"I've got a great ambition to die of exhaustion rather than boredom."

After a crazy week of travel I came back for the weekend to judge a hunt test on Saturday. Today I entered the girls Noodle and Pizza. Noodle was entered for fun, Pizza was entered to hopefully get another Master Advanced pass towards her title. Pizza hasn't been to a hunt test or field trial since December of last year!

Pizza was in the first brace, and she did not disappoint. She was amazing! She went on point right away in the bird field and was perfectly steady, and had a pretty decent retrieve. I tried to stay out of the way to let my bracemate find a bid, and she ended up finding two more plus a perfect stop to flush, all were blanked. She finished with a couple nice honors to earn straight 9's and Master Advanced pass #4! We only need one more pass.

Noodle continued her wild ways. She went on point in the backfield, and her bracemate almost went over top of her to steal the point. She stayed perfectly steady through that. However, in the bird field she did a large (as in 10 foot) hop forward when the bird was shot. Thankfully she didn't completely break and reward herself with the retrieve, but I picked her up.

Noodle has failed 5 tests in a row now, which is weird since she had gone 12 straight passes in the past 2 years. It just goes to show that she is definitely not one of those robotic hunters...her enthusiasm gets the best of her sometimes (and I wouldn't have it any other way!).

Welcome home Bacon! It was a nicely kept secret that I was in the Pacific Northwest last week helping with puppy testing/evaluations...and today I flew home with our newest member of the family - "Bacon". In the puppy testing, she was bold, confident, quick to learn, agile, loved the water, natural retrieve, nice natural point on a live bird, and beautiful shoulder and hind angles. In other words, she is perfect for ME! Enjoy a massive photo dump below from our travels, the puppy testing, and her first evening home tonight:

It's been a whirlwind couple of days with our new addition! All three dogs have reacted differently to having a new puppy join the house. Pizza is OVERLY excited, Noodle pretty much ignores her, and Dolphin is a little afraid of her! I do have some weird dogs.

Bacon got to meet her new BFF Doree, who is my best friend/training partner's 4 month old border collie puppy. We went to Home Depot and to Lowes, where Bacon never met a stranger! She climbed on lumber, carts, could care less about the sounds in the building. We started some very basic training - hand touch, mat/place work, conformation stacking, and wobble board. Plus, of course, running all over the property with Dolphin and Noodle. It's been a great few days!

Bacon and her new BFF Doree

The past 3 days Bacon has had a ton of new fun experiences! We visited Home Depot and Lowes with her BFF, and started our foundations training. I just LOVE puppy training!

Noodle and I headed to a rally trial today, it was local so it was convenient. I was a bit worried since I haven't reained much at all the past few weeks, and definitely no training happened last week with our new addition. I shouldn't have worried, as Noodle was wonderful. Me? Not so much.

We started off in Master and I had a really good run with Noodle, but came out of the ring and saw my score was 89. Say what? I never do this, but I decided to ask the judge after the class where my deductions were. I know a couple of her fronts were crooked, but not 11 points worth. He said that on sign 110, I slid one foot back about an inch, and the sign description says 'without the handler moving their feet', so he called that an IP (incorrect performance) and took off 10 whopping points. Wow. I am usually pretty good about not moving my feet at all on those signs, and I am kind of surprised that I lost 10 points for apparently sliding my foot an inch, but so be it. It was really disappointing because I REALLY need those Master points towards our RACH, and while an 89 is qualifying, it is worth zero points.

We did really well in Excellent with a 99, and pretty goof in Advanced with a 98, so we earned non-master points (that we don't need). More importantly we earned triple QQQ #17, and we only need 3 more triple QQQs! However, we do need 57 more Master points, so that will take a bit with as little as I trial. It's not going to happen this year, but it will definitely be a solid goal to shoot for in 2026.

Bacon has settled in wonderfully! She now goes to bed in her crate in the kennel every night without any fuss, and sleeps most of the night. I have been getting up around 3am to take her out to potty, but usually I have to wake her up to do this. I am starting to stretch it to 4am now. I think she might be able to make it all night, but I don't want to take a chance and have an accident and hurt our potty training progress, so I will continue to get up for a few more weeks.

I can't believe we got our first measureable snow of the season this early! Bacon got to experience her first snow quickly in life. After breakfast, I took Dolphin, Noodle, and Bacon out to play in the snow. The two older dogs had a blast! Bacon was pretty interested in the snow, but more interested in running after me and after the other dogs. She doesn't seem to really like the cold, which I can't blame her since young puppies feel the cold much more deeply than adults. We had a great morning and I got some great photos of this life landmark.

Bacon got to meet my vet and his staff today for a general checkup. I received some concerning news when he listened to her heart - he found a grade 4 heart murmur. He said this could be just a puppy thing, though usually the puppy murmurs are grade 1-2. To be safe, we scheduled a visit with the cardiologist on Wednesday for an echo. Luckily this cardiologist travels to varous vet practices so he will come to my vat's to do it. I am concerned, but am trying to keep a positive mind.

Tonight Bacon had her first puppy class. She got to go to class with Doree, her border collie BFF. Bacon was so confident in the class around all the strangers and their much larger puppies. She was the youngest and smallest in the class, but she just oozed confidence. It was wonderful to watch!

It's been a busy but fun week with Bacon! Every day we do a little bit of training on various things. She is learning her cot stay (and we are adding distractions such as treats on the ground), hand-touch heeling, sit and down commands, standing and stacking for conformation, targeting front feet on a plate, and of course the usual fun wobble boards.

It is really cool to watch her interact with Noodle, Pizza and Dolphin. All three adult dogs have accepted her into the "pack" and have all decided she is a member of the family. Noodle tolerates her, she checks her out occasionally and even wags her tail a bit, but pretty much just puts up with Bacon's puppy antics with a long suffering air. For Noodle, this is the best thing possible. She is not overly bothered by her, just neutral. Bacon reads that really well, and while she does interact with Noodle a little bit, she's not over the top. Dolphin is starting to warm up to her and by the end of the week he was doing a little bit of playing with her. Mostly he interacts with her and then runs away. I think he likes to get her to chase him (and he loves that he can easily outrun her!).

Pizza is the one who absolutely LOVES her! Her tail goes a million miles a minute and she actively plays with Bacon. Bacon has such a good read on the dogs, because she understands that Pizza does want to play, so she initiates a lot more play with her than the other dogs. It's really fun to watch them. Pizza would have been the BEST mother!

On Wednesday morning I brought Bacon to agility class with Noodle. She was such a good girl and hung out quietly in her crate while I ran Noodle in class. She has really taken to crate training rather quickly.

On Friday Bacon attended her very first agility trial, as a spectator of course! She was greeted by hordes of people and loved every bit of the attention! She got to play with a couple other puppies, and she was passed off to multiple people who wanted to play with her. Overall it was a wonderful experience for her. She was not the least bit bothered by the sounds of the equipment or the dogs barking. It was a fun and exciting experience for her.

I know this date is out of order, but I just didn't have the stomach to post this until a week later. Bacon had her appointment with the cardiologist today for an echo of her heart. Unfortunately Bacon has a pretty serious congenital heart defect (I am posting the cardiologist's findings on this post, click to enlarge). Basically her heart valve on one side never formed correctly. This is a pretty random stroke of bad luck, as she comes from a long line of very healthy, strong Weimaraners...but as you know, sometimes weird things just happen for no reason. My horse friends who have followed my horse breeding escapades for the past 20 years know how many weird things have happened to me when breeding horses! Although I didn't breed Bacon, it is just another example of how you can do EVERYTHING right and still have something happen. It's called $hitty luck.

Everyone involved has been 100% supportive. Bacon, of course, has a home with us for life and she will live the BEST life for whatever time she might have (hopefully years!). Unfortunately there is no surgery or cure, we will just try to maintain her heart health as best we can with medication, and track her progression with regular heart echoes. We will do another echo when she is a year old and that will really tell us what sort of future she will have.

I am not handling this well. Not at all. Thank God Mark has the patience of a saint because my meltdowns have been epic. My heart is broken in a million pieces, but I accept that for some reason God sent this puppy to me to love and take care of and I will do that 100%. I am just finding it to be so damn unfair. 2 years trying to breed Pizza for my next puppy, then on a list for a puppy from another breeder and the breeding never took, and finally I battle all sorts of setbacks to get this puppy, and she ends up having a serious health issue. I am drowning in myself right now, that's what it feels like. This is all that I am going to post about this as no one wants to read recaps of my serious bouts of depression. Just know that it is there,, underlying everything I do.

Today I was one of the judges for the mock hunt test being held at our bird dog club. The best part was that Mark was one of the gunners! I ran Noodle in a mock Master Hunter test in the morning just for training. Of course, since it was only training, she was absolutely perfect. She had an amazing honor from a distance, had perfectly clean bird work and retrieve. The time in the field was exactly what I needed today. I have received some absolutely devastating news this week that has crushed me, and I am struggling. I will update what happened by back-dating and updating a few posts from earlier this week once I can wrap my head around this and find the words.

I took a break from the mayhem and took Dolphin to an agility trial today. It was local - only 3 miles from my house at the place where I train. I haven't trialed Dolphin here in several years because he really doesn't like this place and tends to shut down. He has been running so well, I wanted to try this place again. It would be SO convenient to trial more right here in my own backyard. Yeah, well Dolphin did not run well. He ran with very little enthusiasm and speed. He did, however, win Time 2 Beat and also won Jumpers and Standard for Double QQ # 14!!!!! Yes, I am thrilled with the double QQ but everything else going on seems to overshadow it, plus I wasn't overly thrilled with how he ran.

There are really 3 reasons why he ran so unmotivated. Possibly he is picking up on my stress and the stress in the house and it is affecting him. This is a definite possibility because he is so much like Pretzel and he feeds off of my mood. Another possibility is that his swimmer's tail is not fully healed. Yeah, I forgot to mention that when I came home with Bacon back on November 3rd Dolphin's tail was hanging pretty dead. All week it was tucked between his legs, even when he was excited and playing with the ball. We determined he must have pulled the muscles around his tail while I was gone, as he didn't have any pain when I pressed on the bones in his tail, but when I lifted it he was uncomfortable. I put him on 6 days of anti-inflammatories and he seemed better, but I noticed his tail was not up like usual again today so I think it's not totally healed. My third reason, he still hates this place! We train here, he has classes here every week, and while he does everything well in class, it's not with his usual joy and excitement. Maybe too much baggage where he trains? Who knows?

Let's just put all that aside and celebrate DOUBLE QQ #14! 6 more to go....

Bacon is turning into quite a little show puppy! I taught her to freeze when I hold up a finger (not THAT finger, you dummy!), and I am able to position her legs and she hold it beautifully. My little field trial demon might actually be a decent show puppy, imagine that!

Bacon is getting along great with the pack. I am keeping a watchful eye on Noodle as she has very little patience with puppy antics. Dolphin has started to initiate play, and today he was play bowing to her and getting her to chase him. Pizza has loved this puppy from the start...she would have made the BEST mother!

Dolphin and I headed to an agility trial with our besties. The trial was only a couple hours away, so that was nice (although getting up at 4am was not so nice). It was totally worth it! Dolphin ran fantastic (back to his normal self) and earned a QUADRUPLE QQQQ !!!! I am literally in shock. Our success over the past few months has me almost overwhelmed (in a good way)! This makes double QQ #15 towards his MACH. We only need 5 more!

I was so happy with how Dolphin ran today. He was fast, accurate, left every bar up, and had wonderful focus. I think he was just extra thrilled to work with me again...having a puppy does take a lot of my attention right now and that's quite an adjustment for him. I am trying not to be too optimistic, but I feel like we are on a roll and suddely this MACH title seems entirely possible. I honestly felt it was a pipe dream for so long, like it was an impossible thing to reach for. I think there is no title I have worked harder for in my life!

I judged a hunt test all day yesterday, it was a decent day with good entries and OK weather. Today I woke up feeling sick with a cold, but that won't stop me from getting to run my girls!

Noodle was first up in Master and she laid down a wonderful run. She is liking this colder weather and she had tons of energy...put into the right places! I loved how she hunted, she covered about every inch of the field. The first two birds she pointed flew over the judges' heads so they were a safety. The third bird was nice and solid with only a slight bit of movement to mark the fall. We had a good retrieve, and a good honor with scores of straight 9's to finish out her 37th master hunter pass. Every moment I step into the field with this girl is a treasure.

Pizza was a superstar on her run. She went on point, was her usual rock-solid self with the bird work, but when I sent her for the retrieve another bird flushed up as she went out for the retrieve. I called her off the flushed bird and re-sent her to the original bird, where she locked up on point on the bird. Apparently the bird went down but had not been shot, and my good girl was not going to pick up an unshot bird! We went ahead and worked that bird again, and she delivered a nice retrieve. All that was left was the honor set up and she was her usual spectacular self, doing a beautiful long distance honor. We ended up with scores of all 9's and a 10 on trainability. This was her 5th Master Hunter Advanced pass, earning her Master Hunter Advanced title!!! She has 10 MH passes. I plan on getting at least two more to finish out her Lifetime Achievement award. After that I am betting we will just keep going, because she is a beautiful thing to see in the field and she loves it so much! What a natural she is...I am so lucky.

I took Bacon to Noodle's agility class today, and she was surprisingly good in her crate! The only time she made noise was when the entire class was out on the floor and she was by herself in the matted area. Otherwise she laid there and watched all the other dogs and people. She discovered her voice yesterday, so she is becoming more vocal about things.

We had our vet appointment to get her second booster vaccinations. My vet checked her heart, and said that the heart murmur was almost completely gone! I thought he was joking! Apparently the heart meds are working so well that her partial valve is able to keep up with the blood flow. He told me that the cardiologist had told him this was a possibility, and that this appointment would really tell us a lot about if the meds were effective at all. Man, so glad he didn't mention that to me on our initial visit...I would have stressed for the past 2 weeks worrying. This news is good news, as this might be a better prognosis for a longer adult life for her. Of course, we won't know anything for sure until we re-do the heart echo when she is around a year old, but this is definitely a step in the right direction. So...I keep training her as if nothing is wrong, treat her like the high drive trainable puppy she is! I am going to stay optimistic, because my pessimism does nothing other than make me miserable. I am going to love every moment I have in the next year come what may.

It's Thanksgiving. I am thankful I am alive, and so are Mark and the dogs. I am thankful that everyone is healthy, or as healthy as they can be given whatever is going on with everyone right now. I am thankful Bacon will hopefully live to see adulthood. I am thankful for my strong small circle of friends who stand by me no matter what. I am thankful I have Mark, who is my rock, my heart, and my soul.

Mark, Bacon, and I headed north to Lorain to my sister's house for Thanksgiving. It's still a very difficult holiday without my parents (we won't even talk about Christmas...ugh). Bacon lightened the mood for sure - she was wonderful! My niece's two young children immediately adopted her for the evening and kept her entertained. Bacon laid quietly in her crate during dinner, I was really proud of her. It was a nice trip.

Enjoy my 3-dog poop photo for Thanksgiving. It was so funny I just couldn't resist taking the photo!

Today I met my friend at the bird dog club to play with Bacon and some pigeons. She was pretty interested, though she was a bit too young to really understand what it was all about. Afterwards, I turned Bacon and Dolphin loose in the field. I liked how she followed him through the cover and into the thick stuff. Both dogs had a great time while I froze to death following them. We hit a major cold snap the past few weeks and it's been rough with temps at freezing in mid-November. Such is Ohio.

I did some training at home with Bacon and took some updated stack photos. She is doing a fantastic job of standing still and letting me stack her, and holding it perfectly. She is going to be so much fun to show, regardless of the outcome.

Today we had agility run-thrus at our training place. This was a really important day for Pizza, because after over a year of training and no trialing, this was an opportunity to see where we were and whether she would be ready to trial again (with NO visiting). So of course what does she do last night? She comes up lame with a raw paw pad. Damn! This morning she was walking on it OK so I went ahead and took her to the run-throughs. The first run through was standard and we did it twice. The a-frame was the 2nd obstacl and both times she ran past it. However, she did NOT go visit anyone! I was confused, until I got her up on it and when she hit her 2 on-2 off, she lifted her paw because it hurt. No wonder! I finished the two runs and she ran with me perfectly, but after the second run I could tell she was really hurting so I decided to call it a day and take her home. I think maybe today was a success? Hard to tell since she wasn't her normal self.

Since I still had two runs left over, I came back to the afternoon session with Dolphin, and I brought Bacon along to train. Dolphin ran his two runs and he was wonderful - started off slow like he always does at our training place but he finished both runs super string...and MAN was he happy to work with me today!

I did some cot training, bowl pivots, some heeling, and focus work with Bacon. She was surprisingly good! Her cot work was wonderful, even with other dogs passing by and all the excitement, she made very few mistakes. The bowl pivot was harder since that requires concentration but she did pretty well. The focus and eye contact was about 50/50, but I knew that would be our toughest challenge. The heeling was YIKES, but we did finally get to end on a a few feet of good heeling before we called it quits. Overall it was a super training day for her. Bittersweet, of course...watching her at our agility building knowing her agility future is pretty bleak, but I am remaining an optimist with her and we will keep on keepin' on until we can't.

Noodle aand I headed to Cincinnati for a Rally trial today. Due to the weather and everything else, Noodle has been cooped up at home for several days, so I wasn't sure what kind of runs we would have today. Noodle was very very forward, way more so than normal. I kinda liked it! It took a bit more work to keep her at heel, so our scores weren't the highest (we scored a 95, 97, and 97 in master, excellent, and davanced). I loved how sparky she was! We ended up with Rally triple QQQ #18! We only need 2 more triple QQQ's and around 43 master points for her RACH (Rally Championship). It is going to happen! 2026 is going to be our year - hopefully a PACH and a RACH.