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.