Clean Sweep at the Nickel City Cluster

Alternatively,
Bionic Bodi took a broom to Buffalo and swept up a Nickel

At my first AKC All-Breed shows, I earned my first 5 AKC points!  With 5 male Grand Champions (including the #1 ranked Vizsla in the country) entered in the Nickel City Cluster, there was really only 1 point up for grabs for the class dogs each day and I grabbed all of them.  When the 3 girls showed up for the weekend, I took Best of Winners both days, as well.  With 5 points and the 2 BOWs, I didn't leave anything on the table for anyone else - sorry! but there was a lot of travel involved.

Taking advantage of the good weather, we drove back and forth all 5 days (in total, nearly 2,000 kms and 10 border crossings)!  On Saturday, I arrived home to discover that all of my snow had melted due to the record-breaking 15c but quickly forgot about that when I saw Lambchop ... 

"Did I do that?"

Once again, great big thanks to Edgar Rojas for helping me to shine in the ring.  The outstanding outcome fulfilled all of our hopes for the week while exceeding all of our expectations.

Many, many thanks to the following clubs and judges:

Kennel Club of Niagara Falls (January 9 & 10)
        Mr. Jon R. Cole
     Mrs. Donna J. Buxton
Kennel Club of Buffalo (January 11 & 12)
     Mr. Norman L. Patton
     Mrs. Anne Savory Bolus
Ashtabula Kennel Club (January 13)
     Mr. James E. Noe
 

Head and Teeth

Body

Tail and, well, you know

 

Wednesday's Work

First Vizsla Trick Dog Champion!

My qualifying TDCH videos were posted last Tuesday:  videos

I am also the first Vizsla to earn the Expert Trick Dog title (ETD - earned in December). The qualifying Expert Level tricks I performed were:

#1  Fishing

#2  Shell Game

#3  6 Cues on a Pedestal from 12' Away

#4  Pick Pocket

#5  Find the Remote

I highly recommend checking out Kyra Sundance's website, purchasing one of her books and having fun learning some new tricks!  Learning new tricks together in a relaxed fashion with positive reinforcement takes only a few minutes a day and puts a smile on everyone's face!!!

Tricky Tuesday

"Do More with Your Dog"
Trick Dog Champion
Audition Videos

1.  Coordination

Push a Skateboard

 
2.  Mouth Target

2.1  Retrieve Object to Hand from 12' Away
(white tape on the floor measures 12' from the wall)

 
2.2  Pull a Rope

3.  Paw Target

Ground Target - Tap Light

 
4.  Nose Target

Hand Target

5.  Scent

Nose-Work Box Search

6.  Distance

6.1  Go to a Pedestal 20' Away

6.2  6 Cued Behaviours on a Pedestal from 12' Away
(sit, stand, drop)

(drop, head down, bark, drop, head down, sit, bark)

 (sit, wave)

7.  Signals

6 Silent Cues
(heel, about turn, sit, wait, front, swing finish, heel, spin counter-clockwise,
wrap around legs, spin c-c, bow)

8.  Behaviour Chain

Push a Truck 6' then Tip the Bin
(trick shown from 2 different angles) 

9.  Expert Tricks

9.1  ETD List:  Fishing

9.2  OTHER:  2 Jumps:  one cue - from a distance

9.3  ETD List:  Pick Pocket

9.4  OTHER:  Yawn

9.5  OTHER:  Brief Rally Routine
(heel, 360 L, U-turn R, sit-down-stand, heel, U-turn R,
send to jump, call to heel, sit)

Fingers and paws crossed, waiting to hear if we have qualified!

Stay Tuned!

Rainy Day Fun

WOW, 6' long!  I hope to never encounter a real 6' long snake!

 

 

Happy New Year!

Wishing Everyone a Wonderful 2013!

May 2013 be filled with events worthy of handstands!

 
 

The inspirations for the above handstands:

1)  SNOW

2)  Winning BEST OF BREED two days in a row over a

      dog currently ranked in the Top 10 (Canuck Dogs

      CKC rankings)!  Thank you to both judges for 

      recognizing and rewarding a beautiful working Vizsla!

      Mr. F. Cresci (Mexico) on December 28th; and

      Mr. F. Rodrigues (Portugal) on December 29th
      at the Elora Gorge Kennel Club show in K-W, ON

      Great big thank yous to Edgar Rojas (Dec 28th)

      and to Thomas Curly (Dec 29th) for bringing out 

      the best in me and for keeping my ring experience

      positive, fun and successful!

What an awesome way to finish

an awesome year!

2012 = 12 Months = 12 Titles

                       CKC:           CH, FDJ, CGN

                       UKC:           BIS, CH, URO1

                       AKC:            JH

                       NAVHDA:     NA Pz I

                       Trick Dog:    NTD, ITD, ATD, ETD

 

  A Dog with a Job is a Happy Dog!

I Spy

I Spy with my little eye, something that

has a wingspan of 29" to 39"
  
  
  



a body length of 13" to 17" plus a tail length of 5.7" to 7.5"

                                                           v
                                                           v                       
                                                           v

Buteo platypterus platypterus

Where are you going, Hawkeye?

 
The Northern Broad-winged Hawk was very tolerant of Mom's presence even when she was taking pictures with the flash but he decided to fly off once I came outside. (The camera sitting on the railing just 10 feet from the hawk should have garnered sharp images but, unfortunately, no such luck! It was very windy so this may have been a factor.)  Here's a short video of the hawk trying to make sense of Mom's whistles and chirps.  

Happy Holiday Highlights

Hooray, Santa Paws has been here!!!

Thank You, Santa Paws!!!

I guess Santa wasn't watching the other day when I was working on this (a project I started earlier in the year here)!  Who knows how much fun I could have had if the Grinch didn't possess supersonic hearing!

  

So much excitement!
Now I need my breakfast and a nice long nap!