Sometimes I find it hard to believe what a great little girl I have in Glory. This past weekend at the FCRSC Booster in Brockville was another wonderful experience for us. Glory was totally out of coat and looked a bit shabby compared to the other glowing dogs. However she did manage to take Best of Opposite in the booster. Best of Breed went to her friend Finn who showed beautifully. Finn moved on to take Group 1st and then Best in Show. These two marvellous dogs well be bred next month. We are so looking forward to the puppies.

At the Oshawa Obedience Trials at Superdogs in Courtice in July, Glory earned a second leg on her CKC CD. She also earned 2 Rally Novice legs on the same day and won a tracking harness which we are putting to good use.
Glory has been working over the summer on Urban tracking, though not as intently as we would have preferred due to the heat. She is constantly amazing me with her talent to track even on hard asphalt and concrete.

Glory and I went to Wisconsin for the Flatcoat Specialty. There
were lots of awards to be had....including one for dogs that had success in
three or more disciplines, called the “Big Cheese” ( Wisconsin is the dairy
state). I went with my friend Helen who owns Twist’s mother “Dart”

Glory earned her American Working Certificate there (first big cheese) she already earned the Canadian version an...d So did
Dart(first big cheese) . Dart also received a Judges Award of Merit in the
field. From the field events we went to the main show site 2 hours south.
Dart had 2 perfect runs in agility in 39 degree heat (2nd big cheese) .
Glory went into obedience the next day and got a first place in Novice Obedience (2nd
big cheese) . We blew Rally....my fault not Glory’s but Helen and Dart did
very well and got their third cheese.The next day they were entered into the
Open bitch class and both Dart (4th) and Glory (1st) placed. (4th big cheese
for Dart) and 3rd for Glory. Glory went on to get WINNERS BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! defeating
125 bitches. Winners dog was Best of Opposite.
The Dutch judge awarded only 10 “Judges Award of Merit” (out of ABOUT 500 dogs)
and Glory was one of those 10. With that came an invitation to Crufts in
England and no we are not going LOL! She was one of three Canadian dogs to
get one.
Both Dart and Glory got “Big Cheese” awards and were the only two Canadian
dogs to do so. Glory was the only dog in the entire show to get both a JAM
and a big cheese award.
So Glory now has a 5 point major on her AKC championship and will be going to the states to get the other 10 points.

I started Twist on the long line yesterday. He has some experience with "find heel" using food so he knows fairly well where he is to stay when we walk and he pretty much stayed there....but he did venture out on the line a few times....so that he did get a few corrections on it.

I was not able to do it today because we spent the better part of the day doing field training. He did very well with that and has done a few fairly big marks even using the winger. Swimming is going well  and he does not have any water courage issues so far.

Glory was entered in the dog shows in Lindsay on the weekend and she did fantastic. She finished her Championship with Winners Bitch and Best of Winners. She starts back to tracking this month...doing Urban Tracking this time. We are heading to the states in June to compete in Junior Hunter, Working Certificate, Unsteady Singles, Obedience and Conformation. I can't wait to see how she does down there and to finally meet with Anna and all the other people from out west!

We have been doing a lot of field training lately and I have been doing more handling drills....but I must have done something wrong because she is having trouble on the doubles in the field. So I did some more handling drills trying to make the overs more like the overs in Utility jumping. By that I mean that I am going in closer and when I say over and I am moving in the direction of the required cast. That has helped her immensely and this evening I did quite a few overs and a few backs and she only got it mixed up once or twice.
Today in the field training we did a few steady drills and she was steady for all but one mark and that was my fault. The drills involved three of us in a triangle sort of a pattern out in the field with us all spread out. Then we took turns tossing the mark for each dog. Then we wandered into a different area to do another one.

We did 4 marks with Twist with bumpers with wings on them...2 duck and 2 goose and he has not been keen to take the bumper without them on them but today we took the wing off of one of them, and he brought back the bumper just fine.

I spent some time finally on working on handling drills with Glory in Hamiltons field. It is a good spot since it is fairly close and I can expand on it over the next two weeks. She did very well with every cast. I think that her problem last week was that I have not been using the ecollar enough on send aways, backs and over casts...so when I used it she thought that I meant to come. Her remote sits were perfect. Each time I sent her I rewarded her with a retrieve and then at the end I tossed the bumper to one side and sent her to the other side. She did everything perfectly.

I also took Twist with me and we did three retrieves with a bumper and then at home we did 4 or 5 retrieves with a bumper with a duck wing taped onto it. He is doing fantastic and was quite pleased with himself.