I’ve been so quiet because Chico and I moved to the new house on December 21 (Lucy went to Kathryn’s to play with other collies for the holidays, but she’s back now). It took all my attention to pack, move, and unpack (which is still far from unfinished). Lucy was just too helpful to be of any help to the unpacking process.

Lucy continues to learn agility equipment. She is a natural, curious and fast and happy to run and to try new things. I turned my back on her for a minute at Julie’s arena and she was up the see-saw and I had to grab the far end to keep it from slamming to the ground and making noise that might scare her. She will learn that it makes noise, and starts going down with her weight, but I want to teach her, not have her be surprised and possibly frightened.

Chico is running better and happier than ever before. He’s down a couple pounds (which is a lot on a 40 pound dog), from almost 46 to just under 43. He had his eleventh birthday on Sunday (well, it’s his Got Ya Day and pretty close to his actual, but unknown, birth date) and celebrated by having a perfect run in Jumpers and an almost perfect run in Standard (slid off the table, other than that, we were pretty awesome). It seems there is something about having Lucy around that makes him work harder at everything.

At the trial we went down to the dog park and found a sweet little Pug named Walter who adored running after balls with Lucy. Chico stayed in the corner of the enclosure, tied to a post, and yelled at the other dogs for having fun while I threw the ball and Walter’s person stayed over by Chico, keeping the playing dogs from getting too close to him. It worked well. She was a good pet owner, savvy to the situation and proactive.

Today we’ll go meet Maggie and her person Ellen at the fairgrounds and let Maggie and Lucy run. And Chico doesn’t have to.