DOCNA at Willow Park

The dogs and I went to Willow Park in Lehi to attend at DOCNA trial. I entered Raygen, Ryker and Ryddick. Rylie is still recovering from her TPLO surgery, however I am hoping to run her the end of the year. Ryddick was entered in one jumpers run each day. He did fabulous on Saturday, however Sunday he knocked a bar and had a major melt down. Ryker handled quite nice through the courses. I was able to do many front crosses, however they are still a bit "loose" due to my timing and him still learning my body cues. It really helps to shut up and not give any verbal cues unless absolutely necessary.
Raygen had major stress issues doing the weaves. We had a heart to heart on Saturday evening and he was great on Sunday at the trial. I used raw beef heart and did some weave pole games with him at home and he went nuts. He is such a food motivated dog.
I really enjoyed Willow Park. My favorite part, there is a pond where I was able to take the dogs swimming to cool off. They loved it.
At the end of the trial Christa picked the winners for the raffles and Ryker was one of the lucky ones to receive a $25 certificate for the next SASS trial. YEAH!!!
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Happy Birthday Ryddick !!!!!

With all your troubles in your early life you turned out to be a very nice dog.

Thank you for being who you are and helping me learn more about the animals (crazy) mind.

Your affection towards people brings out huge smiles into this world.

You are loved; very much!

Ryddick 6-24-06

USDAA Lynnleigh Farms June 2009

This has been a very busy weekend. Ryker performed a crazy A-Frame jump-off. Never has he done this before. Last Standard and Pairs run I insisted that he stop with a 2o2o. He did nicely.
Our team event on Friday was a bust as far a placement went. We ended up winning a rubber chicken for taking the honor of last place. Ryker broke his SLT in Snookers, even after giving him a second chance, that is when I decided to stop him right there. Team or not, if he breaks his stay at the start and I go on, I might as well not have a dog all weekend. It paid off and he did not break another SLS all weekend.
I ran him more like I train and it felt really, really good. My brain is thinking more like: "I can get there vs. I can't get there". Stopping motion, any motion, including blinking eyes is the key. >g<> not blabbering to much. It only confuses him.
The highlight of this 3 day trial was to watch some amazing participants handlers run their dogs.
Stephanie Spyr, Elicia Calhoun, Stacy Peardot-Goudy, Kate Moreaux to name a few. Amazing runs by Emily Snider, Linda Wallace Kipp, Kyle Schumacher and few others that I don't know the names of, was like attending a lecture for free.
The low of this trial was a local handler being quite rough with her dog and got everyone talking. The judge looked on as she jerked her young dog around, "punishing" her. Shame on anyone that stood around watching this, including the Judge, who was thinking about stopping this madness, but opted out of being a judge at that moment. Shame on the handler, too. The handling was terrible and the dog had to make decisions on her own. I hope you can become the person your dogs needs you to be, soon.

Jim Basic

Day 3 Jim Basic Seminar Picture

Jim Basic was invited to give a seminar in Draper. It was all about the Gamblers. I signed up for two days. First day to audit foundation and third day for working Ryker in "Gambler".

Day one was all about the foundation. We do some of the drills in Flyball, which helps Ryker with going on and on and on ahead of me.

Then we did some drills on how to teach the dog our body cue to go out.

Jim set up some simple excercises to challenge the novice dogs a bit more. It was pretty amazing how quikc they caught on.

I was not planning on going to day two. A previous commitment ended up not being planned out and I decided to got to day two and audit some Advanced Distance excercises. I am glad I went as this day was a continuation of day one.

Day three was a working day for Ryker and I. We did some drills over the a-frame, teeter and weaves. We talked about timing the obstacles to determine how many obstacles our dog can take in 30 seconds. Jim helped us to learn to stay calm with some "panic" drills.

Other drills consisted of how tunnels can be taken without adding extra seconds and how sequencing obstacles will help get more valuable time to get more points.

Ryker did good. I did some icky A-frame contacts and I am hoping it won;t affect him at our next trial. I am hoping of going again next year when he comes back.

WW Kyla Moy

Ryker's GGGGrandma

U-FLI Nationals

Perfect Pass.... Ryker is going from left to right, Zoe is coming from rigth to left

This is at full speed, both dogs.

We had a great weekend in St. George. The weather was very nice. Not to hot and a bit of rain. We were safely in an air conditioned building. All the dogs including Chocolate was with me. Seems like a lot, but they were very well behaved and I had enough downtime to take them out and play with them.
The great news is that Ryker and his teammates Qualified for the U-FLI National in Nebraska on September 25th-27th.
What a great adventure that will be!

Happy Birthday Ryker !!!!

You are the most amazing dog.

I want you to live forever!
6-11-05

WW Phantom

Ryker's Brother Phantom

WW Hughes

Ryker's Brother Hughes