Where I started... Daisy

One of my favorite blogs to read is Amanda's @ Many Muddy Paws. I know Amanda through agility, she is a great handler and teacher and someone I respect very much. I love her blog and feel like I am on there every day seeing if she has posted a new blog, today her blog was about where she started with her first dogs and left the challenge at the bottom to post about our firsts dogs...

My first dog that was actually mine and not a family pet was my cocker spaniel Daisy.

I was working at the SPCA when I met Daisy. I had gone into a back room to find leash's to take dogs out for a walk and I saw the sweetest blonde cocker spaniel baby in a kennel. I have always loved cocker spaniels so I climbed myself into the crate to meet her. Daisy immediately ran over to me and crawled onto my lap and we had a good snuggle. The vet working at the SPCA at that time came into the room and FREAKED out on me, I didn't notice the large red tag on the kennel stating she was a vicious dog. Turns out that morning on her entrance exam she had bitten the vet causing a few stitches. OOPS! The vet told me that she had been seized from her home do to abuse, she had some broken ribs and a some damage to her nose from being kicked in the face. My heart broke, she was just a bundle of love to me.

So I spent the next two weeks with her taking her out for walks and cuddling with her. One evening I got a phone call from the vet telling me she was on the euthanasia list for the next morning. I couldn't let this happen so I drove the 45 minute drive and brought her home. James was not pleased to say the least. He came home from work that night to a little pup (she was 4months) that he wasn't expecting. I promised to try and find her a new home, but we both knew that wasn't going to happen. Eventually he came around :o)

I worked so hard with Daisy, I didn't have the heart to take her to a groomer because of her past, I was scared of anyone else hurting her, so I learned to groom. I took her to work with me everyday, we worked on socializing her with people and dogs.

When we moved back to Medicine Hat she started to go hunting with my dad and brother, she was always a little nervous with Shane and he wanted to do something with her so bond. So I suggested agility. I loved going along to classes to watch and I watched Shane and Daisy become buddies.

Then when I was 22 weeks pregnant with Lexi, Daisy decided that she didn't want to play agility with Shane anymore, so I tried running her and we had a blast and Shane lost his agility buddy and I gained mine.

We had a lot of fun together, was our handling perfect? No, is my handling perfect now? NO! But boy did we have fun, I quickly got that little dog moved up to masters and we just loved to play together, when I was pregnant she always took it easy on me and kept to my pace. I ran into the vet she bit at a trial a few years later and she couldn't believe this was the same little dog that everyone told me there was no hope for.

I was worried to have Daisy with the kids, my mom and dad were prepared to take her to their home if she has issues when the kids were born, with her past it was a possibility and I didn't want to risk her unhappiness. But she LOVED her kids, from the moment Lexi came home she was in love, Daisy followed Lexi all over and slept where ever Lexi would be. When Bella was born my parents had to come pick up the dogs from the house in the middle of the night because of the emergency situation Bella was in. I was concerned this would have an affect on the dogs, as we were gone for two weeks with no warning, but again Daisy took to Bella right away.

I lost Daisy at the age of 7, she had massive allergy problems that shut down her body. We tried everything we could to fight them, in some ways I think I tried to much on her poor body because I couldn't stand the thought of being without her. She had gone from a 22lbs cocker spaniel to a 13lbs cocker spaniel in a very short time and there was nothing we could do to keep her heathly and not in constant irritation of itching, chewing and scratching. I didn't tell anyone of my decision to put her down, I knew people would try to talk me out of it, I called James just before they were about to give her the shot and he came to be with me. It was so hard to say good bye to her.

My plan had been to run Daisy in Regionals 2010 and then Nationals in Calgary. I had to put Daisy down in August of 2009. At Nationals I had 4 judges that had judged her in the past asking me where Daisy was and how Ava qualified for Nationals and Daisy didn't, it was hard to tell people she was gone, but I got to hear some great stories I had forgotten about her.

She wasn't perfect, but she was pretty darn close...She was such a good girl and told Ava all the secrets of how to handle mom on course, I am now waiting for Ava to pass them on to Blossom and Storm.


Daisy taught me about change, that no matter how bad things start out they can get better, you just need a new outlook on it. Her wiggly bum is what I remember the most, you could read Daisy like a book, when she was happy her bum wouldn't stop. My favorite agility memory with her was at a Go Dog Go trial in Lethbridge, there was always snow fence around the ring and coming around a turn she jumped the snow fence to see Lexi, gave her a kiss and jumped back over the snow fence and continued the course like nothing had happened. <3

a lesson in patience

I am not a patient person, I have never claimed to be, nor will I ever claim to be. Today I pushed myself to my brink. I have been having fun with my new camera and taking pictures of the girls. This afternoon I decided to take out Lexi and Bella and the three dogs. I should have taken tequila shots with me... May be not just for me but for the dogs too! The kids did great, but the tricky part with the dogs is the nice places to take pictures are close to the river, Storm and Ava are crazy water dogs, so that makes their focus not so good. And my dogs hate having their picture taken, on their own or with the kids they act like I am beating them by asking them to sit and stay, even with my camera on my phone they know and hide when I get it out. But I made it through and didn't even raise my voice once (this is big for me, I can be a bit of a yeller) And I got some nice pictures of everyone.

CAA trial

Yesterday morning Lexi and I got up very very early (3:30am) and drove to Calgary for the day to attend the Calgary Agility Association trial. I have been to a CAA trial in 6 years and I have always loved running at the Fex Dome, and due to other commitments we could just do the one day.

I will start with LEXI... She was AWESOME! She is always a trooper to get up early and head to agility, she slept till Strathmore which was great and was nice and patient while Mommy got herself good and lost on the way to the Fez Dome.
We started the day with JUMPERS. This was Lexi's first Jr. Handler run with Blossom. It was so cute to watch! Blossom loves to run with Lexi, it is great!! Their run was going fabulous until the hit the chute (second last obstacle) CAA's chute has a large wooden frame around it which scared the crap out  of poor Blossom, Lexi tried and couldn't get her through so she moved on.
Then it was GAMBLE, Lexi ran Blossom again, and the run was good, I will have to work with Lexi a bit more on the gamble rules (she was pretty sure there was a brick wall on the orange line that she couldn't step over on the mini gamble :o) ) But she did get a mini gambler with Bloss, but they didn't get the gamble, 29 points for her very first gamble run was pretty darn good!
For SNOOKER I gave her the old pro, Lexi handled the snooker course with Ava wonderfully, she was supportive with Ava, stayed happy and kept Ava moving and off the equipment she wasn't suppose to be on. She remembered her course  and kept the flow going. It was Lexi's first time running snooker and they got a Q!!
STANDARD... Lexi needed one more standard q to get her jr.handler title... I didn't tell her this, I didn't want to put any pressure on her and Ava, I just wanted to see her go out and have running her dog, which she does. Lexi was amazing on course! Her handling was flawless and Ava popped a weave pole and Lexi brought her back got her lined up and Ava bounced her way through. And they GOT IT! Lexi was so excited to get her big title ribbon and her picture taken with the judge.
I love taking Lexi to trials. She is such a friendly out going little girl and people seem to just love her. The support over the last few months has been amazing. Lexi just started working with Ava this summer and this would be Lexi's 3rd trial. She has come so far in her handling and understanding of walking and running her courses. I didn't help her plan her routes in jumpers or standard and she picked beautiful paths that flowed nicely for her. It almost makes me happy watching Lexi and Ava run, they have an incredible bond. Ava was never an easy dog to run, she is bossy and stubborn, but Lexi makes it look easy, and Ava has fun. Ava and I have achieved a lot of agility titles over the years but the titles she is helping "her kid" get seems so much more special. Lexi kicked my butt all day and didn't let me forget about it... I know that I am not the best handler, I have lots of bad habits, but I like to know I can teach it :o) Now I have to stop being such a bad mom and VIDEO her runs!

Now for me... UGH! I don't know where my head was but I was terrible!!!

Storm... I am in no hurry to get out of starters with this dog. Storm is a wonderful dog, but for some reason she makes me nervous to run on course, so we are working our way through it. I want to have fun with her, and this is what Saturday was about. Jumpers was great, she barked at me once for a badly placed cross on my part, and then I proceeded to call her off a jump she was suppose to take and send her to the tunnel, UGH! Gamble was nice, she nailed her weaves out of the chute, hit all her contacts, got both mini gambles two times each, it was great! We didn't get the gamble, she took the first two obstacles just fine then ran past the last jump, which was weird because it was the closer obstacle, but I am ok with this as a Q would have put her in advance where I don't want to be. Snooker was beautiful, we have done the 4 red jumps, she nailed her contacts on the dog walk and teeter, she needed to finish to 4 to get the q... I sent her in the wrong end of the tunnel, I wanted to cry, she still had so much time left and she would have gotten more then enough points... BAD MOM (are we noticing a trend here? I think it is Lexi's turn to run Storm) Then Standard... I should have pulled her... Lexi ran with Ava and had a great run and my head was on Lexi's run. Lexi ran with Ava and then I had 1 dog in between Ava and Storm, so I rushed out grabbed my dog and ran her, no cuddle, no cookie, so warm up just ran her... BAD HANDLER, Storm was frantic on course. When we got to the table she was shaking so hard she stepped off the table, not like my dog at all, then I called the wrong command on the A Frame and she missed her contact, then we got to the weaves and she layed down... I stopped and cuddled my dog, I gave her some hugs and kisses, told her she was a good girl, then she ran through the weaves wonderfully and we ended the course. I need to remember to take my time with her, she is still a baby and needs that extra love. For a bold bossy dog she still has a very soft side.

Blossom... Well jumpers was fun NOT! She thought the pole setter looked like a lovely person to go visit, she has never done this, I am not sure what was going on in her little head. Blossom was very sniffy in the Fez Dome which I noticed with more then a couple dogs, including masters dogs that I have never seen go sniffing, not sure what smelt so good. So we focused our run on getting her through the chute she was scared of, and I got her through and didn't have a problem for the rest of the day. OMG GAMBLE! It was beautiful, Blossom took the distance A Frame even with a tunnel mouth as distraction I was so excited, then I went to send her out to the tunnel and I PUNCHED my dog in the head... So cue in Amanda talking that I have to stand up when I am running! I shouldn't have been able to reach Blossom as I swung my arm through to send her out but I was bent over enough to hit her pretty good. I had tears in my eyes as I went running to grab her! I felt sick and was sure she was never going to run with me again. So things to work on STAND UP and NO MORE FLINGING arms!!! Snooker was great! Blossom was speedy and fun! Even after the smack to the head. This was her very first Advance Snooker run and she q'd it was 55 points! YEAH BLOSS!!! Then we come down to standard, our run was going amazing, then Blossom caught sight of Lexi and took off to see her kid... WHAT???? in most circumstances the dog will leave running with the kid to go find mom, not my dog, she left to go see her kid and she ran faster to the kid then I have EVER seen her run in my life... ERGH!!! The whole barn erupted in laughter and Lexi was beaming ear to ear :o) but I got her back and we finished the course with the nicest set of weaves Blossom has ever done, nailed her entrance and didn't pop a pole and was fast and bouncy through them, so I let her come home with me, I was kinda ready to sell the kid or the dog, but chose to keep them both.

Ava, I ran my dear Ava in snooker, it has been awhile since I ran her. I was worried about her leaving me to go see Lexi as she does at practice, but she ran a nice snooker and she got her q, I am working towards getting her bronze, so we are now one more closer.

I love agility, I love that I get to share it with my little girl. Hopefully we get into the Training Troop Trial in 2 weeks so we can play again!