FIrst of the Season

     Saturday began with the usual grooming, carpooling, caravaning and loading of all things necessary to make for a relaxing yet prepared dog event. Then as we were pulling out of the driveway at LA's the side trim decided to come off of LM's van. SOooooo get out the guerrilla tape and voila it was back in place. We've now decided it's a necessity to go in the show bag for just these types of emergencies! How we had not thought of it before was AmAzing.

     Once there we got our chairs settled, our dog kennels situated in the free grooming space area and made some quick hello's before setting off to do a little practice gaiting our Stella. We've recently decided she didn't get enough one on one time as her sister Scarlet had and it is her time to begin 'coming out'. She isn't entirely matured enough yet but she needs the practice and had been keeping on some weight so it was a start. She ended up taking winner's bitch Saturday so she now has 2 whole points. She hasn't come into her first menstrual cycle yet and she will turn 3 in June. We are quite concerned this is keeping her from maturing and keeping on weight as well as worried if there is a problem with it being so late and fertility. Well Sunday comes and we do it all again except this time she loses to her good friend Tandy (owned by LM) and it's Tandy's turn to get the point. The judge in the ring mentioned that he thought Stella was coming into heat and sure enough an hour or so later she was in full bloom! We were so excited and relieved that it was as though we had WON! She's not so happy about it and is trying to figure out what is happening with her hormones but she's doing well and keeping herself clean so fingers crossed this is the beginning of a maturity we'd not seen before.

A few candid's of our Stella & J courtesy of Suzanne Popson. She's our FAVORITE photographer!