I LOVE MY DOG

Factor and I were at an AKC agility trial in Minneapolis this weekend and I have to say that I am so proud of him! Factor and I have come so far as a team in the last 2 years and even more in the last 6 months. Each run just keeps getting better and better. Factor did not Qualify or Q in any of the 4 runs that we had this weekend, but he only had minor faults. He was having a hard time picking his feet up and dropped one bar in each run. A dropped bar means that you NQ (don't qualify). We are going to a 4 day show in Milwaukee in two weeks so hopefully we can finish some titles there. Wish us luck!

We had a very busy thanksgiving week here at our house. Joe and Kayak left on Monday with Phil and Kyle to go hunting in Montana. This was Kayak's first pheasant hunting trip and Joe reports that she was a ROCK STAR! Our good friends Jan and Larry went to St. Louis, so their 6 Aussies stayed at our house. A house full of 8 Aussies-what a noisy crew. Factor's girlfriend Maizy was here so that made him VERY happy. Siren's mom and 2 sisters were also here. The puppies had a good time but I am not so sure about their momm Zee.

Joe should be home any minute now and the Polys dogs are happily back at their home so I am going to go and enjoy the quiteness for a few minutes.

Happy Thanksgiving to all-we sure have a lot to be thankful for around here!

Trying this again,,,

So I decided to try and start blogging again. I wasn't very good at keeping my msn page updated, so we will see if I am any better here. Factor and I were out at NEADS this past weekend, and we saw Factor's puppy raisers and I was reminded that there are people out there who want to know what is going on in our lives (his at least)! So we will attempt this once again.

Here is Factor at Boston/Logan airport waiting to get on the plane that is in the background.

I was very nervous to fly with him again, because of the bad experience that we had coming home from NEADS a few years ago. I am happy to say that we had a pleasant experience flying this time and the gate agent actually moved our seat on the way home so that Factor would have more room and be more comfortable.

Back to why we went out there. NEADS is going through so many fun and exciting changes. They have started a new program called Canines for Combat Veterans or CCV. They have already placed 5 dogs with vets wounded in the current war and have more on their waiting list. NEADS continues to plac assistance dogs, hearing dogs, dogs for the classroom and social dogs. The Prison PUP Partnership program has exploded and now there are more pups in prison than full time foster families. The pups continue to go with weekend puppy raisers for socialization outside of the prison.

It makes me wish that we lived closer to NEADS so that I could be more involved, but I will continue doing what I can from here!