Way to go Matti!

Congrats to Elmingo's With One Twist!

Matti got a 3rd place in the Junior this past week-end in her very first field trial!!

Matti

Miikka's daughter Matti (Shaq x Miikka 2007) sent a congratulatory e-mail and this updated photo.

She is a real looker!!

Peanut and her ribbon

So proud of my Peanut...

Back in their spot

Darbs and Miikks are happy to be home.  I'm happy to have them home.

They are now back surveying the Highwood River on a daily basis.

Pinch Me II

Miikka WON the Open today in Red Deer, Alberta.

I can't believe it.  She ran an amazing trial and STOPPED on every whistle on her blinds.

Kenny has done amazing work with her and always told me to keep the faith, that she'd come around and be the dog I always knew she could be.  

She two whistled the water blind and was the only dog to do the last test correctly.

Darbi got dropped after the water blind.  She had a handle in the first series that hurt her chances.  She tried hard though.

Both girls are on the bed right now with me at the hotel room.  We are a happy little family.

So very, very happy.

Boyfriend/Girlfriend!

Here they are!

On the left is FC AFC Tartan Prime Time, who not only WON the Amateur at the Centennial Trial in Colorado this week-end, but also qualified for the US National Amateur with this win.  He is the daddy of Darbi's 6 month old litter of pups.

Darbi is very proudly showing off her second place ribbon behind Prime, and actually has her ears up for once.

I am still over the moon.

Pinch Me

Darbi got SECOND in the Amateur this week-end in Colorado!!!!

I can't believe it.

I have to admit walking to the line for the last test, I though I couldn't do it...it was THAT hard.

She pulled it off.  WE pulled it off.

Goes to show...have faith.

I have tears streaming down my face today.  She has been through a lot and I have been through a lot.

Neat part was that Darbi's baby daddy Prime WON.  Boyfriend/girlfriend...1st and second.  How cool is that?

The field of dogs and the competition was amazing.  2008 High Point Open Dog in the US was 4th behind Darbi, and other 100 AA point/National Finalists in the field.  Unreal.

HOT day in CO

It was a hot one today.  90 degrees F.  I'm totally slacking and didn't take any pictures.  I'll take some tomorrow...promise.

I got my butt thoroughly kicked at the trial this week-end.  Darbs had some bad luck, and Miikka tried real hard but didn't get through the first test.  We'll train hard this week and try again on the week-end at the trial in Fort Collins.

Miikka is stopping MOSTLY reliably now, with a few slipped whistles that are few and far between.  Her marking has gone to crap though because of the mental pressure she is under, but we're going to work hard to bring it back up in the next couple weeks before I go home.

Darbi is training well, and only gets into trouble when she is being lazy...her biggest downfall is laziness from time to time.

Pics to come soon...

Hanging in Colorado

I made it to Colorado safe and sound and it's so much fun hanging with the girls again.  They were super excited to see me and Darbi started screaming as soon as I walked into the kennels.  She NEVER screams.  They both look great and are real happy.

We trained on this test yesterday.  3 gunners out run as a double and a single.  Then we ran a big water blind.

I took this picture of Ollie and Daisy.  Daisy WON the Open last week-end in Nebraska and Ollie was second.  Great week-end for Horsetooth.  Miikka didn't make it past the first series and Darbi was dropped after the land blind after getting hung up in some drag back.

Darbi bringing home a bird in training yesterday.  She is a very happy girls these days and does everything with tail up and a good attitude.

Watching the flier.

Darbi is entered in the Open and Amateur of the trial this week-end in Colorado.  Miikka is still up in the air...she's stopping on every whistle, but still popping occasionally.  I'll sleep on it.

All in the family

I went for a walk yesterday with Maiya.  She is a one year old lab and is cute as a button.

Maiya's sire is "Satch", who is also Miikka's sire.  Maiya's dam is a daughter of Darbi's sire "Rex".  "Satch" is also a littermate to Darbi's mother "Boo".

Still with me?

It was so much fun hanging out with her.  She looks just like Darbi, but acts just like Miikka.  For example, like Miikka, she swam around in a pond forever chasing after geese who were smart enough to stay JUST out of her reach.  If Darbi was here, she would just stand there and shake her head.

I asked her owner to take a couple pics of me and her and, like Miikka again, the photo session was an event full of rolling, licking and general naughtiness.

Firstly...

(the whole time I'm saying "sit, get serious, c'mon, sit up, stop clowning around")

And finally...

(notice my fingers digging into her chest...I believe I was holding her front legs off the ground)

I miss my girls.  Just a few more days now...

Peanut's problems

So, about Miikka.

Of course I can go on and on in this blog extolling my dogs' virtues, but like any other dogs, they are not perfect.

Peanut has a problem.  A big one.

She.Doesn't.Stop.On.The.Whistle.

Now, to say she doesn't stop EVER is an exaggeration.  She does stop...90% of the time.

She is such a good marker she can make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, but marking isn't everything.

Miikka was a great stopper when I got her back from her Basics pro.  She stopped on a dime.  Somewhere in her first year back, I screwed her up...bad.  I'm not sure what it was, or how it happened, but all of a sudden I found myself in a deep hole with her.  Rookie mistakes, some would say.  I probably pushed her too hard, too fast and made her run big dog blinds before she was ready and gave her corrections she didn't understand.

But regardless of how it happened, here we stand.  The first year I put pressure on her for not stopping, and hindsight has taught me that the pressure was ill-timed and I made the problem worse.  I was forcing her back essentially.  More pressure put a pop in her.  That's bad.  It wasn't there until I got my hands on her and screwed her up.

Then, when I blew the whistle, she would go into another gear and just take off.  I'm embarrassed to say that I even had her hearing tested and of course, she hears perfectly fine.  All fingers pointed back on me and poor Peanut and I were left with just each other and the elephant in the room that we refused to talk about.  "But she can mark", I would always say, as if that is all that mattered.

So we carried on as if she didn't have a problem.  I made the blinds easy and short enough so we didn't have an issue, and that solved nothing.  We merrily went on our way for another year with my head firmly entrenched in the sand.  She was not progressing in her blind work, and I was ignoring the problem and pretending it would go away.  She could mark the big dog marks..."man, she can mark", but her blinds were baby dog blinds and we left well enough alone.

Finally after seeing her crush marking tests at trials to go out on blind after blind, I finally had to face reality and start doing something about the problem.  Any pressure (mental or otherwise) on her and her marking went down.  To be expected.  I didn't like that, so we backed up the bus time after time.

She didn't understand what I was asking and I didn't have a clue how to ask it.  Blinds were great up to 200 yards and then all hell broke loose.  Whistles became "stoptional" and casts were "suggestions".  Because I was too afraid to enforce any rules and put a pop back in her, I did not do anything, thereby creating a nasty, nasty habit of an out of control dog.

Now, poor Kenny has been training her all winter.  He knew her "problem" and has been dealing with it.  Miikka is running blinds with the big dogs now and he is enforcing the rules and created high standards and expectations.  Since she has not felt any pressure in a year or two due to my fear of applying it at the wrong time, she freaked out at first.  Her marking went down the toilet and her blinds were horrific. And her pop came back.  Kenny stuck to the standard and kept it consistent every day.  

The standard being YOU WILL STOP.  Marks will be thrown and blinds will be run and YOU WILL STOP.  

Slowly, but surely, she is coming around and stopping more reliably and her marking is coming back.  She's starting to get it.

She is still frustrating in that she will have two good weeks of work, and then out of the blue, she will blow Kenny off at the end of a long water blind.  I created a long standing habit that will be tough to break.

Two steps forward, one step back.

Miikka is entered to run the Open at the West Nebraska this week-end.  Our goal is not for fame and glory...we will "win" in our minds if she make it to the blinds and STOPS.

When I go to Colorado in a week to spend two weeks training, I am going to learn a lot about how and when to apply pressure to keep her on the path she is on.

I think this is what dog training is all about.  It isn't all a bed of roses.  Every rose has its thorn (excuse the 1980's hair band reference), and it is how to deal with those thorns that makes one a dog trainer.  It is way fun to have the dog succeed every day on every test, but at what cost?  When does personal ego, self-satisfaction and downright fear over-ride the advancement of the dog?

Ignoring problems does not make them go away.  They are still there, bubbling under the surface waiting to rear their ugly heads as I shake my head in frustration wondering why she isn't "fixed" yet.

Poor Peanut is right.  But together we will get through this and be a better team for it.

Homeward bound

The girls are on their way home.

Leaving Texas today and arriving at Kenny's home base in Colorado sometime tomorrow.

I'm going to be going down there for 2 1/2 weeks.

In 1 week and 6 days I will see them.

Not that I'm counting or anything.

Alaska is warmer?

Well, I was a little annoyed by this video.  Not at all because of Harper (Prime x Darbi 2008), but because of the OBVIOUS lack of snow in Alaska of all places!  While watching this clip this morning, I could only see snow falling and cold outside my window.  When will winter end here in Alberta??  It is growing tiresome.

But I digress...little Harper (not so little anymore) is shown here running a 150 yard mark on a tide flat.  Doesn't she look great?  She just turned 6 months old.  My, how time flies.

Brazosport

Darbs ran this week-end at Brazosport.  She picked up the first 3 marks of the quad, then got lost on the 4th.  She tried real hard though, and that's all I ever ask of her.

On a great note...Kenny WON the Open with FC AFC Fat City Pacer.  I love Pacer.

Congrats to Shaq

Congrats to Miikka's baby daddy Shaq for his THIRD All-Age win of 2009 so far.

I am considering a repeat of this breeding for fall 2009.

First Swim

Meg (Prime x Darbi 2008) took a trip to Alabama with her owner for some training in milder climates.

Here is Meg's first introduction to water...I think she likes it.

Way to go Yankee!!

Congrats to Darbi's son "Yankee" (Elmingo Flight Director XXXVI) who finished the Mississippi Valley Open with a Reserve JAM!  It was the third Open he has ever run, and he is a newly turned three year old.  Way to go!

Miikka came into season over the week-end in Texas...so she can't be entered in any trials for the next 3 weeks or so, but Darbi will be running again in 2 1/2 weeks at Brazosport.

Rockwell

Well, Darbi made me proud at the Rockwell trial in Texas.  She made it past a very tough 1st and 2nd series, only to go out on the 3rd series water blind.

According to Kenny, she ran a real nice water blind but drove deep of the 250 yard retired poison bird and needed to be handled back to it.

Pretty darn good for her first American Open, and we're very pleased with her!!!

Way to go Prime

Congrats to Darbi's baby daddy Prime on his Open 4th at the Bluebonnet trial in Texas this week-end!

Entered

She's in.

Darbi is entered in the Open at the Rockwell trial in Texas the first week-end of April.  Wish her luck.  Kenny is running her.

Miikka is "almost" there....close, but not yet.

One day...

One day...we'll both be big.

Little Harper checking out her future adversaries.

Home Again

I'm home...and bummed.

I will miss the great weather, the great dog training and my two favorite girls.

I'm going back to spend 2 weeks in Colorado with Kenny in May and will bring the girls home then.

"Prime" made it down to Texas before I left and it was great to see him.

Darbi, as seen here, was not as thrilled.

Prime: "I'm so cute, look at me...don't you just LOVE me?"

Darbi: "Get away from me, you never even bought me flowers"

So, after a bunch of pictures of Darbi putting on the "she beats me look", I got tired of it and just started taking pictures of Prime.  Like Miikka, he really hams it up for the camera.

We did a triple water blind with each of the dogs yesterday.  It was the first chilly day of my trip and I actually had to wear a coat.

Miikka and Darbi looked really good on their blinds and I think Miikka has really stepped up in her blind work.  Other than a couple slipped whistles at the end of one of the three blinds, Miikka rocked it!  Darbi needed a few whistles to get out on one point, so she is still out of balance, but not near as bad as in January.

I am so pleased with how they are progressing.

HOT Today

I forgot to mention that the Purina Hi-Point Dog dinner was held Friday night during the PRTA trial and I went.  It was great fun and I had a hoot rubbing shoulders with the icons on the game.  Purina had a table FULL of goodies and I got to pick two as being the "Youngest Person at the Table" and "The person who travelled the farthest".  I picked out two nice pieces of woman's clothing from Cabela's with a Purina logo on it.

Here is another pic of the great FC AFC Tangata Manu.  He was 3rd in the Amateur at the PRTA trial.  CONGRATS!!  What a cool old man.

FC AFC Catalina's Miss Monica catching Kathy's hat in the air after the test.  She got a JAM in the Open this past week-end...congrats to "Scandal".

A pic of one of the set-ups today.  You cannot see the long gun here, but it is WAY out.  We shot the long retired and then the short retired...picked up the short retired, then shot and retrieved the flyer and sent for the long retired after that.

PS-You can see all three guns if you click on the picture to enlarge it.

I thought my girls needed a credit card for an overnight stay to get the long bird, and as expected, both girls needed help.

After running tests, we stake out the wet dogs to dry off.  They are very well behaved and just sit and watch the other dogs run.

Last, but not least...the Peanut.  Kenny ran her and although she looked like a piece of crap in training today, she sure had fun doing her job.

PRTA Trial

I went to the PRTA trial this week-end and had a great time.  It was unreal at how big the trial was, and it was great to see some of the best dogs in the country.  I saw pretty much every test at every stake, and enjoyed the dog work.

I didn't take many pictures as it was hard to do.

Here is Kenny and Gunner running the Qual.

And Kenny and Pic in the Derby.

Horsetooth Retriever Kennel ended up with an Open 2nd and 3 JAMs, Amateur 3rd, Qual 2nd and 2 Derby JAMs.  A great week-end considering the huge entries.

Can't forget the peanut

Here's a pic of a semi-clean Miikka.  Don't want to make her feel bad that I'm leaving her off the blog.  She's sitting in the shade...waiting her turn.