More news.. good!

After we finally recieved a diagnosis for Terra, she has been started on treatment. Initially she was started on inhalational steroids, and they didn't seem to do much. She was still panting like a trooper. Her mycoplasma results came back negative as well, so steroids were the only treatment for her 'allergic lung disease'. However, the steroids upset her stomach :/ So I stopped them, and resigned myself to the inhalational steroids, which even though they didn't seem to be doing anything, she still enjoyed. Shimmer, on the other hand, was very worried by this 'gassing' process.. She was still not wanting to train and getting extremely puffed with exercise. I had entered her in the states a while ago, and was thinking that I would probably have to scratch her. I thought I'd do one run (she was only entered in masters), and assess from there. She started slowly, and crawled up and down the dog walk. Hmm. But then, after the dog walk she suddenly sped up, and finished the course getting faster, and I had to run to get to where I needed to be! Good sign. I was *very* surprised when she got equal first place for that run.. and that was her slowest run of the day. She got faster as the day progressed, unfortunately I handled her badly in both masters jumping events and we didn't get into the finals for that class. The next morning, for the finals, again I had low expectations (lets face it, the dog hadn't had ANY training since October last year). She was up fairly early in the running order and felt like she ran quite nicely.. until the stupid Wee-Saw.. that she ran up.. and straight off. Even though she ran to the end, it didn't even move! It seems to be harder to get down then when it was normal height.. and I have seen more upset dogs with the new height then I ever saw.. but I digress. I finished the run, laughing at her and happy she was happy. I was FLABBERGASTED to read after the results, that had she held the WS she would have won by nearly TWO seconds! Hmmm! Maybe we should rethink this not going to the nationals.. ? Shimmer, on the other hand, had a disappointing State Titles. She did some nice work but we failed to go clear in any of her excellent runs (and I didn't enter open). Bunch of mistakes, she is starting to knock bars... here we go again.. and her contacts are still not reliable. She also doesn't like the WS, and at the moment is alternating between running to the end and not being able to hold it, and creeping up looking worried. Lots more work needed on that. No vid of the states as our trusty videographer (Colin) was not there.. anyone would think he and Karen were about to go away on a long overseas trip or something! Ha. A couple of nice photos taken by the *very* talented Robyn.. including the best one I have of Shim in competition yet..

And.. in other, completely unrelated news, Mike and I are having a proper extended honeymoon after the wedding next year! We were just going to have a couple of days in Nelson, but after our 4 days in the sunny city we are flying to...

Yep Disney World, Florida, America!! Yes I am a little excited about this.. actually I am VERY VERY excited! We have a couple of days in LA with Mike's brother, then off for nearly 2 weeks to Florida.. theme parks here I come...

(Harry Potter world in Universal Studios.. Mike is very excited about this one!)

(Disney's Animal Kingdom)

(Hollywood Studios)

(The Manta Rollercoaster at SeaWorld, apparently the number one rollercoaster in the world!)