It's going to be Puppy Time!

I first started looking into getting the right puppy probably a year and a half ago - I've never raised a dog from a puppy before. But... time and again, I would get my hopes dashed. I was in line for a great repeat breeding that the owner decided last minute not to do, so then I moved on to a breeder I thought would have a great dog for me, and found out it was going to be at least a year before they did a breeding again. Then after more research, I got on a different breeder's list and sent them a deposit for a 3rd time repeat litter that was about 6 months out. One week before the puppies should have been born, I heard "the litter didn't take" - that's a long story but it soured me on that breeder.

In the meantime, I found a puppy from Ignited border collies who was available, and told my wife about it who ended up getting the dog for my 17yr old daughter who had an interest in getting back into agility after being out of it for a few years. I may have gotten the dog for myself, but I was already 'in line' with a different breeder.

I looked into what Ignited produces and decided I really liked what I was seeing, so I got in line with them for a puppy. My primary requirement was a female dog with lots and lots of drive. My Skye dog really likes the girls, but can be a real jerk with other boy dogs. The next litter that Ignited had produced 4 boys. Ugh.

Well, out of that, my wife decided to get a puppy! So here I am, still without a puppy and both my wife and my daughter are raising pups.

So, I was in line for the next Ignited breeding, a 3rd time repeat of Singed & Fetch. I was concerned because early on in the pregnancy, they only confirmed that Singed had 3 pups in her. The breeder said she was really big though, too big for just 3 pups, and as luck would have it, on Feb. 27th, Singed gave birth to 6 puppies - 2 boys and 4 girls!

The 4 girls are pictured above - 3 blue merles and 1 black & white. I have 4th overall pick, and the 1st and 2nd folks in line each want a boy, so I will get to choose from at least 3 girls. Three of us on the picking list are Engineers, so the litter them by popular demand is the "Geek Squad", with some mathematical names :)

So finally, it was a long long wait, but I should have my next superstar in about 8 weeks.

Now, some people don't agree with getting puppies from breeders - there are plenty of homeless rescues, dogs in shelters,  etc. Yes I know, we did Border Collie rescue for years, and still have 6 of the rescues living with us right now. Not every rescue dog makes a good agility dog - I know, I've tried quite a few!

So, right now Skye is coming up on 9 years old, and Rip is 5 1/2 - I think this is a great time to start a youngster. As they get to being ready to compete, Skye will retire and I can continue running 2 dogs, which I like a lot more than running just one. I expect to be posting more updates as the puppies grow - I wont know which one is mine until they are 6 weeks old!

All qualified up.

My quest to qualify both Rip and Skye for AKC Nationals ended last weekend - that was our last trial before the end of the qualifying period, and our last trial of 2012.

Both dogs did great and we ended up with about 50 points each to spare. Three weeks ago, Skye had a perfect weekend going 4/4 and earning all the points that he needed, and Rip did pretty well going 2/4 and getting the remaining few points he needed, so this past weekend turned out to be just a bonus for us.

This was a 1 ring AKC trial and oddly enough, there was also a 1 ring USDAA trial about a half hour away on the same weekend - something that doesn't occur very often. Most of the really fast dogs must have attended the USDAA trial because Rip and Skye ended up being two of the fastest dogs at the AKC show.

Skye ended up going 3/4 with a 1st place in Standard and 3rd and 5th places in Jumpers. Rip went 2/4, getting two 2nd place finishes in the Jumpers classes.
Sunday's Standard course was pretty tough, and only 4 of the dogs in the 20B class managed to Q. Skye ended up leaving the weaves early, and Rip went behind me to the offcourse dogwalk when I took my eyes off him coming out of a tunnel. Rip's fault in Saturday's standard run was a jumped AFrame contact, and for good measure he hit the top bar of the triple, which was the last obstacle.

So here are the runs from last weekend. Looks like we will be in Tulsa in March next year for the Nationals!

Countdown to Qualifying

The title of this post could also be called "I HATE Random Draw Trials"

We did 1 day of an AKC trial two weeks ago. I really don't like this facility and have avoided it the last couple years. It's really too small to hold a 2 ring trial as there is very little crating space, and it also gets very dusty in there. To top it off, it Really smells like a horse arena here. The club that host this is not an agility club - their focus is conformation and obedience and therefore they don't have the best equipment. They are one of the few clubs that have not made the move to rubberized equipment.

Anyway, enough complaining, I did the 1 day in my quest to earn enough points to be able to attend AKC Nationals in Tulsa this coming March. Going into this show, both dogs needed fifty-some points.

As it turned out, it was a very good decision to attend this 1 day! Rip was running great and pulled off his most points ever in a JWW run, getting 17 points and 4th place of the 60+ dogs. Skye also had a nice run and Q'd this too getting 14 points.

Then we had Standard. Skye ran it first and he did run very nice, but jumped his dogwalk contact. Rip ran almost last in the class. He did great - a little slow on his contacts, but generally very nice and Q'd it for 20 points and 6th place. Another Double Q for Mr. Rip!

Thus at the end of the day, Rip now needs just 14 more points for nationals, and Skye needs 43!

In November, there are 2 one-ring random draw trials. One of them is 10 minutes from home - I did not get into this one (well, I am 27 dogs down in the waitlist for two days, and 60+ days down for the third day). I did get into the other random draw that is an hour and a half from home.

I am already scheduled for a 2 day trial the first weekend in November, and then two weeks after that we the other 2 day show. I certainly think that 8 runs will be plenty to get those last few points we need.

Here are Rip's runs