Category Archives: dog show

Dog Day Afternoon

We arrived Thursday night for the doggy show.  Stuck in some horrible traffic in NJ from an accident.  Ugh.  Not to mention this going on when we woke up!

Our hotel has a kitchenette, and we brought food, so I was able to have oats for breakfast with almond butter and jam.

Here is Storm ready for his big day!

This was a spaniel show, so there were lots of different kinds of spaniels.  There were breed events, rally events, obedience events.  Probably one of the only places you will hear the word ‘bitch’ so much outside of Jersey Shore 😉

American Cocker Spaniel

English Cocker Spaniels

English Springer Spaniel

I saw a lot of the American Hershey Spaniel:

These cuties are the 6 to 9 month old ASCOB Cocker Spaniels (any solid color other than black).  So cute!

Then Storm’s turn:

Storm got a ribbon, just barely! He says, “Aunt Lori, lookie what they gave me!!”

We had some lunch, part of which was brought:

part of which was bought:

I am really tired and fighting the snack monster today.  Fighting a losing fight.

I actually worked here as well.  I hooked up to the wireless and did work while more of the show was going on.  Quite convenient to have a mobile job.

Young Clumber Spaniels:

After we left the show – we went in search of a store I have not been to in 5 years!

Squeeeeeee!!!!

You can”t see the chocolate covered peanut butter pretzels there, and that is a package of “just bananas”;  Plus some almond butter, not pictured. Only $4.99 for a pound jar!!  I can’t wait to try the peanut flour!

Then we had some dinner.  Just a diner type place.  You know what that means!  Breakfast for dinner!

Phew…. are you as tired as I am?  We have a snowy drive facing us on Saturday.  There is at least 7 inches on the ground at home so far.

Name that breed!

I took today off of work!  Yippee!  One reason was just to take a break, and the other was to do some doggy stuff.  John and I headed out for Panera Bread for breakfast.  I asked for a chocolate chip bagel, but the guy gave me a cinnamon sugar one.  I usually correct mistakes, but I actually like this bagel, so I kept it.

Then it was time for me to do Pre-novice obedience.  Remember when Storm and I graduated obedience?  Colleen asked if I wanted to do Storm at this show.  It is somewhat informal.  Since I was unable to work with him this last month (thank you, back)  I decided to go for exhibition only, which meant I could correct Storm in the ring.

It was basically walking on lead:

Figure 8s (around people):

Sit/stay:

stand for exam:

The judge telling me Storm was being very good:

First section done. Then we got a slice of pizza because I was sta-harving at this point.  Not as good as John’s from yesterday, but when you are hungry anything tastes good.

Then it was time for the group long sit and lay.  The dog has to sit for 1 minute while you are at the end of the lead.

I have my arms crossed because that is going to be Storm’s ‘stay’ command.  He did good for this, except he should be straight and looking at me instead at other things.  At least he stayed still.

Then it was lay down and stay for 3 minutes.  Long time for a dog.

Storm started getting up after about a minute, so I just had to mash him back into the ground.

Lots of other doggies at this show.  Let’s see how many of these you know.  Answers will be at the very bottom.

A) Remember what kind of dog Storm is?

B)

C)

D) This one is a tough one:

Storm did really well for me, especially since we had an extended break!  He was a very good doggy.

Got home and had another snack, because that pizza didn’t last long.  Hadn’t had enough protein for the day!  So I made 1/2 of a lavash wrap with laughing cow, apple slices, and cooked ham cooked in a pan.

Yum! We stopped at the smokehouse and stocked up on meat.  It is so worth the trip there because everything is fresh, local and inexpensive!

Then it was latte time.

I was feeling pretty snacky today.  Like bottomless pit snacky.  So, I had a pear before dinner.

Usually when it is hot I lose my appetite, but not today.  85 degrees out, can you believe it?  And we had snow on Tuesday.

Dinner time was some breaded pork that John cooked the other day.

With hot sauce.  85 out and I am eating hot sauce??

I have to say it feels great to have a day off of work!  I love not working on Sundays 😀

Think we might go shopping tonight and get some shorts for John.  His are all too big now.  Maybe I’ll get some more for me, too :mrgreen:

Here are the breeds:

A) Clumber Spaniel B) Dandy Dinmont C) Italian Greyhounds D) Cane Corso (Italian mastif)

How did you do?

Dog show and chowda

Saturday was busy, busy!  My sister had invited me to see a dog shows where she was showing one of her Clumber Spaniels.  I had a nice PB&J oatbran breakfast using PB2 (with extra water).  Banana cooked in.

brekkie3

And John had his first bowl of souped up oats ever!

joats

He said it gave him lots of energy.  He went out and ran 5K in a little over 27 minutes, so I guess so!  He is going to rock the race next weekend 😀

Then I left for the dog show.  This was an obedience rally and Colleen’s dog was going for the 3rd and final leg of novice rally obedience (hope I got that right!).

Meet Storm:

storm

He is a big goofball and was very good today.  They had to go along this course and do various sit, stay, turn, down, etc.

rally

He did very well on the course (except for some face licking) and qualified, which meant he completed his novice rally title!

stormribbon

Congratulations Storm and Colleen!

Storm loves his aunt Lori, too:

loristorm

That was fun.  I have never been to a dog show before.  We went out for coffee to celebrate at MochaBlend Espresso Cafe in Troy.

latte2

Fantastic latte!  Wish this place were closer to us.  It blows Starbucks out of the water.

I think I might have eaten this, too.

pastry

Yum!

On the way home, I took a wrong turn and had to backtrack some. Gotta love that.  Once I got home at about 4pm, we turned right around and headed out grocery shopping, as my folks were coming over for dinner!

We decided to cook a clam chowder and used Alton Brown’s recipe

This is a pretty healthy recipe, as the only fat is the bacon and whatever milk % you use.  We used a good pepper bacon instead of salt pork (as that is what we had), and didn’t use fresh clams.  We used 1% milk.  The chowder wasn’t super thick, but it was very, very good:

chowda

You puree some with a stick blender to thicken the soup with potato rather than a roux.  This one is a keeper!  Served with a crusty artisan multigrain bread (which I forgot to photo) and salad.

Dessert was an apple crisp:

crisp

I had 2 of these 😀  Crisps can actually be a healthier dessert because the topping uses oats and you can control how much goes on.  Plus there is no bottom crust, as it is all fruit.  There are a lot of variations on the recipe out there.  For me, granny smith apples are the key because their tartness balances out the sugar.

After dinner we played a little playstation and then looked through photo albums.  That was fun!  It’s hard to believe how people change so much.  We were looking at pictures of my niece Logan when she was only a year or 2, and now she is 10!  Time sure flies.  I also hardly recognize myself.  I need to transfer some of those to digital.

Not the best of eating days today and not a whole lot of exercise.  Hope you September challengers are doing better with your respective goals this weekend than me!  It was a very busy weekend and back to work on Sunday – plus watching some football 😀