Swimming

Our pond is full and Ryker has been going swimming in it every day. I open the gate and let him in and go back into the house and either read a book or do some household chores and check on him every once in a while. He mostly swims, but every once in a while runs around the pond. I brought him back in after a bit over an hour. He never slowed down. If we ever move away I would have to get a pool for him. I believe he is reincarnated from an aquatic animal.

Herding Lesson

After over a year I finally decided to take Raygen herding again. Shauna took him in and he was listening very nicely to her while they approached the sheep. They approached a few times and she asked him for a sit and stay and he was so attentive to her. She then ask him to stay while she moved away form him and then released him to "go get the sheep". First he charged a bit to wild and got 'em going to fast, but withing a few minutes was circling nicely. He does bark, bark, bark, bark. I am really looking forward in the next lesson.

CU Class

Session two for the CU class has started. Ryddick was in his crate for quite some time during the class and he was very good. I was suprised. He was getting a bit upset towards the end, so I have to start timing it right and take him out before he gets upset. I will bring some yummy chewies for him to keep busy while I won't be able to be with him. We had two new students and their dogs and we will be getting two more.

Group IV Terrier Club

Ryddick and his BFF Chocolate

I had 4 dogs at the trail this weekend. Raygen and Ryker were entered in the trial. Ryddick came along for the ride and I was babysitting Chocolate from Friday to Tuesday. Ryddick and Chocolate are BBF. Everybody though he was cute as a button. With only weighing 7lbs he isn't even bigger then one.Anyway, Ryddick did really, really great. We were sitting next to the ring while dogs were running and he did a lot of the LAT game with me. He loves LAT. We also did some mat work and he got to see some more horses and lots of people. He really likes people. All this hard work has paid off.

Agilty Training

Ryker is currently enrolled in an Agility class with Shauna. My main goal for him is to hit those darn weave pole entries at the trials. He has been doing really great at home, but can't seem to get in the first time at the trials. Shauna gave me some more ideas to work on with him. One of them is weave-jump-weave. Interesting to see him pop out of weave 4 and take the jump. I worked on this this evening and made it easier and then started to reduce the distance of the jump to the weaves. He got it and stayed in. I will train some more tomorrow.

Group IV Terrier Club

No Q's at this trial. I had some hopes for at least getting my last JWW leg. Not knocking bars has very much improved. He still does not get the weave entry. Seems like the first part of the course he is out of control and halfway through he gets a hold of himself and runs perfect.
Oh, and he fell of the dog walk gain. This dog walk is very slippery, so is the table and A-frame. Hope they are going to fix that before next trial they will use it on.

Group IV Terrier Club

Phew! What a weekend. We had some really great runs and earned some more points, however no DQ's. He Q'ed one time each of the 3 days, but twice (in JWW) popped out of the weaves. First time I think was because he was concerned about the jump setter that was sitting near the weave poles. The second time I think he was distracted by a Golden that was near the ring. I made him do the weaves again and he finished them. I hope that this isn't going to become a pattern. The weaves have become one of the more reliable obstacles he has been performing.
There were some highlights... out of 30 dogs in his class he earned 4th place out of 6 qualifiers and 3rd place, out of 4 qualifiers. Both in Standard. Very fast courses, with lots of little traps. Harder to run for the faster dogs.

CU Class

Tonight was the last night of our Control Unleashed Class with Ryddick and I really liked it. It is very relaxed. This particular class was by invitation only. It was a first in Utah and I am going to continue to hold classes for the next session with some Agility excersises. One of the pre-requisite was that we all had read the CU book and have an understanding of the exercises. After we arrive, the first thing we did is set up our "station", a mat, a crate and maybe a chair. We also set up a "box" with ring gates. Then we brought in our dogs and start. I love doing passive attention on the mat with Ryddick. It has always been active attention in class and sometimes that is just not what he needs. Note in the seminar section, the club is sponsoring for Leslie to come in October. I am signed up for a working spot with Ryddick. I am so excited. I am making a huge sacrifice by not going to the DOCNA nationals, that is scheduled on the same weekend.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

We had a great weekend in Pleasant Grove. I like ASCA since they allow training in the ring. Ryker needed some start line stay training and he responded well to it. He gets so exited to run and can hardly wait to start and breaks his starts. Not so good if there is a lead out necessary. Most courses that I have run into do not need a lead out, but it is always a good idea to have a solid stay.The highlight of his weekend was earning a leg in Gamblers Novice and an amazing Jumpers run. 117 yds in 17.88 seconds = 6.54 yps. It was smooth and we were a team. Can't wait until next weekend.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

Raygen did very good at the trial this weekend. He is my butt saver dog. He seems to be able to have a very good sense of reading me.
He earned his GS-O title and one leg each in Elite Gambler and Jumpers.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

Rylie was going to the trial with us this weekend and she really enjoyed it. She was so well behaved I was even thinking of entering her. I decided that it is to soon. She does great for one run at practice and then barks at me. She really seems to dislike anything that is repetitive unless it is throwing a toy.

ASCA Trial May 17th and 18th

Smooth Dog

It was Ryddick's Agility trial debut. He had 2 amazing runs on Saturday. One was in Jumpers and he did great with 6.01 yps. He did knock the second to last bar and therefore did not qualify. Gamblers was great, too. He earned his first ever leg in 3rd place. On Sunday I did a bit more training in the ring. He was very upset with the teeter. Not sure how to describe it, but he wanted to tear it apart while he was performing it. Since he hasn't displayed this at home I am almost certain he was stressing.
On the other hand the Jumpers run was perfect and even though I almost lost the course he ran it at 5.37 yps, Q'ed and earned first place. Now we go back to a bit more training and maybe he gets to run again the end of the year.

Herding Workshop

Ryddick and I went to a herding workshop in Hunstsville form noon to 6pm. It was a good experience for Ryddick. For the most part he was calm and only had an outburst when a dog got to close to him while we were under the tent. He got to go into the pen a few times and swam a lap in the pond and by the end of the day he was so tired that he fell asleep on the grass with dogs and people all around him. I am planning on doing that again soon.

Scary Dog Walk

At the Silvia Trkman seminar, Ryker was horrified of the dog walk. It had no slats! He got up to the "pivot" point, I truly think he thought it was a teeter, and jumped off. 5 people got up and told me, to pull him up by the collar (he had no collar on), lure him with food, pick him up and put him on, blablabla.I didn't, because I know it would only cause more harm. For the next 2 runs I just by-passed the dogwalk. Then we all went to lunch. After eating I had some time to shape Ryker to take the dogwalk. 5 minutes of no pressure training. That is all we needed.I didn't tell anyone and when it was our turn to run the course and he took that dogwalk in 1.5 seconds flat, I could hear them all gasp! Ryker is truly amazing.

Chasing MACH

Raygen is entered in the AKC Agility trial. He did really great on Friday in Standard and earned 12 points. Jumpers with Weaves started out great until he went into the weaves. "Oh, no" I though, "He is shutting down." At the corner of my eye I saw a loose dog on the outside of the ring gates and it was.... Ryker..... by then Raygen had popped out of the weaves to say hi to him and off course at that was our NQ. However we got to finish the course and I learned not to put my dogs in a friends X-Pen that I don't know how to lock. Heehee!Saturday we had a great Jumper run and he again earned some points. Then we got to do Standard and me being anchious that he would run into the tunnel trap called him to early and made him refuse a jump. Wished for that intelligent disobedience at that point. We went on and he did some great weaves and got to the table and then realized that the poor Raygen had to go poop, NOW!!!. I scooped him up and he got to finish on the other side of the fence. Again lesson learned, no feeding bones before trials. All fiber and chicken and skin.

Chasing RAE

On Thursday I had Ryker entered in the Rally Trial in South Jordan. He did great. The PA came on full blast during both my Excellent and Advanced runs in the ring.
He did his usual bark over the jump and bouncing at me during heeling. We earned a 96 in Excellent 1st place and a 99 in Advanced 2nd place.
That is leg #4 .... 6 more to go.

USDAA Trial April 26th and 27th

I am learning every time I take this dog on the course. He was very good with his SLS. I am not going to lead out to much until he has overcome the bar knocking issue with chasing me. Nevertheless, he stayed for as long as I asked him to. I was expecting to get his AD this weekend. He only needed one leg in Jumpers. On Saturday he did great in Standard and earned his SSA and SG. He still is not getting into the weaves from a jump. Pairs was a disaster, he was all over the place and I lost my connection with him, but we finished the course.Sunday was a lot better. He earned an extra leg in Standard (no move-ups in USDAA) and even though he didn't Q in Jumpers, he had an great run. I was going to handle Snookers the same a I did with Raygen. The A-Frame was my major concern. It was close to the red jump and I tried to do a title left wrap around (taptaptaptap). He took the frame, no big deal, but I had to go all the way to the other side of the frame to get to my closing sequence and hesitated for one second and he put his rear legs back on the A-Frame. That was the end of that, but maybe he will try to do better contacts next time. I praised him as we left the ring. What a good boy!!!

USDAA Trial April 26th and 27th

I entered this trial with some high expectations from both Raygen and Ryker. This does not mean that I won't have fun or get mad at them for not performing the way I wished.Raygen earned his first leg in PIII Standard and had a great run in PIII Jumpers, however handler error cost us the run.I only needed one PII Gambler leg and one PII Snooker leg to get his Versatility Title PD II. Gamblers was a breeze. We did chute to dogwalk (with a tunnel "trap") and to my great surprise he took the dog walk. Without going into more details.... my timing was perfect, I was approaching the first gamble obstacle when the buzzed rang. Tire, tunnel, which was under the A-Frame, jump, jump. Really no big deal unless he would not take the tunnel. He did great and we only had Snookers to go. Last class of Sunday, with the great insight from my friend Cynthia, he ran an almost perfect course. There was a little slowing down when I had to disappoint him not to let him go into a tunnel. But that was only for a few seconds since the tunnel came after that. What a good boy!!!Raygen is the #1 Australian Cattle Dog in Utah at this time. He is 1 of 13 to hold a PD II title in the country.

Rylie Monster

Rylie was bottle fed by her foster dad for 2 weeks until they found a Rottweiler bitch that had some puppies and was able to be a mommy to Rylie. After filling out an adoption application I was contacted when she was 6 weeks old and told that the owner of the Rottweiler is getting rid of the puppies and she had to go, too. Ugh! She was way to young. She came to me on a rainy day. Oh my, was she cute, but she was sleeping, too. Little did I know that this little girl was going to turn my life upside down.