Spruce Meadows

We had some good races in Spruce Meadows. Kort, Swift, Bosley and Pixel all earned their Scenthurdle Excellent Titles. Congrats Guys!

Gyp is now just five points away from her first Scenthurdle Title as well.

The team ran well, with some nice tight passes and not too many errors. We still held Swift back though just to be sure to avoid an issue.

Our next race is in two week at the WAC trial.

We have a meeting scheduled for this sunday at 7:30.

Henderson Lake Practice

In Attendance:

Judy/Roxy
Julia/Tea
Shauna/Chase
Jaime/Cookie
Tina/Jethro
Donna/Epic/Swift
Kim/Bosley
Jolene/Kort
Amanda & Perkins :)

What we did:

This was such an awesome night ! We had a perfect spot to do some outside training, it was busy with people & dogs walking by ( & watching ), but still private enough so our dogs had the room to run the jumps.
The new dogs are coming along sooo great!!! Just a bit of proofing & they will be ready in no time! They are making fewer & fewer mistakes & are really seeming to enjoy the sport.
Speaking of proofing, Amanda was tough tonight :) She used Perkins & Catch as distractions for the racing dogs. Poor Bosley, you should have seen his face when he realized he was being followed by a wiener dog LOL!! Kort thought it was play time when he saw Amanda sitting on the ground next to the box with Perkins :) The point was to make the dogs think through the distractions, to remember their jobs no matter what. It was great.
The racing dogs also practiced jumping from different angles, straight on, from the far left & far right.

The following pictures were taken by Wendy on Saturday. This was at the demo we put on for the Windy City Rescue.

COOKIE......

GYP......

PIXEL......

KORT......

Springbank Show and Practice Times.

Pixel, Kort, Bosley and Swift raced on Saturday night and did great!!! I am just so proud of how far these dogs have come. It is hard to put into words just how awful those first couple trials were. Our dogs acted as though they had never been trained. This weekend you could actually see it coming together. We were successful in nearly every race. (7 of them). Yay for Us!

We did things a little differently though- which helped to make us more successful I am sure.

First off we made sure that our dogs came first. To make a good impression on the other teams (which can be intimidating) we are ALWAYS volunteering. This time I told the team to make sure not to volunteer the race right before ours. We took our dogs out to watch (the ones who need the excitement anyway :) ) and let them see what we wanted. That alone made a big difference I think.

Also we practiced before-hand. Before the scenthurdle was even set up we found a quiet space and just sent our dogs to the box a few times- lots of rewarding and telling them how wonderful they were. And it worked!

 Our dogs were focused 100% in the first three races. There was no looking in the other lane, just down and back to the box. Our times weren't great- but we were clean. And that was a great feeling.

When we switched lanes on the fourth race that's when it started to fall apart a bit. Swift lost her brain a bit and crossed over. She went up to meet two dogs, and after that I made the decision to run her last, and to hold her until the other team was done. This worked very, very well. We didn't win any races this way- BUT- the dogs were successful. Both Swift and the oppposing dogs. I think that we will continue to do this until Swift has more races under her belt. She is not an aggressive dog, but she is very excited by movement and often acts without thinking. I believe that with more experience and SUCCESS that she will continue to get better.

All in all I am just so proud of us. We really are the underdogs- Scenthurdle is a hard sport to break into. The teams, and the rules have been there forever and newcomers aren't welcomed by all. But slowly we are gaining fans. :) A few people have taken us under their wing so to speak and have been very helpful and nice. It is much appreciated that's for sure!

Also I need to thank Michelle (from the green team) for Box Loading almost every race!! She may be little but she is very awesome and did a great job. Thanks to Kim, and Christina who also stood in as a box loader for us. It was nice to know that things like this can be covered if neccesary.

We will be participating in a demo on Saturday at 1pm. Henderson Lake at that Kiwanis Picnic Shelter. If we can have people there by 12:30 at the latest to set up and get their dogs settled that would be awesome.

I also would like to do a practice on Sunday 7:30 at Henderson Lake. We will meet at the parking lot by the Japanese Gardens. (I think that's the Mayor Magrath side) 

Canada Day Demo & Official Race Pictures

We managed to get a few shots of the team while competing this past weekend.
The team also did a demo at the Canada Day Celebrations.
Enjoy!!

BOSLEY

PIXEL

GYP

CRAWFORD

KORT

GO Team !!!!!!

Outside Practice

In Attendance:

Tina/Jethro
Jaime/Cookie
Amanda/Pixel
Kim/Bosley
Sarah/Gyp
Jolene/Kort


With summer in full swing we took advantage & had an outside practice. The next trial is this weekend in Coalhurst after the agility trial.
The dogs did awesome, even with all the distractions they managed to concentrate & do their jobs!
The newbies, Gyp, Jethro & Cookie also did awesome, running the 4 jumps to the full box to bring back their dumbbells, just a few minor bobbles but they really rocked. These guys have been working so hard & it really shows, Congrats you guys!!!

The racing dogs, Kort, Bosley & Pixel were very focused & brought back the right dumbbell everytime.
I have to say we drew quite a crowd at times, they must have been wondering what the heck we were doing!

Looking forward to this weekend & racing ! Whoo Hoo!!

Friday Night Practice

In Attendance:

Tina/Jethro
Shauna/Chase
Judy/Roxie,Maize
Amanda/Pixel
Kim/Bosley
Jolene/Kort
Donna/Swift,Epic
Jaime/Cookie
Julia/Tea
Sarah/Gyp

What we did:

We finally found a night to fit in a practice!
Friday the 6th we all got together.
First we did some restrained recalls, owners & dogs first. Then we did side by side recalls, 2 dogs running at the same time beside each other. Then to make it more challenging we did recalls where the dogs had to pass by each other running. Thanks to Bobbi who runs her dogs in flyball for these suggestions for proofing our dogs.
Then the running dogs practiced a couple of heats, everything went well except for Kort who seemed to be having some difficulty finding his dumbbell.
Note to self: don't groom dog with smelly products before going to a scent practice :) !!

Then we split up into stations to practice with the newer dogs.

We had a jumping station which Kim helped with. Plus we had 2 stations of scenting from the box. Amanda & myself worked with the dogs at these stations. I could really see the improvement in all the new dogs, they were excited to find their dumbbells & are having loads of fun!!
Great job everyone!!

Two Practices, in one weekend!

Catch- Chase's new little brother :)

Saturday No Nonscents participated in the Childrens Festival. Our dogs did great and had no problem with the huge crowds and all the noise. We are very proud of how well they did.

Sunday we had a regularly scheduled practice- this time with a twist though!

We invited some flyball people down to provide much needed distraction with a second lane. And boy, did they do a good job of that!!! Our dogs lost their heads with the loud flyball dogs running next to them. Every one of them had issues.

Some were afraid of the screaming dogs, Some wanted to chase them, and others wanted to put them out of their misery. Oi.

We have lots of work to do. Thankfully the flyball people thought it was great, and we are going to set up another practice with them.

The last hour was spent with the Newbie dogs. We have lots of newer dogs that are in various learning stages and we are working hard to get them up to speed.

We rotated through three stations: Jumping, Discrimination, Box Work.

We also officially welcomed Sarah and Gyp to the team! CKC has recently allowed Border Collies to get PEN numbers so we are pretty pumped to have Gyp on the team. She is partly trained already so she should catch on in no time!



we couldn't decide who was more excited to join- sarah or gyp!