Juno got her RN!

No, she's not a registered nurse. (Yes, I was super confused when I saw the title “RN” after dogs' names.)

Juno got her second and third legs for her Rally Novice title!

We had a very exciting day on Sunday. We got up insanely early to drive to Petaluma, where the trial was happening at the fairgrounds. It was delightfully laid-back and relaxed; if I'd known ahead of time, I would've brought Kaline and just put him in the popup crate. As it was he had to stay home, but he wasn't actually alone that much.

Because we left so early, Juno and I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge just as the sun was coming up over the Bay. It was absolutely gorgeous. I felt really lucky, because people come from all over the world to see our beautiful bridge, and I got to drive over it just to go to an obedience trial. Too bad no one else with proper digits drove with me, because it would have been an amazing photo.

We got there with plenty of time to spare. I was extra nervous because instead of being scheduled to go into the ring 57th or something, we were third. Unlike the other trials we'd gone to, Novice A & B were up first instead of last, woohoo! But I'm now used to having basically the whole day to brush up on the course and get Juno warmed up, so it was a little weird.

A bunch of the people we had met at the other trials were there, cause I guess it's a small world. It was freezing in the morning, holy crap. We all shivered our way through the first of the two trials. Juno and I actually had plenty of time to practice for the first course, which only had 11 stations and was actually pretty easy. Juno was totally perfect in the ring, but we lost ten points when I had her sit on a “finish right” that had no stop sign. Whatever, I thought, we qualified! Who cares about the other stuff. And problems with me are (most of the time) easy to fix.

Juno and her first green ribbon.

After qualifying in the first trial and having some deep pressure time to stop my heart from racing, we browsed the items up for raffle in one of the buildings. There was a table and a half covered in dog books, a good 10-15 of which were Doberman books! As you can imagine I went a tiny bit apeshit, especially since two of the covers had natural-eared Dobes on them. As with many things I want really badly, nobody else was interested, so I “won” the books as the only person who entered for them. Two dollars ended up getting me about 10 Doberman books and then another five or six plain dog books. A most productive two dollars, I'd say! I just have no idea where I'll put them because I have literally no bookshelf space left.

Only some of the books I ended up taking home.

By the time of the second trial, it warmed up quite nicely. We were second on that one, though, and I did not feel as prepared when we went in the ring. It was a harder course as well with a lot of turns. But again, Juno was perfect and I was the one who messed up (this time it was for not coming to a stop when I should have). Nonetheless, we passed and I was incredibly stoked because you always get a little medallion or pin for a title, and the ones at this trial were really nice looking. I was, as always, incredibly proud of my girl. She charmed everyone at the show, since they were all packing cookies or bait.

Juno and her second green ribbon.

Juno's RN title pin.

It took us a while to drive home because of insane traffic. I ended up going to dinner with Mom, and took Kaline because he hadn't really gotten to do anything all day. I fully expected a non-peaceful dinner, because he hadn't gotten his usual amount of exercise or stimulation. Instead, he walked into the restaurant, waited politely for me to lay out his mat, then curled up on it and didn't pop up until we were ready to go! I practically died. Could it possibly be that he's maturing? Naaaaaah.

Kaline being a very good boy at Max's.

In other Kaline news, he went to the high school musical, Legally Blonde, on Wednesday with my mom and me. He did have some popups there, but for the most part he was good. If you've never seen the play, it involves several instances of exceedingly high pitched squealing. The first time it happened, I kinda went, “Aw shit” in my head, but Kaline didn't even flinch. Woohoo. He pulled a bit in the crowds, but he wasn't at all overwhelmed by any part of the experience, which is the kind of thing that would worry me. Overall I was really happy with how he did!

Kaline at the theatre, checking out the crowd before the play.