The Family

It’s really not often I get a picture of all six of our dogs. While I was feeding Lucy this morning, most of the dogs were on the couch. So I put the rest up there and snapped a few pictures.

Lucy is in her chair about three times a day now. I really hate her megaesophagus.  I love her, and I want her happy and healthy.  And of course we do everything we can for her.  Our floors are kinda gross now, since she regurgitates still.  But we clean up after her and move on.  She’s a good girl and our special collie. 

The rest of the dogs are good.  Muffit goes hiking with my husband a lot. I don’t post about him much because I don’t do much with him.  Levi is retired, cranky, and jealous that he’s not my main companion anymore, but I train him some and go for walks and things and that makes him happy.  Tatum, Chase and Jet are my three main sport dogs now and they are fun to work with.

All in all, our happy house of six dogs is really peaceful. Everyone gets along and everything is going well. I miss Angel terribly, still.  The worst thing about coming back from trips is not having her here to welcome me home.

Everyone else is pretty happy and healthy though. But I don’t like it when the dogs get old.  I wish they were all young and healthy.

Tatum Tot Spice RN

I am so proud of my smooth collie girl! Tatum got her very first title ever this weekend. I’ll upload the videos in a bit. Here is a picture of her with all her ribbons. She Qualified every day in Rally. On Friday she got a 91, on Saturday she got an 89, and today she got a 95! She even tied for second place with our friend Dare! Tatum was slower so she got third place, but the fact that she even placed thrilled me.

She’s come a long way my little girl, from being terrified of leaving the house, to having her first Rally title. She even loosened up and was more relaxed each day we were there. She is like that… she gets nervous at new places, but the more she goes to a place the more she relaxed.

I even watched one of the new AKC classes called Beginning Novice. It was really neat, and I think Tatum should enter that sometime too. It’s a titling class. I’ll have to read about it too. I am going to work Tatum’s heeling so she gets the idea to have a target and watch me more. I think she really will be able to heel.

I adore Tatum, and I’m so proud of her.

Good Girl Tatum

I’m so proud of my Tatum girl! She is doing so well. I’m not convinced she really knows we are doing a thing in the ring, but she sits when I tell her, she downs when I tell her, and she follows me around just fine! That is two Qs for her in a row, one yesterday and one today. If she Qualifies tomorrow, she’ll have her RN, her first title ever! I’m so proud of her!

We went for a walk along the river after the trial today. I didn’t run Chase… I saw no need to put him into the open ring again and push those stays when we don’t need to. I’d like to save them for an ASCA CDX if possible.  Once we get that, then he’ll be out of open entirely and I’ll just train him up for Utility. And that will be fun!

Jet is with too for the trip and I got some pictures of him that I’ll post when I get home. I’m tired now, so time for bed. 

Spirit Chasers Spice CDX

Chase got his CDX!!!! I am thrilled!  I almost thought it would never happen. He started laying down on his sit stays back in March.  After the pigeon incidence and he got to do a 9.5 minute down stay in the ring. After that, I thought we were pretty much screwed.  But with lots of training and persistence, he held his sit stay today!  Wooo Hooo!

It’s my first CDX ever on a dog.  Levi had one leg toward a CDX before I retired him. He just wouldn’t hold the out of site stays.  So that’s okay.  But Chase always had the potential.  He has the potential for a UD, too, so now that his CDX is done we are going to work the UD exercises.  That’ll be fun. I do want to get his ASCA CDX too, though, but hopefully that sit stay will hold for those legs too.

Today was an adventerous day… last night driving up to Idaho Falls Chase pooped in his crate, which is really rare. He’s usually really good about letting me know when he has to go out. But he didn’t give me even a peep.  Then this morning his poop was solid again.  But last night Tatum didn’t settle at all and kept me awake most of the night.  She’s usually really good in the hotel rooms so I don’t know what was up with her. Hopefully tonight she’ll be good and tired so she’ll sleep.  She also Q’d in Rally Novice B, yay!  I’ll post more about that later. I was so nervous about Chase and that CDX leg that I didn’t spend as much mental energy on Tatum as I should have.  But she did good, she got a 91 out of 100 so I was very proud of her!

So after we were done at the trial we came back to the hotel room and I took a nap. It felt good, I was exhausted.  The stress of the CDX was such that I felt like I was going to throw up after it was over.  I was so relieved.  So I took a nap and when I woke up I couldn’t find my smart phone.  I looked in the hotel and the van  and couldn’t find it.  So then I remembered that I’d thrown some stuff away at the trial site and though oh no, maybe the phone was with all that stuff.

So we went back to the trial site and they garbage collectors had come only an hour before! I thought I was screwed! So we did some training with the puppies and some friends and that was fun. Jet did some go-outs and some heeling and some dumbbell and had a great time.

When we were done I figured I’d walk the path once again from the van to the tent set up to see if I could find my phone.. and as I got closer to the tent site I realized that I had never taken my chair down, and maybe it was in my drink holder.  And it was! I was so relieved!  I don’t want to buy a new phone, I can’t afford it! And I really like my smart phone.  :)

We then went to Cafe Rio for dinner, and then we went back to the hotel. Chase is again runny so I’m not sure what’s up with him.  It’s not affecting his performance, though. But since he now has his CDX I’m not going to put him back in the ring Saturday or Sunday.  There is no reason to waste energy on those stays when he doesn’t have to.  So now I get to concentrate on Tatum’s Rally for the next couple of days and I hope she will get her Rally Novice title!

It’s time for bed, good night!  ;)

Jet and Chase

I won’t need any diamond engagement rings up in Idaho… but I do want some Q ribbons! Tatum is in Rally, too. She seems to have regressed a bit lately into some more shyness so I hope she does okay. My poor special needs rescue girl. I adore her, I do push her, but without a little push she’d be a bubble dog and would be too afraid to leave the house. So a little push is a good thing. As long as it involves lots of Tuna Brownies!

I hope to have internet there and be able to post about our Obedience.

Tatum did it! She qualified in ASCA Rally-O today! It’s her first Q ever! I’m so proud of her. And I do think she was a little bit more connected to me today than she was yesterday.

She held her sit stay too, the honor sit, even though I talked to her the whole time. She got a 181 out of 200 which isn’t too bad for my little girl. I am going to work on some more heeling with her, and walking with me, and I’m going to enter her in AKC Rally later this month, in Idaho Falls. It’s a 3 day and if Mom doesn’t mess up and miss any stations, she could potentially get her first title, an RN.

So I am pretty proud of my rescue collie girl. She had a rotten start in life, coming from a hoarder in Houston, Texas. And any people experience she had was bad. And she’ll always have issues, but she’s a trooper and she always comes back home to rule the house.

Well, I took Levi and Tatum to Utah’s first ASCA Rally trial today. We had a lot of fun! And I have to say I’m so very impressed with Tatum! She did such a good job! Here is the video of her:

My collie girl, coming from a hoarder’s back yard, horribly bred, very little people contact when she was young, and what she got was bad. So even though she’s not looking up at me the whole time, or completely on a close heel… she’s sticking with me, doing all her sits and downs and stands, and I’m so proud of her! She didn’t Q… she stood up on her honor down. But that’s okay, if she would have Q’d she would have gotten a 189, that’s a pretty good score!

And here is Levi, my old man. Levi used to be my main competition dog. But now he’s 10 and a half years old, his back end isn’t as strong as it used to be, and he’s mostly retired. But I thought I’d put him in the Novice ASCA Rally to see how he did. He did great!

He had a great time doing something with his Mom again. He got a 195, which is really good! Out of 200. He’s a good boy. I love working with him again. Breaks my heart that he is old now. Ugh.

I’ll take both Tatum and Levi back tomorrow. Hopefully Tatum will stay in the honor stay and get a Q. I’ll be proud of her either way! I have some sardine brownies for her too, and she loves those fishes!

Chase

Well Chase now has Three CDs behind his name. Though the UKC CD might actually be a prefix title I’m not sure.

Today we went to a UKC trial and he picked up the last leg for his UCD. We don’t have many UKC trials here in Utah and so we do them when we can, and when we don’t have twenty other things planned like we usually do. He qualified with a 181 which isn’t too bad. Out of 200. He got a bit lost on his off leash heeling and went on my right side, but got most of his sits and did pretty well. I moved him to Open A for tomorrow, maybe we can get an open leg. Though in UKC, just like the other venues, they have the dumb out of sight sit stay for three minutes, so hopefully he’ll hold that. He’s been laying down on that lately in AKC trials. Hrmph. I hate those dumb sit stays.

I’m going to bring Tatum and Jet tomorrow too. After the trial is over they are having a 10 minutes for $10 in the ring deal for training. And you can have treats! So I’m going to get them in the ring for some training and use some treats. Jet’s heeling is coming along very nicely so it will be great to have him in the ring. And Tatum always needs to get out and get in rings and other experiences or she starts to revert back to scaredy-dog rescue girl. So it’ll be good for them both!

Okay I got all Chase’s titles and here is his official name, titles and all!

UCD Spirit Chasers Spice AKC-CD OA OAJ XF CGC C-STA C-ISLA C-BGA ASCA-CD RS-O GS-O JS-E WV-N PK1 TFE-III FDCH-S

Well it’s April… but it sure didn’t feel like it on Friday when my husband and I took three of our dogs up the canyon for a hike. We went 4 miles round trip and had fun. But there was too much snow!

Muffit, Tatum and Jet

I needed a hot shower after this walk, or some walk in tubs to get warm in. But going up the canyon was actually a lot of work and I was sweating. The snow made the ground too slick, but we didn’t fall.

Muffit

Muffit loves to hike, it’s his favorite thing to do. And he sure is a cute boy.

I tried to get the three to sit and wait for some pictures, but Muffit doesn’t have a stay or a wait… yeah he’s just too frantic and I haven’t worked with him. So when he’d break the other two would break too. So I just got a quick shot of Jet and Tatum.

It was fun though I’m ready for some warmth!

Yay! Tatum did agility! I’m so excited! She did great! She exceeded all my expectations. I kept saying I didn’t really think she was ready, but I was wrong! She’s ready! Well, she’s still pretty darn slow, LOL, but I hope speed will come with time and confidence. I entered her in ASCA agility, prenovice, and I jumped her at 16 inches. There’s no teeter or weaves in prenovice. She can do the teeter, but not the weaves yet, so that was good.

I felt like I was cheer leading her quite a bit, LOL. A lot more than I wanted to. But all in all that’s okay for now. She did all the obstacles in all four of her runs. She had two runs on Saturday and two runs on Monday. I left her home on Sunday so she could rest, she isn’t all that high stamina of a girl! Maybe a testosterone booster would help speed her up a little bit… LOL

ButI was thrilled with how she was. She’s my baby girl, that goofy smooth collie who has come such a long way from when she came to us from the hoarder in Houston, Texas. I’m proud of my girl.