Barmera Trials

We both got a pass in the Rally Obedience at the Riverland yesterday. The pic shows me doing the three step backwards with Kathy. Kathy has to walk backwards and stop after one step, then two steps and finally three steps, and I have to sit in front each time she stops. There were 15 stations altogether and this was just one of them.
Tiffany passed with Keith, and so did all of our friends with their handlers, so it was a good day all round.

State Championships

We were at the SA State Championships on the weekend, I was in Masters and Hannah was in Novice Jumping. The pic shows Hannah as she just landed after the last jump. It was a long weekend, we were in the Saturday afternoon and the Sunday morning trials (Keith was judging on Saturday morning so we could not enter). Hannah ran very well and was a bit unlucky to knock a bar off but then she got over excited and started to nip at Kathy's jeans and missed a jump. She still got round the course, but did not qualify. Keith got lost in Masters Agility when we went the wrong way after the fifth time through a tunnel, and I got a bit excited and took off too quick for Keith to keep up in Jumping so it all went pear shaped very quickly. Still we had a nice week end out with our mates, and we had a go at the championships too, even though we did not qualify for the Finals on Sunday afternoon.

Painting the Kennel

We are having the kennel painted. KnK have moved out the furniture except for the heavy stuff that has been piled in the middle of the room. Sheets of plastic have been spread over the pile and we have the job of holding it down. We wanted to help paint, we have built in paint brush tails that could spread the paint faster than Mr Bean's stick of dynamite, but they declined our offer. Hannah managed to use her tail to spread a bit of paint, and I used my ear feathers, but we were much better employed in a supervisory role, directing operations from the Family room. Anyway, after day 1 the ceiling is done and the woodwork has its undercoat on and with a bit of good luck and a thorough barking at, KnK should have the first room finished by tomorrow.

Hannah CD

Hannah has got her CD title. She is now a Companion Dog after passing her third trial yesterday. We were all watching as she went through her paces, the pic shows her on the way back to Kathy with  the dumbbell during the last of the individual exercises, Retrieve a Dumbbell.
The stays had us all in a panic when the dog next to her started digging a hole and eating the dirt. The hole was very close to Hannah and she got up to see what the dog was eating. The judge decided it was too much to expect a novice dog to ignore such a distraction and gave her a re-run which she passed.
Quiet day today, KnK were judging so we just had a day out with Freki and Scout and a run round the grounds at the end of the trial.

Masters Pass

Tiffany has passed her first Masters Agility trial. The pic shows her doing the last jump, breaking the  beam and stopping the clock inside the time limit. Only 6 more passes to a title!
Overall, it has not been a good week end. Yesterday we had 7 fails between us, Tiffany missed on two agility and two jumping Masters courses and a CDX trial because she did not drop quick enough on the Drop on Recall, and I failed my CD trial when I forgot what I was doing in the sit stay, then failed my first novice jumping trial when I knocked a bar off and then missed a jump after a tunnel. Keith said I did well but was unlucky. Kathy was disappointed, and even more when I failed again in CD today. Tiffany failed the Jumping Masters course today and her CDX trial, so we had 1 pass and 10 fails between us, but that pass was the pass that defined Tiffany as a Masters Level dog at last.

Strategic Dogs

Who would have thought that I would be able to compete with my big sister so soon? but here we are in Strategic Pairs. The pic shows Tiffany at the top of the Scramble while I am racing into position to do my next sequence. Tiffany started the course, with some bars and a tunnel, I did the Dog Walk and some more Bars, Tiffany did the Scramble, Spread and Broad jump then I had to do more Bars and a Tunnel. I got a bit over excited when I saw Tiffany running to do her last section at the Weaving poles, so I went to see her, then came back over the scramble which cost us some time, but I got back on course and did my bit. Tiffany raced through the Weaving poles and over the jumps then started celebrating too soon and came to me. Fortunately she got back on course and did the last jump with less than a second to spare.

That was our first pass in Strategic Pairs, we need two more to get another title, Strategic Pairs Dog.

We will be putting the whole thing on video soon, so everybody can have a laugh.

PS. The video is under Video Links - Strategic Pairs on the left of this page'

Rally-O Dogs

Is there no end to the versatility of a Toller?

Yesterday we both passed in the first Rally-O trial held in SA. The pic shows us with one of the signs and our sashes. Hannah passed in Novice Obedience too, that is her extra sash on show at the front.
We had to do lots of stations in the Rally-O trial. A Station is a card, like the one holding up the sashes, with a set of instructions on what to do. We had to take the humans with us as interpreters because we can not read. They worked out what we had to do and told us to do it. Unfortunately they were concentrating so much on the signs they forgot to talk to us a couple of times, but we managed to fill in for them.

Hannah passed her second Novice Obedience trial so now she needs one more to become a Companion Dog. I did not go well in the Open. We did the heel exercise well and I did not freeze up, but I missed four positions and ran out of points, must have been a bad day because we do not normally miss positions.

We are Champions in the show ring, we have titles in Obedience, I compete in all forms of Agility and Hannah is learning Agility, we have competed in Retrieving and we are learning Tracking. While all this is going on, we still have to bark at the postman, warn when the phone and the doorbell rings, check out the garden and make sure the beds work. What other dog could do all this?