Dog Days of Denton - May 29-30, 2009!

Heya everybody!! We are so pleased to announce that Leo and Kyrie (you can see her blog at http://hobogirlkyrie.blogspot.com) will be at Dog Days of Denton, coming up at the end of this month! Even better, we have purchased a brand-new, super spiffy BANNER for our MEET THE BREED booth!! Most of the pictures are of Leo because that is what we had--we are a very small Chapter and only a couple of other people sent pictures. But we think the banner is great anyway and we hope that when we make our next one our Chapter will have grown!!

It has been a lot of work to put this booth together and we hope that tons of people stop by to see Leo, Kyrie, and the other Shilohs who will be showing up! This event typically draws about 9,000 people so it should be a great opportunity to promote our beloved breed. :) You can see the banner up above--we can't wait!! Hope to see you there!!

Leo's Excellent Adventure, Day Four!

Day Four dawned bright and clear and Leo finally seemed to have his mind on his game! We went into the ring for Show Three and he ran well, stacked nicely, and flirted with the judge! In fact, she looked at me and noted, "Well, he's full of himself, isn't he?" and laughed! I apologized but she said, "Oh, no, I would MUCH rather have one like this!" Well, we were certainly off to a good start there!


But doom was lurking...doom in the form of a twelve-week-old puppy! Leo and Ender went into the ring for Best of Breed. Leo and I went in first...then Carla and Ender followed. But apparently Ender had decided that he was going to sabotage us! He bounced in and BARK BARKed at Leo--and when Leo looked at him he did a HUGE PLAY BOW! Well, needless to say, Leo was a wreck for the rest of the round. All he wanted to do from then on was PLAY! We saw a lot of evidence of those "secret kangaroo genes" that our breeder's trying to hide! Below you can see how it went--Leo trying to turn around, and Ender back there on the right edge of the photo, acting like an innocent little angel!!


But Ender's tricks thankfully came to naught. The judge noted that she was glad she'd seen Leo run well before the puppy came into the ring, and that she was giving Best of Breed to Leo on the basis of maturity. Which just goes to show you--in the future, WATCH OUT FOR THAT PUPPY!! He's smart, sneaky, and gorgeous, and if he fulfills that potential he is going to be a juggernaut at the shows!!

Our luck was changing, though, and without a pup in the ring trying to get him to play, Leo did end up getting a First in Herding Group! We went on to Best In Show competition--first for Rare Breed BIS, which we did not get anything in, and then in overall BIS--where we pulled a Reserve Best In Show ribbon!! YAY, Leo!!! You can see a picture of us in the ring for all-breeds Best In Show below!


Below are some more pictures from Day Four. We have Leo relaxing in his crate--he seemed to want to be close to my jacket!


Sunny and her friend Cupcake trying to figure out the weird noises the lady with the camera is making:


Liz and her Sunny sitting pretty!


Leo smiling for the camera, putting on his "movie star" face:


Leo and Ender were really tired by the end of the day!



When the day finally wound down, Ender had won three Group placement medals, Leo had his blue and white Reserve Best in Show ribbon, and everyone had had a wonderful time visiting with old friends, making new ones, and spending a beautiful Arizona weekend together! As we got up at 4 a.m. to leave for Texas the next morning, it was raining in the desert. I got a pic of rainclouds coming down over hills, and a farewell shot of the last set of mountains before we left them behind.



I hope that you've enjoyed our chronicle of the Arizona road trip. We enjoyed it so much, we are already wondering if we can do it again next year! :)

Leo's Excellent Adventure, Day Three!

I FINALLY got a few moments to update Leo's blog with all the pictures from the show back in March!! Above is my absolute favorite. While I was in the ring running around with the dog, I had asked our friends Carla and Michelle to see if they could shoot some photos for me with my camera. One of them caught a GREAT shot of Leo headed around the turn in the ring--you see it here up above!

There are so many pictures...get ready for a long post on this one!! As usual, just click on the photos for the bigger versions.

First off, you may remember that the first day of the show is NEVER Leo's "good day"! He is always so bouncy that he is useless his first show. Remembering this, we'd skipped the first show of the day in the hopes that by the time I got him down there for show two he may have worked off some energy. NOPE! Instead, we got our butts handed to us by a really cute little puppy!! Here he is with his proud owner, Carla, in puppy Group competition:


And below you see him looking up at us with the deadly "Cute Face" that he used to charm the judges ALL WEEKEND! May I present Ender, truly a force to behold! He is also Leo's half-brother; they were both sired by Acer. :)



Now we need to put up some pictures of Leo's sister, Sunny! They are littermates. You can see how much Sunny loves her human, Liz, and how much Liz loves her Sunny!



Here they are running in the ring! Sunny has beautiful movement; she really gave Leo a run for his money! One judge made us run around the ring together several times because she just couldn't decide who was better!



So Day Three passed and Ender was victorious, beating Sunny in Show One and both Sunny and Leo in Show Two! How would it go the next day, we wondered? Would Puppy Cuteness reign supreme?? There was only one way to find out!