FOR KATE

It is with huge sadness that I write this post.
One of my very best friends is about to lose her battle with Cystic Fibrosis.
For nearly 20 years, her friendship has been so valuable to me in so many ways.

She has taught me so many life lessons. Some were lessons about life (and death) in general, wonderful insights which have taught me much about myself.
Then there were the lessons about dog training. Kate always had a way of working through those little roadblocks in training with the most positive of outcomes.

I feel a huge measure of sadness about losing Kate. Sad for her - for the dreams which now will not come true, sad for her partner who has shared her life for these years and not least of all, sad for myself, for the loss of a much loved friend. There is no doubt that my life will be so much the poorer without her input.

Be proud my friend
You will leave a lot of very sad people – what more in life could you be proud of?
Love Always
Fiona H

Ash's First Champ Breed Show

Kapi-Mana saw Ash's first time in the breed ring at Champ level.

she had already been to a Ribbon Parade and was great so I was a little surprised when she was a little wary of the judge at Kapi-mana.

She moved very nicely and stood well was a just a little over-awed when the judge approached so we will be doine a lot of de-sensitising with her over the next few weeks.

She has always been such an outgoing wee girl so we didn't think she'd be a little nervous but it is all a learning curve for her.

I am really looking forward to getting her confidence up a bit as she is so nice and seemed to really enjoy being in the ring otherwise.

Here's a photo of Ash in the ring :-)

Training Update

Well here we are in the second full week of the year and I've been a very good girl - training the dogs every single day!
Kin is doing some double-box work learning to understand why we did all the circle work in the early days. Thats coming along quite nicely. We are still working on our weaves as well. Im now working harder entries with just 2 poles along with the channel now at approx. 2" and with great drive. We've had our moments but she seems to be really driving well through now with her head low.
So now its just getting fluency and engraining the rhythm so its about habitualising the movement and gradually moving them fully upright.

Ash is entered in her first Champ breed show on Saturday so we've been working on shaping her to stand still and pay attention which has been going really well - she learns very quickly! I've also been working her trotting beside me offlead and clicking for nice steady happy trot. We took her into the paddock yesterday and she roared out of the bushes with a cone and zoomed around with it. We even threw it for her and she was bringing it back - she is so funny. She looks great at present - was a little tubby a week or so ago but is about right now so I'm looking forward to seeing what the judges think of her.
Hopefully a report on that next week - maybe with a photo!!
Fiona

Kin's First Agility Comp

Well we survived our first effort in the agility arena.

The pretty cool thing was that her first outing was at the first ever official Jumpers Event run in NZ.

The pomp and ceremony was great (except that it was all a bit much for Kin who wondered what the people had done to our grounds!!!). She wasn't real happy with the atmosphere so we only had one good result and did lots of learning.

However her first run resulted in a clear round which was very unexpected and a nice start.

I am confident that her boogies were limited to that one day and strange things being at her normally quiet showgrounds - but we'll see.

Her next outing will be at DAWG at the end of Jan. I will only start her if she's calm around the rings which I expect her to be as she's been to those grounds heaps in the past as a spectator.

Thanks to Nevenka who provided the photo of Kin's first effort!!!