SBTCA Nationals

This weekend was Nationals for the Staffordshire Bull Terrier Club of America. Busy weekend of showing, eating and socializing commenced. I decided to represent the breed in the rally obedience ring. I entered both Sadie and Violet in Rally novice A for Friday and Saturday.

It was nice out but it was hot. I ended up buying some cooling mats and crate fans to keep the girls comfortable. In the show ring it was no better - the dogs were melting in the sun.

This was there set up. A 4 x 4 pen with their crates inside. Used the sheets so Violet couldn't see other dogs walk by and Bethany loaned us a shade thingy to help keep the girls shaded (not pictured but I set them on top of the crates).

But the girls did well! Both days they took 1st and 2nd (out of three) and Q'ed towards their RN title. So in the end they got two legs - and three are needed for the RN (Rally Novice) title.

Saturday Sadie got a score of 81/100. Violet got a score of 79/100. No pictures though because I was by myself.

Sunday Sadie and Violet TIED for 83/100. Sadie came out the winner though because she had the faster time (which is how ties get broken in obedience). The judge laughed when she realized I owned both of the dogs with the tied scores.

It was hard. No food lures allowed. It was hot and ALL the dogs expressed their displeasure with this fact by melting. Some ran off the course entirely to go back to their cool crates. Poor pups.

Violet rockin the sit/stay command. In this particular station. I had to walk all the way around her while she held the sit.

Doing a rightward 360. It took a lot of cheer leading to get my girls to stick with me.

There was a lot of this going on - leash yanking. They did not want to stick with me. You lose a point every time they hit the end of the leash. It happened - oh - I'd guess 17 times ;)

Celebratory make-out session for successfully finishing the course

There was another dog between Violet and Sadie which was great. Allowed me to get everything handled without feeling too rushed.

There was definitely a theme on the field - not wanting to move too fast. 

C'mon, Sadie! TURN!

Sadie rockin' the heel

Sadie was very happy to be done and headed to the shade

And the bounty! There's even more but I haven't taken pics yet. We were awarded a plaque from the SBTCPS for having the staffy with the highest score in rally obedience. Special.

Here they are afterwards. Crashed out cold, totally oblivious to the world.

Not bad for deciding to enter at the last minute. Oh, and I only taught Sadie how to heel maybe a week ago. Awesome.

More rally pics can be found here - http://niroha.smugmug.com/SBTNationals082011/SBT-Nationals-Rally-Novice/

More pics of the weekend events - http://niroha.smugmug.com/SBTNationals082011

Pitbulls On Parade

Today we (myself, Sadie, and my sister Jackie) went to 'Pitbulls On Parade'  for the first time. Now my girls are not "pit bulls" but that doesn't make them safe from Breed Specific Legislation (BSL). So we went in good spirits to hang out with their bigger American cousins to show off how awesome they are. Everyone thought Sadie was a puppy. A few people knew what breed she was, but not many.

First we prepped Sadie for the big day by giving her a mani/pedi

 Taken this morning.

Sadie says "I am packed and ready to roll. Let's go to the parade!"

We actually met another SBT! This is Saidy (left) and Sadie (right)

Two staffy grins

This is Apollo and Sadie

Apollo is such a handsome stud - and Sadie totally and completely blew him off for a cookie. She's such a food slut.

Here is Sadie trying out the doggy treadmill

 

Here is Apollo giving it a whirl. He's one good looking dog.

Here we are getting Sadie ready for her first weight pull! Not really though. All we did was put the harness on (which was too big) and she pulled an empty sled. And the guy helped her pull it. It would be unsafe to have her do it for real at her first go.

 

Here's a video on how the weight pull went

Sadie Weight Pull from Liz on Vimeo.

Sadie & Apollo lounging in front of UCLA Dog's booth. What a rough life.

Group Photo! Eyes on the cookie.

Here is Sadie modeling her new ear sparklies. Someone was passing them out to the pups there. They are glued on with some child-safe non-toxic glue. They didnt last 30 minutes on her! But they were pretty while they lasted :)

They had wading pools there. You can imagine this made Sadie very happy.

Here is a video of her splashing in the wading pools. They had 5 or 6 pools and Sadie jumped from one pool to the next one to the next one...

Here's Jackie holding Sadie - with Sadie holding her pacifier (ball)

Beef Cake - Princess Style

The full photo gallery can be found here: http://niroha.smugmug.com/Trips/082011-Pitbulls-On-Parade

Gabe and Kaylee visit!

Gabe and Amanda came up for a wedding last weekend and because of that blessed event we got to see them before they ran away back to Vegas. Amanda had to run back more promptly secondary to work but Gabe and Kaylee stayed behind a few days and visited with everyone. One such visits was with us last night.

Kaylee was a trooper. I wanna say she is two years old now? Anyway, she was tired and very cranky when they pulled up but she decided the puppies were hilarious. Sadie likes to slide across the kitchen floor chasing her ball around and Kaylee that that was great.

The boys talked nerd while Kaylee ran around and danced with the puppies. She wasn't too keen on puppy make out sessions so we had to keep that to a minimum. Violet was very disappointed.

Kaylee says "Look! I'm a puppy!" 

upright walking mullet puppy? I dunno...

She was very proud of her ability to go in and out of the puppy crate all by herself.

Anyone who throws the magical blue bouncy ball is a-o-k is Sadie's book

Posers

I asked Kaylee to go in the crate with Sadie. Look how obedient she is :)

Posing very nicely for aunty Nichole. 

Kaylee was very distrustful of their tongues.

Don't get those tongues too close to me!

And here is where Kaylee hit her wall. 

After this pic was taken she started crying ;)

Violet was thoroughly disappointed she couldn't smother Kaylee in kisses. Beyond that the girls were as good as I could expect from them. We kept them busy with bones all night!

Puppy Ultrasound!

Violet is going to be a big sister!!
Vi's momma, Nutmeg, is expecting her 2nd and final litter. How exciting is that? I offered to scan her to get a head count. Both of my girls are spayed so it was nice to live vicariously through a friend.

New Screen Doors

We bought something off the TV for the first time ever. Those obnoxious commercials that are so stupid you just roll your eyes or, if you're smart, you just mute it. One caught my attention though. It's called magic mesh and it closes with magnets. During the summer months the girls are in and out constantly but we have to try to keep the cats in. After debating dog doors and whatnot we decided to give this a whirl.

The girls didn't have any problem going through it at all.

HOLD US BACK!

 

Fairly quickly we saw a problem with the bottom - we were fairly certain the cats could just scoot under the screen. So Rob bought some more magnets for the bottom and now we're set. The magnets get caught up once in a while but most of the time it closes fine.

Blast From The Past

Found my old camera with a card full of pics. This was one of them. It really illustrates well the dynamics between the dogs. Sadie and Violet are spooning, crashed out crazy puppies, and far away on the other end with his back away from the chaos is Puppy. Poor puppy. Those girls were on their own wave length and Puppy wasn't a member of their secret club.

Puppy is happier now. He lives with Rob's parents where the pace of day to day life is more at his speed - more predictable.

More spooning puppies. Damn they were cute.

mmm moose antlers

Tonight I went to the store and picked up a new treat for the girls - moose antlers! We had tried deer antlers and that was met with luke warm success. But these moose antlers are full of awesome according to the girls!

After 1.5 hours this was all that was left. Sadie did most of the damage and then Violet finished it off because having Sadie slobber all over it first makes it AWESOME

Dogs are weird.

The small nubbin is all that was left 10 minutes ago...I'm pretty sure it's gone now.

Update: the nub is gone. Violet is now working on the 2nd one. I think I need to buy stock in moose antlers now.