The big dog show weekend coming up, and how we prepare by falling apart.

I hope we're ready. We haven't been competing much at all this year, and now are running smack dab into 2 entire weekends in a row. For the first time ever, I'll be missing 2 Saturdays of work and heading out to Manzanita Park for 2 consecutive weekends of USDAA. It's a hard thing for me to miss 2 days of work, this will be quite an experiment, pretending to be like someone who doesn't work on Saturdays!

2 weekends in a row can either be a really good thing, or a really bad thing. If Gustavo's wheels fall off, not much room to pick them up. He's been a bit up and down lately, but we had a great class last night at Power Paws, and he had an awesome practice on Monday. His running dogwalks are looking amazing, he's bold and flying down that teeter totter, and his weave poles, the ones I thought he might never quite figure out, have been consistent and confident. And he's turning! All our jump drills we practice are hopefully paying off. He actually does look confident out there. I'll be trying my best to help him stay this way in the show ring.

Otterpop worries me a bit. She's been awesome in practice, running her heart out like a champ, but she doesn't seem to be happy right now. Instead of a half full can of Fresca, she's seeing everything through a half empty bottle of spiders. If she can turn things around and improve her outlook, she should have fun. If you see spiders, at least make sure they're the ones from Mars, Otterpop. Weird and Gilly. Life isn't that bad! She looks sound to me, I don't think her hinky leg is bugging her, I just think her mind feels heavy to her right now and we've got to lighten her up.

I feel like I'm Nurse Laura of Small Dog General Hospital. Ruby started having her weirdo pains again over the weekend, she's back on her pain meds, I'm hoping to head the pain off at the pass this time. I sure do worry about poor Ruby. Why does she go into these mysterious pain episodes? And Gustavo recently had a couple mini seizure-like episodes. I don't know if that's really what they are, I am hoping he does this because he just feels punky, but twice this week he's gone into a daze, checking out. Just sits and stares at a spot on the floor, drooling out his mouth and staring at his spot. He can recognize me, he's not totally gone, but he definitely goes to another planet when it happens. It lasts about an hour, it's always at night, and then by the next day he's fine. It hasn't happened in about 6 months, now it's been twice in a week. One high alert mental patient completes my ward.

Hopefully the whole ward shows up this weekend, ailment free and with game faces on. Ruby doesn't have to wear a game face, I'd sure like her to be able to take a nice slow walk around the park though. I'll be there for sure, I am the trusty garbage lady and I feel great. Hopefully I see all of you there! Well, lots of you, anyways. I promise to stop talking about my gas mileage. I will keep quiet about this from now on. After I tell you this. 43mpg on the first tank of diesel. Done now.