Sorry I haven't been posting much lately; I've been spending most of my time, both physically and mentally (if you know what I mean), at my other blog. As my rheumatoid arthritis has gotten worse, I've been obsessing a bit and spending most of my internet time researching and blogging about my finds.

Plus, we've entered into a more or less down time of year for anything but run of the mill dog activities. Living in the Houston area, summer is just a sucky time to do much of anything outside (I suppose the opposite of Michigan in winter). And this year the temps have blasted up particularly early and it's already as miserably hot as we normally expect in late July and August; high temps in the upper 90's, low temps in the mid to upper 70's, all with HIGH humidity. Bleh!

No more agility trials until it begins to cool down in late fall. Holly and Mikey and I are still going to class, but we will be taking off the month of August, and possibly July too. Partly because it's just so darn hot and humid that class is getting unpleasant (temps are in the upper 80's at class time), but also because it's hard to keep either dog in the best shape, since it's just too hot for any prolonged, intense exercise. Poor Mikey particularly has trouble with the heat.

And no Reliant this year. My dad and I both are taking this year off. None of our dogs is ready, or going to be ready for obedience/rally. And I'm not thrilled with the idea of running Mikey (or myself) on the thin carpet over concrete flooring that is used at Reliant for agility; not surprisingly, there are a lot of injuries in the agility rings at Reliant every year. And I'm not real thrilled with the idea of showing Mikey in breed at Reliant this year either. I don't think he would be very competitive at his age against all the up and coming youngsters, so I'll hold out for something small and local later in the year. I haven't yet decided if I will take the day off (or maybe half a day?) to come to the specialty/club meeting at Reliant. Since I resigned from the Board, I haven't really seen or heard much from anyone, and it would be nice. . .

Well, besides a lot of work related stress (anyone need a statistician/SAS programmer?), that about covers the reasons for my lack of posting. I have a bunch of random pictures that, if I ever get around to downloading from my camera, I promise to post.

Holly and Mikey say 'Hi'.