Spirit has had a great sniffing week. First she earned her SDDA Games Champion title on Sunday and today we got her C-WAGS Scent Investigator (Level 3) title in the mail.
More Elite Titles
Brodie and I had an incredible weekend at the Canine Coaching SDDA trial held at the Alberta Sports Hall of Fame. Big thanks to Samantha Freschette and all her wonderful volunteers for putting on another amazing trial and to Judge Richard Hatchman.
On Saturday there were 9 or 10 teams doing elite searches. That is the biggest Elite group we have ever trialed with (normally it is 5 or 6 teams maximum). We ran last so we had lots of time to wait and worry….ok I worried and stressed, Brodie didn’t care. It was so exciting to see each team come out from their searches all excited because they had passed. An incredible 6 teams passed all 3 components to earn an Elite title. For two teams it was their elusive first title. One amazing team (Al and Kerri) reached the ultimate pinnacle in SDDA and earned both their Sporting Detection Elite Champion and Sporting Detection Grand Master Champion. We earned our 2nd elite title, but more importantly we got our first gold score. We also got a first place in containers, 3rd place in interiors and a 3rd place overall.
On Sunday there were 6 elite teams competing and this time we searched first. Only one team titled on Sunday…..and it was us and it was another gold! Since we were the only team to title, we got first place overall and we were the only team to pass the exterior search so we got first in exteriors. I am still in shock. We now have 3 elites, under 2 different judges and the elusive 2 gold scores. We need two more elite titles to earn our Sporting Detection Elite Champion and Sporting Detection Grand Master Champion.
Two days of sniffing is exhausting
Another Games Champion
I just love this big goofy girl. She does not do scent work for the love of the game, she does it because she loves engaging with me and seeing me get so excited when she finds the hide and, well lets be honest here….she has an intense love affair with food. We’ve had more than our fair share of struggles along the way. I used to say that if we could just make it to our championship I would be thrilled. Then it was maybe a Master Champion title was actually possible. With each milestone we reached she showed me she could do it and that I underestimated her. Then came Games. Once again, I sold her short. At best I thought we had a chance of getting our Aerial title but that was it. Yesterday we earned our Games Championship. In so many ways this title means more to me than when her younger “brother’ Brodie became the first dog to earn a SD-GCH. For him it was relatively easy and somewhat expected that he would, at least at some point, get the title. For Spirit this is a real achievement….she actually got 3 Speed Q’s…if you’ve ever watched her search, speedy is not an adjective you would use to describe her style 😉. Moral of the story…..dream big and trust your dog 💜💜💜
She is the first Bernese Mountain Dog to get this title and only the 6th dog of any breed to earn it. If you think about it, that is pretty amazing for a breed that is not associated with scent work. She is now officially known as:
Tailspin’s Winter’s Spirit RI SDIN, SDDA: SD-MACH SD-GCH, C-WAGS: CW-SI
Photo courtesy of Ryan-Ann King
Filed under Nosework, SDDA, SDDA Champion, SDDA Games, SDDA Title, Spirit
We got SDDA Mail Today
Brodie was the first dog ever to earn a SDDA Games Champion Title. So proud of my little Golden sniffer. Spirit is one Q away from getting her Games Championship and hopefully she will earn that Q this weekend.
Mani-pedi Day
What a beautiful late fall day. We are supposed to get up to 11 degrees today. I took this opportunity to give the dogs a good brushing and mani-pedis. They went from polar bear feet to this. We are supposed to get very cold next week 😢😫
This is just a fraction of the fur that I got out of Brodie and Spirit.
Barn Hunt Bounty
Well our first Barn Hunt trial at Prairie Dog Sports has come to an end and we had an amazing time. Great participants, volunteers, judges and hosts. To say that Brodie was absolutely thrilled with barn hunt would be an understatement. He gets to combine his love of scent work with the freedom to run around and hunt for source without the need to follow any pretty pattern. Considering the fact that we just did our introductory seminar a week ago I’m blown away at how well he did. Although we NQ’d in both our instinct runs, mostly my fault, he did so well in Novice and Crazy 8’s. On our first Novice run his dummy human partner forgot to hand her leash to the gate steward before leaving the start box. I was so excited that we had Q’d only to hear the Judge say I’m sorry I have to disqualify you because you still have your leash in you hand. Hard lesson learned but hopefully I won’t make that mistake again 😉. Our second run earned us a 2nd place finish. Our final run was a thing of beauty. He found the gerbil, did a tunnel and jumped up onto a bale in a smoking fast time of just over 11 seconds. He not only got 1st place in the large dog class but he earned a High in Class for all Novice dogs.
We signed up for Crazy 8’s (8 gerbils, 4 litter distractors) just to get practice hunting and doing tunnels. We actually managed to Q in both runs and earn 50 points towards our bronze title.
The icing on the cake was to find out that we were chosen as the Judge’s Choice winner for our great team work and bright future in Barn Hunt. Big thank you to Judge Norm Riley for his very kind words.
Sniffing with Edmonton Police Service
This afternoon we had the amazing opportunity to watch and learn from the Edmonton Police Service how they train their dogs to do scent detection. It was very informative and interesting to see the parallels and differences between their training methods and ours.
Cst. Eastman and his canine partner Evan did a demo search of a locker room for us.
A few of us got the opportunity to run our dogs and get feedback from EPS. Here is Brodie’s search. He did us very proud easily finding the hide in bleachers with slippery concrete floors and lots of distractions in the environment.
Filed under Brodie, Nosework, Sporting Detection
First Snowfall
We had our first snowfall of the season. Brodie and Spirit seemed pretty happy with all the white stuff.
I Think He Likes It
This past weekend we took Brodie to Prairie Dog Sports for a barn hunt seminar. To say he loved it would be an understatement. Here is a video of his first introduction to a “rat” in a tube (in Alberta we are not allowed to use rats so we use gerbils instead).
Here is his first time in a ring. He found the “rat” in under 4 seconds.
We Got Lots of Mail
Our mailbox was overflowing with mail for Brodie and Spirit. Starting with Spirit, she got her CKC Scent Detection Instinct Title (SDIN) and her SDDA Aerial Games Title (SD-GA).
Brodie received his CKC Scent Detection Novice (SDN) and his Chase Ability Excellent (CAE)
SDDA Games Aerial (SD-GA), Games Speed (SD-GS) and Games Distance (SD-GD)
as well as his C-WAGS Scent Investigator (CS-SI).
Halloween C-WAGS Style
We spent the day at See-Spot-Run participating in their Pre-Halloween Howler scent detection trial. Both dogs were on their game qualifying in 7 out of 7 runs and we had a great time.
Spirit got two Level 2 and one Level 3 Q which earned her a Level 3 Scent Investigator title (CW-SI).
Brodie also earned two Level 2 and one Level 3 Q. He ran his first Level 4 search and qualified. So proud of both of them. We are so lucky to be able to participate in scent detection under three different organizations with different scents and rules (C-WAGS, SDDA and CKC)
SDDA Nationals
I am so glad that we were able to combine our family visits with the Sporting Detection Dogs Association’s inaugural National Challenge Cup. We had a blast meeting so many wonderful people,talking dogs and sniffing.
The festivities started on Friday with a lovely wedding. Esteemed Judge Doug Teeft and his fiancé Cathy tied the knot. Their cake was appropriately topped with German Shepherds.
The Games trial came next. Originally I had signed Brodie up for all 4 games but since that time he has earned all 4 titles. I substituted Spirit in the Speed component since she needs two more Speed Q’s to get her title and championship. Since we had already paid, Brodie ran in the remaining 3 games for the heck of it. Spirit nailed Speed and Brodie Q’d in Aerial and Distance (18 seconds WTG).
Then came the Team component. We didn’t have a pre-arranged partner so Stacy Barnett and I partnered up. She wanted to split the areas up and not call a hide until the other dog came in and confirmed it. Since we already have our title I was happy to follow her plan. Unfortunately that ate up a lot of time. We had successfully called 3, Brodie had sourced the 4th hide but Brava couldn’t confirm it so we timed out. Oh so close. In NACSW they don’t have to be as exact as SDDA when they call their hides. Brava was able to say there is something somewhere around here but I had to bring Brodie in to pinpoint the exact location before I was able to call each of the hides. Although we didn’t Q (only one team did) it was an honour and pleasure to search with such a well known and respected participant, Judge and international nose work instructor.
The Nationals started Saturday morning with each team doing 4 searches (exterior containers, interior and 2 interior/exterior combos). In 3 of the 4 searches we found all the hides for full points plus bonus points. We only found two of the 4 hides in the last interior/exterior combo but since we found the two hardest hides we still earned decent points. Our two afternoon searches weren’t quite as successful. We nailed the exterior search but NQ’d on the vehicle search which cost us a maximum of 30 points. At the end of the first day we had 182 points which put us in 9th place overall
Saturday night was the banquet. We shared a table with Jane book and several of her students and had a wonderful evening. There was a very interesting speaker with 40+ years experience training dogs and handlers all over the world. He talked about how scent behaves and how he approaches a search.
Sunday morning we had 3 searches. They upped the ante by reducing our search time to only 2 minutes each. My amazing boy nailed all 3. Watching him work just made my heart sing. How lucky am I that I get to play sports and share my life with this smart, athletic, goofy and handsome boy. I could have gone home at that point completely happy with our performance.
All of a sudden people where hugging and congratulating me and I didn’t know what was happening until I actually saw the official results. Much to my utter shock, we ended up placing 4th overall. Holy cow….completely unexpected.
The top 12 teams got to participate in the finals. The dogs ran in reverse order of score so we were the 9th team to search. There were 2 search areas, 3 hides in each and only 2 minutes per search. We all started fresh with zero points.
I listened to lots of clapping and cheers for the previous competitors. By the time it was our turn my mouth was dry, my palms and forehead were sweaty and my stomach was doing flip flops. We were way out of our league competing against scent work teachers, judges and some of the best in our sport. When I walked up to the vehicle search and saw the crowd of spectators my hands started shaking. Scent detection is usually a solo sport with just you, your dog, the timer and Judge.
Our first search was not stellar. We missed the first hide right at the front corner of the trailer, found the second inside the bed of the trailer and then moved on to the second vehicle. Brodie picked up the odour and worked it back to source but we timed out just as I called alert.
Thank goodness we had a couple of minutes to wait before we started the exterior search. I was able to sit down, stroke Brodie’s sweet soft forehead and practice some deep breathing to try and relax. I told myself to calm down and forget about who else is searching and how many people are watching and judging us. Just focus on my boy and enjoy ourselves. It worked. We nailed all 3 hides. So proud of Brodie. He is the heart and soul of this team.
We ended up finishing in 7th place, way exceeding any of my dreams. We got a lovely ribbon and a bag of swag.
I wish I could have had a do-over on the first search but that’s how it goes. Valuable lesson learned. Forget about everything else and most importantly trust your dog!!!!
Filed under Brodie, Nosework, SDDA, SDDA Games, SDDA Title, Spirit, Sporting Detection, Sporting Detection Dog Association
SDDA Quilt
Now that the 1st Annual Sporting Detection Dogs Association’s National Challenge Cup banquet is over, I can share this quilt I made and donated.
I incorporated the SDDA colours of purple and black and included the logo that was designed by one of our members.
I had a lot of fun quilting the white background and even added paw prints.
Filed under Gift Quilt, Lap Quilt, Quilting, SDDA, Sporting Detection, Sporting Detection Dog Association
Our Eastern Adventure Part 2
On Thanksgiving Sunday we said goodbye to Sean and Catherine in Meaford and headed to our AirBnB in Oakville to be closer to Chris and Erin and their families.
We met Erin and her family at the Apple Orchard in Hamilton where I got my first glimpse of our beautiful new grandson Grant.
We walked throughout the orchard and the corn maze and had a great morning.
We all went back to Erin’s house and had a lovely dinner.
On Tuesday we met up with Chris and Michelle and had dinner at a lovely pub in Georgetown. Wednesday was spent visiting my family in Toronto and Thursday we were back in Brampton where Erin and Paul hosted us and Chris and Michelle for dinner. Our visit with family was too short but absolutely wonderful. Off to Nationals tomorrow.
Filed under Family
Our Eastern Adventure Part 1
We left Winnipeg last Sunday morning right after Brodie finished his elite run. Our border crossing was very quick and uneventful and we powered through to Menomonie Minnesota where we crashed for the night. We hit the road Monday morning at 6am determined to make it to the Canadian border before dark so we would not have to spend a scary night in Detroit or Flint Michigan. We spent Monday night in London Ontario before heading up to visit Sean and Catherine in Meaford on Tuesday.
We were so blessed to have incredible weather all week and our dogs got along famously with Phoebe, their newest four-legged addition to the family.
They live on an amazing 100 acre parcel of land with pastures and a wonderful forest. Every day, sometimes twice a day, we walked all the dogs off leash on a 3+km loop (I’m sure they did 3 or 4 times that distance). They were in puppy heaven running, wrestling and just being free to roam.
For our last two nights we stayed in a house right beside the Meaford harbour. This was my view as I walked the dogs in the morning
On our last full day in Meaford we got to visit Sean’s fire hall (he is a volunteer firefighter) and watch him as he helped out welcoming the public to family fun day as part of Fire Prevention Week.
Catherine made us a scrumptious Thanksgiving dinner, in fact she spoiled us all week with so many wonderful vegan meals
We went for one last family dog walk this morning before we headed off to our next stop. Look at the amazing fall colours.
More Games Titles
Games night at the Manitoba Scent Detection Trial is over. Thanks to our awesome Teams partner Michelle and Neuman, Brodie and I got our 3rd Q and earned our Teams Title. I think that makes us the very first to get all 4 Games Titles 🏅🏅🏅🏅.
Spirit earned her Distance Title giving her her 2nd games title. She completely surprised me by earning a Q in Speed. Anyone who has seen her search knows that speed is not her forte….slow and steady is her mantra. We called the last hide with just a millisecond to spare.
Thank you to all the volunteers, hosts Michelle & Diane and our Judge John-Marc Dugas.
SDDA Games Champion
We had a great weekend at the Alert K9 trial in Pilot Butte Saskatchewan. We started with Games on Friday night. The first component was speed, the only Q Brodie needed for his third Games title and the championship. He nailed it. According to the latest stats as of 2019SEP08, no one has 3 titles yet so he could be the first dog to attain a Games Championship but we won’t know until the updated stats are available. We were lucky to be paired up again with Darla and Jetta in Team which resulted in our 2nd team Q. Spirit ran both distance and aerial and Q’d in both.
Brodie and I did Elite on Saturday and Sunday. Our streak of passing 2 of 3 components continues. So close😉. No teams passed elite either day.
Big thanks to host Christina, her amazing volunteers and Judge extraordinaire Kathy Hansen.
C-WAGS Back to School Trial
We spent the day at See Spot Run participating in a C-WAGS scent trial. We had a great day sniffing and hanging out with great people. Brodie was entered in three rounds, one Level 2 and two Level 3, and he qualified in all of them. He earned his Level 3 Scent Investigator (CW-SI) title.
Spirit ran in two Level 3 rounds and qualified in both.
Filed under Brodie, CWAGS, CWAGS Title, Nosework, Spirit
Sniffing Long Weekend
After Spirit’s emergency surgery on Tuesday, we never thought we would be going to Red Deer to compete in the Little Nose that Knows/Canine Coaching Sporting Detection trial. The Vet said we would be surprised at how quickly Spirit would recover but we never expected to be going to a scent trial 4 days after her surgery. We waited until 4:30am Saturday morning to make our final decision. Spirit was happily eating, peeing and pooping so we decided to go so that Brodie could play.
Brodie competed in Elite on Saturday in the biggest group of Elite competitors that I have ever seen. Unfortunately not only did no team title, not a single team passed even one of the three components. Sunday was a much better day. Several teams passed 2 of the 3 components but we were the only team that passed the first two components and had an opportunity to title if we got the third one. Brodie was doing really well. He found two hides in the exterior search where there can be 0 to 3 hides. We had less than 1 minute left in our search and he pawed at a picnic bench and I blurted out Alert so fast….sadly too fast because immediately I knew that it wasn’t a hide it was a distractor. Lately Brodie has started pawing at distractors (which is his alert at source) so I have been trying to wait to make my call to make so that I can be sure that the rest of his body language also leads me to believe that it is the hide and not a distractor. It was so disappointing being that close to a title and missing it. Ironically I think the Judge was even more disappointed that I was. He came up to me at the end of the trial to tell me what a wonderful partner Brodie is and how well he searches for a young dog. We ended up with a 2nd place in Interiors and a 3rd in containers.
Over the weekend, every time I came to take Brodie out of the car for a search, Spirit got all excited thinking it was her turn. It broke my heart to see how disappointed she was when I said Brodie’s name instead of hers.
Sunday afternoon we had the games searches. Brodie was entered in Speed, Distance and Team and Spirit in Aerial. Brodie passed the Distance search to earn his Distance title but just missed the Speed component which would have given us a Games Championship. Our partner in the Team component false alerted early in our search so we were done for the day. The Aerial component was run last. I went on the walk through to see the search area and discovered that all the hides were hanging up against a wall and they were all at Spirit’s nose height. I spoke to the Judge and told him about Spirit’s surgery and how she really just wanted to get out and “play”. I said I would just let her walk slowly by the hides and not worry about passing or failing…just giving her a positive end to a crappy week. We were the first team. She strutted down the side of the building wagging her tail and walking with the classic Berner prance. It was so wonderful to watch her. To my surprise she went straight to the hide and did a brilliant indication. She was so proud of herself. It was her 3rd qualifier in Aerial so we walked away with a Title.
Many thanks to Samatha and Kristina for holding the trial, all the amazing volunteers as well as Judges Jean-Marc Dugas and John Mairs.
Filed under Brodie, Nosework, SDDA, SDDA Games, SDDA Title, Spirit, Sporting Detection, Sporting Detection Dog Association
What a week!!
We have been on quite an emotional roller coaster this past week. All of a sudden Spirit could not put any weight on her right hind leg. There was no warning, no obvious accident or injury that could explain what happened. Our Vet checked her out and thought that the problem was with her spine. It was likely putting pressure on a nerve. We got pain meds and anti-inflammatory drugs and an appointment to see a Chiropractor. A couple of days later Spirit started throwing up repeatedly and refused to eat or drink. The only time this has ever happened was when she had an obstruction in her intestines almost 3 years ago. We took her to the Vet again and sure enough x-rays showed two masses. We started with barium and X-rays to see if there was any movement of the objects. The last X-ray of the day showed some movement so we decided to take her home for the night and come back in the morning for another X-ray. She had a rough night. It was very clear that she was dehydrated and getting weaker so they decided to do surgery ASAP. They had to make two incisions to remove each object which turned out to be chunks of bone 🦴. They sent me these pictures of her in recovery and one of the bone chunks.
Update 2019SEP03 It has been a week since the surgery and if you didn’t notice the shaved spots on her front legs for the IV’s you would never guess that anything had happened. She is her happy, smiling, tailspinning self again.
Filed under Spirit
Brodie Got Mail
Brodie received his SDDA Aerial Games title (SD-GA) in the mail today.
Speedy Sprinter
We ended our racing weekend on a high note. Not only did Brodie qualify in all four of his Sprinter runs but he set a personal best of 45.51kph. The icing on the cake was that he hit 500 points to earn his CKC Sprinter title.
He got to enjoy a post race massage from his Dad
We had to top yesterday’s ice cream cone reward so he got a whole frozen bunny leg. It was definitely a huge hit
Filed under Brodie, CKC Sprinters, CKC Title, Lure Coursing
My Chase Ability Star
I’m so proud of my little man. This morning he earned his CKC Chase Ability Excellent Title (CAX) at the Alberta Lure Coursing Association’s Hot Doggin’ trial.
Here is a video of his winning run. At one point he actually caught the lure in his mouth and did a 360 degree spin. When he realized that the rest of the lure was still moving, he spit the piece out of his mouth and took off in hot pursuit again. Gosh he loves this sport.
What do you do to celebrate such a wonderful accomplishment….an ice cream cone from McDonalds of course 😉😂. He inhaled it.
Filed under Brodie, CKC Chase Ability Program, CKC Title, Lure Coursing
A Quilt for Grant
This is the quilt I made for our beautiful new grandson. Erin saw a picture of this quilt on Pinterest and asked me to make it for the baby. She did a great job picking the colours.
Filed under Baby Quilt, Family, Quilting
We have our 2nd Grand Baby!!
On Thursday, August 8th we welcomed our second grand baby into the world. Meet Grant Alexander born at 2056hrs weighing 8lbs 9oz. Boy he sure looks like his Dad’s side of the family.
Very proud Grandpa
Filed under Family, Uncategorized
Mud bath anyone?
Brought Brodie along with me for our Sunday morning group walk. We passed by a big, beautiful grassy off-leash park that only had 2 dogs in it so I took a chance and let him go for a run. Of course, he found the one mud pie in a low lying area and made the most of it.
Good thing we remembered that the nearby lake has a doggy entrance otherwise I don’t know how I would have got him home for a bath without having to wash the inside of the car too.
Filed under Brodie
Brodie Got Mail
It’s Brodie’s turn to get a new title in the mail. This is his CKC Chase Ability title that he earned at the Alberta Lure Coursing Association’s June 7th trial.
Filed under Brodie, CAP, CKC Chase Ability Program, CKC Title, Lure Coursing
Jabin’s Quilt
Recently my cousin became a Grandmother for the first time. I was inspired to make this quilt for her beautiful new grandson Jabin.
Filed under Baby Quilt, Family
Life In The Dog House 