Category Archives: obedience

Where to Start?

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The last three weeks have been a whirlwind of activity around here. I knew it was going to be busy, but I really didn’t have a clue how busy! The middle of the month Cynthia and I had a trip planned to fly to Newark pick up her new Danish Swedish Farmdog puppy, Jet! We’d been waiting, (not patiently I might add LOL) for what seemed like months for him to come. To check out what a cutie Jet is you should hop on over to Tiptail and read all about his adventures! www.tiptail.com

That would have been plenty exciting and fun in itself but just a few days before we were scheduled to leave, I got an email from Judy with Himark Shelties in Florida. I’d been on a waiting list for one of her puppies. She was writing to let me know that a puppy had become available that she thought was just what I was looking for. Judy and Dave Guaraldo have consistently been producing some of the top ranked performance shelties in the country for years. They are even being spotlighted in this summer’s issue of the Sheltie Pacesetter.

I have to say that I was a bundle of mixed emotions. I was so excited to meet this little girl! At the same time there is always that question of when, (if ever), is a good time to introduce another dog into the family. Also, since I’ve been involved in rescue, our dogs have mainly been rescues. I think I felt a twinge of guilt for looking at buying from a breeder, (regardless of how reputable), when there are so many Shelties in rescue. However, while I absolutely adore my rescues, at times the baggage that has come along with them has made competition Obedience and Agility a real challenge. So, to make this long story shorter…the conclusion I came to was that Cynthia and I would fly down there and meet her and make the final decision then.

Well, I’m sure that you’ve all guessed…we brought her home with us. She is everything that I was hoping for and more! All my hesitancy is gone. I can’t thank Judy enough for matching me up with and entrusting me with this little girl. We’ve named her Dare. All the dogs in the house have been quite taken with her too, which is wonderful. Layla is thrilled to have a new playmate and even Zoe is playing with her. Here is quick clip of Dare and her littermates the day we met them tugging on a toy. I’ll post more pictures in a separate post.

Raven’s Ribbons

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Ok, so I finally got it together and took a picture of Raven with her ribbons from the obedience trial last weekend. The only thing I wish is that the club would have had a ribbon for completing her title, but that’s ok. This picture of her makes me laugh because if you look close you can see her teeth, it looks like she’s trying to smile for the picture. LOL

ravens ribbons

Raven Earned Her CD!

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I’m behind as usual in posting about the weekend’s trial. It always seems to take me a day or two to catch up after I get home from a trip.

Anyway…Raven earned her CD this weekend!!! I wish I had a picture of her with her ribbons, (she had a 2nd place on Sat. and took 1st place on Sun.) but I fell down on the job. The weather was so bad on Sunday that we had all been drenched in the downpour of rain that lasted all morning and partly into the afternoon. By the time she finished up her class that afternoon, we all just felt a little chilled, soggy and wanted to get home to a nice hot shower more than anything else. That’s my excuse for not sticking around to take pictures.

So, now Raven’s ready to move on to her Open Obedience work. Yay! Should be lots of fun. She’s already got a better broadjump than Twist, although that doesn’t take much. LOL We’re still working on her dumbell and some other pieces, but I’m sure they’ll come along. :-)

Off to the Obedience Trial

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I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off, once again. Twist, Raven, Layla, Angel (the foster sheltie) and myself are packing up and heading out to go to an obedience trial in Farmington this weekend. Well, Angel’s not going to the Obedience trial, she is just going back to Sheltie Rescue of Utah, since they are now back from their trip to Bucharest, so her brief stay with us has come to it’s end.

I’m really hoping that Raven will be able to finish her CD this weekend. She got her first leg at the Sheltie Specialty at the end of April, so she only needs two more. Twist is just entered on Sat. of this trial to see if our work on the broadjump has improved to the point that he might be able to qualifiy in Open for the first time. I’m a little nervous. Ok, I’m a lot nervous. Obedience always makes me more nervous that agility does, for whatever reason. I love it though.

Layla is going along to have a lesson tonight, so I’m really looking forward to that. It’s always nice to see if we are making progress and then what areas still need our attention. Anyway, hopefully we’ll have lots of good news and some pictures or some video to share when we get home…

I Love This Time of Year!

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I just love this time of year! Everything is finally turning green again, and I feel like I’m coming to life again after a long winter. So, today we went down to our friends place to train with the dogs. She lives about 1/2 an hour away and the drive is a beautiful one. It’s through a gorgeous canyon with water running through it. It’s one of my favorite drives.

So, we worked on Obedience with Raven, Twist and Layla. We worked outside today, which proved to be a huge distraction for all three dogs. My friend has geese, chickens, horses and a goat all within eye and earshot of where we were training. It was a challenge, but a really nice day. We have alot of work to do at different outdoor locations before the first of June because that obedience trial is outside (Yikes!).

On the way home everything just looked so pretty and green that I couldn’t help but pull off for a minute and take some pictures. Here are my favorites of the day.

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Utah Sheltie Specialty

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I’ve been meaning to write about how the Utah Sheltie Specialty went for a couple of days now, but as usual time seems to get the better of me. Anyway, Raven and Twist were both entered in the Obedience portion of the Utah Sheltie Specialty this year.

Raven was trying out the Regular Novice class for the first time and Rally Novice for her second time. I was so proud of her! Raven qualified and took first place in both of her classes, and didn’t seem to get her usual case of ring nerves this time. She had a nice happy expression and wagging tail throughout. Woohoo!

Twist did really well, although he didn’t qualify. He still is not quite 100% confident about all the new exercises in Open, but I thought that he did a really nice job for his first time. We’re going to keep training on the broadjump and do some polishing up on a couple other little things and then I think he’ll be ready next time.

One of the really cool things about the Utah Sheltie Specialty is that our friend is usually in charge of organizing things and she always makes sure that there are lots of fun “special prizes” so that no one goes home empty handed. Alot of us will donate baskets full of fun things, and other prizes, and it’s always a highlight to see what everyone donated. This year Twist won the prize for highest scoring rescue Sheltie. I think she said that it was a crate pad or a bed or something. The only bummer was that we weren’t able to stay for the rest of the week and our prize wasn’t going to make it to the showsite till the next day. LOL Anyway, we had a really nice time :-)

We’re Going to Camp W!

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I haven’t posted about this before now because I wanted to make sure that our registration had been accepted first. I finally got the email confirmation that I’d been waiting for…yesterday! So, the good news is we’re going to Camp W in Lake Tahoe again this year in September! Woohoo!

We got to go back in 2007 and we had a fantastic time. I took Twist and Zoe with me that year. It’s just a camp where you have the option of trying out a ton of different dog sports, like herding, obedience, agility, flyball, tracking, lure coursing and carting. Or, you can just choose to take absolutely gorgeous hikes, relax on the beach, do crafts…well you get the picture. It’s a no pressure vacation with the dogs! Did I mention that the food is great too?! :-)

These are some pictures from camp with Zoe and Twist. Now the big decision for me is which dogs or dog to take?

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The Fetching Bag

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So, we’ve been putting together a little bag full of items with all kinds of different textures that Layla can fetch. Here’s a picture of what she’s got in her bag. We started out with just basic stuffie type toys, and we’ve been adding things to the bag as time goes on. The plastic pudding cup is one of her personal favorites. LOL

fetching bag

I took some pictures of her fetching some of the stuff, but my lighting was worse than I thought today in the house, and my camera’s flash didn’t come up right. So all I got was a bunch of really blurry pictures. Sorry for the poor photo quality, but you get the idea.

layla with glove layla with lidlayla with paper roll layla with pudding cup

Weekend Update

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This week is getting away from me quicker than I expected. LOL We had a really nice weekend! Friday started off with an obedience lesson for Twist and Raven. We have lots and lots to work on before the Utah Sheltie Specialty at the end of April. That’s good though.

Saturday and Sunday we spent at the DOCNA trial. I only had Zoe entered, but then they offered day of trial entries, so I broke down and entered Raven for the last run of the day on Sunday. Zoe had a nice weekend. She was really consistent and Q’d with first place in 8 of the 10 classes that she ran in. The other two were my fault. I got lost and sent her into an offcourse tunnel on one class, and realized it too late to get her turned around, and the other was a class called Strategic Time Gamble, and you make up your own course to accumulate points in the opening time period of 30 seconds. Then they blow a whistle and you have another 10-15 seconds to cross the finish jump. The problem is that you can’t finish too early or too late, it’s more a gamble of whether you can estimate how many obstacles your dog can complete in a certain amount of time, and I suck at that. We crossed the finish jump too soon, and lost the Q. Raven Q’d in her one jumpers run, which should have finished her Beginner’s jumper title.

Zoe did qualify in the North American Challenge Class though, and that is DOCNA’s qualifier for their Championships, so if we decide that we can get away (time and moneywise), we are qualified to go to Prescott, AZ in Oct. for the Western Championships. That would be fun!

Hurry Up and Wait!

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The next few days are going to be busy. I am sitting waiting right now for a client to pick up their dog. I hate waiting for people. It seems like that’s what a majority of my time is spent doing with the boarding kennel. Waiting for people to pick-up/drop-off dogs. It wouldn’t be so bad if you could count on them showing up at a specific time, but you just can’t. People tell you that they’ll be there at one time and then show up hours later. It’s very frustrating because it means that you are tied to the house, and can’t leave.

Anyway, in the meantime, today I’m trying to get a packing list together so that I can be ready to leave Friday morning for Salt Lake. Zoe is entered in a DOCNA agility trial this weekend. I was only planning on travelling with Zoe and Layla this time, but there is an obedience ring set-up on Friday if we can get there early enough that would be ideal training for Twist and Raven. So…it’s looking like I’ll be bringing all the Shelties but Rogue this time. She’ll have to stay home with her dad and keep things in line here.

I have a three boarding dogs going home tomorrow, and at least one coming in, and then I have agility class with Zoe and Raven, and somewhere in between that I’d love to get a chance to bathe everybody. It’s not looking real promising though. LOL I almost forgot I have the cats that I’m watching for some friends while they are in Indiana too. All in all, it’s going to be a busy last half of the week, but I think alot of it is going to be spent hurrying up to sit around a wait for people.