Isabelle adds another duty

If saving the world from the evil squirrels wasn't a full time job in itself. Isabelle has calmed down enough to add therapy dog to her duties. She is officially a TDI dog now!

We are looking into local venues for Belle to visit on a regular basis

If Dora hitting the obedience Circuit wasn't enough....

Isabelle Brown is making her first Rally debut with her Daddy! Look for them in the ring in April! I hope Isabelle does Jim proud and then he is bit by the performance bug! That would expand our training budget a lot further, let alone our showing budget!!!

I am not sure who I am going to be cheering on the loudest!

Our little girl is sure growing up! Go Dora Go!!!!

She is now officially entered in her first obedience trial. We are okay if either of us NQ's as we are both very green. Over the next month, we truly are going to train like crazy. So I don't do a left about turn during the heel and Dora doesnt down on a sit. She truly doesn't understand why there has to be two people working one dog. If the judget walked around with his own companion, she would be a lot happier!

Getting ready for Spring Trials

Next month are the two local trials in Columbus. Boy, do we have work to do! Last year, Dora did extremely well finishing 3 Rally titles! This year, Dora is going to do a few RAE legs (that is the highest Rally title there is!) and probably a CD leg. We have a lot of work with Stand for Exam and heeling still. Worst case scenario, we go in the ring too early and NQ. Dora tends to sit on the SFE when she gets nervous and the ring does bring a lot of nerves! I have truly realized heeling is something you ALWAYS are working on! But she is so smart, she picks things up rather quickly. I have learned to change my footwork to que Dora better.

Isabelle is also going to make her trial debut! We worked last night and did pretty well offleash. I was proofing her to not run over and bark at the judge. When Belle is offleash, she often thinks it is social time. She wants to visit with everyone. When she ran to my pretend judge- he yelled "go to your mommy" and she came running! I was very happy with her heeling. She is really starting to understand not just with mom but we are a team in the ring. I am still working on Belle's Daddy to show her in Rally Novice. I even offered to match her bow to his outfit ;)

We will also probably look for some summer trials that are only an hour or two away. It will be nice to have them playing in the Rally ring together so both can trial together.

Dora adds another wall fixture

My training club Columbus All Breed had their annual party. We took home a nice plaque with Dora's CGC, RN, RA, RE title attached. It was a pretty special event. I was there with a good friend that I started in puppy class with. Margaret is mom to Gizmo a black pug. We started in class together. Our girls are about 2 weeks apart in age so they have grown up together.