PJpupp: So sorry I’ve been a bit lax keeping all of you in cyberspace updated on our team activities. It’s been super busy around here, and this old girl can barely keep up. 

Gigi: It was your birthday, PJpupp! 

PJpupp: Yes, it was Gigi. I turned 11 years old.

Rickie Roo: Wow, I wonder what I will be like when I’m 11 years old. I hope I’m as smart as you Pup-per-roni.

Gigi: I don’t know if you will EVER be that smart Roo, Border Collies are often said to be the smartest of all dog breeds. 

Rickie Roo: Did  you tell everyone that I got a new AKC title? Huh? Did you??

Gigi: I don’t think we did, Roo. 

Rickie Roo: Well I did! I got a BIG ribbon. It says NEW TITLE on it. I get to add the letters OAJ after my name. That stands for Open Agility Jumpers. Now I get to be an AKC Excellent dog. Just like you and PJpupp! I’m still in Novice Standard classes though ’cause mommy wouldn’t enter me in the classes with the teeter totter until she was very certain I would do it correctly. In the jumpers classes I only do jumps, tunnels, and weave poles.

PJpupp: Why don’t you girls tell them about our super exciting weekend?

Gigi: Oh yeah, I was a model. I posed, and posed, and posed, and posed. I even posed when I was napping. 

Rickie Roo: I posed too!

Gigi: Not as much as me, Rickie Roo. You were in your crate most of the time, I was posing all day long.

PJpupp: You haven’t told the nice people WHERE you were posing or what you were modeling for.

Rickie Roo: We were spokesdoggies for our friend TJ and his line of healthy bite-sized vitamins! We were  at the AKC Agility Invitational in the i Love Dogs booth. I thought we were there to show, but we weren’t. 

PJpupp: Not this year. Gigi was in it for a couple years, but then we decided to compete in lots of other venues so that our teammates could compete too. It was great to be back at the Invitational seeing all of our friends again. Magi and Kokomo got to do some agility though, so that was nice. Almost as nice as you girls being spokesdoggies. 

Gigi: Our crates were set up  in the i Love Dogs booth where I could lay on top of mine and pose away. If any dogs came to the booth I could tell them how good TJ’s Health Bites are. It was cold and rainy so sometimes I snuggled under my fuzzy blanket and just sent psychic vibes. I got to snuggle with my friends Donna and Eugenia from i Love Dogs. They were very nice to me. Eugenia had her dog Cody, a cute little Pomeranian there, too. He liked to hide in his crate and nap a lot. 

PJpupp: Don’t forget that your brother Hobo, and teammates Magi and Kokomo were there too.

Gigi: Oh, yeah, they got to do agility and will be on T.V. 

Rickie Roo: I coulda done that!! No one would let me!! It’s not fair!!!

PJpupp: Rickie Roo, they wouldn’t let you THIS time. You will get your chance. This was a shoot for the new mixed breed program for the American Kennel Club. You are a Bur-Way Star. You can never forget that. Your gramma Barbie (Rat Terrier breeder Barbie Trammell) thought long and hard about the perfect 2 dogs to put together to create you. So one day she let your mommy Laredo go on a date with your daddy Who and sometime after that you and all your littermates were born. You are a pure-bred Rat Terrier so there is no way you could be in a program about mixed breed dogs.

Rickie Roo: Oh. I didn‘t know that. How come Magi and Kokomo got to do it? 

PJpupp: Magi is a Border Collie/Golden Retriever. That’s a mixed breed. We know who his mommy and daddy are but because they are not both the same kind of dog and because there is no record of their parents’ family history they are not pure-bred dogs. Kokomo’s mommy just showed up at the animal shelter one day and had lots of puppies. No one knows anything about Kokomo or who the daddy of the puppies was or even what kind of dog she is. So that makes Kokomo a mixed breed too. Your brother Hobo is also a mixed breed. He just showed up one day and we don’t have any idea of his family history. 

Rickie Roo: Do you have my family history?

PJpupp: Oh yes, Rickie Roo, there are records for at least 10 generations of your family history.

Rickie Roo: Gigi was adopted from the animal shelter. How come she’s not in the mixed breed TV show?

PJpupp: Because Gigi appeared to be a pure-bred dog, a Rat Terrier like you. We had experts in the breed verify she was a Rat Terrier. Then we were able to hunt down a breeder who likely bred Gigi. So she was enrolled in the AKC as a purebred under one of their special programs and is able to compete as a pure-bred dog. 

Gigi: Magi and Kokomo were terrific! They did lots of agility on the Invitational course with mommy. Even Hobo got to give it a try.

Rickie Roo: Hobo was just embarrassing. I was so glad I was in my crate and not ringside so that no one knew he was my brother.

PJpupp: Oh Roo, Hobo is just starting to learn agility. 

Rickie Roo: It’s TRUE!! He was embarrassing. He ran amuck in the ring and tried to potty on a tunnel and then looked like he was gonna run away. The TV cameras filmed him running in circles all over the course with mommy trying to catch him. Doesn’t he know that agility is when you jump OVER the jumps, run OVER the A frame, and THROUGH the tunnels, not around them?

PJpupp: Roo, be nice. He was in a crate all day long and was so excited to be out to play he couldn’t help himself.

Gigi: PJ, I don’t think they got even one good picture of him doing ANYTHING correctly. I’m with Roo-ster on this one.

PJpupp: I guess I’m outvoted. But you gotta love him anyway. He was so proud of himself. He was running around and finally mommy said “Hobo, SIT!” So he did, and the whole crowd clapped and cheered. He is a silly boy.

Gigi: Kokomo ROCKED it like a superstar. So did Magi. Magi ran with both mommy and with Mei too. Mommy says everyone had a lot of fun.

Rickie Roo: I can’t wait until Magi and Kokomo get to come to AKC trials with us. I heard that they can in April 2010. How cool is that?

Gigi: Pretty cool.

PJpupp: What else did you do at the Invitational?

Rickie Roo: We went shopping. We got Chili Dog a new coat and saw lots of our friends.

Gigi: We sat in the stands during the finals and cheered for all of our friends! Mommy and Mei made signs, and mommy held them up during each dog’s run, and then Mei gave it to them afterwards. Our friends Luka and Letti both won their classes in the event. Luka got first place in every single class the whole weekend!

Rickie Roo: I interviewed Luka for the world games. I wonder if Luka got Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for winning again? I was told that was THE top reward for Luka.

PJpupp: I don’t know Roo. Maybe you will have to ask.

Rickie Roo: Hey mommy showed me this super cool video with Luka’s winning run on it. It has him and the 2nd place dog, our friend Nica running the course at the same time. She says it’s an overlay. You can tell where each dog was at the same time on the course. Here is the link for our friends who might want to see it (Overlay Ashley Deacon / Luka, Elisha Calhoun / Nica 16″ class 2009 AKC Agility Invitational).

PJpupp: I hope one day you will be as good as that, Rickie Roo. You will have to enter lots of shows and practice a lot to get there.

Gigi: We have another dog show this weekend, in Van Nuys. She can practice then.

Rickie Roo: It will be my first time in AKC Excellent. I hope I do well.

PJpupp: We will see, Rickie Roo. Excellent classes are MUCH harder than Open and Novice. As long as you do your best, mommy will be proud of you. She does hope you will get your Novice Standard classes done though. So perhaps you can try to do the contacts (A Frame, Dog Walk, Teeter) correctly just for mommy? In Excellent you can’t make ANY mistakes. In the lower level classes you can have one or two and still Q.

Gigi: I think I get to run with Mei. It’s fun to run with both mommy and Mei.

PJpupp: You are certainly a lucky girl.  It’s time to go train now. So we better go. See you all next time.

Check out our new PM2 Dog Agility Team Page, and http://360.yahoo.com/PuppPower.

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Do you think Rickie Roo will earn a Qualifying Score in her first ever AKC Excellent Jumpers run? Post a comment here to cheer her on!