Oh Yeah, You Blend

What a great three day weekend! Now that the AKC instituted a rule where if you have a class dog and a class bitch, you have a point available, it’s worth my while to show Alice and Orbit!

I’m very fortunate to have a great co-owner for Orbit in Ruth, since she and Jim not only give him a wonderful home, they’re also willing to bring him to shows and show him!

Friday we showed to judge Kathryn Madden, who was just delightful to show to. She was SO complimentary about the dogs, she said “the FRONTS on your dogs! You must be very proud!”). She gave Alice BOB for the point, and went on to give Alice Owner-Handled Group 2 in a large and competitive OH herding group. Later, when we were getting pictures done, she said “she’s a fabulous working bitch! Bring me a working dog any day!”). Not only that, but Alice made the cut in the regular group under judge Marie Ann Falconer. It was such an impressive group and I was so shocked that she made the cut that at first I thought the judge was just naming breeds when she walked past us and said “The Swedish Vallhund”.

Saturday we showed to Marie Ann Falconer. She also gave Alice BOB for the point, and then Alice went on AGAIN to take Owner-Handled Group 2 in yet another large and competitive group under judge Christina C Miller (who walked up and said “You’re my number 2”). Ms. Falconer passed us on the way out of the OH group ring and congratulated me and said “I cut her in group yesterday!”.

And then today, under judge Dianne P Miller (who was a little rough with the dogs on the table, in my opinion), Orbit got BOB and the point.

I was thrilled with how they both showed, and am so thankful and grateful to have awesome co-owners! Orbit loves his family.

HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Jan Robles and Cora on Cora’s CD title! Cora is now Alkemi Corona del Roble LS CD! Cora also has her Senior Barn Hunt title and a FastCAT title. She’s just 18 months old, her mom Jan Robles is no slacker! Cora is the Puppy Formerly Known As Popcorn.

There it is! Alice’s first AKC Championship point! I skipped Saturday because of the weather and ironically the weather on Sunday was SUPPOSED to be ok, but instead Erie got a huge snowstorm and getting home was terrifying and Jim needed to give me on-the-fly navigation instructions to get around closed stretches of I-90. But we got home safely, met Kat Klein, who is awesome, and spent some time with Ruth, Jim and Orbit! So proud of my baby girl, she showed so well!

With severe storm warnings for Saturday/Sunday, I decided to make the drive today for just one day. Sure was worth it! Zhora Triple Q’d (she is so awesome) and her daughter Alice made her trial debut (I had a sentimental/superstitious need to have Alice make her debut under our dear friend and favorite judge Sherry Jefferson). My goal was simply to have her get her feet wet, maybe do some obstacles, hopefully mostly stay with me, so I came up with a simple FAST course, just jumps and tunnel and the aframe (which she loves), I didn’t ask for a startline stay, just wanted to keep it up and high energy and fun. HOLY MOLY! She was a ROCK STAR, ran amazingly well, COMPLETELY ignored Judge Sherry (who is also her beloved Aunt Sherry, and even Zhora had to give Sherry the “hey Aunt Sherry!” eye), stayed focused and happy and completely unfazed and the icing on the cake was that she QUALIFIED! She’s never run on turf, she’s never run in a match or a trial…no worries. I had zero expectations of her (and I still don’t, my only goal at this stage is for her to learn how fun and exciting this is), but holy moly was I impressed. She’s the first dog I did OneMind Dogs methods with from the start, and I do think it made a huge difference, she understands so much more at this stage than I ever hoped she would, plus she has that awesome temperament, she doesn’t worry, she doesn’t fret, she takes her job seriously, she is a working dog and exactly what I hoped for from this litter. Zhora and Bert, you did good!

Zhora Standard (part 1 of QQ # 93/TQ, 32 points, 4.097 YPS):

Zhora FAST (QQQ, first place):

Alice Novice FAST (FIRST RUN, FIRST Q!):

Zhora Jumpers (part 2 of QQ #93/TQ, 19 points, 4.769 YPS):

Cricket’s owner Jennifer Corbin says:
“Great weekend of agility with friends!
3 q’s for Cricket, 2 steeplechase and 1 starter jumpers which earned her title Starter Games Dog of Canada! We are out of starters!”

Cricket is now Alkemi Braveheart ST ADC SGDC!

Congratulations!

It’s HOT here. But holy cow, when I bred this litter I wanted sane, correct Vallhunds with serious working drive. I got what I wanted IN SPADES. Alice literally DEMANDS to work and she will keep working and working until I make her stop. This is not to say she doesn’t get puppy brain, because of course she does, but holy moly am I loving working with her!

Here are some videos from training today. We worked the lowered a-frame and Alice says “no problem!”, she’s running over it enthusiastically and taking it well in a small sequence. She’s also working 2 x 2 weaves really well at home so I put them in a speed circle and small sequence to help her start seeing them as an obstacle in sequence early on (a mistake I made with Zhora is NOT doing this until we started trialing and this weakness in our training popped out). This puppy is already COLLECTING to go into the 2 x 2! The 2 x 2 speed circle is something I got from my training partner and BFF Sue Verbocy, and it’s ENORMOUSLY helpful to the dog in learning how to collect, learning how to see weaves as an obstacle in a course, and just generally helps with fluency with weaves. You can do it even with babies once they are performing one set of 2 x 2’s well, since you can do it with just single sets of 2 x 2’s (as I did here) and other obstacles in between, so it’s not hard on their growing bodies.

She is at the stage where she has the taste for how fun agility can be, so she often makes her own decisions about what she’ll do, but that’s normal and just something we will work through. Overall I am beyond impressed with how well she’s doing at this very early stage! She’s only 10.5 months old!

(please excuse the barking, the adult dogs wanted it to be their turn, nothing like training with barking dogs to make actual trial environments seem tranquil by comparison….)

A-frame using the Manners Minder:

Various sequences with 2 x 2’s:

Lobo (Alkemi Beowulf del Roble LS) earned his OAJ on Thursday and his AX on Friday! Congratulations to Jan and Lobo!

She’s in a bit of an 8 month old shithead phase, so today we did a bit of much-needed reminders about Crate Games and tricks and relationship building. She’s wonderful anyway, it’s normal testing the boundaries stuff, and it’s quite easy to pull her back to being her usual self. I wanted a strong-willed dog, and Vallhunds are that! She face planted while practicing today and got right back up and went back to work, not much phases her so far, which I love. And she is being great with Sue’s new puppy Blast for such a hellion!

(she is not actually weaving 12 poles, we’re still on wide open channels, but she does do a few in line)

Cora RATN!

Cora (AKA Popcorn), Alkemi Corona del Roble LS just became Alkemi Corona LS RATN! She earned her first title today at age 8 months (the first title for any of the C litter puppies): Barn Hunt Novice!

Cora lives with her uncle (Zhora’s brother) Lobo, Alkemi Beowulf del Roble LS, who was the first Swedish Vallhund to earn the Barn Hunt Open and Senior titles, so little Cora comes by it honestly.

Congratulations to Cora and her owner Jan! The Zhoraberts are kicking butt already!

We’ve been doing bits here and there but really haven’t done much other than some very basic things, and look what she can do!

Love this puppy so much. She’s 8 months and one day old. She does a few tiny jumps once a week or less (in case you’re wondering). Love her focus and working drive, love how she isn’t afraid to be wrong, and I LOVE how bombproof she is so far!

Really excited about how fast she’s running and how she’s taking distance and driving to obstacles. I also LOVE that she reads the deceleration cue at the wrap perfectly:

Love how she gets more confident as she goes along!