Sunday, December 19, 2010

Home from the Crown classic

I really do love this show. It's a big event, the classes are much larger than usual, with a lot of dogs we normally don't see, there's lots of spectators, conformation, obedience and shopping. It's just has such a fun charged environment. It's a great show to see how dogs deal with that environment. I must say Indy did pretty well. Not perfect, but she was happy, and fast and didn't seem the slightest bit stressed, really good for a young dog, who just a few months back was distracted just by the bar setters and judge to go into a trial with loud spectators on all four sides of the ring. She's even resting nicely in her crate between runs!

Abby was entered one day, and I didn't run her, I walked the course and started immediately feeling panicked and emotional and even started tearing up for a quick second. The idea of it possibly being her last time in the ring was just too much, she's only five as much as she's a mess in the ring, she's the exact dog I wanted at the time I got her....she's Kittie's polar opposite in so many ways. Kittie's not slow, but she doesn't really drive either, I wanted a dog with speed and enthusiasm and I got it, but I sacrificed almost everything just for that, she didn't have a great foundation. When I chose her I wanted the wild child in the litter, Abby has taught me there's a big difference between a dog with a nice work ethic and a dog who's just off their rocker and wound so much they can hardly think. I may enter Abby in jumpers at some point....and I may not. Only time will tell.

Kittie's 9 years old today!! Happy Birthday Kittie!! She'll be running for possibly the last time on New year's weekend. Kittie always loves to run, so I'm going to try to just enjoy myself with her.

It's really hard to wrap my head around not running a pug. The pug's were my start in dogs, first in conformation, then agility. they taught me how to train, how to build drive and motivate. I do think I'm fairly good at training dogs that love to work, and find it fun. I probably would never have done agility, if I hadn't started in the breed ring. I was used to spending my weekends at shows and needed something to do once Kittie earned her breed CH. I thought, wouldn't it be fun if I could get novice titles! We did quite a bit better than that over the years! A big thank you to all my pugs for playing over the years and showing me (and everyone else) just how much pugs can do!

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