Collar Crazy

One of our Blazingstar dogs lives with the very talented owner of Nearly Naked Neckwear in Calgary.  Christine makes gorgeous collars.  She generously made 705 cotton collars (yes, really 705!) out of a variety of colourful fabric as a fund raiser for the FCRSC's National Specialty.  They are for sale for $15 each, with $5 from each sale going to the Specialty. We helped her out by photographing 235 of them (one of each design).  With an assembly line going and Adobe Lightroom to help with the post-processing, it went surprisingly quickly.

Here is just one of them:

You can see all of the collars here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.283406331732025.65301.106947779377882&type=1

They were hard to resist!  We already have quite a few of Christine's collars and don't really need more, but we did cave and buy these two:

As well as photographing collars, it was great to visit with Christine and her 4 dogs (collar models!).  Here is her gang:

And here's the gorgeous Willow, Blazingstar Brown Buffalobean, now 3 years old.

Agility Trial Champion - Lindy!

We are very excited to announce that Lindy became Blazingstar's first Agility Trial Champion of Canada last weekend.   We are so proud of Rod and Lindy - they are an amazing team.  

Lindy is HR ATChC Blazingstar Linnaeus CDX JH WCI RE AgIS AgIJWWS CGN (from our scientist litter, Huxley x Lupine).

This is a HUGE accomplishment and there are not many flat-coated retrievers in Canada that have achieved this title - only 10 dogs to date!   Lindy completed the title under judge France Becker at the AVID trial in Saanich BC, by qualifying in the Masters Gamble event. 

The Team!

HR ATChC Blazingstar Linnaeus CDX JH WCI RE AgIS AgIJWWS CGN

Lindy pondering her future in agility at 6 weeks old

The agile Lindy on a visit to Blazingstar in 2010

CONGRATULATIONS LINDY AND ROD!!

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Earlier this week we loaded up all four dogs and went to Calgary for eye testing by a board-certified opthamologist at the Calgary Care Centre.  The good news is that all of the dogs passed their CERF (Canine Eye Registration Foundation) exams with flying colours.  Puffin and Cava also had the gonioscopy test done (to look at the iridocorneal angle of the eye) and both are unaffected, which is great news.

Although Lupine is almost 9 years old, we feel it's important to continue to test our older dogs' eyes when they have been part of our breeding program.  Lupine's eyes remain "perfect", which is very reassuring to know!

Points for Odo!

When this little guy left Blazingstar, we had high hopes for him and his owner, Tom.  This past weekend Odo went to the Denver shows and won Winners Dog 3 out of the 4 days, racking up 6 US Championship points!   On one of the days he also was Best of Opposite over a Special.  Very nice for such a youngster.  Odo is Blazingstar King Eider, from our seabird litter (Remus x Teva).

Congratulations to Odo and Tom!

Go Kona!

At the Alberta Kennel Club show,  Kona completed her Scent Hurdle Dog Champion title!  She is now Ch Blazingstar Brown Coneflower RN SHDCH.  Kona is truly amazing at scent hurdle racing - super fast and never makes a mistake.

Kona at a practice last year

She also entered the Rally Advanced ring for the first time and got her first RA leg and placed 2nd in her class.

Congratulations to Judy, Allan and Kona!  We are very proud of you.

Pretty Kona

In other AKC show news, Lupine also raced in scent hurdle and racked up another 45 points.  Her other daughter, Teva, was reserve winners female in the conformation show on Saturday and Sunday.  

Thank you to Sarah Novak for this photo of Lupine racing.  I have very few photos of her actually racing because it's impossible to run her and photograph her at the same time.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day

The dogs were great sports as usual - helping me to get the "perfect" Valentine photo.

This one ended up being my favourite.  I love Puffin's expression because you can see how hard she is concentrating.

I was trying to get one of both of the black girls holding roses, but it was very challenging to have them both sitting and holding at the same time and not pulling faces or looking away....

Cava thought that it would be a much more interesting photo if she was holding a penguin instead of silly roses....

What Cava really thinks of the whole process....

Lupine got her turn too and as always, she was very cooperative.

Lupine

Lupine desperately wanted her turn while we were photographing the younger dogs.  Well, I think she mostly just wanted some treats!

It's hard to believe that she will turn 9 years old in a couple of months.  She is enjoying scent hurdle racing and is training in Utility and we hope to get in the ring in the not too distant future.