Another breed match in the life of the M&M pups

Before I get to the workshop that Swing and I attended I wanted to tell the M&M fans about the match we attended on Sunday.  The dastardly duo became part of the talented trio when brother Milo joined us at the NEMKC (Northeast MD KC) breed/obed match on Sunday.  Darby (owned by Amy B.) and Dodge, who are cousins to the M&M pups (I think that is right, let me see if I can get this straight... Darby is out of Dagmar who is the sister to Yankee and Mason.  Yankee is Dodge's mom and Mason is the puppies grandfather.  That makes Dodge and Darby half cousins to Mia, the talented trios mom!  We won't go in to the fact that the pups dad is the great grandsire of Darby and Dodge!), were entered in obedience, as was Milo, while the dastardly duo focused on the breed stuff.  Milo started out the day with a pre-Novice run in the obedience ring.  Art said he was a bit distracted and not as focused as he is in class.  No wonder since the boys got to the match site with about 10 minutes to get registered in settled.  And to top it off, they were the first team in the ring!  Now who in the world made that happen?  I mean he was one of the last ones to sign up!  Geez.  It wasn't long before the trio were called in to the ring for breed judging.  Milo and Beau (Hank) went in together and did their best impressions of seasoned breed dogs (I did say their "best"), doing a nice job of standing for their examinations, doing their down and back (psst hey Milo, you are suppose to trot on that part.  I know, you are all legs right now...) before their final go around.  Milo took the first place ribbon but brother Hank did an equally nice job and got a second.  Swing was next in the ring and since she was the only little girl showing she got a first by default.  Milo returned to the ring and both of them did another down and back before going around together and after looking at both of them standing and doing their best to look like each should be the breed winner, the judge chose Milo to go on to the Group.  It was a nice sized group (the largest one of the day I believe) and our brother looked good but he just couldn't beat the Chessie or Golden puppies for cuteness.  Congrats Milo, you are on your way!

Swing warming up before going in the ring (photo by Amy's iPhone)

Dodge and Darby were entered in obedience and unfortunately I did not get to see all of Darby's run.  I did hear from Amy that Darby decided to leave the ring to look for Amy and Michael (are we confused yet with all of the Amy's?????) and because of that Amy A. may never get to see Darby show.  Either that or Amy B. (yes, one of them has a last name that starts with A and the others last name starts with B.  Seriously, I'm not making this up!) is just going to have to convince Darby that she can work in the company of her favorite handler and co-owner.  :-)  Dodge is use to working with friends around so while his run wasn't as good as it can be, he did have his brilliant moments and I'm proud of him.  I learned that he is a bit sensitive and somewhat serious in the ring so any feedback that is misconstrued as a negative sets him back a step and he struggles to get back on track.  I have been working on requiring that he give me better attention during heeling since he has sniffed the stewards and basically gawked around at certain points in the heel pattern.  Unfortunately, any second command is taken as a correction and he has a minor meltdown which results in no sits.  Doing a match is just another way to find out how I can help him figure things out and our judge was kind enough to humor me as I worked to get him to reconnect.  Unfortunately his stays fell apart after having 2 successful days of stays at a recent trial.  I'm going to blame that on the fact that he needed to poop (can I say that in this blog?  Of course, I'm the one writing and we are all dog folk...).  I'll forgive him this time but you can be assured that I will continue to train stays which is something I presently loath doing!

Unfortunately, because we were all running between rings I did not get the chance to take any pictures.  But is was nice seeing all of the GraytSky family and perhaps we'll get the chance to do it again.  I told Amy B. that perhaps we will see each other at an obedience trial this year as I'd enjoy having another GraytSky dog to watch.  And I'm sure Art and Milo will be in the obedience ring before the year is over.

Next blog entry, Swing and I are invited to a 2x2 weave workshop.  Quite exciting if I must say so myself!

Spring and Milo

This has been an interesting winter and for once spring arrived right on time, even a bit earlier for some of us!  So to celebrate the first day of spring (or close to the first day), brother Milo had a romp with a new gal.  Here is what Art sent us...

Milo had a gal pal visit this weekend.  We took them for a long walk along the C&O Canal.  

When they got home they ran around, well into the night.  The next day they were pooped.  

 

Milo is doing well with obedience and I final got him into a confirmation class.  He will be starting rally next month.  Hope all is well with the other pups. 

I'm not sure if the handling class helped but the next blog will have a brag for our BIG brother!  :-)

Stay tuned!

Only the lonely...

Our buddy Hank became an only puppy last week with the unexpected passing of his housemate and buddy Max.  It was only about 6 weeks ago that Max and Hank lost their older housemate Kasper and so it's been quite an adjustment for the entire family.  Howard sent this picture of Hank from this past weekend.

Howard's son was kind enough to stop by and play with him and as you can see he obviously did a great job of tiring him out.  Swing and I were worried about how he would adjust to being an "only", looks like he is doing ok.  Next weekend we will get to see him when we meet up with Milo at a breed/obedience match.

Ann sent us a quick note with some pictures, here is what she had to tell us...

Ella finally got a date with her friend Stacey who will  be handling her at local shows. They worked on stacking & gaiting while I hid so as not to be a distraction and tried to shoot a few photos. This is the best of her stacking.  I'd love for her to be ready for some local shows & matches by this summer but we'll have to wait & see on that.

 Ella practicing stacking

She also gave me cause to worry yesterday after I picked up a new chew toy for her. I got her a very sturdy feeling puppy chew toy from Nylabone. She's the first dog I've ever had who likes to chew on a Nylabone so I wanted to pick up a second one in case the first one disappeared as toys sometimes do. I made a big deal of opening the new chew toy which she immediately went to work on. After about 10-15 minutes I went to check on her & this is what I found.

 

I read the back of the package where the small print said the toy was non-edible - something I had failed to tell Ella. 24+ hours later she & her digestive system seem to be just fine thankfully!

As mentioned above, Milo and the dastardly duo will be at a match next weekend practicing  being show dogs as well as hanging out with each other and Amy and Michael.  I'll make sure I get some pictures to post and hopefully there will be a grayt story to two to tell.  Thanks for the updates Ann and Howard!  Maybe we'll hear from Deb and Gracie Dot soon!!!!

Breed dawgs - before and after

As our friend Mel likes to put it, the breed dawgs got together last Saturday for some practice in preparation for a match the following day.  We spent an hour working on stacking, moving the dogs and just having them touched and manipulated by the "judge".  Since Howard was the only man there so he was given the job of being judge at one point while we switched dogs and handlers.  Afterwards we took the dogs on a hike around the grounds and they had fun playing with a glove, running amok and slopping through the mud puddles.  The Weims are wash and wear, the Samoyed not.

Ravi with dirty feet and mud speckles (look closely, you will see them)

 Swing and Hank playing with a glove that Swing found along the way

 To the victor the spoils!

On Sunday we all headed up to Lycoming Mall (outside of Muncy, PA) for a breed match hosted by the Bald Eagle Kennel Club.  It is held in the middle of the mall and it is about as close as you can come to being at a real show.  The rings are not very big (like many indoor shows), there are people with strollers, kids of all sizes, dogs blocking ring entrances, etc. so it is a great place to take a young dog for the exposure.  They even gate off an area for grooming and the mall allowed the club to use an area for crating that use to be a bank.  All but one of us entered our pups in Sweepstakes before showing them in the regular classes.  Howard and Hank (Beau) did a very nice job for their first crack at this breed stuff.  Howard remained calm when Hank's show lead came unsnapped, and the judge spent a good deal of time helping both of them put on a good showing.  Here is their individual performance...

Swing had settled down by the time we got to the regular class and I was very proud of how she held her stack while she was examined.  I would like to see her not on the collar so much when we are moving, but for now it is fine.  She's still a bit easty-westy so her front looks pretty miserable in a free stack and she's also quite leggy/lanky.  I hope she is done growing upwards as she is closing in on 24 1/2" tall.  Here is her regular class video...

Next up is a match at the end of the month in MD where brother Milo will be joining us (right Art?).  We'll do the breed stuff but I also plan to do obedience with Dodge and I think Art is planning on the same.  We are looking forward to seeing Milo again and catching up on what he has been doing since we last saw him.

Greetings from sister Ella!

Ann was kind enough to send us the following on sister Ella.

As Ella approaches 9 months she's grown tall and lanky.  She's getting close to being as tall as her "brother" Stanford, but she's got a lot of maturing and filling out to do.  She doesn't seem to do anything casually, if she likes something it's an obsession, and most recently that's been tennis balls. She LOVES them!  So, I've restricted her access to them to only when she's playing with me and this obsession is turning her into quite the retriever.  Since the weather is bad and our yard is a muddy and sometimes snow-covered mess, we go to the basement to play with the tennis ball, burn off some of her energy and work on retrieving behavior.  Now all I have to do is ask her if she wants to go play with her ball and her eyes light up and she heads for the basement door.

Ella is enrolled in a competitive obedience foundations class where much of the learning is based on shaping behaviors.  She is going to be a heeler who tends to forge rather than lagging but I think she will be quick and attentive which will be fun.  We've begun the foundation for the directed jumping exercise with her leaving me to go to her go-out box.  She's also "jumping" with me directing her to the jump from the other side - moving from directly across from her centered in front of the jump to moving toward the center between the two jumps.  She loves to play any game and she soaks up what we're working on quickly.

She's a natural at agility - accepting each new exercise and piece of equipment with great enthusiasm.  Most recently she was introduced to hoops and the A-frame.  We worked with the hoops on the flat first to shape her to go through them.  Having been shaped in so many other things she quickly figured out that the desired behavior was to offer to go through the hoops.  She made it clear that she was ready for the next challenge so the hoops were placed on both ends of the lowered A-frame.  She took a little coaxing the first time she approached the frame to climb up and over, but then the light bulb came on and the game was on.  She went back and forth so eagerly that we added a tunnel at the beginning to give me a bit of a head start.  She loved it! 

Hopefully soon I'll have some good new photos to share.

I'm looking forward to seeing pictures of Ella when you can send them Ann.  Thanks so much for the update, she sounds like she is coming along beautifully.

Swing and Hank had a full day starting with a drop in handling class and then a nice walk with our friend Helen and her Samoyed's.  You will recall that I posted pictures of Ravi a few weeks ago and he is growing like a weed!  Everyone had a good time running through the fields, playing with a glove and slopping through the numerous puddles on the grounds.  We will see our friends again tomorrow when we all head up to a breed match.  I'll report on how everyone does in the next blog.  In the meantime enjoy our friend Ravi who was smiling like crazy on our walk this afternoon.