Saturday, January 29, 2011

The Journey

Miss Keeda Graduates from Puppy Preschool!

The wonder puppy graduated from puppy preschool on the 25th January.
She was the smallest and quietest puppy in the class, but she was by far the smartest doing perfect sits, ok drops and sometimes stays!

The highlights from preschool being a poor 11 year old girl getting frustrated cause her puppy wasn't performing recalls as well as Keeda (who is already at 10 weeks coming from a restrained hold to a perfect sit right in front of me!). The poor girl was calling her puppy followed by telling it to sit and getting very upset. We had to explain to the girl that I had just done a bit more training with Keeda and that her puppy will understand it soon! ops.

In her graduating class Keeda was getting over excited by trying to round up a 17 week rotty puppy (at 12kgs already!!), trying to steal food off everyone, trying to pull down the fake plants, as well as steal toys off the wall. This was than followed by a massive wee on the floor than stealing the towel the instructor was trying to use and running down the hallway with it.... could be worse!!!

Miss Kee also in the same week attended her first big school to watch Harlie train. She cried for 5 mins in her crate than happily settled down highly amused by the number of dogs walking past her. At the end of training Harlie, I asked Keeda out of her crate and did some basic obedience (heel, sit, left and right, touch, drop) which she did OK considering first time doing these away from home. I had left the crate door open and removed her lead getting her excited for running back to her crate. We have been practising Susan Garretts crate games and she has proven at home a high level of value for her crate. Without hesitation she raced back into her crate and sat until I shut the door. A number of instructors couldn't believe what they saw and asked me to do it again. I opened the door, walked to about 10 meters and gave Keeda her release word. She ran beautifully out to me, I treated and grabbed her collar, sent her back than called her out again as soon as she hit the crate. On the second send I ran behind her, treated and closed the door. Impressed a couple of instructors came for a closer look with their dogs in tow. "Awesome" I thought.... distraction time!! I went and opened the crate, called her out than sent her back in. She made a prance towards the dogs standing nearby than continued on her way. PERFECT! What more could you ask for!



                                        Miss Keeda wearing her party hat and her certificate

Tell Everybody I'm on My Way!

Keeda's first video! Enjoy!!



Keeda's Arival Home

The story from the beginning...
After losing my 6 year old Collie Rough "Kilcoy Rushed to N Angel CCD ADX JDX SPD GD SD" (better known as Diva) to an aggressive cancer, I have been contemplating finding a friend for Harlie (my 7 year old Shetland Sheepdog) and a new companion/family member/ agility dog for myself.
   
                                                     
                                                 Miss Diva competing at Rocky Agility Trial (2008)

 A wonderful friend of mine Bernadette Lines (Kilcoy Kennels) offered one of her dogs from her breeding kennels who came and visited for 6 months. "Ferona Silver Phantom" better known as Winter, offered a wonderful companion and distraction for both Harlie and I. Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and Winter had to head home to finish off his Australian Champion title. I thank Bernadette for the opportunity to have Winter in our family and loved training him.

Unfortunately our little family didn't cope to well with having Winter head home. Harlie was getting sooky, Winters best friend (Bella the Cat) was walking around the house continuously looking for him, and my partner Rodney was worse than both Harlie and the cat!!

It was time to get a new puppy. I had been in contact with a couple of Shetland Sheepdog breeders with all intention at building my agility team of shetlies.... But Rodney had other ideas. It all came down to a game of Uno.... Whoever won the best out of 10 games got to choose the breed of the puppy. Guess what.... I lost. Thankfully I won the Uno game deciding who got to name the dog. If Rod had won this blog would be called.... "Mr Bananas".

So the next mission was finding a breeder with Tri colour female puppies who were suitable for obedience, dog sports, and to fit in perfectly with our little family. Coming up to Christmas (2010) a breeder in Brisbane advertised on Dogz online for a litter of tri puppies. I hadn't been having much luck with finding a female with previous breeders but thankfully Marion had the perfect girl for us.

We ventured out to meet Marion and the puppies when they were four weeks old. We played with them for a good hour and had the girls narrowed down to three puppies. The deciding factor came when this one perfectly marked puppy kept running between both Rod and I, than nailed the point home when all the other puppies were asleep and this one girl was wide awake tearing everything up and swimming in her water bowl.... It was meant to be!!

                                         Keeda and Rodney shortly after making our decision!