Another breed match in the life of the M&M pups

Before I get to the workshop that Swing and I attended I wanted to tell the M&M fans about the match we attended on Sunday.  The dastardly duo became part of the talented trio when brother Milo joined us at the NEMKC (Northeast MD KC) breed/obed match on Sunday.  Darby (owned by Amy B.) and Dodge, who are cousins to the M&M pups (I think that is right, let me see if I can get this straight... Darby is out of Dagmar who is the sister to Yankee and Mason.  Yankee is Dodge's mom and Mason is the puppies grandfather.  That makes Dodge and Darby half cousins to Mia, the talented trios mom!  We won't go in to the fact that the pups dad is the great grandsire of Darby and Dodge!), were entered in obedience, as was Milo, while the dastardly duo focused on the breed stuff.  Milo started out the day with a pre-Novice run in the obedience ring.  Art said he was a bit distracted and not as focused as he is in class.  No wonder since the boys got to the match site with about 10 minutes to get registered in settled.  And to top it off, they were the first team in the ring!  Now who in the world made that happen?  I mean he was one of the last ones to sign up!  Geez.  It wasn't long before the trio were called in to the ring for breed judging.  Milo and Beau (Hank) went in together and did their best impressions of seasoned breed dogs (I did say their "best"), doing a nice job of standing for their examinations, doing their down and back (psst hey Milo, you are suppose to trot on that part.  I know, you are all legs right now...) before their final go around.  Milo took the first place ribbon but brother Hank did an equally nice job and got a second.  Swing was next in the ring and since she was the only little girl showing she got a first by default.  Milo returned to the ring and both of them did another down and back before going around together and after looking at both of them standing and doing their best to look like each should be the breed winner, the judge chose Milo to go on to the Group.  It was a nice sized group (the largest one of the day I believe) and our brother looked good but he just couldn't beat the Chessie or Golden puppies for cuteness.  Congrats Milo, you are on your way!

Swing warming up before going in the ring (photo by Amy's iPhone)

Dodge and Darby were entered in obedience and unfortunately I did not get to see all of Darby's run.  I did hear from Amy that Darby decided to leave the ring to look for Amy and Michael (are we confused yet with all of the Amy's?????) and because of that Amy A. may never get to see Darby show.  Either that or Amy B. (yes, one of them has a last name that starts with A and the others last name starts with B.  Seriously, I'm not making this up!) is just going to have to convince Darby that she can work in the company of her favorite handler and co-owner.  :-)  Dodge is use to working with friends around so while his run wasn't as good as it can be, he did have his brilliant moments and I'm proud of him.  I learned that he is a bit sensitive and somewhat serious in the ring so any feedback that is misconstrued as a negative sets him back a step and he struggles to get back on track.  I have been working on requiring that he give me better attention during heeling since he has sniffed the stewards and basically gawked around at certain points in the heel pattern.  Unfortunately, any second command is taken as a correction and he has a minor meltdown which results in no sits.  Doing a match is just another way to find out how I can help him figure things out and our judge was kind enough to humor me as I worked to get him to reconnect.  Unfortunately his stays fell apart after having 2 successful days of stays at a recent trial.  I'm going to blame that on the fact that he needed to poop (can I say that in this blog?  Of course, I'm the one writing and we are all dog folk...).  I'll forgive him this time but you can be assured that I will continue to train stays which is something I presently loath doing!

Unfortunately, because we were all running between rings I did not get the chance to take any pictures.  But is was nice seeing all of the GraytSky family and perhaps we'll get the chance to do it again.  I told Amy B. that perhaps we will see each other at an obedience trial this year as I'd enjoy having another GraytSky dog to watch.  And I'm sure Art and Milo will be in the obedience ring before the year is over.

Next blog entry, Swing and I are invited to a 2x2 weave workshop.  Quite exciting if I must say so myself!