Gem City CPE Agility Trial

Molly and Jack both had good runs at the recent CPE trial held in Dayton. Ohio. On the first day of the trial I found that I had to do the photo taking. VW was not well and so I had to run them, take photos, and download the photos. Molly ran four runs on Saturday with three different handlers and Qualified all four times. I ran her once, Marilyn (Moose's Mom) and Patti (Andre and Alex's mom) helped out by running Molly. The photos turned out and molly as always performed as a champ. Molly and Patti got a first place in her Level 4 Standard run. Jack got off to a great start. He was 4 for 5 for the weekend. Here are some cute photos of Molly and Jack.

Dog Agility Trial-Gem City CPE

Molly went to Dayton, Ohio last Friday to compete in a CPE Agility Trial. Saturday Molly was moving well but the contacts did her in and she only had one qualifying run. That was Level 4 standard. On Sunday she had a much better day. She Qualified in Level 5 Wildcard, Level 5 Jackpot, and Level 5 Snookers. Level 4 standard was a heartbreaker. One slight bobble on my part and Molly touched the A-frame when she should have gone into the tunnel. That was her only fault and it was entirely my fault. She had to do the A-frame twice in the run and I was determined that she would not miss the contact zone. After the second trip over the A-frame she needed to flip directly into the tunnel. When I froze for a second she turned and started to go back up the A-frame for a third time. She barely got one paw on the A-frame but that was all it took to incur an off course. At level 4 you can not get an off course and qualify. Oh well. Her Snookers run was awesome. She finished this run with 48 out of 51 possible points. Molly thanks her good friend Maria for running her in the Wildcard class while I was working at our photo setup. Maria did one nifty reverse flow pivot to get Molly into a tunnel when the tunnel was right next to the A-frame. Great discrimination work.

Now for little brother Jack. Jack ran one run a day at Level 1. He Qualified in each of his runs. He got a third place in Jumpers, a first place in Fullhouse (with 28 points) and a first place in Standard. In his standard class he had to also perform the A-frame twice. I was concerned but he did it like a veteran. He ran with enthusiasm and he had a great time. No stopping at the jumps. He did run over to visit one bar setter but returned to me as soon as I called him and we continued on our way to a blue ribbon. Attached are photos of Molly and Jack that their dad took at the agility trial this past weekend.

Molly and I went to Buckner, Ky. last weekend to watch our good friend Dixie and her owner, Diane earn their Master Agility Championship. So she is now MACH Shanti Dixie Cup of Sunshine. Molly was very happy for her cousin, Dixie and I was very happy for my good friend Diane. Diane has earned MACHs on three Australian Shepherds. Here are some photos of Dixie on MACH day.

Here are the photos from class. Shown: Callie, Mollie, Spice, Voodoo and Dice the lovely demo dog.

On Tuesday Molly went with Jack to his Novice Agility class (level 3). Molly had a good time but would have preferred to do all the running. Too much watching for her. Dice, the sheltie was also there to be a help to our wonderful instructor, Lisa. Dice spent his time being the Demo dog and running with one of the students to help work on a particular move. Jack is making good progress but he is still trying to get the hang of all those weave poles. Molly would like for you to see some of Jack's classmates. We have worked with, been classmates of, and watched the wonderful progress of these up and coming agility teams.

Pictured are: Strider, Cowboy, Sam, Jack and Molly. I will do another post with the photos of some of Jack's other classmates.

Molly is such an honest dog. What you see is what you get. She always tries to do what she thinks you want her to do and she follows directions beautifully. Ok-if food is involved and no one is looking she might not be so honest. But her younger brother Jack is another matter. He is always looking for the angles. When I got my first dog (Charlie), I started with him sleeping in a crate. He was trained with the use of a crate, but after two years I did away with the crate and Charlie slept either in our bed or on his own small dog bed. When we started going to dog shows, Charlie did not take kindly to the crate thing. He just did not see that he was a dog and thought that he belonged with us not locked away. He would bark for hours. Once on a trip to an agility trial in Ohio he barked for a solid 6 hours. I swore that I would never do away with the crates again. That being said; Jack came into our lives 13 months ago and he has always slept in his crate. The routine has been for me to let the dogs out, bring them back in, call them to their crates and give them a treat. All was well with Jack as long as the treat was special. Recently I tried using their regular food and suddenly Jack did not want to go into his crate. Last week I let the dogs out and when they came back in Jack headed straight for our bedroom. He went under the bed, to the very center of the king size bed. It was as if he knew exactly where to be to keep me from reaching him. So I went to bed and waited for him to hop up on the bed, then I carried him to his crate. The third night he out waited me. He waited until I was sound asleep before he came out from under the bed. See I am a slow learner. The fourth night I finally got smart enough to close the bedroom doors. Jack came in, ran straight to the bedroom door and then turned around and looked at me. But he won. I am now back to special treats for going to the crate. He is very smart and very cute and very manipulative. I will post a recent photo so you can see just how adorable he is.

Friday evening we worked on taking some photos of Molly and Jack and of course the photos that just happened are better than the ones that were planned. This photo was taken after we had finished taking the planned photos. It was a beautiful late summer evening and the light was just right. If I had planned this, the toy would be prettier or at least turned around. But those eyes are just stunning. We are working on a book of Molly photos. It incorporates photos about agility and photos of the things that Molly loves to do and the people that Molly loves.

This past weekend we went to Grove City, Ohio to take photos at an AKC agility trial. I tried to get some shots of Molly and Jack together. Here is one that I like. But unless Molly see a treat she thinks the whole photo shoot time is a waste. But Jack sure is cute.

Naptime

As was mentioned the other day, Molly and Jack love to nap. While Jack often likes to sleep on our bed, Molly prefers the couch. Sometimes Jack will join her. You can see them napping on the couch. Very cute. You will notice that Jack is peaking at me as I took the photo.

This is Molly on a very windy day. Gramdog Rosie (her breeder) would be horrified to see her ears standing straight up but she is beautiful anyway. Rosie is a wonderful breeder, her pups are always well socialized and beautiful. There are many of her pups out there competing in many different venues. Rosie is a great fan of the Harry Potter series and many of her dogs and pups have associated names. But Molly was the first and we came up with the name almost 9 years ago. Molly is named after Mrs. Weasley. That was before Rosie became a fan. Now she has pups named, Secret "Keeper", Sorcerer's "Stone", Mischief Managed, and many others.

Last week Molly went to the Boone County Fair in Burlngton,Ky. Four nights in a row we were at the Horse Show. While Molly had to spend her time in the X-pen she did make lots of friends. Children often stopped to visit and asked if they could pet her. She is wonderful with children of all ages. There were groups that would return every day to see Molly and Jack. They enjoyed letting me know that they remembered the names and everything about them. Both dogs enjoyed the attention.

Here is a photo of Molly and Jack with Ryan and Kelly. Evidently they had a great time at their sleep over at Ryan and Kelly's house. As you can tell the dogs were eating up all the attention that the girls gave them.

Molly spent the weekend with Ryan

Last weekend Molly and Jack got to spend the weekend with her friends Ryan and Kelly. They had a great time. I hear that Molly did a great job chasing the frisbee. While I do not have a photo from this weekend I will share a photo of Molly and Ryan running agility a couple of weeks ago.

Molly thanks Ryan, Kelly and their parents for taking such good care of her this weekend. I hear that the girls and their friends particularly enjoyed taking Silver Jack for walks.

Molly would like for you to meet her brother Jack. His full name is Silver Jack. Jack is a 2 year old Havanese. Jack came to Molly's home by the way of a shelter and a breed rescue program. He was found in an alley eating out of a garbage can. When Jack came to us he weighed 7 lbs.. Now he weighs 10 lbs. He was very thin. Molly and Jack love to play, they love to nap together, travel together and generally hang out together. Jack is currently attending classes to become an agility dog. While he really likes all of the obstacles (except maybe the teeter), he is struggling with the idea of putting it all together. You can see a photo of Jack that was taken at the Show and Go. He really is adorable and fun.

Today's photo shows Molly getting ready to run agility at a recent Show and Go. Molly is with her friend Ryan. Molly loves to run agility so much that she forgets that she should wait at the start line. You can see Ryan working hard to get the leash off Molly, getting Molly to wait and getting herself ready to perform a brilliant agility run.

Molly loves to jump.

Here is a photo of Molly showing us just how much she loves agility.

A-frame

Here is a photo of Molly at the top of an A-frame. This photo was taken a couple of years ago at an AKC agility trial held in Charlotte, NC. The reason I love this photo is because it shows Molly's pure joy of running the obstacle course, called Agility.

Can't everyone climb a ladder?

Here is the photo I promised of Molly climbing the ladder to the slide. I knew Molly would go down a slide. After all she often goes up and down the A-frame but I had not seen the slide and was taken by surprise by how she got to the slide. You can see Emma's leg at the top of the slide. Molly followed her to the top of the slide. Molly loves Emma and would go anywhere with her.

Recently Molly spent the weekend with her friend, Emma. Emma is five years old. I was told that Molly was having a great time playing on the slide. When I went to pick her up I took a camera to capture Molly on the slide. Here is a photo of Molly playing. What I didn't know was that she would climb a vertical ladder to get to the slide. I will add that photo tomorrow. It is pretty amazing.

Molly enjoying running with her new friend.