Yearly wrap-up
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on December 12, 2011
What a diverse year 2011 has been! Â We have had so many things going on this year…deciding to move back to Denver, the stress and insanity around selling our house in Alabama, buying one in Denver (sight unseen on my part!), figuring out new schools for both kids, moving (including tracking down our “lost” truck of stuff) and getting settled..that was quite enough for one year. Â Somehow, in between all of that I managed to fit in a few dog things. Â I attended Nationals in the spring, took a big show trip to WA in the fall, and managed to find enough points to finish Nash’s AKC championship. Â I’m still settling back into the dog show life out here in the West, but it’s good to see old friends again. Â 
I’m quite proud of all of the Charm kids. Â A short summary of the year for the show puppies:
Vegas (Ch Allegro Gambler’s Charm) – finished his AKC championship with several majors. Â This very happy, sweet, pretty boy will be neutered in the future and keep enjoying life on the farm with Joyce.
Lucy (Ch Allegro Turn on the Charm) – finished her AKC championship easily once she hit maturity and is now working towards her Grand Championship. Â She piled on a bunch of points at the end of the year to give her 11 point and 2 majors towards her GCh, along with an exciting Best of Breed win over several nice specials for 5 points!
June (Ch Allegro Celestial Charm) – after being the first in the litter to finish last year, June has been out selectively working on her Grand Championship. Â She has 14 points and a major towards it so far! Â June also has had her health tests done and is OFA Good, OFA Elbows normal, CERF clear, PRA clear, DM clear, and does not carry fluff.
Nash (Ch Allegro Southern Charm) – finished his championship with a nice Best of Winners award on a Specialty weekend! Â Has been out just a couple times since then and snagged a few minor points towards his GCh…next year we will work on that some more and I am signing him up for agility training as well!
Harmony is still happily living with her wonderful family in Mobile AL and working as a service dog for her owner Patti.  Maddie has found a new home with good friends of Dixie and will be hitting the agility circuit!  She never really grew large enough to make it in the breed ring, and I’m tickled that her new home seems to be a great fit for her.  Piper also never really grew big enough and found a wonderful, adoring pet home with Stacey in CA.  I haven’t gotten any updates from Wall-E’s owners, but I wish them well and hope he’s doing great! I’m so thankful for the owners of these puppies…I keep calling them puppies, but let’s face it, they’re pretty much grown up now! I know that despite things not always working out the way we plan them, these loving people always have the best interests of the dogs at heart, and I’m so grateful for that!
Here’s to a great 2012!
Richland
I’ve been holding off on posting about my trip to Richland, mostly just to wait for pictures. Alas, no win photos in our mailbox today! So I will post the pictures taken by Tom and posted by Carolyn on the NWCF website. Huge thanks go to both of them, I know what a big effort it is to take and edit so many pics! Someday when I get Nash’s win pictures I will post those also.
So, the trip to Richland is not short from Denver. About 15 hours, in fact, and that’s with my radar detector and fairly leaded foot. 
I broke it into two days, knowing from experience (ahem, Houston and Gettysburg) that around 12 hours is difficult enough to do in a single day. It wasn’t too bad broken up like that but still not something I want to do frequently. But the show site in Richland is amazing and well worth the trip! Beautiful park right on the water, tons of grass and camping, huge old shade trees everywhere. It helped that the weather was overall pretty darned perfect, too. Oh, and Nash winning Best of Winners on Sunday for a 4 point major to finish his championship helped make at least THAT day of driving seem shorter. We thought it was 5 points in bitches, but it was 1 short so “only” 4 points. Thankfully, he only needed 3! LOL Big thanks and hugs to everyone for cheering us on and, well, just for making the weekend so much fun.
Miss Lizzie was entered in breed, also, and while I was hoping for a lucky select major it was not to be. She did make the cut in bitches on Sat and Sun, including showing pretty well for Jenn on Sunday while I was in the ring (something she doesn’t always do), so I’m happy overall.
My pretty, sweet girly on the table.
(left) Lizard in the ring with Jenn on Sunday
Nash's sister Lucy on the move! She was naked but it was great to see her again.
Nash on the move, you can see how thin his coat is LOL.
Pretty boy in WD on Sunday (in order half-bro Brewer in front, Nash, Glasshouse Tylwyth's Matinee Idol)
Nash on the move again.
What we’ve been up to
No dog news lately…just waiting for one last show or two before the end of the year. Nash has gone full monty for the most part so I’m not feeling too hopeful LOL! But it will be nice to get away and visit with friends, and isn’t that half the fun anyway?
Since I haven’t been busy with dog shows, we’ve taken the opportunity this fall to take a couple of family trips to enjoy our new home state. Most recently, we went to Durango this past weekend when the kids had a couple of days off school for teacher work days…what a lovely area. I had been there many years ago but didn’t remember much about it. The San Juan mountains are incredibly beautiful! We were blessed with mostly good weather and took as much advantage of it as we could. Saturday we rode the narrow gauge railway from Durango to Silverton (historic mining town).
The original (1923) steam locomotive that pulled our train
Jack (and Charlie too) really enjoyed looking out the window
Engine rounding a curve
It’s about a 3 hour ride each way and really takes you through some amazing scenery in the San Juan National Forest. It was raining when we got to Silverton, but the clouds broke up right as we were leaving for the return trip and blessed us with some pretty awesome views:
Clouds still lingering around the peaks with a little fresh snow
Hanging out the window
On Sunday the weather was perfect…about 73 degrees and sunny. We had hoped to go horseback riding but the trails were too muddy, so we decided to take a hike instead. Our destination:
Spud Lake - 9,800 feet elev.
Overall, a most perfect weekend really. Yes, we did hit a deer on Saturday night while driving back to our rental cabin. Dinged up the car pretty well but thankfully it’s still drivable, and doubly thankful that it didn’t cause a larger wreck and/or injuries. Deer basically ran headlong into the side of our car near the passenger-side front wheel. Big dent in the fender, scratches and dents on the bar going up the windshield and on both passenger-side doors. C’est la vie.
Richland here we come?
Well, I missed a dog show this morning. I had only entered Nash one day in Greeley, because yesterday was Jack’s 4th birthday and I sort of felt like a heel when thinking about entering/going to a dog show when I should be celebrating with him.  I was excited when Greeley pulled majors! But the 8 am ring time today, 1.5 hour drive to get there, when coupled with an extremely bad night of sleep, and I didn’t think it was a good idea to go. Us dog people do crazy stuff all the time for shows, but I *actually* had the thought this morning that with how tired I was, it was clearly dangerous to think about driving, by myself, in the dark morning. So I slept until 10 instead.
That leaves Nash still needing that last major. If the hair holds, I think I’ll plan a different crazy trip to Richland. It seems like it would be a beautiful time of year to drive through that part of the country, it’s a Cardigan specialty, and it would allow me to see and mingle with some of my favorite people. And maybe we’ll get lucky and he’ll get the last major this year after all…if not, we’ll be on the hunt again.
On a different note, we are now on week 3 of me switching the dogs to a completely raw diet. So far so good! My backyard smells better by a long mile…poop is less stinky and there isn’t as much of it. And the dogs seem to look great. For now, because I’m lazy and my dogs bolt their food even including whole pieces of chicken, I am using Bravo frozen raw diet. Thankfully I found a great local store that carries it, and it comes in 2-lb chubs which is perfect right now to feed my 3….Nash, who still eats like an adolescent, gets about 1 lb of it, and Lizzie and Brady each get about 1/2 lb. I add Missing Link, a dash of oil, and occasionally a handful of frozen veggies because they like ‘em. It has been easy and isn’t much more expensive than what I was paying for 2 bags of premium kibble per month.
Win photo
Well…silly people who move across country should be sure to remember to update their address when they enter shows.  Nash’s show photo from Eagle a few weeks ago was mailed to my old address in AL…thankfully, my sister-in-law and her family are the people who bought the house from us, and she has been helping us in many ways. So I finally got it! And I think it turned out pretty well. I’m NOT pleased, however, with my scanner that seems to be scanning everything in very blown-out and oversaturated. I fixed it as best I could but am still not happy with the color/saturation.
I also had a nice update from Vegas’ owner Joyce. Vegas was BOB 2 days last weekend to add on some more single points and leave him at “the dreaded” 14. He has both of his majors so is just searching for a single now…here’s hoping he finds it soon! She also let me know that at his most recent yearly checkup/bloodwork, he tested very low positive for Lyme disease. 
 He shows no symptoms and we are all hoping it stays that way, but if anyone has any advice for Joyce regarding Lyme that I could pass on I’d appreciate it.
The collar’s the thing
Brady is our first dog…we got him a few months after we got married, and moved to Denver soon after that. Being a pet, he naturally wore a collar at all times. He was also a very energetic and playful puppy, and when we were in Ohio we lived in an apartment complex he had many “doggie friends” that we would arrange playdates with LOL. So after a bit we decided to get another Cardi to keep him company, and Molly entered the scene…a pretty little tri girl from Carolyn at C-Myste. They would wrestle pretty endlessly, sometimes loudly, but one time…very scarily. You see, Brady’s teeth got caught on Molly’s collar. He panicked, she panicked, we did eventually get them apart but not before Dave got bit accidentally. Thankfully, they were both OK, but collar accidents are real and from that point on I swore off of collars altogether except for trips. Naturally most show dogs don’t wear collars anyway because we’re trying to keep their fur looking nice.
Fast forward to when we moved BACK to Denver, and Nash gets lost for most of a day. We’re living in a densely packed neighborhood, and a loose dog is most likely to either get hit by a car, or picked up by someone else. If they end up at a vet or shelter, then the microchip will be handy, but a random person picking them up has no way of locating their owners without collar/tag. In Nash’s case, he was picked up by people and wasn’t that far away but things would have likely been so much easier if he had a collar with a name/phone number. It would have saved us time and much worry. So…we are now a collar house again. I found these cool tags:
They slide right onto the collar so don’t dangle/jingle or discolor the fur. They also fit onto rolled leather collars, by sliding on near the buckle (so collar has to be big enough that you don’t need to use the two tightest holes). Up at the Eagle shows I found some nice rolled leather collars that came in different colors, so I got pink, tan, and red. Now hopefully…if anyone ever happens to get lost again, they can be found quickly.
As a quick aside, sweet Nash will no longer step foot off our front porch unless we’re going for a walk. We hang out on there and will let the dogs go in/out as long as we are there to watch them…the porch entry is from the side so it’s actually a really nice little area. Nash used to occasionally go to the foot of the stairs to look at things, but now even if his toy falls down the stairs he won’t go down them. I guess he doesn’t want to take a chance at being lost again.
Weekend report
Back from a glorious couple of days in Eagle, CO! Yes, Nash did some winning, but truly the weather and scenery made the trip worthwhile anyway. I might complain about the distance to dog shows out here, but at least I’m sometimes rewarded with ones that aren’t too far (2 hours drive) and have some redeeming qualities.  Eagle is a nice little show! There were 2 points in girls, 1 in boys, and 2 specials entered. Turns out one of the specials is off on a date, so he was absent all weekend. The other special was cousin Holmes, and he brought naughty Nola with him too, so it was nice to get to see and meet both of them!
The brags on my side are that Nash was Best of Breed yesterday for 2 points, and Best of Winners today for another single point. That puts him squarely minored out at 12 points with 1 major…so I guess I know what we get to do next.  We’ll be hunting for that last major this fall. I did get a photo yesterday so fingers crossed that it turned out well.
Another belated birthday post
During my extended blog vacation, we celebrated another notable canine birthday in our house…Brady, a.k.a. The Old Man, turned 13 on June 28. I can hardly believe he’s that old! Or that I’ve been at least somewhat involved in the breed for that many years, LOL. Which makes me….yeah no, not going to go into my own age.
Brady has always been a very active dog, but this past year his age has definitely started to catch up to him. He has also clearly begun suffering from either IVDD or DM. I know he has calcifications on his spine, from an x-ray a couple years ago when he had an incident. But the past several months he has gotten less and less able to use his rear legs and more wobbly. He has a lot of trouble getting up stairs now, and just more recently I have started to notice that when he gets up from sleeping (which is most of the time LOL) he’s often not able to use one leg for a little while and the foot turns under and drags. Now that we’re settled, I need to get on with the business of finding a good vet in the area and see what they have to say.
Despite all that, Brady still likes to play (for about 5 minutes). He and Nash will usually gently romp each day for a few minutes. I’m finding myself rather thankful, however, that he has gone a good bit deaf…4th of July was not annoying for once! Always the barkiest dog in our house, a little deafness goes a long way towards curbing that.Â
Whew, I’m back!
I know, I know…I’ve been totally MIA from my blog for a loooooong time. In my defense, we WERE moving across the country. It took me a while to find all my camera gear so I could even take pictures to share! We’ve been very caught up in moving, doing fun things with the kiddos, and settling into our new city. I finally feel somewhat back to normal, located my dog washing/grooming stuff so I could clean up my Very Dirty Dogs, and found some time to spruce them all up!
Nash and the rest of the Charm litter celebrated their 2nd birthdays not quite 2 weeks ago! Happiest of birthdays to all of the sweet babies…and if any owners are reading this and would like to send me an update on your Charm puppy and/or pictures, I’d love it! I do keep up with most of them when I can but updates are always welcomed. On a sad note, many of you know that we lost a sister recently, Echo…she’s been in my thoughts a lot lately, and many hugs to her other owners. We think that Echo had a lingering issue from when a thief let Mandy’s dogs out of her yard and Echo was hit by a car…she seemed ok at the time but her sudden loss a few months later is consistent with a hidden injury from trauma.
On a very BRIGHT note, other sister Lucy is now Ch* Allegro Turn on the Charm!! (*AKC pending) I’m so proud of how this little girl grew up, and thankful to her owners for showing her to her CH. I’ll let her owners do the bragging on her here: http://stormridgecardis.com/2011/07/mt-vernon-lucy/
And birthdays and baths always make me think about taking some photos of my own Charm puppy, Nash. These puppies have been sloooooow to grow up, but I’m quite pleased as they approach full maturity with how several of them are coming together, Nash included. He’s a perfectly-sized (IMO) 35 pound boy, and extremely agile and fun. I think he’s rather pretty, too, although we’re getting very rusty on the whole show-stacking thing…need to work on that, as I hope to take him out again soon to finish that CH! He has 9 points and a major from the puppy classes. I apologize that the pictures aren’t that crisp, I was using a timer since Dave is at work today.Â
Free-stacking front...we were getting very hot by this point so I only snapped a couple front pics!
From Outlook to Outback
Posted by admin in Uncategorized on April 6, 2011
Well, to go with our downsized house (and garage), I traded in the big monster Saturn (Outlook) today on this little mom-hicle (Subaru Outback):
OK, so it isn’t sexy, but it drives really well, gets moderately good gas mileage, and has (hopefully) just enough space for the kids and dogs. There just won’t be much extra.Â