Goodbye to a Great Dog

It is with heavy heart that we say goodbye to Sharlet Caroe's wonderful German shepherd, Snowycreek's Easy Ryder CGN, CD, RAE VI, SHDCh. AgN, ITD.  Ryder was widely known around the Rally Obedience rings in Alberta and British Columbia and was the #1 German shepherd and #4 All Breed Rally dog in 2011. 

Everyone who met Ryder absolutely loved him! His out-going personality was amazing.
In all of his years, I cannot recall Ryder doing something 'bad'.  It just wasn't in him. 

Whether he was pulling his cart in a parade, visiting the folks at Vista Village Seniors' Lodge, holding his sit for hours at our annual Xmas Photo shoots or patiently putting up with new pups at class and new calves in the pasture,  he gave it his best.  I loved watching Ryder reload his automatic ball pitching machine over and over so he could play ball all by himself, and he was one of the dogs that could actually fire an authentic flyball machine by hitting the pedal and catching the ball in the air as it was released by the arm. 

Even to the end, Ryder had patience with Shar's new puppy, Osor's Justice Shines, who followed Ryder everywhere he went. 

Miss you, Ryder.  Always.

The Prez 

  

Small But Mighty Crew

The weather, work, weddings,  and wandering the globe kept our numbers to a minimum at dog club yesterday, but those of us who were able to attend had lots of time to work and play with our dogs.

We began by letting T-Bear (ursus horribilus) the shiba puppy,  and Shar's German shepherd puppy, Justice, tear around the hall with toys  terrorizing one another and just every so often, doing some quick focus work and a few steps of heeling.... or was it? No matter. A great way to start the day.  All the puppies greeted every new person happily and confidently.

And they all learned the patience of having to wait in their crates without crying and carrying on.

Next, our scent hurdle team of Token and Drummer practiced finding their own dumbbells instead of the ones with my scent on them and they did very well.  We even let Mesa play the game and she brought back her dumbbell a couple of times but no matter which one she retrieved, she had such a good time that everyone cheered her on. It's always fun to watch a veteran play. Mesa will be 12 in April, and she still enjoys jumping the hurdles and fetching a dumbbell.

Deb had Beckett retrieving her dumbbell from the box and carrying it over four jumps and that was super. 

A novice rally course had been set out Friday evening and it was just right for the group that was gathered. 

Katherine and her Anatolian shepherd, Bobby,  held up to a "trial by fire" as they were still standing after obedience, rally, conformation and barrel racing. We will have some fun with Lad and Bobby joining us for square dancing and Due South Demos, like the one at Heritage Acres
on September 14th. 

We celebrated Tubby's Newfoundland dog, Lexi's birthday.  At 11 years of age, she is still going strong and we are thankful for that.

We all practiced some obedience routines with Drummer actually doing his signals, his glove retrieve, his go-back and directed jumping and his dumbbell work quite nicely.  His Open routine was much more polished and the broad jump seems to be coming together finally. 

Cagney and Lexi worked their Open routines with no hitches at all. Cagney and Drummer will hit the Open ring at Red Deer. 

Castle did his CD routine and although we could probably be ready in time for Red Deer, we will support the Lethbridge show in Coaldale in June and make our debut there.  Thank you to the Lethbridge Club for putting on a purely performance show and we hope to see many of our SAWHDA members there in support of this effort.............. right????   Hint, hint, hint.

Deb dropped in to visit and report that her three dogs, after picking up some kind of debilitating bacteria, were finally on the mend and were going to be able to join us in the next week or so for some canine capers.

We remind everyone that our next Club Day is March 2nd and we will be practicing scent hurdle, 
obedience, and rally O, with time left for Draft Dog work from noon to 1:00 p.m.

                                                AGENDA FOR MARCH 2nd

Scent hurdle  9:30 a.m. with relay sprint dogs running alongside.

Rally O Advanced course 10:15 

Obedience routines beginning at 10:15 

Individual heeling routines ...... ( Judge will be on hand to give directions and follow)

Group Sits/Downs  Pre-Nov to Open  
  
Group Retrieves.....on the  flat and over a jump 

Group Recalls and drops  

Group Signal exercises and Stand for exams 

Directed jumping

Scent discrimination 

11:30 .....  barrel racing

NOON....... Draft Dog work 

Hope to see you there.

The Prez 

Club Days and Practice Dates

We have booked the Cowley Hall for our regular dog club days for the following dates:

Saturday February 23

Saturday March 2nd

Saturday March 9th

Sunday  March 17th

Saturday March 23rd

We hope that there are some dates that work for each of you.

We will begin with Novice Rally O and Utility obedience simultaneously and will

work our way up to Excellent Rally and Novice obedience.

As usual, the fee is $5.00 for members and $10.00 for non-members.

 This will be followed by Relay sprints and scent hurdle running simultaneously.

 Barrel racing and Draft dog work will be last.

We look forward to seeing you there.   Pass the word. 

For those who live close by, another opportunity may work for you as well.

I have rented the hall for drop in practice from 6:30 until 8:30  p.m.

If you wish to join me, please let me know what you would like to practice in the line of obedience,

or rally O or other performance events and we will see that you have mat time.  Drop in is $10.00

to help defer the cost of the hall.

I will be working on some puppy socialization, all obedience exercises, and  some rally O.

If you want to do some carting, you will have to let me know so the rest of us are done and you

have time to do that.

Fun in the Sun

Nope, it's not California Dreaming.  It's just Denise's dogs, Jagged and Spanx having fun last week in sunny Montana!  Yes,  temperatures over 56F and sun, sun, sun.  Snow?  What snow?

A great way to exercise and the dogs just loved it.

Send us some pics of your dogs having "down" time enjoying the fun things in life.

Excellent Club Day

What a great day we had at Cowley Dog Club today.  We did an Advanced Rally O course with all the dogs, each of us doing what our dogs were capable of and substituting stations for those the dogs couldn't do.

 Lore had both Corgis, Deb brought Beckett, Sylvia was there with Julie and with John's sister, Helen, Denise had Jagged and Spanx, Katherine was there with both her collie and her anatolian shepherd, and Chantal had her pit bull terriers. I brought three dogs with me.

We did open and novice obedience with all dogs maintaining the sits and downs for the necessary interval of time.  Lore took a pic of the two shiba inus on a long down as she couldn't believe they would stay so nicely.

We did dumbbell work and Hunter, Castle, and Beckett did very well. Castle went over four jumps to take his dumbbell off the scent box and Beckett did her first retrieve over a jump!!! Scary.

Drummer, Julie and Jagged worked an Open routine and Drum and Jagged did some utility exercises as well.

We set up our scent hurdle and Lore and Chantal provided a distraction with their dogs running over jumps set up next to our course.  No problem for our team and we practiced passing and trying out running orders for Red Deer.  We will have Jagged, Drummer, Kona, and Betty with Token in the wings as a back-up should we need her.  

Helen won the 50/50 draw of $17.50 and was pretty excited, as she, being a guest, was asked to
pick the ticket out of the box.  Hmmmmm.  Ya think?  Nah.

After the day was over, we headed to the Cowley Pub and Restaurant for refreshments and conversation regarding various agility organizations.  I guess I'll stick to NAADAC for now
as I don't want to do the teeter, tire, or chute with my dogs.  

In all, it was an exciting day for all of us as our dogs did very well at everything we asked them to do.

Next weekend, we will be back for more.  Hope you can join us.

The Prez 

We Love RV'ing: Montezuma Castle ~ Verde Valley ~ Arizona

We Love RV'ing: Montezuma Castle ~ Verde Valley ~ Arizona

This is a cool log that my cousin's friend uses to show us where they have visited.
Enjoy.

CARO Trial a success

Great news from Sylvia!  She and Julie went to Dewinton for the CARO Rally trial and qualified 4/4 times.
  

Julie and I did our first CARO Rally trial in DeWinton on the weekend.   I enjoyed it and will continue to participate in CARO.  Julie Q’d in all 4 trials.  We were a little stressed being in a new venue but did well.  Our scores over the weekend were Trial 1 (175), Trial 2 (186), Trial 3 (190) Novice Title and Trial 4 (192) with a 4th place.  We move on to Advanced in the next trial so I am going to have to work on the stand for exam. "

Super stars!!!

The Prez