First Rally Excellent A Leg!!

Instead of fighting the crowds out shopping on Black Friday, Falkor and I were at a Rally trial at our local club. I am so very excited that we got a second place and our first RE leg! It wasn't our prettiest run as Falkor was quite distracted by the smell of the sloppy joe's cooking in the kitchen next to our ring. :) Need to start proofing for that! BUT I am just so thrilled that I was able to get his attention back when he was distracted and he did NOT zoom at any point on the course. That alone is huge for us.

I was also interested to see how he would do with during the honor portion of the course. He is not used to working with a totally unfamiliar dog in the ring. I was very happy that he didn't even seem to notice another dog was in the ring with us.

Proud of my big happy boy! He got some leftover turkey as a jackpot reward and was a very happy camper. We are entered in a trial next Sunday in MN and then we won't have any shows until February.

"Choosy Danes Chose Jif"

"Yummy, yummy yummmmm"

"My tongue can allllmost reach the bottom."

"Mmmm my tongue is all sticky now."

Falkor got to lick out the empty peanut butter jar and was in total doggy nirvana!

Devil Dog??!

Last night I was filling out a Rally entry for Falkor and I somehow noticed for the first time that Falkor's AKC number has a 666 in it. Ruh-roh! LOL Ummm I think that says a lot. Maybe that explains why he is so naughty and his penchant for zoomies at trials. ;)

Deer and Ducks and Snakes, oh my!

Jackson and I took Falkor and Famke to our favorite field over the weekend to get some exercise and to enjoy the insanely beautiful weather. I'm able to let Falkor off leash to run around and investigate but I don't trust Famke off leash at all right now. She is most definitely a sporting breed and any critter movement sends her off flying.

We started off our little hike and while walking along the rock path I was a foot step away from stepping on a little garter snake sunning itself. Jackson was so excited to see his first snake in the wild, and luckily Famke was distracted by some birds otherwise I think she would have be on that poor snake in a flash. Falkor saw it but wasn't really interested. Phew.

We continued along and as I happened to look up a HUGE Buck came shooting out of the woods about 30 feet in front of us. Famke saw him immediately and was nearly levitating on the end of her Flexi (yeah good thing she wasn't off leash!). I was relieved that Falkor was distracted at the edge of the water and didn't even see the deer. Although he has a great recall in his field I haven't had to try to call him off a running deer before!

After our deer encounter, we walked along the edge the water and the dogs enjoyed splashing around and chasing each other. A handful of ducks decided that it might be a good idea to land in the water right where we were. Really??!! Famke was just beyond herself with excitement and luckily Falkor didn't care at all. The dogs were good and tired after our wildlife adventure and Jackson was so thrilled to tell Mark about all the animals we got to see.

Fall Pics and New Collar

Finally got outside and took a few pics of Falkor in his new collar. He heard Mark come home as soon as I started this photo shoot so he was not into cooperating with me. He is slowly starting to look like a grown up boy dog. I just love him to pieces!!

It was the best of times....it was the worst of times.

Deep breaths...oy!

This past weekend we went out to Omaha for a dog show and we were entered in Beginners Novice on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I originally decided to enter Beginners Novice because I wanted to be able to work on my ring nerves. Because of Falkor's previous zoomie outbursts, I stress in the ring and this in turn stresses him out. Everything in BN is on leash except for the sit/stay exercise and the recall. We practiced the BN exercises a great deal in the past month and a half and I felt we were ready.

Unfortunately, we could not make it to the trial on Friday because Mark couldn't get time off work. So we drove out on Friday night and Falkor and I enjoyed cuddling and watching movies together at the hotel. On Saturday we didn't show until early afternoon so we were able to take our time in the morning and we got to visit and watch lots of very talented teams compete.

Our run on Saturday went pretty well until the the recall. He was a little sniffy on the last turn of our heeling pattern and on the outside turn of the figure 8, but Falkor was very happy and attentive. I set him up for the recall, walked away, turned and called on the judges order and he came flying is as usual and about half way he veered off and exploded into a spectacular display of zoomies. Of course the audience burst into laughter and Falkor was thrilled to entertain his fans. Part of the issue is that Falkor stresses up. He winds up like a spring and usually jumps or recalls are what releases the zoomie monster. I have a hard time getting him to zoom during training so he saves this fun behavior for the trials. We desperately need more fun matches!

On Sunday morning I took Falkor to a HUGE open field and ran him off leash for a solid 45 minutes and tried to get him burn off some of the crazy. He seemed more mellow but as we all know looks can be deceiving. ;) Our run on Sunday felt AMAZING until the recall again. His heeling was some of the best he has ever done...even in training! If I can get that kind of heeling at trials in the future I will be beyond thrilled. Finally the recall...called him he came about half way again veered a little to the right and I truly thought he was going to come front but just a little to the right. He got to my side and then exploded into wild zoomies. Ughh! Naughty boy!!

The judges were wonderful though and the judge on Saturday said "well you can't knock that kind of enthusiasm". LOL I am very happy that Falkor likes being in the ring and trialing...he just likes it a little *too* much. :) We will keep working at it. I got some ideas from our Advanced Obedience instructor and I'm looking forward to trying them out at our club.