Champion of My HeartA real-time memoir about life with a fearful border collie, by Roxanne Hawn

Monday, we showed you some agility highlights as Lilly recovers from her neurological troubles. Today, we prove that it isn’t always pretty.

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At our last veterinary neurology appointment, Lilly got the OK to do agility and other more strenuous tasks so that her brain can start figuring out how to rewire certain movements. I convinced myself that Lilly jumped differently and weaved weirdly, but after looking at old agility videos, it seems more like Lilly exaggerates her movements following her “brain injury.” Videos, ahoy!

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If we get through Lilly’s recovery without me or Tom stepping on and breaking one of Lilly’s feet or without one of us taking a nasty fall ourselves (after tripping over Lilly), it’ll be a miracle. Truly. Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, some agility humor for our dog training friends who already have earned or aspire to earn a Master Agility Champion title (MACH) with their dogs. Meet Chaos, a nationally ranked Labrador Retriever who TWICE had to earn her 20th and final double-Q to get her MACH #5. All this … at the age of 10.

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As a special Thanksgiving week event, we’ll be posting a few of our favorite videos of Lilly, our canine heroine, each day. Whether you’re seeing them for the first time (welcome, new readers) or get the chance to enjoy these reruns, we send our best holiday wishes. Today, Lilly on her home agility course.

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OMD. A highlight of my NYC adventure was the chance to pop over to Staten Island and visit Sam and Marge from Marge Blog. It required a cab, a ferry, and a train, but to see magnificent Marge … I braved it. Look at me overcoming my big city fears!

One Tired Girl

I averaged just 3-4 hour of sleep a night while in NYC. Squeezing as much into my time there, staying up late to chat with my friend and hotel roommate, and simply being over-stimulated from all the people, noise, and activity, meant that I mostly lived on adrenalin and coffee.

My roommate had a 6 am flight, so she had to get up at 3 am. I tried to go back to sleep, but had very little luck.

So, I got up, got a little work done, got packed and headed out for my Staten Island Adventure earlier than expected.

I sent a text to Sam, once I was on the ferry @ 7:30 am, which was an hour earlier than we had planned (Sorry, Sam).

So, she hustled to finish her paper route and still managed to meet me at the train station by 8:30 am.

As I mentioned yesterday, I got to smooch on this terrific bomb dog at the ferry station. And, yes, I got to see the Statue of Liberty. (It’s much smaller than you would think. I’m sure everyone says that.)

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The challenge of working 10-12 hours every day for weeks (possibly months) on end is that the pace leaves little room for much more than survival. That means, other than the usual daily dog training cues and rewards, not a lot happens. So, to keep myself on track and to renew my commitment to all of you who follow our dog training tales, here is a recap of what’s currently on our dog training dock / dog training wish list.

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Today, pet bloggers are banding together to raise awareness and MONEY to help search and rescue efforts and aid to the animals suffering from the big Japan earthquake, tsunami and everything else bad that has happened and continues to happen since. Please help in any way you can!

The BlogPaws Be the Change for Pets community is supporting World Vets, which already has teams on the ground helping animals in need in Japan.

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For her 10th birthday outing, I took one of my nieces to the big Colorado Kennel Club’s Rocky Mountain Cluster dog show a couple weekends ago. She lives with two cats and often BEGS for a dog. Once she even drafted a contract of sorts, promising all kinds of sustained activity over 3 months as proof she was ready and responsible enough for a dog. It didn’t work.

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Various family demands mean more time off the mountain than usual, of late. That, along with the fact that I’m STILL coughing a full three weeks after getting sick, have resulted in a very boring time for Lilly. She adjusts to fetch-only or cuddle-only days, but clearly Lilly needs more.

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When I first explained the ideas and emotions behind Champion of My Heart, I waxed a little poetic (I hope) about our new-found interest in dog training beyond the basics.  A condensed version of that post now lives on its own page in the sidebar. It’s called Why Champion of My Heart?

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