Has "Vegas" finally arrived?!

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Something I’ve wanted for a long time .... a dream that I wondered if would ever eventuate, may actually be going to come true! I think many of you already know, my heart has been set on a working bloodline Malinois for a long time ...

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There's only one person in Australia that I would trust to breed, assess and make the decision of choosing that special puppy for me and that's Amanda Camiller at Vanrusselhof Malinois in Queensland and ... on Monday night, 27th April, 10 Vanrusselhof working bloodline Malinois puppies were born (6 boys & 4 girls)!

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Proud Mum “Indy” with her 10 little disciples (below) ... first time Mum and doing a great job!

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This litter is a line breeding on AUST CH DKCH DKBRCH Bryan Vom Haus Mecki IPO3 SchH3 (Imp NWY). Progeny already tightly line bred on Bryan are currently proving to be some of the best working dogs in the Australian Police Force, and are also present with the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF), Security and Sporting Dogs in Australia and Overseas.
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Bryan is the most credentialed working Malinois to ever enter Australia. Bryan is 2 X AUSC Grand National Schutzhund Champion and has 3 X Conformation Championship Titles (Australian, Danish and Working). He has also competed at the World Championships for Belgian Shepherds twice.

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I was fortunate enough to spend some time with Bryan when I visited Queensland in 2006 and he certainly didn't disappoint me. I also got to meet Bryans' son "Kruegar", Sire of this litter, who also happens to be our "Krash’s" full litter brother. Mum, "Indy", is also daughter of Bryan. Photo's and pedigree information at Vanrusselhof website. Anway ... enough “breeder talk".

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Now, we wait ... to see if one of these girls will answer to “Vegas”?

The next eight weeks are going to be the longest two months in my whole life!

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Here they are again, just one day old ... in case you missed the picture at the beginning!

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A New Concept in Trialling ...

Above photo credit to Robyn Evan (Winpara Border Collies)

"Summer" Westurn Secret Sunrise AD JDX SPD

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This weekend just gone saw one of our WA Clubs try a new concept in our trialling format … Perth Training Club ran their Agility & Jumping trial on Monday 27th April with separate courses for all heights. All heights in all classes competed on courses specifically designed for that particular height and class for the very first time in Western Australia.
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It was very interesting … and I have to admit that if I hadn’t had my 200 dog entered I probably would have poo poo’d the whole idea. It was a long day, there was a lot of waiting around to your walk courses and a lot of course changing, etc. HOWEVER, when I finally walked the 200 Masters Jumping course I was pleasantly surprised. It was just delightful (thanks to judge Cindy Didsman) and to see the little dogs run this course it was even better. These little dogs didn’t have time to lose interest, wonder where they were going next, get mislead or stressed … they just flew!!! Dogs that usually lost their handlers on the big courses were focused and really enjoying themselves.
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With that in mind I understand the argument of having courses designed specifically for different heights, and until you’ve actually competed with an extra small (or extra large) dog I don’t know if could really appreciate the true value of this innovation. I certainly would not have supported it if I had only had a 500 dog!

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Unfortunately we don’t have the numbers in all heights in WA to really justify running all trials like this, and I must admit if I was only running a 500 dog I’m not sure that I would bother going to such a long day of trialling. There are certainly changes and improvements to be made to the whole process, and I doubt the 5 separate height courses will stick but I can certainly see a future with maybe splitting the heights into two sections - maybe 200 & 300 dogs on one course then 400, 500 & 600 dogs on another course, or maybe the 400’s could go with the lower heights? Who knows, but congratulations to the club for trying something new!
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Our trialling Results this weekend were fairly positive ....

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Sunday’s double header saw Summer win first place in Excellent Jumping in the morning, also gaining her JDX title, then placing 2nd in Excellent Agility and Monday saw her gain yet another Q in Excellent Jumping, and in 3rd place.
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Carrie (above) competed for the first time in 18 months on Monday, and blowing out the cobwebs in the Masters Jumping class she placed 6th with a lovely run! It was nice to have the spotty dog off the couch and out there having a blast again! She really is a fun dog! You can see her run on YouTube at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jl0PKVk2nLI
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Krash came for a day out to the trial on Sunday, and took some time out to pose for the camera. Thanks to Graeme Fairley for these pic’s below (and above of Carrie) ...

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Where's the "ON" Button?!

So what do you do with a Border Collie that just won’t go?! She has energy to burn, in the safety of her own backyard however, somehow couldn’t even get her bum off the start line in one of her jumping runs last weekend ...

(Above Photo - Credit Robyn Evans @ Winpara Border Collies)

I’ve been putting it down to confidence that she pulls these little stunts …she stops suddenly in the middle of a run and starts gazing at the sky or sniffing the ground - basically she just freezes, them moves v e r y s l o w l y a n d c a r e f u l l y. It has happened occasionally in training (away from home), but only in agility, not jumping. Her contact training has been a tad shady (I’ve made a few mistakes in making the criterion clear enough so there is some doubt there) therefore I understand her hesitancy when confronted with contacts (in hindsight, I probably put her in the Agility ring too soon). What I don’t understand is her showing lack of confidence in the jumping ring – something she LOVES in training.

If you saw her tearing around the jumping course at training a few weeks ago you would have thought it was a different dog. She was focused, fast and happy to be there. The next night at the trial, on the very same grounds, in the same spot, was our excellent jumping ring and she once again, lost concentration and started looking for aliens half way round the course!

(Above Photo - Credit Paul Burton)

Seriously, motivating Summer is quite a mystery to me … I’m not sure what it is that upsets her at trials and until I work it out I guess I’m not going to get much improvement out of her performances. Sometimes she will fly round the ring and occasionally when she finds her turbo-boosters it’s in the wrong direction, I have to carefully redirect her, without telling her off, and keep her motivation up. She is always faster running towards the finish line … so how do I get that to begin at the start line?

Hmmm, just another challenge I guess … keep training Helen!

WA State Agility Trial 2009

(Above Photo - Credit to Robyn Evans @ Winpara Border Collies)

I think we had a fairly successful State Trial this year … Young Chilli made it through to two finals and Summer (somehow) made it through to one. Chilli came out with a 5th Place in Novice Agility and 8th Place in Excellent Jumping – enough to secure her as a State Finalist in both classes. Summer placed 5th place in Excellent Jumping, also a place good enough to take her through to the Finals in that class.

(Photo's below - Credit to Paul Burton)

To be honest I didn’t expect either of them to place high enough to even qualify for a final, and we certainly were NOT the force to be reckoned with in the Finals, however, we were there! Summer threw all sorts of stupid little antics at me over the weekend, at one stage she stayed glued on the start line as I sprinted off to do the course all alone! What goes thru her little head I’ll never know but she certainly lacks a huge amount of confidence and I can see it’s going to be a long haul to get her performance up to scratch under pressure (more about that later).



Chilli, was just perfect little Chilli (nope, I’m not biased, I just think she’s perfect) … although not the fastest Malinois on the planet she is turning out to be fairly consistent and steady. I don’t have great expectations of either of these girls so I guess anything is a thrill at the moment.

Look after your Teef!

Over the last couple of weeks my brain has been obsessed with the fact that I had a visit to the dentist coming up. Well, I am absolutely terrified of going to the Dentist, not that I don’t like dentists, they all seem very nice when you meet them, actually I don’t know exactly what it is that makes me lose so much sleep, break out into a cold sweat, tremble, shiver, shake and want to be sick … if only I knew exactly what it was that terrified me so much I would probably be able to control these feelings … maybe.

I psyche myself up and tell myself that it’s not the end of the world, it’s not going to kill me, people go to the dentist every day and come out alive!!!

Whatever, I just can’t handle it! It’s taken over my life over the past two weeks and there’s nothing I could do about it!

Well … here I am! I’ve been to the dentist (yesterday) and I’m still here! Now, finally I can get back to “normal” and get on with my life!

Anyway, before I move on to doggy posts, that have been absent whilst I had my little dentist crisis, I have to share my dentist experience with you …

The last time I went to a dentist, a couple of years ago, she told me to come back in a few months to start root canal treatment … well, needless to say, she NEVER saw me again! I ran, as fast as I possibly could, the other direction, never to return … then THAT TOOTH started to hurt and gradually got more sensitive … so I started my research to find a nice, understanding, gentle, caring dentist who might tell me something different to the last one!

Well, I found this dentist who practices “sleep dentistry”. They basically put you to sleep whilst they do all the horrible stuff! Yeah! I’m in for that … so I toddled off to meet him. He even told me that I didn’t need a root canal - just a cap (which is just as expensive!) Anyhow, with “sleep dentistry” they are able to do two or three visits worth of work …and that’s what they did. I don't have get all worked up about it again and again going back lots of visits.

All I need to do now is return in a couple of weeks to get the real cap put on – apparently a simple, quick procedure and supposedly painless! He'd better be right!!!

So I guess I’ll be making sure I keep up my regular visits to the dentist from now on, seeing I don’t have to be so terrified!

Easter Fun!

Well Easter has been and gone and we managed to stay far away from all the Easter egg temptations! We had one box of Guylian Chocolates between the three of us so I reckon that was a pretty good effort.

These holiday breaks are always busy for us with the kennels so really, there’s no rest for the wicked! We did find time for a little Easter fun. Some photos above and below of Carrie, who sneakily trapped the Easter Bunny and snuggled up with him on the lounge, keeping him all to herself.
In the meantime, Krash has found a new toy. The big “exercise ball” has been floating around the yard for some time now … It certainly isn’t used for our exercise efforts! Whilst giving Krash his evening run one night, I tossed the exercise ball to the middle of the yard … well, it bounced about 6 feet in the air and Krash promptly met it mid-air and bounced it back to me. We had a great game, tossing it back and forth around the yard whilst he herded it around, rolling over it, racing it, trying to catch it … Krash was totally exhausted by the end of his play session!

We did take some pic’s (below) however it was getting a little dark and they didn’t turn out so good … we’ll try and get some better ones during the daytime some time in the future, however in the meantime these will give you the idea!

Dear Chilli ...

This photo really tugged at my heartstrings …

“Dear Chilli, I am so sorry that I sent you into a supposedly safe tunnel only for you to get tangled up in it and have to struggle to free yourself, and finally finding the end, skidding on your face as you exited, totally disoriented as to which was was up.”

This was our Novice Agility run at Cloverdale's trial on Saturday 4th April. After finishing this run I reminded the judge to untangle the tunnel for the next dog so that they weren't caught up like Chilli was, and in doing so we found that the tunnel wasn’t even pegged down to start with!

This left me with two things on my mind …

Firstly, it bothers me that ultimately, I lied to my dog! Not intentionally of course but my dog trusted me and I trusted that the tunnel was safe and it wasn’t! That’s fine when you’ve got a high-drive bomb-proof agility addicted dog BUT … when you’ve worked hard to motivate, focus and build a relationship of trust with your low drive dog and you then tell them that something is completely safe and it isn’t – it certainly sends you backwards in your training as you rebuild that trust back to the same level.

Secondly, this un-pegged tunnel moved quite substantially and set Chilli on an off-course line, a good couple of metres off line to where it should have been, off line for the next jump and yes she took the next jump the wrong way and top it off with the comment from the judge that “your dog should have come to you regardless of where she came out of the tunnel” ... she had to rebalance and reorient herself, and then respond accurately to my desperate calls to come to me (all through no fault of her own, or her handler) .… well, she did come to me and she recovered quickly to continue on with the course … what a good girl.

I felt this situation was very unfair, if a dog had normally skidded and tumbled in a properly pegged tunnel they would not have ended up off course like this, and fair enough, they should then resurrect themselves and deal with their mistake. This was not Chilli’s, or my, mistake and in all fairness, could consideration have been given for a rerun?

Yes, it is the competitor/handlers responsibility to check the equipment is safe when walking the course; however, this tunnel was pegged when the course was initially set up ... whatever happened to the pegs in-between is unknown! Don’t get me wrong, I am not blaming anyone, it certainly wasn't left un-pegged intentionally.

Fortunately Chilli is a very forgiving dog and she recovered quickly to finish the course – however we will definitely need to work on collapsible tunnels this week ...

On a positive note, Chilli did qualify in Excellent Jumping, and Summer qualified in Novice Agility in 3rd Place to finish her AD title, plus qualifying in Excellent Jumping too.

Photo’s on this post of Chilli and Summer, all at Saturday’s trial, by Tim Abidin (http://www.yourdogphotos.com/). Thanks Tim!