last minute, and tractor jumped his way up from 5' to 6'4'' - 2'' at a time! at 6'4'' they stopped the competition, as there were only four dogs left.. us included!! we had made finals!!

the finals were that night and they are going to be televised sometime in august. i was extremely nervous and am sure i fumbled up the interviews good, but that's alright.. its about tractor.. and of course he looked/performed fabulously!

we ended up placing 2nd in EV, and he got a $50 check and a snazzy little ribbon to show for it! i was beyond happy with the results and could not be prouder of my bitty boy. i am excited for the next dock dogs event, this one was a much better experience than the last.

we have class once this week (still trying to get settled!!) and then four days next week because next weekend.. we are off to southern california for a NADAC trial. we have a busy, busy summer coming up - lots of agility and dock diving, so stay tuned!