Little Brodie is 16 weeks old and of course Wally turned 16 years old in April. They may look very different, my old man is a rich copper and the other is a silky, soft, creamy white but they are both gentle, sweet souls…..true Goldens !!!
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Filed under BlogPaws, Brodie, Wally, Wordless Wednesday
We received our official Advanced Title in the mail today. I didn’t realize it but we received a gold level title which means we scored 96% or better in each of the disciplines. Her started titled was a bronze so I guess it means that we are improving as a team….yeah us!!!
Filed under Nosework, Scent Detection, SDDA, Sporting Detection
Our little golden boy Brodie is 3 months old today. He is growing so fast. He has more than doubled his weight in the month that we’ve had him. No matter how bad he is, I just take one look at that face and my heart melts.
We were up bright and early this morning to drive to Red Deer to participate in Nosey Pawtner’s Sporting Detection Dog Association trial. We had a slow start but a great finish with lots of swag.
Spirit got a second place on the interior search component, 2nd place overall and she got her Advanced title today. So proud of my big girl. So now we have to move from the amateur steam and start competing in the working/professional scenting dog stream.
Throughout the photo shoot she had her eye on the cookie and couldn’t wait for permission to gobble it down.
Filed under Nosework, Scent Detection, SDDA, Sporting Detection
Our little Brodie is settling in nicely. He is a little afraid of Spirit’s larger than life personality and is very respectful of my beautiful oldie Goldie Wally. Unfortunately he is like an unruly, annoying little brother with poor little Tilly. We have to keep rescuing her from his grip.
I can’t stop taking pictures of his sweet little face. Each image is cuter than the last.
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Berners were bred to pull milk carts in the Swiss Alps. I thought we should start with something a little easier like pulling a kicksled. We joined a local Meetup group, rented a sled and attended our first outing at the end of January. It went really well. It took Spirit a while to figure out the game but she did a really good job pulling the sled and trying to follow the teams ahead of us. We completed a 4km loop and had a wonderful time.
This past weekend we went out with the group again. I think Spirit was possessed by the “pulling gods”. Oh my goodness she went fast….and full out on the down hill part. We only lasted about 10 minutes and ended up with 2 spectacular crashes and a bent ski on my brand new kicksled. I had my GoPro on my helmet (thank goodness I bought a helmet) so my wipeouts are on record. You can see that the camera was a little askew after the first crash and then it ended up buried in the snow after the second one.
We went out again today to a local provincial park. It was mostly flat with a few gentle hills. It was a lot slower today since the terrain was relatively flat and there were no teams ahead of us to chase. I hope to go out with the Meetup group again this weekend.
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It was a beautiful, sunny New Year’s Day so my big girl and I went for a walk together without any of the other dogs. Spirit has been having trouble getting used to sharing her “Mom” with our foster puppy McMullin. Whenever I try and smooch him she pushes him out of the way and tries to get the attention.
She was spayed 2 weeks ago so she has been very bored hanging out around the house without any physical activity except 2 gentle walks a day. Somehow she still managed to rip her toe nail almost completely off and leave just exposed tissue and bone. I had the unfortunate job of having to trim off the nail. I’m so lucky that we have such a strong bond that she completely trusted and allowed me to slowly and careful trim back the nail close to the base. Poor girl. She has sure had a run of bad luck health wise. Let’s hope that 2017 is a new beginning for her.
Filed under Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday
I can’t believe that she is two years old already. Time is just flying by. She got a huge, delicious dino bone to celebrate.
Anticipation
You can get a perspective on just how huge the bone is when you see it beside her giant 97lb body. One end is the same size as her head. She can barely carry it in her mouth.
Filed under Birthday Pictures, Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday
No matter what I am doing, Spirit thinks she should be part of it. I don’t know how she managed to sit her giant body on the narrow incline bench and polish my face.
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Today we had the pleasure of attending the first annual Bernese Mountain Dog party hosted by Coreen and Steve Johnson of Tailspin. They invited all of the families who had dogs from their breedings. There was a bevy of Berners in attendance. We managed to get a picture with 14 of them.
There was only one dog there from Spirit’s litter, her sister Asha.
This is Mom Sophie and her two daughters.
We also had the pleasure of meeting Tailspin’s newest litter. They are called the Olympic litter because they were born during the Olympics. Each puppy’s registered name will be Olympic themed. They will be six weeks old on Monday.
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On Saturday Spirit and I participated in an SDDA (Sporting Detection Dogs Association) Advance Trial in Red Deer hosted by The Little Nose that Knows. Two days before the trial Spirit surprised us by going into heat. I contacted the trial co-ordinator and she said we could still compete if Spirit wore a diaper and that we would have to go last. We’ve never trained with her in heat or with a diaper. I decided that we would still go to the trial for the experience…….just treat it like a training session with no expectations.
While we were waiting for our turn to start, I walked Spirit around so that she would get used to wearing her search vest and diaper. Before I could stop her, she squatted and took a pee. Great now not only was she wearing a diaper but it was sagging and heavy with pee. We didn’t have time to change so we had to go ahead and do our first two searches that way.
Our first search was containers. At the advanced level there are two finds and one distractor with dog food in it. Spirit is not what you would call a high energy or speedy dog. She slowly but methodically makes her way through the search checking each container. I could tell when she hit the distractor because she was very interested in the delicious smells wafting out of the container. I was very relieved when she moved on without alerting on it. We finished our search in 1 minute and 8 seconds (3 minute time limit).
We immediately went on to the interior search…generally the hardest component because you are inside, there is not much air movement and there are literally hundred of places where the hide can be. I could tell that she had located the scent cone of one of the hides under a table but she was having trouble finding the source. I should have asked the Judge if I could move some of the chairs out of the way to give her more room to maneuver but I didn’t. Classic handler error. She gave her alert and the Judge asked me to identify where the source was. I knew it was under the table but I could not tell him exactly where so I took a best guess and pointed to where I thought it was but I was a few inches off. Too bad…game over no hope of an advanced title today.
We had to wait another hour before we did our final search….an exterior. She located the scent cone quite quickly but it was so windy she had trouble finding the source. She went back and forth in the same area several times but then all of sudden she went straight to the hide and gave a beautiful indication. It took her 1 minute and 49 seconds (5 minute time limit).
Considering the circumstances we did great and I am so proud of Spirit. The NQ for the interior was my fault and a good lesson was learned. At the award ceremony I was just standing at the back enjoying everyone’s accomplishments when I was shocked to find out that we got a perfect score on the container search and came away with a first place ribbon.
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Spirit and I competed in our first sanctioned SDDA trial on Saturday, April 23rd in Morinville, Alberta. I am thrilled to announce that we qualified in all three components: container, interior and exterior/vehicle (3 purple ribbons). Spirit now has her Sporting Detection – Started title: “SD – S “. Because we qualified in all 3 components on the same day, we also earned a special designation making her title “SD – S, SP” (large purple/black ribbon). And if that wasn’t enough, we placed 3rd in the interior search which is the hardest of the three (large white and black ribbon). Thank you to SDDA Judge Paul Dyer. I am so proud of my girl. I think she was also the youngest dog at the trial.
Thanks to photographer Bev Holoboff for donating her time to take pictures of the teams at work.
A special thank you to Ryan-Ann of Doglogix Scent Detection for hosting an amazing trial and being a talented scent detection instructor. Team Spirit’s success is because of you.
After a long, cold and windy day at the trial we came home and relaxed together in the La-Z-Boy. Spirit loves to use me as her personal pillow. Note Tilly’s disgusted look.
Filed under Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday, Nosework, Scent Detection, SDDA
On February 24th (the night before Spirit’s shoulder surgery) she participated in her Sporting Detection Dogs Association (SDDA) advanced Designated Odor Test (DOT) for pine. Even though she was sore she still worked very hard and passed. We just got our ribbon and certificate so we thought an official portrait was in order. Look how nicely the fur is growing back on her shoulder and leg. With these two DOT tests under her belt, Spirit is now able to participate in sanctioned SDDA started and advanced trials.
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Spirit, Bentley, Boomer and Hope
On Saturday the gang got together at Patty’s house for a wonderful day of fresh air, great food and even better company. The dogs had a wonderful time running around together and practicing scent detection.
Hope helped me make a snow angel
Spirit got to meet her first cat. She just kept looking back at me with an expression that said “Hey Mom…..look at this thing!”.
Spirit meeting Bazinga
Filed under Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday, Playing
It takes Spirit just a few seconds to inhale her meals. When I saw Facebook and Blog posts about the snuffle mat I knew it would be perfect for my girl.
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Thank goodness Christmas is over……or …..the morning after the night before……..you decide?!?!
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Our girl has a good nose. Spirit passed her first Sporting Detection Dog Association (SDDA) test. She got her Designated Odour Test (DOT) certificate and ribbon for Wintergreen. There were 14 containers and the hide was in the 12th one. It took us 28 seconds to complete it.
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Since we were away on Sunday when Spirit actually celebrated her first birthday we had some “spoiling and loving” to catch up on. First she got a big frozen sardine to wet her appetite. Then came the real treat…..a giant knuckle bone. She spent over a hour lying in the snow enjoying her present.
Then we took her to the dog wash. We now have an even more beautiful and shiny girl. She is so fluffy that she looks like she put on 25 lbs.
Filed under Birthday Pictures, Blogpaws Wordless Wednesday
Well, I can’t believe it but my big girl is celebrating her first birthday. Wow time just flies by so quickly. We’ve also had our first snowfall of the season. Only one individual in our household is thrilled with the white stuff. Guess who?
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It was a beautiful, sunny afternoon so I grabbed my big girl and we went for a lovely fall walk. The long shadows of fall made for some interesting pictures.
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Today Spirit is 11 months old (weights 85 lbs) and just finishing up her first heat. I knew it would be a challenge with two intact dogs in the house but I was still overwhelmed by Wally’s response to her. My old boy will be 15 in April but he still has his “mojo” firmly in place. I think it put a bit of a twinkle in his eyes and a spark in his step.
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To help Spirit celebrate her big day we gave her her first knuckle bone. To say that it was a hit would be a big understatement. She LOVED it!! It kept her busy for a couple of hours. Every time I walked by her she had this look on her face that clearly said “please don’t take this away from me…pretty please!” I did take it from her several times to make sure she wouldn’t resource guard it. She now weighs 34.6 kg or 76.2 lbs.
If you missed it on Facebook last week, here is Spirit celebrating National Dog Day:
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Spirit loves to be part of everything that we are doing. If we ignore her then she finds a way to push her big, fat head into the action. Here she is helping Dad garden:
Then she got her first introduction to the garden sprinkler. As you can see she loved it!
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Our girl is growing up way too fast….where is my cute little puppy???? She now weighs 32.8KG or 72.3lbs.
How about a celebratory roll in the grass….
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Way back in October 2003, when he was only 2-1/2, Wally’s first litter of puppies were born. There were 12 beautiful, pure bred Golden Retrievers. I was drawn to one of them immediately because she was a lovely dark red/golden colour like her Dad. I named her Bella and I was lucky to foster her until she was 6 months old.
Father and daughter snuggle time
Play time!!
The last time I saw Bella was when she was 2 years old but Wally has not seen her since she left us in April of 2004. That was until now. Wally is 14 years old and Bella is 11-1/2. They took one sniff of each other and it was like they were long time buddies. Bella is a little slow moving and has some trouble with stairs but the two of them ran around and played like puppies. It was so wonderful to watch.
Beautiful Bella and her handsome Dad Wally
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Life In The Dog House 