We finally got a chance to use my birthday present….What strikes me as so funny is Alex and Aiden just sitting there like it is normal to be pulled around by their dogs!   Now we have to work on making a Christmas card with the 3 kids and 2 dogs….should be fun times…NOT!

 

Not just cause it features a Berner, but it is soooooooooo cute!  I can not believe it is that time of year already, Christmas!

Loki also passed his therapy dog test the other night.  I will more than likely wait till he is a little older.  He just turned 2 and is still quite bouncy.   He is a very sweet dog, but he is still apt to be a spazz! 

Now, if I could get the vaccination stuff worked out, I can send in the paperwork.  They want receipts or labels for the vaccines that both breeders and I did ourselves, and have done only titers, no boosters.  I am hoping to get a more knowledgable person when I call Therapy Dogs International today.   We follow the Dodd’s vaccine protocol, which is very very limited vaccinations.  We did parvo/distemper, then titers.  And rabies.  That is it.

Mr. Blue is now a Canine Good Citizen and can now be a Therapy Dog.  I am going to pursue therapy work with him.  He is a nice, calm and gentle dog.  I think he would enjoy it.  He is also very easy to manage because he is nice and calm.  I am very proud of him!  Last time we did this test, he marked the wheelchair, and failed!!!

We had our first draft trials Halloween weekend in Atlanta.  Unfortunatley, we did not pass either day.  The first day, during the manuevering course, our change of pace from slow to normal was not good enough…..so we did not pass.  The test is pass/fail.  Sunday,  there was no transition at all….it was hot and sunny by time it was our turn, and Loki tends to shut down and not listen.  He did not listen to me on the freight haul either.  By this point, he was very  mad at me I am sure for doing this to him 2 days in a row, he loves drafting, but the waiting around all day mostly in  a crate he does not care for.  I am sure that the 3 minute sit stay attached to a cart in full bright hot sunlight did not help, after that, he would not even look at me.

We had our first Open obedience trial on Thursday.  Loki qualified with a score of 188 1/2, and took first place.  It was very exciting, and Open A has an extremely high failure rate, especailly for first time dogs.  That particular day, 2/5 passed.  On Saturday, 4/20 qualified.  On Sunday, we went back for our 2nd trial….Loki did a wonderful job, but he did not drop for the drop on recall…I think I messed him up by focusing on the judge rather than Loki…the judge gives signals, and we were second dog in, so I did not have time with only the one dog before us to study the judges signal, so that left me watching the dog….this has thrown Loki off before in practice when the trainer acted as judge. 

We will not be showing again until January shows.  There are a few shows that we will enter, so I suspect we will earn our title in January.  We will also take this two months to clean up his heeling.  We consistently lose 3 points on heeling…which I am generally fine with, but there is no reason for him to not heel in the ring as he does in practice,  which is quite nicely. 

Blue will be showing in early February in his first Novice trial.  It is being held at the training club where Blue trains.  This should give him a huge advantage in being very comfortable in the building.  So I am excited for big Blue’s first trials….

 

Loki and I went to the Duke Power Engergy Explorium trails today and he pulled his cart totally off lead through the woods.  He did awesome!  He seems to know that he is to stay right by me while in the cart….usually we go here and the dogs run free.  There were not too many distractions, other than a squirrel that ran across our path!  Fortunatley Loki just stopped, and was ready to continue on. 

Just finished week 4 of Jan Demello’s Around the  Clock method of scent discrimination.  It went very well!   I think Loki is ready for the challenge of the next few weeks.  He certainly loves this game because of all the squeeze cheese involved!

Loki got his UKC CD today!  We had our first trial yesterday…..it was fine, could have done better.  Our score was 190.5.  Today was much much better!   We scored a 196 1/2 and got second place!  He far exceeded my expectations today.  Our goal was 194. 

So next weekend it is Grad Novice in Simpsonville, SC.  This will be a little bit more of a challenge.  There are 4 recalls:  one over the broad jump, one over the high jump, a drop on recall, and a recall while holding a dumbbell.  I do not anticipate any problems with the two jumping ones.  The other two could potentially be a problem though.  We shall see! 

The best things out of these trials:  huge improvement on figure 8’s, no bumps on the front, and no squishing up on me on the finish.  About turns were an issue yesterday, but not so much today.  Today the big thing (as well as yesterday) were sit-at halts out of heel position.  We had these worked out for the trials prior to this one…so not sure what happened.

We switched our Scent Discrimination method to  Janice DeMello’s Around The Clock Method.  She has some crazy insane overachieving  Border Collies, as you can see at her site: 

http://www.jandemellobordercollie.com/

Since I am doing this on my own, I needed a visual, so I bought her video of the same name as her method.  Quite the interesting video….We are in week 3, and things are going very well.  Hard not to, as there is an abundance of squeeze cheese used.  I think around week 5 the cheese is eliminated.