We are Super!

Superdogs that is!  That's right, my dud puppy Beezer was invited to apprentice and eventually join the Superdogs at the PNE this year.  From Aug 31- Sept 5th we spent approximately 12 hours at the PNE, learning, training, cheering, sweating, smiling and having a blast.

Most Apprentices aren't expected to bring their dogs the first 3 days, but we (Auntie Emma and I) were asked to bring our dogs along to practice before and after the shows.  There were 3 shows a day.  Noon, 2 and 6. We got to practice before 10:30 am and after 9:30pm.  During the shows we helped cheer on the crowd, help the other staff with whatever they needed, and of course, look awesome in our sparkly jackets.

Much to our surprise and delight, 7 and Beezer were added into the show very quickly!  We did the boardwalk opening and did the angular  puissauncs (which is a fancy name for jumping in a half circle).
Beezer isn't built to jump, so we mostly stuck with 4 and 5 bars.

6 bars was a wee bit much for us.  He did it,  but just as he was going over the jump, he'd back kick and shoot the bars behind him. Funny.

Even more surprising, the boys were added to a relay race!  We were told that new dogs don't get added to the relays for many reasons, but our boys are special.
Beezer did AWESOME. No problems with the lights, music and cheering crowds. He ran his little heart out and loved it. So very proud of him.

All this would have pleased me, but Beezer wasn't done yet.  After every show all the Superdogs do what's called a "Pat n' Chat."  Basically it's where the dogs are on a Superdog podium and a mob of men, women and children descend upon them.  Not Beezer's niche.  This dog doesn't like being handled by people he knows, let along strangers.  But we had to try.  So I armed myself with treats and out we went.  Ummm no.  That didn't last too long.  I took him out pretty quickly, he just wasn't comfortable.

The second try was much more successful. Once he realized that these people hand fed him turkey meatballs and cheese, he was enjoying himself! I was shocked. My mom was shocked. Everybody was shocked to see this head shy dog mauled by hundreds of people a day. And he wasn't just tolerating it, he enjoyed it! Whenever we were on the stage, he would leap from podium to podium. I think he liked everyone telling him how handsome he was:)

Even Reckon got a few chances to do the Pat n' Chats. I knew he'd be great with everyone, but I was a little concerned about him mouthing someone. Well, I didn't need to be concerned.  He was a superstar! He took treats gently, and loved EVERYBODY. He adored being fawned over.

I also practiced his recall and some jump grind thingys with him in the evenings. He excelled there too:)

Overall I was beyond pleased with my boys over the week.  Above and beyond what I expected of them. Even though it was exhausting, I do hope we get invited back next year. We'll keep practicing:) Maybe Reckon will be added into a show next year...

A-S-S-H-O-L-E

Hi everyone!

How is everyone doing? That's great. I'm good too. Yup. Super fantastic.
What's that? You want to know why? Well I will tell you. It's because I am the proud owner of a lovely young asshole adolescent.

He's being such a super star. Certainly not guarding the car, his crate, or food, or me. No no, not my boy. He's an asshole angel.

Ok ok, you may have picked up on some sarcasm. Honestly Reckon has been a HUGE pain in the ass. It started with guarding the kitchen, and then moved to throwing himself from inside his crate at the other dogs in the car. Any dog. Then it transferred to just picking on certain dogs outside of the car. Then he decided nobody else could say hello to me. Asshole.

It got worse and worse with stuff he considered "his" property. And I was done. Finished I tell you. Like, in tears done. Where had my friendly puppy gone?!
He was/is still fantastic with other/strange dogs, it just seems to be dogs that I work with. Yeah, that's a problem.

After phoning around to different trainers and crying on friend's shoulder (sorry Em), I opted for Susan Garrett's Ruff Love program. Basically he's crated or x-penned unless he's with me. No group hikes, no getting on furniture, no biting, and getting him to work work work.

Sigh. It's exhausting. I'm out the door walking him by 7:15, go to work, and then come home and take him out again. He's doing really well. No problems staying by himself during the day. And I've noticed slowly but surely his work ethic is increasing. I think. He's starting to pick up on the game of playing fetch, so we're working on that.

I kept having flashbacks to Beezer's adolescents. And I could NOT do that again. Hell no, I don't need two Beezer's on my hand. Being in a jumpy state of mind around your dog is no fun.

We still have a looooong way to go. I hope to eventually introduce him back into the group hikes. And hopefully, maybe get him back like he was before. Perfect:)

And the cherry on the cake would be to increase my value in his eyes. Be the cookie as Susan would say.

I won't say it hasn't been hard. It sure as heck is. But it'll be worth it right? Right?!


On a more positive note, Reckon has been doing EXTREMELY well in his French Ring training. Chrystal has noticed huge improvements. :)

We have homework every week, which we incorporate into our daily walks. His bite is much more confident, but his sit has gotten a bit lazy. And quite frequently when he doesn't feel like doing obedience, he just won't. Arrrrgggg damn teenagers. Keeping his attention in the heat is difficult too (yes, summer finally decided to stick around for more than 2 days). The Ruff Love program should help with FR training too.

No matter how exhausted I get. It's all going to be worth it.

Yes, I said that before. If I repeat myself enough times, they happen. And post-it notes around the house make it happen faster. Fact.

9 months

I realize it's summer (not according to Mother Nature, but the calender says so), and I should have galaxies worth of photos to show you, but I don't. The last time I brought out my SLR for a photo shoot was at the end of May. Horrible. Disgraceful. Especially when I have a handsome growing puppy.

At 9 months Reckon is a handful. Clocking in at 59.3 pounds, he's a big handful. He's not a bad dog, he's just exuberant. At 59.3 pound. I've also noticed he's going through a bit of a fear stage. Men are a bit scary. And when in the car he barks at people, dogs, inanimate objects. For the most part he's in a kennel, but if he's tired I'll leave him loose. I also toss cookies when he's loose and sees stuff and doesn't bark. His barking in the house hasn't decreased much. Yayyyy teenagers!

We're still going for 2 hikes a day and I try to do a bit of training with him everyday.
Saturdays we have French Ring Training with Chrystal in Chilliwack. She hasn't seen him since our initial "meeting' back in April. Well, she is impressed. His bite is deep and calm, and gaining confidence! I got him a larger tug to practice with (and save my hands) and he's getting better and better at tugging. I don't expect to get anything trophies or titles, but it gets us out training, and keeps him busy and my sanity in check.

I've also noticed for at least the past month he's started to lose the hair on his nose. At first I thought it was due to him rubbing himself on his kennel or x-pen, but that quickly got nixed. Now if you look at his profile, there is a slight raised bump under where his hair is thinning. Hmmmm. Needless to say tomorrow he is coming into work with me so we can get a skin scrapping sample. He will be knocked out with some good drugs. He's a wiggly happy boy, and won't stay still for a razor blade to the nose. Can't say I blame him...

Now to look at some handsome photos.







Quite a few people have mentioned that his color is darkening too. I see him everyday, so it's hard for me to tell. I'll post some pictures of a few months ago and recently to compare.






From these photos it sure looks like it! I like his black overlay. Hope it sticks around:)

2011 BC/Yukon Regional Championships

This past long weekend the annual BC/Yukon Regional championships took place in glorious Matsqui. It was the first year that I haven't entered Amigo, and it was quite the change.
Who knew running Beezer with a cut pad and no weave poles would be so less stressful?!
Yup, that's right. Instead of entering no one this year, I decided to throw in 20 month old Beezer and see how he did.
Not only did he have a cut pad, no experience with 12 weave poles, but he had also never run outside. On grass. In the rain.

Well, if that little dud puppy doesn't surprise me. He blew me away!!
Our first day was very good. I messed him up in his Standard and put him into the wrong tunnel, but he did all his contacts and had NO problems with 12 weaves:)
His Gamblers was good too, racked up 28 points or so in the opening, but didn't quite get the main gamble. However his Jumpers was uber hard and I didn't think we had a hope in hell. Nailed it! Second place for my boy. Couldn't have been more proud.

Sunday was pouring rain all morning, he had a great Jumpers and Standard run, except for a few boo boos(my fault of course).
Gamblers was good, racked up about 29 points in the opening, but there was no way we would get the main gamble. A starters dog on a 4 obstacle masters gamble? Yeah, well, he got that too. 1.97 over time, but baby dog did it!!!

He also held all his start line stays all weekend. Overall I am more than impressed with Beezer. Except now that I know he can do so well, the pressure is on....





P.S. We were off from qualifying by 45 points or so. We got 313.44 points and you need 350 to qualify for Nationals.

My, my what a huge...

...Post!

A lot has happened this past April. So I'm going to cram it into 1 blog post.

Even though I spend the beginning of April travelling to Vegas for my birthday and onto Scottsdale for a wedding


The dogs and I were up to a lot of stuff too.

On April 2nd, the Beezer was entered into his second agility trial. Even though he didn't have 6 weave poles yet, I entered him into Standard anyways. Regionals is coming up and it never hurts to practice. I also entered him into a Jumpers and Gamblers. Well, my boy is amazing!

Even though he has never seen 6 poles before, he did them anyways! It wasn't all that pretty, but it was enough for a first place and a "Q!"

Jumpers was absolutely beautiful, I was very impressed:) It earned us another first and "Q"


Gamblers was a bit of a gong show, but we still managed to pull it together to get our third First place ribbon and a "Q"

Such a superstar!!


After Vegas, Jess, Jody and I took Ryan, Reckon, Kepler, and Reckon sheep herding.
We went to the same guy we saw before, John. I've decided he's not the guy for us. Beezer is very nervous of the guy, and Reckon is not an easy dog. I was mainly trying to keep him from pulling me off my feet the whole time!





I let John take him for our second round, and although he did warm me he would have to be "firm" with Reckon, he certainly didn't mention hauling him around by his tail!




So between the fact that Beezer is too nervous around John to come towards me, and spends most of his time torn between coming and going, plus the fact that even Reckon was a little nervous of him (and can you blame him?), and even I don't even know what John wants half the time, I've decided to take the boys elsewhere when we herd the woolies again.





Amigo is doing great on Metacam every 3 days. She hasn't been sore at all, even doing her regular hikes!


Reckon isn't putting on weight as fast as I would like, but maybe that's because he's full of my MacBook charger that he chewed. Little F*@$er. That isn't cheap to replace!
April 19th he clocked in at 43.5 lbs. Yesterday he was only at 43.8 lbs.

I've also started to put some cream in his eyes, because they are getting super gunky, green and droopy. Just a few applications and they have improved a ton!

The next few weekend will be busy too. I've managed to talk with 3 people regarding French Ring/Schutzhund. This weekend we meet with a woman who is with the West Coast French Ring Club, and next weekend we meet with Ray Underwood. Both are just going to meet Reckon and see if he has any FR/SchH potential. I'm nervous!

I know he'll win everyone over with his good looks and charm.



Or he'll just run them over.



And finally, Heather and I got the boys together for a play date. Reckon really liked Rudy, but Rudy was a little unsure. So we put them on the couch together where Reckon was a little less intimidating. Cuteness ensued:)






And last but not least, our first family portrait

Is everyone sitting down?

Because I have tremendous news! As of April 20th 2011, exactly 2 months after Reckon came into our family, Beezer and him PLAYED!!!
I have been waiting and anticipating this day since I first thought of bringing a puppy home. Beezer, though I love him very much, is a wee bit special. He is handsome, and smart, yes, but very insecure. I wasn't shocked to see that he wasn't thrilled with the addition of Reckon to the family. He tried very hard, but sometimes puppies get into his personal space, and he can't handle that. And Beezer takes his messages too far.
Anyways, after many stressed encounters and constant supervision, I went to my mom's place to pick up the dogs when I noticed Reckon's neck was soaking wet.
Hmmm,I pondered, water bottle perhaps? (he gets a little over the top when he finds a cat).
So I asked my mom "Did Reckon get sprayed with the water bottle?"

Mom: "no, why?"

Me: "Because his neck is soaking wet"

Mom: "Oh, that must be from when he and Beezer were playing."

Me: *puzzled look* "I'm sorry, I must have misheard that. Come again?"

Mom: "Beezer and Reckon were playing outside."

Me: "You mean Reckon and Amigo"

Mom: "No, Beezer."

Me: "Seriously? But how? When? DETAILS!!!!"

Mom: (not in the least bit aware how big this was): "We were all in the backyard together (after Beezer's second hike) and Beezer was doing his zoomies (a daily occurrence), Reckon would give chase. B would play bow, and Reckon would just stand there, dumbfounded. So B took off running again. More playbows, more dumbfounded looks from Reckon. After their third loop, Reckon playbowed first, Beezer followed and EPIPHANY! B ran towards R, who flipped on his back (he's not stupid) and Beezer proceeds to lay across his chest while chewing on his neck."

I found this hard to believe. I would interupt my mom's story with questions and shocked noises and squealing. I could hardly believe my ears! If only she got it on film.
This was the start of a wonderful thing, and I couldn't have asked for a better belated birthday present.

I bent down to give B a big hug and tell him what a good boy he is, when Reckon wandered over, and Beezer growled at him. Oh well. It's a start!

I later took the gang to my softball game, and was reward by seeing the boys play with my own eyes!

Here's the first video I got of them playing. Amigo is playing with Fritz. She loves him, even though he is 12 years younger than her:) It's cute watching the the brown dogs play and the black dogs play.