Thought for the day

“The Key to Happiness Is Learning to Let Go.”



~ Hugh Prather

Are You Willing to Let Go?


I found this quote this morning and it seemed so very true to me. Whether its a loss at the dogshow, work,or a tragedy like a house fire, once you can let go of the feelings, sadness, anger, fear, you can allow happiness back in.

I need to work on this.

NSHGC Friday

Yesterday was the clubs summer conformation show.  The weather gods smiled on us, it was sunny and warm, but not killer hot. The building stayed cool and comfortable with enough breeze by the efternoon.

Garretts Ava was WB and BOW for a crossover major!  Joey was WD, Picasso BOB, Jewel BOS, Peace and Barbs male were Select. Sorry I dont have a catalog to know the dogs name.

It was fun watching other club members do so well too.  Patti K's boy from her recent litter was best in puppy sweeps and totally looked like the pro show dog.  I enjoed the day immensely, helped Garrett a little with drying Mitcham, gate stewarding and just hanging out chatting. 

Today I am kicking myself for not entering the rest of the weekend.....

Nosework

David and Siren have been going to nosework class for a month now. Well David has been going for a month.  Siren was in season and missed a couple of classes, but she practiced at home anyways.  Its really been fun to watch them progress in thier relationship with each other.  Siren seems to really enjoy finding food in the boxes.

It's kind of funny to see the optimism in the 2 cardis in class. Both of them will search the boxes to find the treat, eat the treat and tehn continue to search, even though there has never been more than one box with a treat at a time.  When it comes to food, I guess a second look is warranted!   Its been fun to be in a class with another cardi, its so rare for us.  Its been kind of fun to see that Lynn's Libby and Siren do some things very much alike.  Libby loves to work with Lynn, you can see it in her eye.  I like Tuesday evenings, cant wait for tonights class.

UKC Top Ten

OK, this really is not a huge brag or anything. I just thought it was kind of funny how so many dogs were tied for 9th place! The funny part is the numbers behind the owner name are the number of breed points!  As you can see there are not many cardis in UKC!  However, Peace is the only one with a performance title.

Cardigan Welsh Corgi


01. GRCH Corwynt Tayken Timberline Jett Sylvia Brownlee 43

02. GRCH'PR'Benever's No Turning Back Carol Kasabian 11

03. CH Benever's Herring Cove William Maxim 10

04. CH'PR'Benevers What Was I Thinkin Carol Kasabian 9

05. CH'PR'Benever I Wanna Talk About Me Carol Kasabian 6

05. CH Ula Mauna Hot Lickity Lips Kathryn Tanguay 6

07. CH'PR'Benever's Our Song Carol Kasabian 5

07. CH Suncliffe Truro @ Winddancer Mary Detoma 5

09. CH Corwynt Tayken Black Diamond Sylvia Brownlee or Michael Mac Leod 3

09. CH Tartanwyn's Princess Fiona Teresa K Kannard 3

09. UWP CH Daybreake's Peaceful Dreams Dawn Fisher 3

09. CH Laughing Dawg's Silver Nutmeg Teresa K Kannard 3

09. CH Laughing Dawg's Saigon Cinnamon Teresa K Kannard or Andrea M Riley 3

Note- I had entered Grace and Peace in conformation at the events with weight pulls as we were trying for them both to receive a total dog award. but Grace has yet to beat Peace, so only Peace earned a total dog award. . And now they are both primarily done with weight pulling so other than if we go to a show where there may be other cardigans working toward a grand they are both done in conformation.  If anyone is going to Gateway please let me know. We would love to try for her Grand.

Heres some video

of our agility attempts this last weekend. Magic, Kiki and Pixie do UKC!

AG1 & AG2!

Magic did great this weekend and I was really proud of him. 7 Q's out of 8 runs, and 2 new titles- AG1 and AG2.  Yeah.   Denise's Klee Kai's, Pixie and Kiki also earned AG1 titles. Klee Kais are very different than cardigans, but they were fun to trial and travel with. I thought the cardigans made interesting noises, Kiki and Pixie have a whole different set of vocal skills.

UKC agility is very novice handler friendly and I really would recommend it to most everyone. There were several new to agility competors and they all seemed to have a great time, and who also earned a first agility title. The club down in IA held a really great trial-friendly, fun 1st place awards, new title medallions and just overall a really fun atmosphere. I am tired but very happy and relaxed.  I needed a great weekend like this one.

UKC Agility

Magic and I are having a great time at the agility trial in Fort Dodge, IA.  There are 2 trials each day and we were able to run in both Agility 1 and Agility 2.  2 was up first. The unique obstacles in 2 were the pause box, the crawl tunnel, the sway bridge the plank bridge and a couple of different jumps, a picket fence, log pile and  and a flower box jump.  I was worried that Magic would be confused by these, but they are set up between standards so they did look like jumps and really were not an issue.  The crawl tunnel was a bit confusing, having to duck and go under, but we did practice this at home a bit last week and it carried over fine.  The pause box was not a problem either. So he got q's and first places in both of those runs, but to be fair, being in the A class there was only a couple of dogs.
Then we had Agility 1, where the only odd obstacle was the hoop tunnel. Well he has run through hoops for NADAC, so this was just like several hoops together, and no problem at all. We did not Q our first run though, coming down the A frame Magic kind of stumbled and went down on his nose right at the base of the frame, which kind of flustered me, and I missed the next obstacle which was the table. He did have a bit of slipping issues today. It has been a while since he has run on wood, all the local clubs in Mpls now seem to have rubber surfaces, so that was a bit of a change for him.  The next level 1 run was great though, no slipping and we Q'd again with a first.
Its been really fun to watch the new dogs, several were seeing this equipment for the first time, but all of them pretty much adapted well. The crawl tunnel is I think so far the hardestfor them. Looking forward to tomorrow to see what else new and fun we can do.

UKC Agility

So, with a UKC agility trial in just a couple of days, David and I decided to try to create some version of a few of the more unusual obstacles.  Of course money being tight right now, we cobbled together some cheap, but rather effective obstacles.  For the hoop tunnel, a few hula hoops tied together, for the table jump table a couple of old folding tables laying on the ground. and for the crawl tunnel, a pvc frame covered by a blanket.  So far, the hoop tunnel is no problem, of course this is much shorter than a real one, but he seemed to go all the way through.  The table jumps, well, he would rather just go jump than to have to sit, but we might have a chance if he decides to actually listen to me tell him to sit when in a real trial situation. The crawl tunnel well, at 8 inches is not easy for Magic, but hs is starting to understand the idea of going under the tunnel. Tonight we are going to the local park to play on the sway bridge.  Maybe, just maybe we can pull out 1 Q.....

Another NEW experience on the horizon

This next weekend Magic and I are going to try UKC agility.  UKC agility is rather different than the others from what I have been reading in the rule books.  Like obedience you start out with points and every error reduces your points.  The obstaclkes are very different as well as the performances.  For example, they have a pause table and a pause box. You choose whether your dog sits or downs.  They have a variety of different jumps, log jump, water jump, window jump. One jump set up is 2 tables with a jump in between and the dog must sit on the first table, jump the bar then sit again. There is a sway bridge, a plank bridge and a crawl tunnel. All very interesting I think.

Magic hasn't seen a pause box, so we created a faux box last night and played with it. We also set up a small table jump table thing too. That may be a challenge for us, he is so eager to GO JUMP,  he wants to just run up and jump.  Contacts are pointed off unless your dog goes straight up and down no going off at an angle. You also can retry though like in rally and just get points off, but I do expect to get fly offs as contacts have always been an issue for us.  Additionally, you can trial in both level 1 and 2 simultaneously, although if you earn level 2 first, you do not get the award until after you earn level 1.

I am truly not expecting to come home with amazing runs, its been over a year since Magic has really done much agility.  But I think it will be a hoot to try these new obstacles.  And if we do actually Q its just a bonus! If we dont, heck that is OK too, we can look at it as a primer for when the UGSDA club holds thier first UKC trial here in MN. (Hopefully next winter?)

APDT Day 2

Another really good day. Magic again gave me 2 QQ's with acceptable scores. Today:

Trial 3 Level 1 204  Honestly Magic looked and acted like he really did not want to play today-but he's a good boy so without any entheusiasm he did do as I asked.  So as a reward we went outside and played fetch for a while.    Level 2  208 Fetch helped, he was much more up and ready to work.    Level 3 204 Good job on a tough course. Yes a few points but for a dog who hates heeling and a course with lots of turns and heeling I am very happy with this.

Trial 4 Level 1 202  Again, on leash, not his favorite.   Level 2 200  5 points off on each moving down-this judge felt he was too slow in his downs. He always tucks his foot under and does go down slower than many dogs, but he did respond right away, he just does it slow. Oh well I can live with that too.

I really enjoy doing APDT trails. More than any other rally that we have played in so far.  I love the difficulty and length of the courses, the married signs and the bonus exercises.