Herding the sheep

We were today herding sheep again with Major and he did great! He was listening very well and we are heading now in two weeks to US to do his first herding test and hopefully will get his first herding title HT!
Major is so much fun to train with, he listens well and really wants to please, and if at times his excitement takes over he doesnt mind the correction but tolerates it very well.

Regional Specialty in Sarnia

Saturday morning started at 4.30 when I woke up and started putting together all last minute stuff. 5.30 kids and dogs were packed in car half sleepy and we started driving towrds Sarnia. 4hr later we unpacked everybody at the show place and found out Rally might be just at the same time with breed ring...

Cassis and Majors brother Cedric came to the show site with Beth and her family to meet us! Was great to see them and Cedric who had developed into a big boy! Very nice earset and body sturcture, dark eye and lots of coat.

Finally after a lots of stress and running back and forth between obedience hall and car we found out Rally would not start untill after lunch 1.30pm. (Why could this not be planned out and known earlier is a mystery to me). Ok, to the showring. Lots of nice looking dogs. Our dogs out of coat did make good support for the event, nothing special there. About that time of the day when we were done in show ring it started to warm up pretty heavily. Just TOO hot  for dogs and for people...
When Rally Advanced finally started Major was exhausted when it was our turn. He started not so bad, but oh boy it was getting more syrupy the longer it went. When I commanded him down he went down so fast I heard a thumb and then he laid down on his side giving people a good laugh. It was like him saying please let me rest Im tooooooo tired for this... No need to say we did not qualify. With Cassi heat was almost  a good thing making her less bouncy and wired. She qualified and got her RN title.

Chaos working schutz in video!

I just had to share this video of Chaos - brother to Cassi and Major. Great work Louise and Chaos!

We are preparing for next weekend trials in Sarnia, Major is going for Rally Advanced and Cassi for Rally Novice. Both are also entered to regional specialty show for belgians.

I got some EXCELLENT dogs!!

Hips EXCELLENT and elbows normal on both Cassi and Major!! Deep breath..... pheeeew.... Nothing to worry about with these guys, then of course I would have been a bit surprised if anything would have been wrong with their hip/elbow exams since both Arrow and Nova have perfect score in both.

Great news again from California where Tempo and Julie have got new titles again... OA and NAJ! Congrats!!!

Our plan is to go to Belgian Regional Specialty show in Sarnia, hopefully finish Major's RA and Cassi's RN and support the club if nothing else. Dogs are not in their best coat so no bigger expectations there.
Also we will head to Quebec for the National Specialty show in August. Oh boy... anyone want to baby sit our kids while we are handling? :) It's going to be very interesting trip I'm sure.

Had some pics taken a while ago and wanted to try posting a video clip of Major in obedience training. Day was warm and he was tired already but the music makes it all better! : D Have a look...

Update and new titles

It's been a few months now since the last update. Winter is finally over and the rain season is here :)

During the past months I had no time to train obedience but still I took old boy Major to trials to get his last leg in Novice obedience, and he did it! So he has a new title CD now!
We also got some great news from US and New Brunswick...
In April Groguard Centaurus visited BSD specialty in California and got HT as well as won his class in the specialty show! And In May Groguard Chaos of Dark Nebulae got his second working title SchH1!
Awesome work everybody!! I'm so proud to be breeder to some great dogs like these!

Plan is that Cassi will be bred from her next heat, that should start in December. The proud father to be is to be announced later, but in this litter I think we will be concentrating on super working capacity and great temperaments adding on a great variation to groenendael gen pool! Now lets see how everything works out.
Cassi and Major were just health checked in hips and elbows with great looking results, we are just waiting for now the official results to come.

Purina 2011

I thought I was crazy entering Major for 3 shows, 2 obedience and 1 rally trials! Afterwards I hoped I would have done few more rally and obedience :) 3 titles during same weekend would have been fun, but now we just settled with Canadian Ch title! Not bad.
Major got 1 point on saturday being winners dog, and 2 extra points on sunday being best of winners. Friday he also got 1 leg in novice obedience with nice 193p and high in class. First trial that day went perfectly in all other exercises except in heel on leash and off leash. He was very interested in smelling the carpet and then once in off leash he was finally way too far from me. Luckily he decided working was more fun in the next trial and then he showed some awesome looking work with me!
In Rally obedience in saturday, I was a little nervous how things would work since our breed ring was just before the rally. Fortunately everything worked for our good and I got to both places in time. Due to 2 of my errors we lost 20 p. and only got qualified with 78 points, but then qualified never the less. Man, that rally can be tricky sometimes and a lots of fun too!

What a weekend...I was so tired after driving to city every day  for 3 days that I cant believe some do it all the time!

Now Major will have well deserved time off from shows and we'll head for the last leg in obedience and CD.
Rally trials are so few that I don't know if it will take a while before we are able to finish his RA and Cassi's RN.

Now also both girls are in heat and poor Major has to live separated from them...a man's life is certainly not easy in a household with majority of women!

Rally-Obedience in Barrie

Yesterday we had Rally-O trials in Barrie and it went ok. Major DQ'd 1st trial, he got just really distracted by barking dogs by the ring and then had sooo hard time getting back into business with me. I got so distracted by him acting up that I forgot some things in our routine and DQ! Well deserved even.
2nd trial for Major was much better, he was back to his normal self and after little stumbling in the figure 8 with VERY good smelling food bowls in the start, we did pretty ok run and he qualified, yey!
Cassi was so over excited that she hardly could stay in her skin. Silly I was commanding her like Major "Heel, good job, lets go..." and woosh she was 1m from me like "whoopee, lets go! Where???!"  Now here is a dog that needs the "spartan" kind of commanding even in Rally-O that is supposed to be fun and relaxed both for the owner and the dog, meaning "Heel!" and next command following. She did however get qualified in both trials, not with runs that I would be very proud of but qualified nevertheless... And of course I am proud of her, she performed very well, being FIRST time EVER in obedience trial, performing under distraction and in a new place never the less. She was not at all distracted by the public or the new place, and did everything I asked her to. I think our performance could have looked actually pretty good if I had not messed up.

Now we are waiting for the PURINA in March, Major is still hunting for the last point and also our hope is to finish his CD. Cassi is in for a Rally Novice so maybe a title for her then too if all works out well!

Markham show

We headed today to Markham show with Major. Only 3 BSD incl. Major was entered. One open female and a specialty male, this happened to be Mason and his sister, so it was good to see some friendly faces we know! Mason was BOB and his sister BOW. Even Major didn't get any points today I was really happy how he showed and behaved. He is such a lovely dog (me biased??!!) and when he is going to get his big boy hair and muscles, watch out! : ) He is on a good start there though, I can clearly see he has matured already in past few months. For one he has started getting a good coat and he isn't like the teenage shrimp anymore bones sticking out. I changed his food to a bit stronger one to get some fat on the bones, and I think it has worked! Tomorrow we'll go again and see what comes, at least we are in a good company, and more excitingly there is going to be 6 BSD's! So a pretty good turn up.

After this weekends shows, we will have a Rally-O trial coming up. Major will be in Advanced A and Cassi Novice A.
I am very excited to take Cassi into a real trial finally! It will be interesting for one to see how she will behave in a place we have not trained before with distractions. She did very well in our obedience training this week and I'm happy to see her progress. We did bunch of heeling, recalls and finishes. Just very easy stuff, but my goal was to have good eye contact and perfect placement in all we did.
Both of them are becoming such a pleasurable dogs to work with, which I like sooo much. They are very eager to please and tolerate repeats very well. They don't get tired very fast so I can do each 30min training easy. Cassi has definitely matured in a way she want's to do things together rather than being more interested to go and explore what happens in the neighbors yard.
Major started retrieving training and we are in the spot now when he will hold the dumbbell for few sec. sitting in front of me. I'll try getting him ready for CDX for the summer. It would be so great to have both of them entered into the specialty weeked obedience!

Now thumbs up for tomorrow, Major only needs one point to finish his CAN Ch.!!

Mr. Prancer out in the snow

Snowy days

We got now lots of it! SNOW!! It's everywhere...and feels like it's good time to do some plans for our future.

Major is still not in his best coat yet but I still entered him into few shows. Our hope is to get that one last point needed for him to finish his champion title. Also he is now entered to 2 obedience trials in March, when hopefully he'll finish his CD title and we can start training for his CDX. If I only get motivated enough in the training part I would say our goal is UD and Obedience champion title next year. But then with kids and rest of the life you never know...
I'll be ready with Cassi to enter in Novice when Major is done his CD. She is very fast learning and good performing what she knows, only thing is that her concentration is not as good as Major's and she can get easier distracted. I'll be taking her to as many correction matches as I can before we start trialling, which will be most  likely in the summer or late spring. Major will probably not be ready for CDX by then yet but I will try work on him. It would be nice to be able to trial with both in the same trials, save some gas money...

Here is Major sitting pretty in Jan 2011

Major again... sorry Cassi, no pics of you this time!

Obedience trial in Barrie with Major

So, we had today our first official Novice A trial with Major! First run went amazingly well until it was time for group sit... then Major laid down when I was only 2 m away from him with a guilty look in his face.
Was I disappointed...? Yes, we would have got HIC and 194 points if he would have not laid down, but no use to think what if. Second run was in the afternoon and I could tell he was a bit tired and not as alert and to the point in his performance as he was during his first run. BUT, just giving him a bit invisible reassurance when returning to him in group sit, made a difference and he STAYED UP and was HIC and got his first leg with 189,5p.!! Yay!!
I'm so proud of my big boy! He is really developing to a wonderful boy and was so nice to get recognition of this from other people at the trial who thought he was working beautifully and is a terrific dog.

Bark park

Yes, that is the name of our dog park. Located 15min drive away, we do every once in a while visit there.
Today was a lovely weather and I took Major, Cassi and Nova out for the park.

Both Major and Cassi are very friendly with other dogs, they just are so super EXCITED to get to play with others, that they seem to scare a bit some dog owners and dogs that matter. No need to mention they are both quite big, and big and excited isn't usually very popular combo. Major is actually better one of them, he nicely plays even with small dogs, I think because he is generally so much more gentle than Cassi.
Cassi could be best described as a steam roller, she is the "tigger" type that will bounce everyone...*rolling eyes*
However as the time passed and they got more tired, playing with others was much more controlled and pleasant to watch (= no need to TRY to call them off all the time)

Nova who has been very good with all other dogs FOREVER turned out to have become quite a bitch. I guess 10 years age will make her think that she is in charge and you better watch out... such a grouchy old gramma she was, I don't think I dare to take her there anymore! 8)

Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year!

This blog is going to be about the dogs, so if it's not one of your interests you are most probably going to get bored reading this stuff.

To get our year started Major and I did our debut in Novice Obedience 2nd of January. To be exact it was not official but a correction match, and I should add that Major and I have only done obedience in "public" only when we did 3 x Rally O Novice last summer and then once at Spirit Ridge K9 training center just before Christmas (Jim let us kindly to do a drop-in class with Major).

Heel in leash and off-leash went very well, Major was following with nice contact both runs and only with the first one he needed to be reminded once to keep his eye contact, sits were prefect which I am so proud of since I had problems with Nova in them.

Figure 8 went well and also stand on examination perfectly both times.

Recall first time he laid down before the call, other time it was perfect ; VERY fast and sits straight and close to me in front. Finish could have been a bit better, but still ok.

Our problem really was that in long sit, he laid down in both runs just when I was walking back. He seemed to get pressured by me of some reason. Long down was perfect both times.

So I'm hoping to fix our little problem with laying down in long sit before our first REAL trials which is going to be in 2 weeks. I just think it's going to be such a great opportunity since the trial is in the same facility, that it would be such a shame to miss it by waiting for trials later during the year somewhere else. To me he seems to be quite ready for trials anyway so, ready or not here we come Novice A!

What made me real proud of Major was that this was his 5th "training session" in public and he did such an awesome job! He was not affected by the place or distractions at all and worked just as home. He is such a happy boy working with me, and with the words of one viewer and fellow competitor " one can tell that He just LOVES you!", makes me think about my old boy Zorro who almost made my mom cry watching us do obedience because love for pleasing was so great in his beautiful performance.