Beau and I traveled to Kalamazoo, Michigan to partake in the festivities of the UKC Premier. This was our 8th appearance. We showed in the Top Ten Breed Finals, COBRA Breed Specialty, and all three days of the Premier.

In Saturday's show Beau earned the Grand Champion Award of Merit under judge Karen Johnson. There were three dogs in the class including Beau.

In Sunday's show Beau showed under judge Joe Allen. Beau won his class as he was the only Grand Champion entered. He went on for Best of Breed over ten Catahoulas. Later in the day, during a thunderstorm, Beau earned a Group 2 placement in the Herding Group. I can't remember for sure how many breeds were represented in the Group ring, but it was at least 15. He defeated approximately 200 dogs that day.

I got a book in the mail today, Dog Park Wisdom by Lisa Wogan. Lisa contacted me last year about putting my site in the book as a place to get info on hiking with dogs. It's plugged on pages 110-111 (via a plug for backpackgeartest.org), with a bio in the back for Beau and me, plus some of our online friends from the Traildog email list (member since 1999, mod since 2001).

It was really nice to look in the book today and have a mention of Lucy. The book went to press just before Lucy passed away.

The author has a site here: http://dogparkwisdom.wordpress.com/ with the May 10 entry linking to my site (the instructions for the poop baggie dispenser, specifically).

I'm sure by now most news hound hikers have heard about the death of Merideth Emerson, the 24-year-old hiker from Georgia.

I wasn't sure if I would—or for that matter, should—write something about the incident. On one hand, this is mostly a nuts-and-bolts kind of site, with some input from me on various topics. On the other, this is an incident isolated to one perpetrator* against a "traildogger" who is like many who visit this site.

This case hits home for me in a way that many other trail-related crimes haven't. Yes, I've heard of trailhead break-ins, trailside thefts, and so on. In my mind those are crimes that could affect anyone. This case, however, is so much closer to me. In this case the victim is very much like me—early-mid 20s, female, solo with a dog.

2008 Entries

As is normal for me, I'm a little late with the breaking news.

I found an article about the passing of Frank Hall of Hall's Dog Sleds fame. He made the dog sled I owned during high school/college. He was a talented craftsman and left a legacy in the world of sled dog sports.

He was from my home state of Michigan and his original home town is not far from where I was born.

More information can be found here:

Frank Hall's Obituary at Sled Dog Central

I went to the presentation by Jeff Alt last night and had lots of fun. I now have some reading material, new friends, and some events to post on here in the upcoming months.

When I got home I got an email from Tom Mangan of Two-Heel Drive. When I saw the email my jaw dropped open and I thought, "OMG, Tom Mangan read my site." Tom's a great writer (both in blogs and in traditional print media) and has been on The Wildebeat. I highly recommend taking a look at his blog.

I fat fingered my URL the other day when I was coming here to post how Beau did in Canada. I instead got a Google search for my website. Nothing major, right? WRONG. I found this book--Outdoors Online: An Internet Guide to Everything Wild & Green by Erika Dillman (The Mountaineers, 2007). On page 141 (thank you Google Books!) there is a section titled "Trail Terriers" and it references this website (ding!). The most interesting thing, IMO, is not that the author says "Terriers" when I, in fact, have Curs... but that the names of my pets are Lucy, Beau, and Stuffy. As in my stuffed dog that I take places for fun. Kind of a stunt dog. I'm kind of curious how much time they spent researching my site... or if they just pulled a description off dmoz or something.

Beau and I got back from a weekend trip to Brampton, Ontario today. While there Beau won Best of Breed twice (giving him 9 Top Ten points for the weekend, and a total of 19 so far for the year) and a Group 2 under Judge Laurie Soutar on Friday, and a Group 4 in Sunday's second show under Judge Patricia Young. It was a really fun weekend and I got to see old friends and make some new ones.

We even got to see a bobtail relative of Beau's --Uchi Aka Inu's Raidon--earn his Champion title and get his first leg towards his Grand Champion title all in one weekend. That's a huge feat in any breed, let alone a breed with small numbers. I'm very excited for Raidon and his Moms, Sandy and Denise. Raidon is the second bobtail Catahoula to earn a UKC Champion title.

Hey folks, I'm just dropping a quick line to let you all know that I'm moving.

The site is migrating servers some time this weekend. You shouldn't notice much of a change, but things might be slow or unavailable at times.

Also, I'm changing jobs and as such am moving to a different area of the state. Beau is going with me since I'll need help exploring all the new trails there. Since I'm going to be frazzed for a few weeks/months trying to get settled, I won't be quick on responding to emails (I have NO clue when I'll actually have internet access yet) and won't be adding new content to the site for a while. So, I'm not ignoring you, I've just dropped off the face of the earth.

Today my Lucydog passed away in her sleep. She was a great dog-- the first one that was mine and not the whole family's. She was rescued in 1996 at about 4 years old. I'll never know how old she was for sure, but if she wasn't already 15, she was close.

She and I had a lot of good times together. She helped out with a lot of foster puppies and taught them how to be good dogs. She was my first Catahoula (even if it was only one half--Catahoula X Australian Cattle Dog), my first 4-H dog, my first obedience dog, first titled dog, also the dog that started hiking with me. She never did any overnights, just day hikes and tent camping, but she taught me how to do things so Beau's training went a lot more smoothly.