Denham's wonderful weekend 

At just over 10 months, Denham is already starting to take to the ring like a real show dog.  At the NACA show, he won a really nice Group 1 in Puppy Sweeps as well as two Best of Breeds to now sit on 4 points towards his Championship.  We were so happy to have this great picture taken of him at ringside (he's shown here by Teri Taplin since I had a conflict and was busy in the agility ring with Echo):

Some Q's for Echo 

On her recent outing at the NACA CKC shows, Echo did us proud with some really nice runs, pulling off 2 Q's in Intermediate Standard and 2 more in Intermediate Jumpers.  Even the winds and blowing tent parts didn't distract her from the job at hand and she ran very well.  Here are a few shots from the trial:

Congratulations again, Mira! 

The last weekend saw Keith O'Flaherty and Mira at their first FCC garnering a new title for Mira and many very nice comments from the judges.   Mira is now, officially, Can CH FCC CH SureShot Chosen One, CGN.

And another title for Echo and more promising results for Tatum 

This weekend, Echo and Tatum went to their second ever agility trial, a fun NADAC trial put on by a great club.  Tatum was a complete spaz at her first trial, running around doing the meet & greet duties when she should have been running.  So I was very pleased that we had some very fast, very promising runs, that still had bobbles but way more focus than before.  In fact, her two tunnelers NQ were totally my fault, not hers.  With two qualifying runs, I was very, very excited at how far we'd come since just a few weeks ago.  Echo continued her solid previous performance of qualifying in every run she did (I pulled her from the course before completing one run when she tripped and fell from the A-frame).  She's definitely no speed-demon but she makes no mistakes so still manages to finish in time.  There were enough regular runs available this weekend to add another new title to her name (wow, that's four titles in just a month - not bad): Ch. SureShot Caisteal Sasenach, AgNS, AgNJS, NAC.  

Congratulations Keith and Mira 

The official results of 2007 are out and Keith O'Flaherty's girl Mira (Ch. SureShot Chosen One, CGN) can now brag about being the #5 Gordon for 2007 and, given that those that placed ahead of her were all boys, she can now say she followed her mother's pawprints to also lay claim to Top Gordon bitch.  Three cheers and warm hugs to Mira and her excited owner Keith who has done such a wonderful job presenting her to the judges.

Now Echo's a Champ too!

After taking a bit of a respite from showing, I've been trying to clean up a few "loose ends" with some dogs that needed final points to get their titles.  So this weekend was Echo's turn and she managed to pick up 5 points, more than enough to get her a new freshly-minted Canadian Championship.  That makes her Ch. SureShot Caisteal Sasenach, AgnS, AgnJS.

Congratulations to Shaela! 

What great news to get the announcement that Shaela, Moonsetter SureShot Espresso, will be recognized for her 3rd place Puppy of the Year award for the 2007 GSCA Field Awards.  We couldn't be happier for her or her owner/handler, Glenn MacLean.  Shaela accumulated 79 points in 2007:

Golden Gate Gordon Setter Club, 1/13/07, AWP, 2nd of 6 for 12 pts

Irish Setter Club of Central California, 2/17/07, AS, 3rd of 8 for 10 pts

Irish Setter Club of Central California, 2/17/07, AWP, 2nd of 11 for 27 pts

Golden Gate Gordon Setter Club, 2/24/07, AWP, 2nd of 12 for 30 pts

And she's pretty too.....

Ticket's a Champ!!!

After chasing points looking for some competition, we were finally able to pick up those final few to get Ticket's Championship.  Her new name will now be... Ch. Drumdaroch SureShot, AgNS, AgNJS, NAC, NJC. She looked lovely (this is a pic I got when we arrived home from the show): 

 The best I could do....

 Denham (Moonsetter Good to Go SureShot) made his show debut last weekend and started it off with what I hope is a precursor of a wonderful show career.  Entered in puppy sweeps (junior male class), he strutted his stuff well enough to win sufficient dollars to cover off his entries for the show.  Way to go, Denham.  He was a bit more of a handful the rest of the weekend once he started to get excited about the whole thing.  Unfortunately, there was a puppy placing in group so he didn't get to see if his earlier win could be repeated against puppies in Puppy Group.  I got some pictures when we got home but they, well, were just were typical non-compliant puppy pics.  So here's the best of a bad lot (he's still cute though!):

Echo was a star 

 Last weekend, we headed off for our first weekend agility trial of the year.  In a weak moment, I'd entered three girls, two of which had never been to a trial before and were definitely unproven in terms of what they'd do in a barn.  

Well, Ticket, the more seasoned of the group, was obviously shaking off some winter blahs and frolicked around the course, managing to avoid qualifying on any of her runs...eeeep.  Unfortunately for training purposes, she always ended on a great note, with twirls, flourishes, and yodels at the end of each run, making it impossible for me to try to get the point across that she'd not done all that well.

Tatum obviously needs some barn training before we try this again.  She was a total loose canon.  She met, jumped on, and kissed everyone on the course, including the judge.  On one run, she took out every pole on the course.  On another, she did this amazing finish through six jumps at full, take-your-breath-away speed.  Unfortunately, prior to that, she'd also managed so many off course faults that it wasn't going to make a difference.  For just being two years old though, I was pretty excited about the promise she showed in speed even if the execution wasn't there.

Then there was Echo - the surprise of the weekend.  She has almost a year more training on her but was the dog for which I had the least expectations.  Without question, she's been the hardest dog to train in all my years of training dogs.  She's so unusual that even one of my trainers once said "you know, not every dog needs to do agility".  However, I'm stubborn that way and figured I should be able to get something out of her and, if not, at least training time was good for a little one-on-one and that's always something I want each dog to have. 

I went into her runs with minimal expectations, hoping only to get her around the course without wandering off or at least have her notice that I was in the same building.  What a shock!  Seven runs over the weekend and Echo qualified in every single one of them.  On some of the runs, she had no faults and she was in the placements for every run she did.  That means she now has her own first titles... an AgNS and an AgNJS to add to her name... and the distinction of being the poster child for the 'never give up' philosophy.  Yea, Echo!!!!!

The Best of the Season to Everyone! 

From All of Us at SureShot

 The need for higher goals...

 Every time I go to a trial and make the mistake of saying "if I only get XYZ, I'll be happy", then that's exactly what I get.  Nothing less.  Nothing more.  If it's that easy to orchestrate the outcome, I just need to up the ante a bit because that can mean a trial with very few Q's if you only ask for a couple of things to happen.  

Last weekend was a CKC trial.  I hate them.  However, the club is great, the people are great, and I like those little titles showing up at the end of the dogs' registered names.  I just don't get why CKC wants to discourage our older dogs by not lowering the jumps like other organizations do for veterans.  Since I'd decided that meant that Erin would have to stop running in CKC after this trial, I decided to only enter her in what she could potentially finish this weekend and that was Intermediate Jumpers with Weaves.  She was such a doll.  She ran her heart out even though she clipped a bar on the spread jumps in the two first runs (proof to me that my decision to have her stop jumping this high is correct).  The next day, she tried even harder and cleared everything.  So I can proudly say she's earned that title and will now be known as:

Ch. Rokeena Downunder Delite, AgN, AgNS, AgIJS, VADC, VSGDC, OAC, O-NJC-V, NCC, TG-N-V

This may or may not be a retirement though as she can continue to run NADAC trials at 8" lower than at CKC and that should be sufficient to keep her enjoying the game for longer.

My other goal for the weekend was to finish Ticket's novice standard title and she also came through for me.  She was having some trouble focussing this weekend though so I basically kissed the other runs goodbye and just had fun with them.  That meant we missed some obstacles that would have taken a lot of control and precision and just ran 'where the spirit moved'.  I think it was the right decision because she was spinning and twirling at the end of the runs in happiness.  That should stand us in good stead for future runs even if this weekend's Q's were sacrificed.  In spite of that, though, she now adds on a new title and can hang this plaque over her kennel:

Drumdaroch SuresHot, AgNS, AgNJS, NAC, NAJ

The twists and turns of agility 

 Last weekend, I set out to a NADAC with Erin and Ticket with a few goals in mind.  Erin was going to be in an upcoming CKC trial and, since it's likely the last time she'll run CKC, I wanted it to count.  I have no plans to run more than what's necessary to get a leg she needs for a JWWI title.  She's a veteran dog and jumping her at 20" makes no sense to me (especially since she runs at 12" in NADAC and 16" in AAC).  Unless CKC grabs a brain, that last leg is all I want.  I figured a few runs at the NADAC trial would get her warmed up but she no longer is interested in running everything so that would be it.  I had way more hope for Ticket so put in most of the runs available.  

Well, wouldn't you know it.  Erin completely fooled me and qualified in everything she ran, adding on another new title and taking her jumpers title to the outstanding level.  That now makes her:

Ch. Rokeena Downunder Delite, AgN, AgnS, AgNJS, VADC, VSGDC, OAC, O-NJC-V, NCC, TG-N-V

Ticket's weekend didn't go quite as well.  As always, her first run of the day was pretty random.  After that, a few glitches on each run seemed to make Q's pretty elusive.  We did manage a Q in Chances and in Touch N Go so that was good.  Unfortunately, we did our best run of the weekend in the second Chances and I was so excited - it was fast and she handled the distance challenge with no problem.  Lots of cheering ensued since everyone knew we'd been struggling a bit.  Imagine my dismay when I saw the nasty NQ next to her name for that run.  I had been told that a bottom bar had come down but that's not a problem in NADAC so we were all quite sure that I'd Q'd.  After some persuasion from some other judges, I asked the judge about it.  Unfortunately, he couldn't remember the run so I was stuck with the NQ.  We're figuring he saw the pole setter going back to the jump to reset it and didn't notice it was the lower bar.  Talk about bummed.  I then didn't listen to my own advice to 'shake it off' and my frustration set the mood for the next two runs (yuck, I know better than that).  When I finally let it go, we managed a nice Touch N Go and I've decided that the infamous agility karma will soon pay me back for that Q that I should have had.  ....Maybe next weekend.....

Ticket's Second Wonderful Weekend - Take Two

My last post about Ticket mentioned the huge scare she'd had that we'd worked on overcoming throughout the summer.  The fact that she rallied so well at an agility trial a couple of weeks ago was fantastic.  However, she loves agility so I knew that, if she could survive anywhere, it'd be on an agility course.  This last weekend, she had a double challenge....a conformation show, shown by someone other than me (I had commitments that made it impossible to go).  Well, she wasn't quite as happy but it didn't seem to matter too much in the grand scheme of things.

The first day she was shown, she picked up the winners bitch points (also meaning a BOS win).  Then, the second day, she did that again but topped it off with a nice Best of Breed win.  Ticket is now half-way towards her Can Championship.  With a performance like that, who knows what she could do if she returns to the happy girl we know is hiding in there somewhere.  It's just a matter of time.  

Whooo  hooo for my Ticket-babe.

Leftover Hallowe'en Goodies 

 As always, Brenda Juskow tops the 'best pics received this week' list with this gem of firefighter Barrett (SureShot Privateer) and his little sheltie buddies.