Today started out like a semi-normal Wednesday where Alex and I were happily grooming dogs.  I went to put a dog up and.. stuck my head in a hornet's nest.  I ran, dodged, but 5 of the buggers got me in the head.  I yelped and began digging all the stingers out.  I thought I was successful and went back to grooming with some whimpering.  While I was grooming Berke:

I began to feel tired and sat down.  Not entirely out of the ordinary but well... Alex had left and my husband found me leaning over the table casually stripping Berke's coat.  He mentioned that I didn't look so well and he wanted me to go to football practice with them in case I fell and died or something.  I agreed and left my half groomed Jack Russell to enjoy himself.  I didn't feel too badly that evening but then things changed the next day:

Yeah, it was no bueno.  I headed to Urgent Care after leaving work to take a nap and seeing my face definitely heading in the wrong direction.  They gave me a steroid shot and I dragged my stupid carcass out.  

I hate you stinging bugs!

Now that Luna's out of quarantine and doing well with our feeding program, we decided to take her to our trusty vet (who was probably thankful to not be doing preg or cycle checks!) and get her going wellness wise.  It's hard to see in many of her pictures and videos, but Luna needed to  put on a ton of weight (unexpectedly we found this out upon arrival) when we got her so we've been working on that and just letting her settle in.  Dr S checked her out and thought she was in overall great health and got to work on her teeth and let us have some antibiotics for her lingering cellulitis from all the mud she came in with :/  With her teeth cleaned up, we were told to get her on the regular wellness schedule with everyone else.

Not too bad -  onward!

Once a year, for the past three years, we've packed up a ton of things and headed to the huge NRG Center for the World Series of Dog Shows.  This year was no different, but to say it's not exhausting would be a lie.  We love to see all the competitors, spectators, and judges though!  We were tired from our little vacation but it was worth it!  Check out our pictures and video from the week long event!

Boerboel bowling!

Puppies being puppies!

What did we do on the Fourth?  We went cross country schooling of course!

Yes, these dressagey people went and "jumped" things.  OK, so Sarah and Piper jumped and Jade and I well... we walked over things lol.  I've been wanting to go schooling for a while now.  You can take me out of the sport but you can't fully take the sport out of me.

Upon arrive, Piper was a bit meh until... SHE REALIZED SHE WAS AT THE PONY PLAYGROUND!  The black and white pocket rocket hadn't been really off the property much the past few years while she made babies so it was funny after a couple of years that she'd remember so happily what happened at this place.  Pony was jazzed in an infectious way that only Piper can do.  With tack on her, Sarah tried to mount the normally rock steady Piper at a mounting block and Piper tried, she really did, but it was like a kid trying to wait to enter Chuck E. Cheese.  She just.. couldn't.  I ended up tossing Sarah on her and Piper was like YES LETS GO PERSON AND DO THINGS!!!

It's impossible to not laugh at a horse that LOVES what it's about to do.

Jade meanwhile, was super chill. My goal was to get a nice happy outing as this was her first time doing anything like this off property with me.  We walked the stadium "course" of tiny cross rails and it looked promising.  We sauntered to the cross country course and checked things out.  The original goal was just to hack but well... logs needed some jumping.

A tiny baby log was found and I walked Jade over it.  Sarah gave in and let Piper jump it.  I just told her to do a dressage trot to it and let the rest happen.  Just like that... pretty jump.  We shortened Sarah's stirrups and she was excited to be in sight of her "lady balls."  I laughed and.. walked my giant black tank of a horse who was struggling to understand uneven ground lol.

Another log and we hit the water jump.  Jade was fascinated and tried to be a chicken but quickly figured it out.  We did a "drop" fence which Jade was skeptical about at first but quickly got it.  I explained to Sarah and they got it done easily.  Onward we went into the woods and Jade "spooked" at a Prelim jump hidden in the woods so we checked it out and she realized it wasn't a big scary thing to eat her, just something furniture looking.  I got Sarah to jump a few more things and she settled in pretty well, ending with the box jump (top) and a mix of happy, adrenaline, excitement, and terror by the end.  She was also floored by how much Piper LOVES jumping and not in an out of control way, but in a true "I love this all day every day" sort of way.  I smiled and we went back to the main field for a quick canter (or in Jade's case hopping up and down) and called it a day before it was too hot.

​So fun!