Introducing weaves

Vega has her own little set of weaves now. They are 2 feet tall when upright so it’s easier to lead my arm through them. She wasn’t terribly impressed but she she made 3 or 4 trips through them.   Now we have to go build the teeter!

Vega update

Vega got her last set of shots today. She’s weighs 19.3 pounds and Dr. Rollence says she’s healthy and ready to go. The doctor thinks her legs and tail are really long though. Let’s hope for jumping 26″!

Not so tough

A couple of weeks ago Dash spent the weekend with me. There was a lot of concern that he would eat the cats so we wanted to try it out before he stays for an extended period.

Guess it’ll be okay for him to stay with me while his Mom visits his Dad in Alaska next month!

Merlin’s little sister…

Vega came from Stacy Peardot-Goudy and is a Wally x Vivid pup. She’s just awesome. I’ve been continuously amazed at her intelligence and sweetness. What a great dog!

 

At 16 weeks she knows:

Sit

Down

Sneaky Dog (crawl)

Shake

High Five

Rollover

Wave

Leave It

Give

Close

Over (a jump)

She adores her brother Merlin and so far seems to have been pretty good for him. She starts class in a couple of weeks so we’ll see what happens.

 

Dash

So with Merlin shutting down my instructor’s hubby offered to let me train with his dog, Dash. Dash was partially trained by Kim so he was pretty much a level 3 dog with a level 1 handler(me) so we started in level 2. We are now in level 3 and will be stepping it up soon.

Dash is really awesome with absolutely no shut off button. He is very good at agility and at this point he just needs some distance (cause he’s so stinking fast I can’t keep up) and to learn to not bark and whine. He’s a lot of fun and I’m grateful he has been loaned to me. I think we will be competing early next year.

My beautiful boy, Merlin.

I’d never had a hobby before so in 2007 I changed jobs from working 60> hours a week to <40 so decided it was time. I love dogs and needed a hobby that included them so I settled on agility.So I went hunting for a Border Collie to do agility with. I found a person in Pueblo that had a litter. It turned out to be the most awful dog environment I’ve ever seen. There were 29 Border Collies in kennels stacked all over outside. The puppies were in a 3×5 outdoor pen living in their own filth. They were 4 1/2 months old and basically had had no human contact. The breeder said he never touched them so they wouldn’t bond to him! He opened the pen and all the puppies ran to the back and cowered. A smart person would have walked away but not me! One of the puppies ran up to me and poked me with his nose and ran back to the corner. He was the only puppy even remotely interested in me so I brought him home.

When Merlin came home he was afraid of the cats, my daughter, the stairs, the kitchen, basically everything. He was and is a challenge like no other dog I’ve ever owned. He went to his first obedience class at Lucky Dog when he was 6 months old. The first night he cowered under a chair the entire time and pee’d when anyone looked at him. He finally, at the end of 8 weeks, allowed 2 people to feed him. He came a long way but was still a mess.

Merlin and I started training at Friendship Academy in September 2007. He hid under chairs, bit the instructor (sorry Lorrie) and was basically terrified. We worked through it and were making so much progress. In December Merlin started doing jump combos, the tunnel and even went over the dog walk! I was so proud of him. Sadly in January the heat in the building started clicking and all of his classmates moved on and the combination of being alone and scary noises made it impossible for him to continue.

Merlin goes to dog trials every chance he gets as a spectator. He has several friends he lets feed him and pet him. He is a wonderful, loving freaky dog and I adore him. He may never do agility but as far as I’m concerned he will always be my first agility dog. Who knows, we may try again next year.