Randomness

As said yesterday, Ceilidh had her pups yesterday. I got a bit more information, there is one girl! She's mine for the taking, so I'll wait until I go visit then make up my mind. Also I got my pictures from the Deep Freeze Disc Trial, so here they are!

Thanks to Laura Campbell for the pictures!

Oh, the cruel and unusual punishment!

I got an email this afternoon... the Ceilidh pups have arrived, yay! But Dawn isn't giving up any information, boo, lol, she's waiting for Ceilidh's owner to let everybody know. Bummer. This is the information I know already. There were 5 puppies born (they were only expecting about 3) the first one out was a male. All puppies are red and white (which was a given, but there seems to be no tris). Now I get to play the waiting game to see if there are any females...

Wanna play a game?

Tinky spend most of the day at the agility trial at Royacker Kennels. We had 3 runs today, our days started with a Master Gamble, lets just say we need practise at tight turns at a distance, we only walk away with 18 points, worst run of the class! The rest of the day went MUCH better. The Steeplechase class was VERY fast, I was a wee bit winded at the end of the run, even though Tink knocked a bar, we were still well under time and Qualified earning our 4th Steeplechase Q and a 6th place, without the knocked bar, we would have gotten 2nd. Our final run of the day was Starter Snooker, our only Starter class we have left. The course I thought would be difficult for Tink, but she did above my expectations, and we qualified with 42 points, earning her Starter Game Dog of Canada title.

Best Video Footage Ever!

NOT! My camera was messing up when I took this vid... and the pups were sleeping, so what little you can see's just napping. My camera also doesn't record sound. So if you can stand 30 secs of soundless half-puppies napping, please enjoy by clicking here.

Stupid Camera

Yet another puppy visit yesterday, yay!! They are motoring around now, and can officially be called puppies instead of Guinea Pigs! Unfortunatly the shutter on my camera decided it would be a good time to stop opening partway through the visit, so some of the pictures only have a partially open shutter, or part of my finger holding the shutter open!

Canuck

Tribble (mom) came for a visit; from left to right, Snowboard, Speedskate and Freestyle

Puppy having a snack, they are just about ready to start weaning! Now comes the really messy part!

Broken shutter! Canuck and Freestyle

Slalom napping

My finger and Canuck napping on my lap!

Canuck and Slalom napping on my lap

Good News and Terrible News

Mandiee, her daughter, Autumn, and I went to go see the Tribble X Tripp puppies again today. They are getting bigger and and starting to look like puppies instead of guinea pigs! There eyes have opened up and they are moving around a bit more.

This little guy is Speedskate, he kept moving so I couldn't get a good face shot.

Snowboard is a cute little guy!

The only shot I got of Slalom was blurry... sorry!

Freestyle in the basket of puppies!

I got the best shots of Canuck!!

You may have noticed there's a puppy missing, unfortunately Bobsled passed away. This is what Dawn, the breeder (and also a vet) had to say; "He had an anal defect from the start, but he seemed to be doing very well. A few days ago he took a very sudden turn for the worse and died of septicemia and toxemia." Poor little guy...

Deep Freeze!

And it was chilly! We took Tink and Vash on our furthest car trip yet for a trial! The Deep Freeze disc trial took us 2 and a half hours to get to (which Mandiee slept most of the way, both ways! ;) ). Both dogs and handlers still need some tweaking but Vash got 7 more points and Tink got 29. The facility (a horse barn) is a very nice building, with a large (warm) room for viewing, and they served darn good food for lunch too! A photographer was taking pictures of all the dogs to sell to those interested, the procedes went to Craig and 'Uncle' Bogey, a littermate to Tink and Vash's mom, Tribble. The team is going to Belgium in May to compete for Team Canada at the IFCS world agility championships! Congrats and good luck! I ordered all my pictures of Tink to be emailed to me, so Pictures Coming Soon!

A trialin' we will go!

Tinky went to the Acton Agility trial today, her first trial in over 2 months! I had quite low expectations to be honest, we hadn't Q'd in awhile, and with the lack of trialing recently and not as much training as usual I wasn't expecting a fantastic showing.

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Tink started off the day with a great run that put me to shame. We were in the very first run of the day, so as soon as I got there I didn't have much time to get settled, I didn't even get to look at the course map before I walked it! I was a bundle of nerves and fumbled through the course like an idiot, but Tink somehow pulled through for me, earning her 3rd Steeplechase Q and a first!

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Our second run was a Advanced Standard. She knocked a bar on the second jump, and had a wrong entry to a tunnel shortly after, but did the rest of the run wonderfully, ending up with a 3rd!

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For the jumpers run the judge asked everyone wanted to run to music, he was met with a response of applause. It made the runs so much more fun to watch, and you can tell that the crowd loved it too! You couldn't even tell while you were running that there was any music on, so it wasn't a distraction at all. Tink even got her 2nd Advanced Jumpers Q and another first, moving her into Masters! Which we signed up for and ran that day. I think Tink was getting a bit tired at that point her 2 runs before were pretty close, and she had an upset belly all day, which I think added to her distruction. When Tink goes down, she loves to go down in flames!!

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She got a good long rest before her last run of the day, another Advanced Standard, it was my turn to be tired, and it was handled horribly! Tink did the best she could!

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The worst part of the day (and probably didn't help my handling) was that my pants were too long, and got all wet, and muddy from the dirt ring, and kept trying to fall down! By the end of the day I was walking on pants!

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Natasha was on camera duty... bad decision! ;) I only ended up with one picture! Not even a good one! She tried, and failed, many times to make a video.

One of the most shocking moments of the day, Mandiee volunteered for Ring Crew, and actually did it! 3 times! In a row! It was a fun day, I'm good and tired, but I can't wait to do it again!

2 days vs. 8 weeks

On New Year Eve we got to visit the Tribble X Tripp puppies! I also go to talk to Dawn about my puppy future. There is another litter due at the end of January, so we'll wait to see what she pops out then I'll make a decision. The pups were all tiny and guinea pig-ish but what's even better then 2 day old puppies? Eight week old ones! The Twigg X Zed puppies were still there, cute as can be and full of kisses and play! Mandiee and I gave each puppy a name, and then this morning I found out their litter names, it's a winter olympic theme. So I will post each ones litter name, our name, and a little story about how they got that name! Here are some pictures for your viewing enjoyment! Special thanks to our lovely hand model, Mandiee!

This is Slalom, or Tank! We named him that because he has very similar markings to Tink!

This is Speedskate, or Big Head. He got his name 'cause, well... he has a big head! Next to Slalom anyways he did!

This little guy is Freestyle. We named him Spyral because his collar sort of spirals around his neck.

Canuck we called Speck. He was named Speck because we thought he was the one with the spot on he collar, but it turns out that's the wrong pup!

Snowboard was called Dunno. So far he is my pick out of the litter, but I 'Dunno' if I'm gonna get him yet.


Last but not least is Bobsled, or as Mandiee dubbed him, Captian Bobsey! Lots of Bob names because he was born with a natural bobtail!! I make sure Mandiee gets all the credit for his name, kinda in the same way she make sure Steve gets the credit for Fenris' name!

Here is the rear shot of Bobsled, kinda hard to see it in this picture, but there's the little nub of a tail!

When we first arrived, Dawn sent us off into the basement, where I heard lots of growling. Being nosey as I am, I set off to investigate. (It was the same room where the puppies were before, so I wasn't going into unknown room where I know I wasn't allowed!) I was surprised to see all the older puppies still there! They rushed to the gate to greet us, full of tons of kisses, we said hello, then washed up and sat with the little babies. When we were done saying hello to those guys, Dawn let the big guys run around, and we played with them for awhile. Nothing like a puppy visit to ring in the New Year!