I won!

The finished Portrait !

I was so excited to find out I had won the Collie Club of Canada draw to have a 16X20 portrait painted of a dog of my choosing!!!   For the portrait I decided on Ash as I have one of all my other Collies. Well, I don't have a portrait painted of Drake but I do have and enlarged photo of him in a big frame. I also don't have one of Lync! I'll need to work on that :)
I didn't have any nice pictures of Ash to use so my friend Amanda offered to take some.  They all turned out great but here are my favourites….

This will be the one we use

totally a Collie!

Rally Excellent

In November Lync and I entered our first Rally Excellent trial.  Lync came home with a leg in both trials with scores of 89 and 92.  I made a couple of handler errors which cost us points . We will enter our trial in April to finish his title.  Lync is such an amazing dog !

FCRSC National Specialty 2018

I had a fantastic time at the Flatcoated Retriever National Specialty last week.  It was held in Edmonton AB and not only was I able to go but I stayed with my sister in Sherwood Park and had a great visit with her as well .  The judge was Kirsi Nieminen from Finland.

Lync had an amazing Specialty, He made the cut all 3 days in the All Breed show with 27 Specials competing.

 In the National Specialty Lync competed with 50 other Champions and came home with an Judges Award of Merit.!!! He also placed 1ST in the Working Dog class in a field of 11!! 

I am so proud of Lync and how he has matured. I just love this dog !

National !

The Flatcoated Retriever National begins this Wednesday!! It will be held in Edmonton AB in conjunction with the Edmonton Kennel Club Dog Show.  We have an amazing entry of 114 Flatcoats from all over Canada and a few from the States!  Lync's class has 47  Champions in it !  I have been doing grooming on Lync the last 3 weeks in a row.  He has been bathed every week with his last bath tomorrow as I leave Wednesday morning.  Wednesday evening will have the Juvenile as well as the Veterans Sweepstakes. Thursday and Friday will have the male and female class dogs being shown and Saturday will be the day Lync goes in .  He is also entered in the Edmonton all breed show Thursday and Friday.

I am super lucky that I am able to stay with my sister who lives in Sherwood Park, it will be good for Lync to have a yard to chill in after a day of showing .  It will be good for me too!

This is really exciting as the bid was put in to host the show 2 years ago.  I agreed to be on the organising committee helping with the merchandise orders.  We have almost 100 orders!

Lync looks really good right now, he is almost 5 years old!  The last National I went to was in Kamloops BC, it took me 14 hours of driving to get there.  Lync was just a few days over 1 year and competed in the 12-18 month class where he took a 4th place. We also went in the hunt test where Lync qualified twice to receive his WC title .  It was fun meeting all the Flatcoat people and I was made to feel very welcome.  I am looking forward to hopefully meeting more people that I am Facebook friends with including the owners of Lync's daughter Luna.
The next time I post the National will be over for another year, next year it's in Calgary! Fingers crossed I can go again .

Tracking

Ash goes from grass to the sidewalk , crossing it to stay on track

Ash goes up the stairs and down the corridor

Down the ramp to find the glove!

I don't post a lot about my Collie Ash. Mostly because we don't do any performance things together. I bought him to show and nothing else. Now I have decided it's time for him to have something to do so I chose tracking.  What a great sport it is and probably one of my favourite to train and compete in. I haven't had a tracking dog since my last Collie Tate who earned a TD in 2007 just before moving Lethbridge.
When I moved I lost my tracking community and my desire to train.  I don't like training alone and my mentor was back in Thunder Bay.  Long story short, I just gave up trying.

Last weekend I took Ash to a tracking workshop put on by my mentor and friend Donna of Spiritdance Tracking.  She now lives in Medicine Hat which is just 2 hours from me.  We spent the morning introducing Ash to tracking.  The first track he followed was one that was already run by another dog so as to leave a pretty good scent trail.  He was fantastic!  At one point there was a right turn to a set of stairs, followed by a long corridor then down a ramp to the glove.  Ash aced it. I couldn't believe he did the stairs even!
His second track was also one that another dog had run first but was blind to me.  I had to trust Ash.  We had to go through a gazebo , follow down a stone pathway to a grassy section to complete the track.  "I" thought the track went one way but Ash knew it didn't and went the correct way!  What a trip that was to find the glove.  So I've been bitten by the bug once again.

Next weekend Donna is driving here to train with me on Saturday.  We will go to the University or the College to train.  I should mention this is called Urban Tracking, not the field tracking that I am used to.  Ash and I do need to get our TD in the field first before we can compete for our UTD in the Urban setting however.
I will worry about finding fields later but for now we are enjoying training this way. I cant wait for the weekend and to be able to go out with Ash again :)

Crossing the gazebo, Ash is going the right way

Through the gazebo on to the stone pathway

Right turn to grass and the glove !

Lucky?

It's been a long time since I talked about anything other then dogs.  Today I will talk about my van. This van was bought from a scrap yard to be used for parts when I had an accident with my original van. Turned out we couldn't repair the original van so we decide to fix up the scrap yard one. I dubbed it the piece of shit, and it was .  We put the old motor into this one as it had very few kilometers on it.  I cant even remember the things we have fixed, It needed a new windshield, there was a hole in the gas tank, the radio didn't work, the air-conditioning didn't work, the cruise control didn't work, the rear wiper didn't work, I could go on but I'm sure you get the picture.  It has been running pretty good for a bit now, then the air conditioner blower went.  It is sitting in the garage right now waiting for parts to come in for it.  $500 more dollars I don't really have to spend to fix it.  I need it fixed as I travel alot to dog shows and I need the cool air for the dogs, I don't care about myself but the dogs are important.
I had just changed the vans name to Lucky from Piece of shit too, maybe I changed it too soon?

New Title!

Last weekend Lync and I went to a Trial just outside of Calgary AB, we were entered in Rally Advanced.  I did not do the Intermediate Title as I didn't see a need for it, just a CKC money grab if you ask me :) Anyway Lync passed in 3 straight Trials with Scores of 90, 89, & 98! He placed third, fourth and second in his Advanced B class respectively, giving him his RA title.
Now we need to learn the new Excellent signs so we can enter our show in November.  Our Flatcoat National is in August but I'm not sure I will enter there after last years disaster! Outdoor shows have lots of yummy smells lets say.

Lync was also used as a Junior Handlers dog , he was such a good boy for 10 year old Paisley even though they had just met.  Paisley took 2 second places in her class.  What a great temperament Lync has!!

Lync and Paisley 

Double Digits !!

Today Kort turned 10 years old!! I can't believe 10 years has gone by.
Kort was a challenge to say the least in his early years, I worked very hard to have the wonderful dog I have today.  He is gentle and easy going.  He loves to bark at anyone who dares to walk up the side walk.  He barks when he is happy too, he pretty much barks all the time! haha! Today I brought him to work where he had a bath, he always feels so much better afterwards.  I can see him aging however, in his joints mostly. His hocks and pasterns are breaking down, his feet are flattening out. These are all common signs when dogs get older but usually not so early.  Kort has a bone spur in his spine as well as arthritis in his spine.  He is on a super great quality supplement to help him manage inflammation and pain. If he is in pain you would never know it, he is very stoic. I love him with all my heart and hope I have him for many more years :)

I also put an ad in Collies On Line, it turned out great!

Barn Hunt Trial

Lync in yesterdays Trial

Lync and I were in a Barn Hunt Trial yesterday.  This was his first attempt at the Open level. There are 5 tubes, 2 with rats, 2 with litter and one empty.  Lync needed to find the 2 rats, do a climb and a tunnel.

In Trial 1 I was the reason for our NQ.  Lync alerted on a tube and I knew it wasn't a rat as the previous blind had a rat in the same spot.  Lync wouldn't leave it alone and I didn't know that I could say leave it and try to call him off so I called it.  I was really bummed to find out I could have called him off of it.  I do not have the luxury of training classes here so I learn as I go.

In Trial 2 it was Lync's fault we NQ'd.  I could not get him off of a tube that again I knew did not have a rat in it.  He kept pawing it and the tube was about to fall off of the hay bale so I had to grab it which caused us to fail.  The judge said I had no choice as the safety of the rat is number 1 and even though I knew there was no rat I still had to treat it as if there was one
.
I decided to pull from todays trial.  I don't want Lync alerting on every tube he finds and I feel that he is doing just that.  I am disappointed.  I really hoped to get at least 1 Q this weekend.  It is hard to pay entries and be done in a minute!

This summer a few of us are getting together, buying some hay and tubes and are going to do training, this way I can correct him for a wrong tube and get him really thinking before he alerts .
There is a trial coming up in Red Deer that I might go to if Brad has the weekend off so he can watch Kort and Ash.

I have decided I am going to try Ash at it.  I will need to teach him how to tunnel as he has never seen one, we don't do anything like agility so he has no clue. I think he will make a good ratter and it will be fun to have both dogs to trial.  I hopefully wont have to worry about him lifting his leg now that he is neutered , at least I hope not!

Rally Workshop

Yesterday Lync and I attended an all day Rally Workshop.  It was put on by Judy Snowdon who is a Rally Competitor as well as a Rally Judge.
We focused on the new Excellent signs as well as the new Masters Class. Talk about mind boggling!! The new Masters Class is something I won't do.  I would like to get Lync's Excellent title but I am not wanting to go past that.  The thing I don't like is it is now becoming way too strict, much more like formal Obedience.  I love Obedience, but not in the Rally ring.  I feel that is a place where you can relax, talk to your dog if you want and encourage him.  Now you have to heel with your hand up at your waist, no patting of the leg or excessive encouragement. I do not agree with those that are constantly luring their dogs and begging them to work don't get me wrong, but the way it is set up now is just not fun.  Rally is loosing the fun aspect that I enjoyed with my dogs.  I am now rethinking if I want to enter Advanced in a couple of weeks.  Its got me all nervous and unsure if we are even ready to do it.  I know these signs were above what Lync is ready for but is he even ready for Advanced?? We have been practicing the new Advanced signs with success, at home. That's the key word, home. Is he ready for the ring? I'm not sure anymore.  I have a small window of time to decide so we will see.

Play and Dog Sports

I attended a workshop last weekend with Lync.  It was about play and how it relates to dog sports.  I learned so much and now look at training in a different way.
For example I learned that it is I that initiates play and I that decides the time to work, not Lync. As you know if you do not have your dogs full attention, no matter what you do, you are not getting the most from your training session. When it was my turn to show how Lync and I begin a training session it clearly showed that Lync has no idea or didn't want to initiate any type of work.  It's a bit complicated to explain, but I know what I need to do and that is to go back to the beginning and teach Lync to focus on me and for him to beg to work for me!  If I can do this Lync will be a happier more willing partner for me and I will get much better results.
I haven't started my training yet, but I need to set aside time each day to do so.  I have already started this with Ash so I will just add on some time for Lync.  I am excited to see how fast he catches on and how much of a difference it makes in our training as we go forward into the advanced classes.

Walkies!

Today is 19 days since Ash's neuter.  I am going to take all the dogs for a nice run in the fenced in field I rent for them.  With the neuter and the bitter cold snap we had they have not been out for almost 3 weeks.  I have stopped feeling so guilty about that, it used to eat away at me if I didn't take them out.  Before when I only had one or two dogs I walked.  I LOVE walking, however since getting Lync that has stopped.  I can't get him to stop pulling :(  He is so strong and pulls so hard that it is very unpleasant for me and the Collies.  I have tried everything from a halti, to a no pull harness, and in desperation a pinch collar.  He has continued to pull through them all, it's extremely frustrating.  I will know better with my next flatcoat to not allow any pulling , at all, ever! right from when he is a puppy.
I could take the Collies together then Lync alone but whoever is left behind puts up such a fuss barking etc. that I just don't bother, especially because Brad works shift work and is usually sleeping when I am going out.
Anyway, I hope Ash is ok to run, it's almost been 3 weeks so I'm sure he will be.  The last thing I want is for him to bust a stich or something!
Well I better get dressed if I'm going , cheers!