On the way to visit family in central California, we attended the NCWFA CWA meets in Suisun over the weekend and had a wonderful time. Tiercel finished 4th in the meet both days, picking up the bottom set of 2 ARX points each day, bringing his total to 5. He also won the match on Saturday! Lark finished in the top 10 on Saturday with a grade B score of 12; unfortunately she was a little sore on Sunday so I scratched her after two programs. Branwen made her puppy racing debut on Saturday as the sole puppy, raced well, and gained valuable experience. Held out from racing for several years to address confidence issues, Kestrel finally made her racing debut, running a grade B meet score of 10 and finishing 9th in the meet on Sunday. She ran with confidence, focus, and intensity, and I am so proud of her!!!

I have been offline with an untimely and most unfortunate hard drive crash so I have been unable to update the blog for weeks. I am finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and am trying to catch up on some blogging!

We had a great weekend at the 7th annual NW Versatility Weekend over Memorial Day weekend at the Roy Polo Field. Tiercel and Lark both completed all four events, with Lark finishing as the runner-up in the Versatility competition. This is the highest any of my dogs have ever finished in the 7 years I’ve been participating in the event, and I am so proud of her! Tiercel was 4th or 5th (need to check the results and confirm). Both did particularly well on the oval (Lark finished her OTR), won their classes in the match, and placed in the lure trial. Ringer was 4th in the FCH stake at the ASFA trial, continuing to chip away at the last handful of points he needs for his LCM.

Well, I’ve been home from Eugene for a few days now and I guess it is high time I update the ol’ blog. We had a great time at the National, to which we traveled in style in our new RV!

First stop was at the national lure coursing trial on Sunday, April 20. Unbelievably, it snowed the morning of the trial and although all the snow melted by mid-morning, the day was cold and windy. Lark tied for first in her open stake, and after the runoff ended up in second place; she now has 101 points and just needs a first to finish her ASFA field championship. Kestrel was 3rd in her stake, and sister Ellie split a 3-way for 4th place in her stake and ended up just out of the ribbons after two runoffs. Ringer and Tiercel also ran in the FCH stakes, and although neither made it into the ribbons, they both ran well in a highly competitive entry.

The national was Branwen’s show debut, and she was shown by her co-breeder Phoebe Booth in the futurity and by me in the regular puppy class. She didn’t place in either class but she gained some valuable experience and provided some good entertainment value to the spectators.

I showed Lark in the huge and hugely competitive open bitch class, where she made it down to the final cut. What a thrill! She showed like a dream, got a lot of attention and many positive comments, and I was so proud of her! Lark loves to show and tries so hard to do everything perfectly, and it is always a thrill and a pleasure to be at the end of her lead. Thank you Carolyn Mountan for this wonderful ringside candid that so ably demonstrates her willing and cheerful attitude in the show ring.

Finally, I showed Tiercel in the lure coursing dog class, and he ended up in 3rd place. Tiercel loves to show a little too much, and I always wish he had more of his sister’s work ethic to tone down his wildness on the go-round.

All in all it was a fantastic week, great to spend time with old and new friends alike, and immerse ourselves in all things whippet.

More photos of our week at the national coming soon…

I’ve gotten a bit behind in updates so here is what we’ve been up to the last few weeks…

April 5/6 we went up to Abbotsford, BC for RFF’s CWA meets. Tiercel finished in the top 10 both days, as always, only one or two placements away from the points. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride! Lark raced well and showed well, finishing second in the match on Saturday and winning it on Sunday. Thank you judges Linda Buchholz and Emma Ross! Her three firsts and a second in four matches so far this year give her a good head start in the CWA conformation standings.

April 12/13 we went to Roy, WA for WWWA’s ASFA trials. Lark finished 2nd in her full open stake on Saturday. Kestrel ran well and tied her sister Ellie for NBQ; we flipped a coin to settle the tie and Kestrel ended up in the ribbons. On Sunday, it was Ringer’s turn to bring home the green NBQ ribbon.

No rest for the weary… Next weekend we head down to Eugene, OR for the AWC National.

New six month photos added to Branwen’s pages. I am looking forward to her show debut in the futurity and regular puppy class at the National.

Branwen congratulates her beautiful and talented mom Leviosa, who earned her NA and a leg towards her NAJ over the weekend in Syracuse. Congrats Levie and proud owner/handler Lorie Crain!

Tiercel finished his OTRM yesterday at WWWA’s NOTRA meet in Roy, WA.

Lark ran her 2nd complete oval meet (following nearly a year of retraining after she cut through the middle of the track in her first meet last spring) and needs one more meet to finish her OTR. Good girl!

We spent the weekend at RFF’s CWA meets in Abbotsford, BC. RFF’s meets have quickly become my very favorite events, with their unfailing good cheer, good friends, good sportsmanship, good fun and good FOOD! Tiercel finished in 6th place both days. Lark has been in season but thankfully she finished up just in time to attend the meets and ran well, finishing her TRP and her DPC. She also won the conformation match both days - thank you judges Linda Johnston and Beth Hilborn! And thanks RFF for another great weekend.

We went to race practice yesterday with the wonderful Racing For Fun club in BC. The weather was glorious and a good time was had by all 40+ whippets, an assortment of young puppies, and their humans who showed up to practice! The dogs were out of their minds with excitement to see the lure again after the long, rainy winter. Branwen was introduced to the boxes and the squawker lure for the first time and is convinced that both offer much opportunity for fun! Tiercel, Lark and Ringer got in some great practice runs and are looking forward to resuming racing and lure coursing in the next few weeks.

We took advantage of the glorious weather and experienced puppy stacking helpers to take 5 month stacked pictures of Branwen, the best of which has been added to her page.

We had snow today and while the older dogs played for a few minutes before retreating to the warmth indoors, much prolonged fun was had by the youngsters! Levi has been visiting for a few weeks while his owners have been out of town, and I’m so glad he was here to enjoy playing in the snow with the other whippets.

I shot a few hundred photos and a few of them turned out… New photos added to Tiercel’s, Lark’s, Branwen’s and Levi’s candid photos pages.

I have finally had time to get Wordpress installed and modify a theme to more or less match the design of the main Serendipity website (more design tweaking to follow…). This page replaces the old news page and offers much more dynamic functionality, including:

• an RSS feed so you can subscribe to the page and get updates automatically in your feed reader
• a search feature (searches the blog only, not the entire site)
• the opportunity to comment on entries - for now comments are allowed without registration but if there is abuse that will be changed!

For the time being, the only posts here are backdated entries from 2007 and 2008, but as I have time I will fill in the archive with older updates as well.

Have fun!