Reminder to self:  traveling to a dog show in Minnesota in February falls under the category of "duh, what did you expect?"  Last weekend was cold, miserably cold with windchills dropping the temps in to the MINUS forty range.  By nature I'm not a cold weather person, on the other hand I'm not a hot weather person either.  Basically this means I get spring and parts of the fall where the weather is near perfect.  Most of the other times of the year, yep, you guessed it, I complain.

The dog show itself was wonderful.  The show site is in Lake Elmo, MN at Animal Inn.  I have fond memories of Animal Inn.  Years ago I used to run flyball with my first dog, Murphy, a lovely mixed breed of cocker and brittany.  But that's an entry for another time.  If you haven't had a chance to see a flyball tournament I encourage you to find a local team and watch.  It's lots of fun, but bring your earplugs!  We ran many flyball tourneys at Animal Inn.   It's always fun to go to a Collie Specialty show and see really good examples of the breed competing.  This was one of those shows.  And it was especially exciting to be there to see friends win both Winners Dog in rough and smooth boys!  Jam and I did not qualify in Rally, we had a small meltdown once again.  It's absolutely not Jam's fault.  One thing I stand by--if a dog fails in the performance ring, the fault lies with the handler/trainer.  So back to some more work before our Collie National Specialty show in March.  

Another plus to the weekend was the opportunity to see Spice's brother, Brach and her dad, River.  I've included a picture of Spice with her daddy, River.  If she turns out half as nice as daddy, she's going to be pretty spectacular.  Spice is in learning mode right now.  She's finally walking on a leash.  Think fuzzy mule and you have Spice.  She only wanted to go her way and not mine.  Spice now knows sit and down, loves to fetch and play tug.  I'm kind of hoping that she might like to do flyball some day.   

Well, we are off to another dog show weekend.  Another specialty, this time it's Dora's turn in the ring.  I do believe this weekend will be much warmer--oh please please let it be so! 

Until next time...