Sweeney is a stud!

So Sweeney had his surgery today and is out and on his way home. Dr. Carmichael removed the P3 cleanly and closed the pad over the removed area. Sweeney will have crate restriction for a few weeks while the toe heals, followed by a prolonged rehab period (don't ask how long 'cause we play it by ear).

Now to the really cool part. While Sweeney was on the surgery table a Chihuahua came in needing an emergency c-section. She had already had several pups at home, but evidently the rest just wouldn't come. Well, Dr. Carmichael did the surgery but the Chihuahua needed a transfusion. The clinic didn't have any blood on hand, so they used Sweeney for the transfusion. So while he was out, Sweeney saved the life of someone's beloved pet and mother to puppies. SWEENEY ROCKS!

This is broken

Good and bad from the SEGC trial this past weekend in Cartersville. Let's do the good first. Sweeney won FCh Greyhounds on Saturday pretty convincingly. I do love to watch that dog run. Takes my breath away every time. Everett finished second on Saturday out of 17 FCh Whippets and Lobo tied for NBQ but we forfeited. On Sunday, Lobo finished 2nd in his flight of 10 and Everett finished 3rd in his. So, not firsts, but Maurice and Deb brought some damn good competition! Congratulations to them for their sweep on Sunday (1st in Open, FCh A, FCh B, Vet and BIE). DebMar's Lilly took Best in Event.

Now for the bad news. Sweeney broke a P3 in finals Saturday. He's having it taken care of as I type. With any luck at all, he'll be mended and back on the field soon. After being cared for by the immensely talented Dr. Toby Carmichael, Sweeney was barely aware of any injury and was being his usual goofy self.

If you have any questions about what is going on, or you hear any rumors, please feel free to contact me personally and I'll be glad to give you more info than I'm sure you'd want!

On another topic, sportsmanship is important. Let's keep this in mind especially when we're disappointed in the scores our dogs get. I know that I've had my moments on the field and shown my ass, but I hope that I've been able to make amends for those moments and have been able to grow and learn. Anyway, please try to remember that what we do is fun and a judge's score can't injure your dog. What's most important are the two ends to the dog. If they're wagging their tail and grinning then it's all good. No matter what the judges say.

SEGC

SEGC is this weekend at Old Mill. We should have good weather for the hounds (60's-70'ish) and hopefully dry.

Here's a picture of Sweeney.

Another Dan Gauss pic!

That's Lobo.

Thanks to Dan for this great picture! Once again, thanks Dan!!!

Where the wind comes sweepin down the plain

Spent the weekend in very rural Oklahoma. What a nice place to run the dogs! We were at Windyglen in Boswell Oklahoma. The trial was smallish, but the dogs that were there ran quite nicely. I saw a number of very nice open Borzoi and IG's. My guys did well with Ev taking breed both days and Lobo finishing second and third. Nellie had great practices both Saturday and Sunday. Very exciting stuff!

The best part of the trip was getting to see the good people in Region 4. I really enjoyed myself. I love that part of the country too. I think that if I had to move anywhere in the country, it would have to be somewhere in New Mexico/Texas/Oklahoma. The people are nice, the land is beautiful and sparsely populated and I just like the feel of the place. Go figure...

I've got a weekend off upcoming and then back out to the field. SEGC is the 21st and 22nd. Ya'll come!

Falling

It's been neat to get to go north for a couple of weekends in a row this year and see an early fall. Here in GA the temps are still getting to the 80's during the day even though it's cool in the mornings. It was quite different in WI this weekend, albeit far from unpleasant. The weather cooperated well and we had a couple of very nice days for the dogs to run. MWCC's field is quite nice, large enough to put a nice course on. I was pleased to see dogs working a bit more this weekend and putting in some nice runs. Thanks to Greg and Kevin for having me up to judge, especially after I had to cancel last year due to my torn hamstring. I got to see some of the 'Minnesota Mafia' again this weekend. They're nice folks with good, competitive dogs. Hopefully Al will come down for New Year's in GA. I'm big on getting the best dogs together and competing head to head to see who's the best of the best. Maybe I'll work on contacting as much of the top 20 and seeing what kind of entry we can get here.

Once again, flying isn't my favorite thing in the world. I'm glad that I don't travel a lot for my job and wonder how my father ever was able to travel as much as he did. When I was growing up, he would have to spend quite a bit of time away from home, travelling the world for business. I never really noticed how much he was away and just took it as a part of life. I know that I would be miserable if I had to spend so much time in airports and airplanes away from family and friends. At least on this trip I wasn't folded into a seat as I was flying Midwest and their service to and from Atlanta is all business class seating.

This coming weekend is GIT in Oklahoma. I know, Oklahoma isn't Texas... Hopefully they'll have had a little rain and the ground won't be baked hard as a rock. We're going to take the dogs with us and get them out for the first time since my trip to NY during the summer. Hopefully they won't be too 'soft' to compete!

Around here things are quite busy. Em is playing softball and that takes a lot of our time. Softball is pretty serious business around here so we spend a lot of time at the ball field either practicing or playing games. Their team is good, but very young for their age bracket. The girls have a lot of fun and that's what it's all about.

The peeps are peeping. I'm wondering if I actually saw eggs in the nest of if I was seeing things. We'll know soon enough if we hear the cheeps of baby peeps!