Rinnie Pulls

Here is an older video if Rinnie pulling.

Grace Rally Photos

Grace actually can heel pretty nicely when she chooses too. 

Apparently the stand command is not her favorite. Love her expression!

And here she is telling me something. I am sure I did something wrong. If funny through all the pictures, either Graces mouth is going or mine is.  We must chatter nonstop!  All photos from Great Dane Photos.

Teacup Agility

Last weekend Grace, Magic and I tried to run teacup agility. In teacup the equipment is smaller and the courses seem tighter. I chose this as Graces first attempt back to agility since she got sick since I thought the smaller trial, smaller equipment and nice local location would make it easier for her.  Well she was amazing as far as her health and happiness. She never stopped wagging and smiling the whole weekend.  She ran 6 times total, and we actually qualified 3 times, twice in standard and one game. In her second run of the weekend she started to give me serious attitude, so she got pulled off the course, but the rest of the times she was wonderful. We had a few bobbles, heck we are out of practice but overall she was terrific and I was so proud of my pumpkin girl.

Magic only went on Sunday. He ran all 6 classes and qualified 3 times, 2 games and one standard.  His issue was leaping contacts. We really may have to consider changing to a 2 on 2 off. Running is not working with him at all.  On the positive side, while he was a wild man, and we had a few miscommunications overall he tried really hard and I can't fault that. I messed up both dogs a couple of times when I forgot which dog I had and handled wrong.  I need to work on that! But thats OK we have plenty of time to play together!

My Letter to UKC

Dear UKC.
I have been reading and thinking about the decision made by UKC to no longer allow event staff to participate in UKC events which they are working. I am very saddened by this decision for many reasons. First and foremost I see this as the death of UKC events here in Minnesota. You may or may not be aware of how active a dog event area Minnesota is. There are very few weekends each year that there is not some dog event available, and in many cases more than one. This weekend alone, January 21-22, 2012 there are 4 that I am aware of, the UKC obedience and rally trial I am chairing, a ASCA event including conformation obedience and rally, an AKC agility vent and a USDAA agility event, all within the metro area.

There is a very small group of competitors in MN who do UKC. Those of us that do though, are the same group willing to work and hold these shows. We hold the shows, we chair them, secretary them and work them so that we HAVE the opportunity to play with our dogs. If UKC takes that opportunity away what incentive do we have to hold the events? Everyone in these clubs work and show. I know I would not have willingly given up hours and hours of time to hold a show and not be able to participate in one of the few weekends we have.

I love UKC, I had a wonderful time at Gateway in 2010, at Premier in 2011. But the basis for my ability and desire to do these bigger shows is based on my opportunities to show here at home. One of my dogs again is in the top 10 for conformation another managed to make the all star rally list. The one who is on the rally all star list did so by showing at our local shows. However, had I not been able to compete in a whole weekend’s worth of events he never would have had a chance as our opportunities are so limited. Had he not made the list, we would not be planning a trip to Premier this year. I know I am not the only person here who feels this way as the UKC participants have had many discussions over the last few days. Since our biggest conformation club locally has already stated they cannot go forward with these rules in place, our local performance club may not be able to either as we do share many event locations and costs. I am sure we will be discussion this at the event this weekend.

I see this as a death spiral for UKC, at least in here in Minnesota.

Dawn Fisher
Daybreake Cardigans

The year in review and a look forward

Last year I heard through the rumour mill that it was being spread around that I "really didnt do all I said with Magic".  The premise was that I never showed certificates and rarely ribbons or win pictures.  So this year I decided to collect all my dogs ribbons and see just how many we accrued in a year. Quite a bit it seems, considering how few shows and trials I attended this year. There were several months where we never went to any trials.  Not all Magic's, but this year all 4 dogs did something.  One of my favorites has to be the trophy on the mantle. No, not the high in trial one, see the blue croaker toy? That was Grace's Squeaker Award, the little stinker that she is!

This year Magic managed to earn a few titles, In APDT he earned his ARCHX and RL2X. In UKC he earned his UROC, including a high in trial in almost 100 degree weather outside, and his UCDX.  He picked up his TNN-S for NADAC. Magic really did not trial much this year, and only locally. Even with our few local UKC trials he managed so far to earn a spot in the Rally all stars. He is near the bottom of the list, so once the last few weeks of the year are tabulated he may fall off, but I am pretty pleased with how well he did, with several perfect scores this year.   We also picked up 2 legs toward his AKC coursing title at the only local test.

My plan for 2011 really was for Grace.  I had hoped to continue agility training with her and hoped to begin trialing. I had hoped to work on her obedience as well.  We were never great really, but she had a pretty darn good year too.  We went to the UKC Premier where she tried UKC agility for the first time, qualifying 5 out of 5 times to earn her AG1 including a couple of perfect runs, she also at premier earned a Total Dog. Later in the year we managed to squeeze out her UCD and URO2 also. This allowed her to qualify as a UKC Super Dog having earned titles in all the 4 performance events and being a breed champion. 

Peace also went to Premier where she won breed in the Top Ten competition. She also took breed the following 2 days as well, qualified in the weight pull and also earned a Total Dog award. I was so proud of Grace and Peace for both earning a Total Dog award, mother and daughter.  Her 9 breed points earned at Premier have her in second place for this years top ten. A bit later in the year Peace earned her AKC Grand Championship   Peace took the rest of the year off, except for one day where we went to a local UKC show for fun where she took a group 2. Not bad since we just went that day to get out of the house for a while.

Siren and David did a bit of training together this year. For the early part of the year they did some nosework classes and Rinnie did great. She still thinks this is the best game ever.  They worked hard together at a couple of weight pulls where Siren earned her UWP, but also really started to pull well with her new personal best of 768 pounds! Now they are working on learning obedience together and hope to continue in the new year.

This year was a tough one with Darryl not working very much so we did not show as much as I would have liked.  Then recently Grace became ill, we are still learning about her limitations, but hope that perhaps we can still play on a limited basis. Time will tell on that one. I really don't have any hard and fast goals for 2012, but I do know the year will involve the dogs however it can. minor goals would be CDX and CA for Magic, and hopefully getting to go to premier to compete in the all stars competition. For Grace we will just have to see how she handles living with mega e and whether we can continue to play without endangering her.  Siren will continue to learn. I would like to try for Peace's UKC grand, she needs 2 more legs.

I would like to perhaps think about another puppy, so I have something to play in the show ring with, but I can not decide that until I see how Grace does. I am starting a new job in a couple of days and so is Darryl, so I am hoping for a much brighter 2012.  I wish you and yours one as well.

The best of the Bad, or I need a new camera!

We tried to take a group photo, but the speed of my old digital is just not up to 4 wiggly dogs. Oh well

Happy Holidays Everyone!

Mega Esophagus

I haven't been posting much lately. Things around here have been a bit difficult.  But I think I am ready to talk a bit about it.

Tuesday Grace was diagnosed with Mega Esophagus.  This is a condition where the muscles in the esophagus essentially stop working and it gets all stretched out.  Basically she has very little ability to swallow. In adult onset, its often due to another condition called Myasthenia Gravis. We are still waiting on the lab test for this, but her symptoms are very likely.

What this means for us and Grace is that we now have to be much more involved in her eating process. Since she can't swallow, all her food has to sort of flow down her throat. We now have to feed her in a totally vertical position and then continue to hold her up for about a half hour for the food to get all the way down. Otherwise she coughs it back up which can lead to aspiration pneumonia, which the radiologist thinks she was already developing. And she needs 4-5 small meals a day.  She can't drink any water herself either, and must get her fluids from her foods. 

Its been a tough week absorbing all this and starting to change the way we do things here.   We are going to build her a baily chair which is used for feeding, but we havent been able to do that yet. None of us are woodworkers, nor do we have the proper tools, but I am hoping we can figure this out.  I think it will make her life and ours a little easier.

I am going to try to not let this condition take over the blog, but this is a huge part of our lives now, so I will apologise in advance.