Carolyn Herle seminar rescheduled

We have rescheduled our Carolyn Herle "Building Work Ethic in Your Dog" seminar! We hope you can join us on Saturday, March 19th. Please let me know asap if this will work for you. We look forward to seeing you on the 19th and until then, stop the wind and weird weather, will ya????

The Prez

Seminar stopper

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Stateside Stuff

News from the Lopaschuks in CA & AZ.

Sorry about the generic email...we have been in CA & AZ for past 3 months – no fixed address – moving often to sight see & go to shows. Usually we camp in Regional or County parks – have some favorite spots we like to go to each year. Right now Dick is at home in Cranbrook for a few days working and I am at a really nice campground in the high desert near Scottsdale with the crew (8 dogs & the cat) I am catching up on a lot of email & bookkeeping J Have been in one place now for 2 weeks – wow!

Wanted to share...it is official “Celine” is a Grand Champion – so far AKC has posted that she has 29 GR CH pts with 5 major wins. Took 3 weekends & a BOB at the Arizona Toy Dog Specialty . Right now, according to AKC website, she is in the top 25 Papillons in the US but that will change soon as our last shows for the season are at Westworld in Scottsdale next weekend L. Didn’t enter every day in Scottsdale as our daughter Lara & granddaughter Taylor from Cranbrook are coming to visit for a week. Looking forward to seeing them! Hope weather is nice...snow on the mountains here today!

“Joey” also has a couple pts to his GR CH, “Peter” (puppy) has started on his AM CH and “Brie” only needs one more trial to complete her Rally Excellent – was entered in 7 trials and received several “High In Class” awards .

Photos are at Ventura show... Dick had to come in the ring as Peter took WD and Celine was in the BOB class.

Nancy

Calgary Show Results

From Janna, who had the most amazing wins with her young German shorthair pointer. Wow.

We had a great weekend at Calgary. Chance (Ch. Firepoint Making My Own Luck) took BOB/BW/BP and Puppy Group on Friday and BOB/BW/BP on Saturday to complete his Championship. On Sunday he was moved up to specials and took BOB/BP again. Breeder/owner handled, except for the shows that MEW graciously helped me out while I was showing his sister. This boy has come such a long way from his first show where he got a terrible scare and went through a "phase" where I couldn't even get him to enter the ring. Its been a long road but I must say that I appreciate it more after all the work we had to do to get there.

Janna, we are so proud of you! And you looked great out there in show ring. Very Pro.

The Prez

Brags

From Denise:

I now have a blog on www.fernie.com
You can enter fernie.com and click on blogs, then scroll down to "Denise
McKay" OR SIMPLY go to:www.fernie.com/blog/denisemckay

My intention is to post training and feeding information and articles,
let you know of our recent accomplishments, and share my many years of
experience and knowledge with you on various dog related topics of
interest. I hope you will visit my blog and give me your feedback.

True Dedication

I just can't say enough about the dedication of our SAWHDA members. Despite the wicked wind,

Carol, Maureen and Joan from Calgary, Deb from Okotoks, and Denise, Sylvia, Dee and another lady from Fernie/Elk Valley, BC. were on hand to do scent hurdle, barrel racing, and square dancing.

The BC bunch is getting ready for the Sit Happens! rally O trial in March so we put up a course from hell for them to practice. I made it up out of my head and it consisted of 25 signs mostly from novice / advanced courses and I got lost half way through when I attempted it. Whew!

Sylvia redeemed herself in barrel racing and did a terrific job at square dancing ..... Lore has

injured herself and was not able to take her place on the team. Russ is going to see if we can use Vista Village as a practice place on Monday or Tuesday evenings early. We can practice

square dance and barrels and I think the residents and staff will enjoy it.

We also walked through our carting drill and reviewed our demo times and seminar times.

Tubby and Glen dropped in on their way from Great Falls with the cutest male Newf pup ever.

No, he will not be staying with Tubby as he has his own puppy to work with. This pup was going to a new forever home in Calgary.

It was a great day. Carol and Maureen took pics of the semi's in the ditches on highway 2 on the way home. Carol lost count of how many were overturned. We lost a small piece of facia from the west face of the kennel building but everything else stayed put. Connie, from Fort Macleod , reported that people lost barn roofs! Carol said that farm building were blown over and

house siding was being ripped off homes between Fort Macleod and Calgary.

We were without power for three hours Saturday evening. It was restored for two hours and then was off from midnight until sometime around 1 or 2 Sunday afternoon. Once it was reestablished, we hurried to fill the trough, vacuum, start the dishwasher (we were out of dishes and were into the camping supplies) and houseclean. So what a perfect excuse for us to go to Cowley to the Pub and have an absolutely delicious rib and wing plate with salads and traditional ale. Yummmmm.

Once again, we have the phones working, computers online, and once again, we hear the hum of the wind starting up. Highway 22 was the scene of more accidents today, and the "man at the intersection" was telling people to use Hway 3 and 2 to go home to Calgary from their weekend places in the Pass.

All in all, it was a much nicer day today and the wind is drying up the muck that has surfaced in our yard. That's a good thing.

Stay grounded.

The Prez

More dog show results

Deb Golding's GSD, Walker, had a winning weekend at the Calgary dog show last weekend. Brazilian judge, Ramon Podesta, awarded Walker the Best of Breed over specials from Calgary and California! And Darle Heck and Don Fitzsimmons gave Walker Best of Winners Saturday and Sunday. Great weekend for Shadowbar.

And our Due South debut ended with our team in second place! What a surprise what with Drummer getting overstimulated and losing his mind!!!! Thank you for your patience, gang.

Drummer: "Hey, Mom, look at this. I have brought you two x's, a four, and a two!!!! What does that spell??

Judi: "It spells Stupid Dog Trick, Drummie. Stop already."

We had one really good run out of the little monster, though. 46 seconds. Gotta love it.

Scent and Pet Expo practice

Hey, everyone,

Saturday is club day for those who are involved in scent hurdle or in the Pet Expo presentations.

I have forwarded the schedule to those of you who are attending Pet Expo with us this March.

Agenda for Saturday, the 12th..

Scent hurdle 9:30
Barrels 10:00
Square dance: 10:30


11:30 Lore,Louann,Deb,Judi, Shar Lion King drill

Noon: Carting

Let me know if you can make this practice.

The Prez

Blazingstar Brags

Liz Saunders, Blazingstar Flatcoat Retrievers, reports that her young import, Cava, finished her Canadian Championship last weekend with Best of Opposite on Friday and Sunday. Puffin, the puppy, had a great day on

Saturday taking Best of Breed, Best of Winners, and Best Puppy for 3 points. It was humorous to see Puffin

jump over the tapes that were holding the mats together. It certainly drew attention from the crowd.

Lupine was stellar in leaping over the 16 inch jumps that Due South had to contend with in the scent hurdle and contributed to the teams' number two placing overall. Yay for the brown dogs.

News from Stateside

Celine Ventura

Here is an email from Dick and Nancy Lopaschuk who are wintering in the California and Arizona and showing their papillons in conformation and rally.

"Have been very successful showing in January in CA and this weekend in Phoenix. Celine finished her AM GR Championship yesterday taking BOB at the Toy Dog Speciality. Joey did well there too – it was his first show and he took BOS which starts him to his GR CH. Celine has been shown 3 weekends in CA and this is our first weekend in AZ – as of yesterday, she had 27 points with 5 major wins – it takes 25 pts and 3 majors for a Grand CH in the USA. They have to be won from the BOB class (Specials Class) Puppy Peter was only shown in CA and took 1 pt and several reserve wins.

Brie has also been a star in Rally, had her entered in 7 trials which completed her Rally Novice, Advanced and 2 legs to Excellent. We already had the first leg in Rally Novice when we came to the US. She still needs one more leg to finish the Rally Excellent title...but she is in season right now so will have to wait. At the last show in San Bernardino, I moved her up to Exc and since she was slated to be the last dog to do the course, she had to be the first honour dog and was attacked by an out of control standard poodle. He came running right over and tried to grab her. She swung and got away but she was very nervous as we had to do the honour again and then run the course. When we came near the shepherd honouring during her run, there was no way she wanted to go anywhere near the spot. That was her worse trial score with an 82...poor girl was just shaking like a leaf and was looking all over for that dam poodle. In the 7 trials, I think she got 5 high in class so that was not too shabby. Won’t be entering any shows now for a while....hope to enjoy some sunshine – if the weather decides to warm up. Also have reports to do for our business so the dog show weekends will have to end till the Scottsdale shows in March L Has been below freezing every night for the past week which is unexpected here.. we are wearing winter clothes most of the time and the furnace is running non stop in the motorhome. And then we hear on the news that BC is having record high temps! Geesh.."

Nancy & Dick