Zar had a very good weekend, focused predominately on the Most Versatile Vallhund competition.   He came in 4th in the MVV competition.  On Friday for the specialty conformation competition he competed in the Best of Breed ring.  There were 20 plus entries in BOB, with this being the largest specialty to date.   The judge split the class and Zar made the first cut in the males.   

Zar’s MVV results:

• Started Sheep – gripped towards the end of the run which NQ’d him.  He got frustrated with the heavy sheep I think.  These sheep did not move at all like what he is used to out here in Arizona.  Something else to work on!
• Agility – Q in Open Standard, 1 bar down in Open JWW on a tight turn
• Rally – Q in Rally Advanced

The video is at:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESbqKDa_Jf0

Zia got her 5th double Q in New Mexico

Tempest completed his last two double Q’s on a very hot day in Marana.  Although not fond of the heat he really kept working and had nice scores.

And the youngster Zar finished his 5th double Q in Marana as well.  He went on to get one double Q towards his ARCH X.

He went on that weekeend to be placed Best of Opposite Sex on Saturday, followed by two more Best of Breed wins.  I was so proud of him, coming home as a finished champion and with all 3 majors for his Grand Championship. 

I started down the conformation trail last summer because of the National Specialty being in Arizona. I hadn’t really planned to finish a championship but he did well at the specialty, particularly for a two year old. He was Reserve Winner’s Dog with a nice sized entry.  He went out to Texas right after the specialty and got his first major.  During the winter months here, we are concentrating on our performance events so after the trip to Texas last summer we went back to herding, agility and obedience work.  When summer rolled around and with the regional specialty in Colorado in July, conformation came to the forefront again. 

And what a summer it was.   Thanks to Susie and Jorge Olivera for showing Zar this summer.  Of the 10 days they showed him, he was Best of Breed 5 times, finishing his conformation season as number 7 Vallhund in the country.  I am so amazed at how he did, and still find it a bit unbelievable. I guess we will have to finish the grand championship now!

I had to retire my 10 year old Vallhund Darby last year due to a compressed disk in her neck.  She was my senior agility dog; we had that comfortable teamwork developed over years and we loved to run agility together.  But her long term comfort required me to make the choice to stop agility.  I intended to continue doing rally obedience with her to keep her active and her mind engaged.   We managed to finish our APDT Rally ARCHX, but it became very apparent that left turns, particularly 270’s and 360’s were uncomfortable.  She started to avoid or abort most left turns.  It was hard for me to completely retire her, but I did. 

The problem was, Darby and retirement didn’t seem to agree with each other. She still wanted to play and I was not being very successful at finding things we could do together that kept her active and kept her very active mind engaged but did not require anything that bothered her physically.

A New and Growing K9 Sport:

Recently, a friend of mine started teaching K9 Nosework classes.    The classes were close by and I decided to try the beginner class with my young male who I’m hoping to train and compete through Utility.  She suggested that the work would help him with scent articles and I’m always up for learning something new.  At the last minute I decided to take Darby instead, figuring I could teach him what I learned with her.

Darby was overjoyed.  She got to be THE dog again and go to class with me.  She took to it immediately and learned to search and use her nose by the second try.  We did four box searches and by the end of class my old girl was sitting there, with bright eyes, her tongue lolling out to the side of her mouth and grinning from ear to ear.  She was back to work.