NIKKI’S BIRTHDAY FUN RUN
04/27/24
For my birthday this year I turned 29 on the 24th. At the beginning of the week I decided I wanted to do a skeet shoot on that Saturday, and then run dogs on Sunday with my best friends. So Amy and Bethany decided they would camp out in the top field Saturday night to wake up and run dogs Sunday Morning. Saturday started out with me frantically cleaning my house since I was having so many people over for the skeet shoot party. My mom and sisters, dad and step mom, grandma, in-laws, Papa Shane, and a handful of Justin and I’s close friends came over (Ashley/Eric/Kids, Tim/Brinkley/Kids, Tyler/Justine, Paul/Tori/Kids) We had hot dogs, deviled eggs, cowboy beans, spring salad, no bake cookies, rice krispy treats, and some pineapple upside down cake. Everyone brought some ammo and clays to get started. Usually skeet shoots are hits at the house because we have an automatic skeet thrower. Everyone tries everyone else’s guns out and we all just have a great time hanging out. Gary my father in law started a fire at 2pm that day and had it going all day long. So once it got dark it was time to move to the camp fire. Amy and Bethany showed up about 8:00 and I directed them to go to the top field and get their camp sites set up. Once they got settled in they headed down. By this time there was a couple people left but most everyone was leaving.
We then decided that we wanted to play a board game by the fire. So Bethany, Justin, and I decided on Tapple. This game is where you pick a category and there are buttons which have each letter of the alphabet on it. You pick your letter and say your word and it goes to the next person. You have to hit your button before time runs out. It got very interesting and intense. All I am going to say is (rear play and half pants) We then turned on the Bluetooth speaker and started our playlist and rotation of jams. The girls were astonished when I was a rap queen and got word for word on most songs we played. We got into a good playlist on Spotify and Amy went into full ADHD mode. We listened to about 47 songs in about 4 minutes. Only getting through the first 10 seconds. There were tons of laughs and no one wanted to go to bed. 2 am hit and we knew we needed to go so we could get up and run dogs. So Amy, Bethany, and Trey all headed up to bed.
The next morning we got up and Justin had rekindled the fire. We had morning coffee from Amy’s percolator and some pizza mountain pies for breakfast. We sat at the fire and listed to the Turkey down in the bottom of the woods, Justin put the chang gang up top in the shade and we hooked everyone up to it. Between us 3 girls we have the cutest chang gang ever. Trey was our designated shooter for all the dogs. All of the dogs did great and got birds in their mouths. We are making sure Trey is a shooter for the HerUpland event we are hosting here this fall. Mo even pointed the chukar that flew into a tree and I flushed that sucker out. We then had a fun run and some pond time since it was getting hot. There was a chukar up in the pear tree Amy got to fly out. All dogs ran after it into the bottom of the woods. Everyone was in anticipation on who was the one to come out with it. I knew right away who it was going to be. This dog is lightning and most of the time brings back the birds I miss. (He just knows I shot, he doesn’t know if it was hit or not) So I blurted out of course its going to be Mo. And sure enough it was Mo with the win. I showed everyone that chukars float in the water. All dogs were jumping in and trying to beat each other to it. I dock dive Mo so he goes full air born jumping into the pond. We finished up pond time and the girls hit the road as the boys and I headed into the house.
The rest of Sunday was time for relaxation. These moments in time might be simple. People might think it’s just another training day. But these are the moments I remember. Doing the thing I enjoy most in the world is running my dogs with my best friends. Letting people see what I see in these dogs and the potential and work we are putting in. This was the last “fun” training session for the season. I wanted one last time for the boys to go out and just have fun doing what they are bred for. Now the real training season is in swing and we will be working on more vigorious training. My personal goals for the year is to get the dogs to steady to shot, finish up their heel training, finish up their place training, and start/finish them on trained retrieve. We have alot of work ahead of us but come this fall my crew will be even better then they were last year. Hopefully we will be getting their AKC Pointing Senior Hunt Title on them. And if all goes well the spring of 2025 we will be getting their AKC Retriever Junior Hunt Title.
NIKKI
