Successful Club Day : Thanks, everyone!

What a great day we had at dog club today. We had sixteen people and 30 dogs attend. Drummer, the sheltie puppy, found a new friend in Cava, Liz Saunders' new flatcoat baby. What a pair. We had great practice in calling them away from each other and having them sit and do some elementary 'heeling'. Cava got to meet some of the older shepherds and lots of people and she was happy and outgoing and confident throughout.

Twelve dogs took part in scent hurdle from beginners to those who already have titles.

Then it was on to an Advanced Rally course that really pressed people and pooches to stay focused and work closely as a team to avoid the pitfalls that come out of a 'heeling' course with many changes of position and pace. A good job was done by all.

Replacing a few signs brought us into the excellent course which, once again, pressed people to choose a pace and stay with it throughout the course without adapting pace to the dog. We had food bowls and jumps and 180' pivots and serpentines, spirals and a straight figure 8. There were many opportunities for a dog to bump into its handler or interfere with forward motion. I must say the handling was excellent even though a few of us were off course now and then.

The honor was a down in front of the handler but a few of us actually did a sit or down out of sight as our honor exercise. What better opportunity than today.

Lunch was great as usual although we really missed Maureen and her baking!!! Boo hoo. Feel better soon, Maureen.

We wish Denise and Jagged a successful weekend at their specialty as Jagged completes her CD. She and Denise looked fabulous today. Lore and Daisy also did a super Novice routine! And Mary Ellen's Cheyenne was amazing considering the fact that I am sure she stays at home and reads the obedience rules and practices all by herself while Mary Ellen is at work or away on courses, because there has been no training since last summer with this beast.

As president of our club, I can't say enough about the wonderful difference having a fully matted facility makes in the training for our dogs. The footing is solid and we must thank Russell Lee for nominating us for the Shell grant which we received due to his efforts. It's been absolutely wonderful. We are able to do so much more in the line of events because of it.

Thanks to Lee for bringing Bess so I could 'play' at rally O with her. Thanks to Denise, Deb, and MaryEllen for working with Swayze and Hunter. What a difference in confidence in twenty minutes. You made my day!!! Thank you to everyone who brought goodies and who helped set up and take down courses and handle dogs for each other. It's this kind of cooperation that makes the day possible.

Good luck to Tubby and Lexi as they continue to practice for their 2010 Carting Olympics. I often wonder why Tubby's neighbors haven't gifted him with a straight-jacket after seeing some of the antics he and the dogs go through in the driveway as they practice ...... if I saw a Newfoundland dog racing joyfully up to a man-made mannequin and dragging it across a driveway by its hand, I would wonder about the fellow giving the commands.

Tomorrow night, we start our new obedience class at the hall at 6:30 p.m. with an eye to increasing our membership at the end of five weeks.

Thursday, Lore and Louann will have a rally O course set out for us at the Twin Butte Hall at 7:00 p.m. and the opportunity for us to practice obedience as well. Cost to attend is $5.00 for the evening.

I will rent the hall for next Saturday, April 17th from 10:00 - 2ish. Hope you can join us.

Judi

Enjoy your week.

Vest Logos

Hi, Everyone,

Just a little note to say that we have our logo chosen for our vests. We are going with the grey as it will look very nice on our black vests. Louann is taking care of all the orders and will let us know when things are done.

Scent hurdle takes place at Cowley Sunday, April 11th at 10:00 a.m. followed by Excellent and Advanced Rally and obedience.

Hope to see you there. The weather today is bright and beautiful with no wind at present. That could change in a moment.

Judi

Pet Expo

Remember Expo 2009? Well, here are pics from 2010!

Here are some pics of the SAWHDA Pet Expo Booth and a couple of shots of the carting. We were thrilled to have 30 ft. of space and we needed it.

We have the Cowley Hall on Sunday, April 11th from 10:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. for scent hurdle, rally O and obedience.

If there is no snow on the parking lot (just kidding) those who wish to cart can do so there as well. Hope to see a good turn-out.

Just an update on us folks that trialed at the RDDKC. Joan Michaud's Dezi earned her CD and RA this weekend and Maureen O'Neill's Levi earned another 2 legs on her RAE (making that 8 in total towards her RAE). Congratulations to everyone.

Carol Solkshinitz is on the mend after some fix and repair surgery this week. Won't be long until she and Emily join us for summer fun in all things canine.

Sad news this morning. Sharon Smith has passed away after a long battle with cancer. Sharon and her pomeranians enjoyed rally obedience and drill with us and those memories we will cherish.

Condolences go out to Russell Lee whose brother passed away this week. We hope Russ and Marilyn have a safe trip to Fairview and home again. Mojo has to put up with Judi as his Rally O handler this week.

Tubby Miller returns to us from the west coast area we he judged at the biggest Draft test ever in CANADA . It STARTED AT 7:00 AND they were done at 5:15 . There were 24 dogs entered. 12 Newfs 12 Berners. 4 Newfs and 3 Berners qualified . There were 5 draft judges in the test. While one set was being judged, they started a second test with 13 dogs. What a huge entry. Too bad there weren't more qualifiers.

On this note, I guess we'd better make good and sure that we are really ready, ready, ready before we enter our dogs in a test. I'm certain Tubby will let us know who is ready and who should wait until later.

Home From Pet Expo

We were a hit! Due South performed at Pet Expo and people were excited by the variety of performances! Jennifer and River made the television news! Joan and Beau made the on-line Herald video! Donna put our square dance performance and her freestyle and disc on u-tube! I must say that having the 'men' square dancers wear black golf shirts and the women white shirts was a great idea. On the "swing the women back to back" set, it looked very classy.

In the Carting Olympics, Joan and I were very proud of RoZe and Beau as they actually did drill-work harnessed and hitched. A subtle message about obedience was given when Brazil and Levi stayed in the carts for the entire entrance and figure 8 moves.

Tubby's DDX dog, Lexi, showed the finesse necessary to do a 360' turn without having the wheel of the cart move outside a one foot circle. His brace of Newfoundlands, Lexi and Simon, finished off the performance and, because he will be out at the Nationals on the west coast for his birthday next weekend, we took the opportunity to sing Happy Birthday to Tubby at the end of our afternoon performance. We wish him well at the "Olympics".

Deb maneuvered our eight dog/handler drill team around posts and made us look really good. Actually Louann and Maureen were so in-synch it was amazing. Their footwork matched perfectly!

We had some pretty fast runs in barrel-racing by Ryder, Lexi and Beau as big dogs and by Brazil and Krissy, the smaller dogs.

I think the dogs enjoyed the opportunity to run!

Our dogs were a real draw for people who appreciated their obedient natures and came over to the booth to find out more about our club. We had 10 people interested in joining and making the trip to Cowley to train with us. I know Swayze was a huge draw for people over at the CAPPDT booth when Sarah-Jane and I were manning it. He met his first ever baby and was a prince, lying down and remaining still while the baby touched him on his ears and face. He was fascinated by the little elastic headpiece with a tiny bow on it and ended up kissing the baby on the head while he smelled the bow. He was just as great with the people in wheelchairs, taking it all in without a care. All our dogs walked through the building without incident, which was difficult at times because of the numbers of 'rescue dogs' being led around by kids and allowed to run out to the ends of their leads to 'greet' other dogs and people. Not all of us want our dogs visiting at will with strange dogs, thank you very much.

I had occasion to call AMA and have them check my van tire and put in some air. It lasted until today....... slow leak.

Saturday night 12 of us headed to Mavericks for a well-deserved supper and some relaxation. Then back to the hotel where we shared some refreshments and some laughs before bed. RoZe decided that if she couldn't stay with Swayze and Token and me, then nobody was going to sleep. In the end, she slept in the van with Walker. Sunday night she joined us and after a great

play with Swayze, she turned in and slept the entire night without moving a hair.

We had the Red Deer Pet Expo try to entice us to go to their Pet Expo in October 2010 but it's an expensive venture to travel for the fun of it. Hotels, meals, parking passes, exhibitors' badges and gasoline are not covered by the Pet Expo and they add up.

The club is in the midst of ordering some very nice vests with our SAWHDA logo and a pawprint on them. Paid up members for 2010 are encouraged to visit Logos in Lethbridge to try on a vest should they wish to purchase one. Cost will be around $60.

No dog club this week. We all deserve a rest. Thank you to everybody who made our trip to Pet Expo a blast.

Judi

Home from PE

Dog show stuff

CKOC was a small and enjoyable show. It provided us with entertainment (Maureen playing in the broad jumps), within a relaxed atmosphere. Mary Ellen's pup, Tess, had her first appearance in the show ring and for her first show, she was very confident and at ease as she zipped around the conformation ring. In the rally ring, Louann's corgi, Brazil, qualified for a round of RAE competition with a third place rosette and scores in the 94-97 range. Sharlet qualified Ryder for his second leg towards his RAE-2 title and also had Mesa qualify for her first leg towards her RAE title with scores of 86 and 85 and 97 in advanced rally class for both sister and brother. Judi and Swayze also scored 97 and picked up a 4th place rosette by having a faster time. Maureen and Levi garnered another score towards their RAE title with a 93 score and a 90 I believe. Joan and Dex added another leg towards their Advanced Rally with 93. Tubby passed with Lexi and Simon with scores in the high 80's. And in standard obedience Joan and Dex were third in the Novice class with 184. Shar and I left before finding out how Lore and Daisy did in rally and will report when we

get the news. All in all, a good weekend for SAWHDA members and their dogs.

Shar and I went on to Phantomridge to herd with Mesa, Token and Swayze and enjoyed our day immensely. Mesa remembered everything, Token chose to forget everything, and Swayze knew nothing in the first place, so expectations for him were simply to have him stop herding when he was told to do so. After 15 minutes of loping around the sheep in the round pen, he actually trotted a few steps. Never took his eyes off the sheep and Louanne but didn't care that she had thrown a paddle at him and carried on as though it had never happened. Must work at bending him off before we go back.

The weather was wonderful for a March show and I recall years ago when Dawn Earle went with us to the March show to

handle Mesa and we came home in such a snow storm that the traffic was stopped at the Waldron Bridge and a semi was brought up from the rear to lead us all to Highway 3. The last thing the police officer said to me was, "Don't lose sight of the truck." All I remember is the red tail-lights. What a harrowing experience.

Dog show people are crazy.

Pet Expo Practices

Sunday saw another successful practice for Pet Expo! Barrel racing is really coming along with Krissi just flying around the cans. Token is almost going around all three by herself.
Not enough for a square dance, but we are already at the stage where it is very presentable as a performance. The highlight was Jennifer Tomlin's Toffee doing freestyle dance and Donna McLaughlin's dogs doing freestyle disco! Donna shared her dogs' frizbees with everyone and even Drummer, at 11 weeks of age, managed to chase and capture a rolled disc! Ryder was a natural, catching the disc with no trouble at all. The drill is tightening up in formation and members are showing an awareness of not only their own footwork but also the footwork and speed of others in the group. And what a good practice for the cart dogs. We now have the entire routine written out to include Deb and Walker, Judi and RoZe, Joan and Beau and Tubby and his two newfs, Lexi and Simon in the carting olympics.
In short, we are almost ready!!!!! Parking passes are booked and exhibitors' badges ready to be picked up. Our booth will include three spaces. Dogs will be benched at one end in a U=formation. Members are asked to bring metal folding chairs rather than lawn chairs as we are fitting 16 people and dogs into this setting plus our wall hangings and two eight foot draped tables. Maureen is making us a scrapbook to display on the table and Russell is bringing his computer to show some of our club work. If members have photo albums they wish to have displayed, they are invited to bring them. They should show a variety of photos which show the versatility of our dogs.
We intend to have supper together Saturday evening at Mavericks after the show closes.
Members are asked to check the schedule to see when our performances take place and to be on scene at least 1/2 hour beforehand. Thank you to Louanne for the beautiful dog bag which we will fill with doggie goodies and toys and use as a draw at the show on Saturday.

We will have Why join SAWHDA? Because WE are worth the drive!
See everyone at the dog show this weekend. Practice the following Sunday for sure.
Judi