Hi fans ...
Hope you all had a smashing ending to 2009 and are full of energy to start the new year.
Here things are looking up. Mum, despite nursing a cold actually spent some time with us over the past few days doing "stuff".
Chippy and I are leaning to "back around" mum. I have basically got it - of course if mum were clearer I would have had it a long time ago, but with the handicap I have I am doing the best I can. Chippy is a bit slow. I think his problem is that he really likes to back away and doesn't see the point of now having to "zoom around" mum, rather than back away ... it will come - shame he gets confused so easily.
In the meantime mum says she thinks she has found Chippy's new music - boy am I glad she doesn't expect ME to dance to that and make a fool of myself - Chippy of course is fine with it - he is such a good sport.  
Cassie has been working quite hard for her new HTM routine. She is only in Novice (time enough for me to still catch her), but mum says it doesn't matter what class she is in, she must still do the best she can. I fully agree - things must be done well and polished and accurate.
So, in the meantime it's poor old me with the same old routine and no new music in sight. The bright spot is that mum got one of those USB record palyers that allow her to put all her records onto the computer so she gets a chance to listen to lots and lots of music ... surely there must be something suitable there for a little grey dog?
In the meantime mum started tracking again with us ... well, OK, so we are only on day 2, but she said we will continue with it. She says I must be thankful to Phyllis on the clicktrain list who started her off again. Mum sais Phyllis is really knowledgable and she is putting a "starter program" on the list. Mum says clicktrain is the best list anyway, and Shirley, who owns the list is the most knowledgable person mum knows. You should check it out - me, I'd rather be training than reading e-mails, but then I am a little biased in that area. OTOH, if it pushed mum into some type of action, it must be pretty good.
So, what are our plans for 2010 - first and formost to survive the madness that is called the Soccer World Cup, apparently it is even bigger and noisier than the Agility World Champs - phew! that is hard to imagine, but they say it is true. Mum wants us to do well in Agility again (I would suggestwe need to do some harder training) and then she wants us to compete some more in freestyle this year, starting with the video competition in March .. I'll keep you posted how that is turning out, since we were already supposed to have competed in December and nothing, but nothing happened. mum has all sorts of excuses for that, but I think the end result is what counts - did we or did we not? and clearly we did not. But she promised us we will compete in March. She says Quincy needs to get her routines done for PDP, 'cause she is not getting any younger and those routines are really tough. You should see the 2 - I hope I will be as good as Quincy one day.

So in th meantime enjoy the year ahead and don't forget to have fun with your humans - despite their shortcomings, they are all we have
Kisses to all of you