Scent Hurdle Racing Update

Lupine is back!  She had to take the summer off from scent hurdle racing and other jarring activities because of a limp.  Her limp was diagnosed in the spring as arthritis in her left elbow.  We had a variety of treatments to treat her elbow and also her right shoulder which seemed stiff and sore, possibly as a result of compensating for the arthritis in her other side.   We also started her on a joint supplement that did wonders for Tally and Huxley as they aged.  By the end of the summer, she was so much better and the arthritis only bothered her if she had overdone things (e.g. a lot of retrieving or more swimming than usual).  This fall we haven't seen the limp at all, even after hunting. 

Our scent hurdle racing team, Due South, competed at the Lethbridge show and Lupine was great - no errors at all.  In fact our whole team was amazing, including our newest member, Betty the Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.   We are not a particularly fast team as most of our dogs are veterans, but we still managed to place 3rd out of the 6 teams racing.  Lupine's daughter, Kona, is now very close to finishing her Scent Hurdle Dog Championship.  Lupine racked up 35 points, giving her enough to complete her Scent Hurdle Dog Excellent title. 

Molly, with Token and Kona in the background

Our newest member of Due South, Betty.  This was taken at a practice a  few weeks ago (hence no jackets!).  Token, in the background, completed her Scent Hurdle Championship at the Lethbridge show.

Lupine waiting her turn at a practice. 

Kona, with Drummer in the background. 

The Lethbridge Dog Show

November 18th - 20th was our local dog show put on by the Lethbridge and District Kennel Club. We think it's important to support our local show, so entered all three show dogs as specials.  We looked forward to a nice entry of 7 flat-coats, but unfortunately most of them had picked up kennel cough at the Red Deer show and Puffin, Tinbie and Cava were the only flat-coats present.  Puffin won best of breed on Friday, Tinbie won best of breed on the Saturday and Sunday.  Thank-you to Pat, Julia and Sarah for helping me show the dogs!

Perhaps the most fun was watching Tinbie and Lupine compete in the Junior Handling rings with their new young friends, Chloe and Mitchell.   Both Juniors did a fantastic job, winning their classes and we got to cheer them on in the final competition!

Tinbie and Mitchell



Lupine and Chloe (with our canine friends Abby and Gyp behind)



As well as the showing, our dogs had a constant stream of visitors and they charmed the pants off them all (and took the opportunity to clean the faces of many small children). 

Unfortunately it seems that we did not manage to avoid kennel cough after all - Puffin and Cava came down with it this week, but they are doing alright.

2012 Calendars

Five years ago we wanted to make a few calendars for us and our friends and family.  So we put one together on Cafepress and were very happy with the quality.   We've continued the tradition and our 5th calendar is now available at our Cafepress store - go to www.cafepress.com/blazingstar.   It takes a lot of time and work to put together, but it is also very rewarding to look back over the past year's photos and pick and choose which ones we want to include. 

Because it rhymes, because we got several requests and because she is just such a cool cat, we made one for Salander too (Salander is the cat that keeps us all in line). 

Success in Red Deer for the Brown Girls!

Three Blazingstar dogs travelled to the Red Deer show (amidst the first major snowfall of the season).  

On Friday, Teva (Blazingstar Tansley) won Best of Breed for two championship points.  

On Saturday, Willow (Blazingstar Brown Buffalobean) won Best of Winners for two championship points.  Teva gained her 2nd CD leg in obedience and Kona (Ch Blazingstar Brown Coneflower RN SHDX) passed her first Rally Advanced trial. 

On Sunday, Teva won Best of Winners for another 2 points. 

What a wonderful weekend for Lupine's liver daughters!  We wish we could have been there to cheer them all on, but we are very proud that they were all ably handled by their owners.  

Proud mother, Lupine!

Our Summer & Early Fall

So just what was keeping us so busy this summer and fall?  We packed a lot in:

Liz was doing some work around Waterton and also up in north-central Alberta and we were able to combine work with various fun adventures and the dogs got to come along on some of them.

Puffin in the Kootenay Plains, central Alberta

Waterton Lakes National Park

We made some good progress in both field and obedience training.

Cava

Puffin

We had family visiting, which meant the dogs got a lot of extra attention.

Tinbie

As always, our garden took up a lot of time and energy, but it provided all of our vegetable and fruit needs from May to the end of October, including the dogs'.   We have lots canned, dried and frozen for the rest of the year. 

A small portion of our vegetable garden (with a few flowers too!)

And of course there was the usual river fun at home.

Summer Successes

We have been very amiss in keeping up our blog over the summer.  But we did want to congratulate several owners on their summer successess with their Blazingstar dogs.

Sam, HR Blazingstar Bobolink TD JH Can WCX Am WCX, added the American WCX title to his accomplishments in the field.   Well done Sylvia and Sam!
Odo, Blazingstar King Eider CGC, passed his Canine Good Citizen test in Colorado.  Congratulations to Odo and Tom!

Kona, Ch Blazingstar Brown Coneflower RN SHD, headed south and showed for two days in Montana and won winners female both days for her two major wins and 6 championship points.  Congratulations to Kona, Judy and Allan!

Lindy, Blazingstar Linnaeus CGN CDX JH WCI RE AGXS AGXJS, has been barrelling her way towards her AAC Agility Trail Champion title this summer.  She now only needs 2 more Jumpers Qs and 2 more Gamble Qs.  Well done Lindy and Rod!

Kona at 2.5 yrs old

Bad Blogger

Our apologies for not keeping up to date with our results and news blog.  The summer was filled with much more exciting things such as family visits, field training, swimming, hiking and gardening, leaving little time for blogging.  We will try to catch up with all of the news very soon!

Lindy AGXS AGXJS

Lindy completes her CKC Jumpers Excellent title in Nanaimo July 9, 2011

Those are a lot of letters!  They are CKC agility titles - Agility Excellent and Jumpers Excellent.   Lindy and Rod have had a very successful summer in the agility ring. 

Lindy is now Blazingstar Linnaeus CGN CDX JH WCI RE AGXS AGXJS.

Congratulations Rod and Lindy!

Happy First Birthday to the Seabird Litter!

Our seabird litter turned 1 year old on July 7th.  Happy Birthday to Odo, Ripley, Thor, Kittiwake, Luna, Gulliver, Sooty and Puffin!    What a lovely bunch of dogs they are growing up to be.

Grandmother Lupine posed with Puffin and Luna for a 1st birthday photo:

Stateside Success

Liz took 3 dogs down to shows in Montana - two days in Great Falls and two days in Missoula.  Cava was the star over the weekend, picking up 3 majors and 14 championship points.  She is now just 1 point away from finishing her American championship.  There were some truly lovely flat-coats entered, so we were especially proud of how well Cava did.  She got many nice compliments from the judges and ringside observers.  Cava loves to show and is ridiculously happy in in the ring.

Kona (Blazingstar Brown Coneflower) was entered on the last day and she won the open female class, which was very nice.

Thank-you so much to my friends Pat and Julia for helping me to wrangle 3 dogs in the ring! 

Sam WCX

Last Sunday Sam and Sylvia earned their Working Certificate Excellent title!   The Canadian WCX test includes two doubles (on land and in water), a walk-up and honour and two blind retrieves, one on land and one in water.   Sam did a terrific job and is now HR Blazingstar Bobolink JH WCX TD.  Congratulations to Sam and his owners Sylvia and J!   We are very proud of this team.

Thank-you to Rod Deacon for sending us photos!

Ch Blazingstar Puffin

At the Medicine Hat dog show last weekend, Puffin finished her Canadian Championship.   On Friday she won Best of Breed from the senior puppy class, winning over Tinbie and Cava, who were entered as champions.  This gave her the last 2 points she needed to finish.   She finished under well-respected judge Virginia Lyne. 

We moved her up to show in the champion class for the rest of the weekend.  On Saturday she was Best of Opposite to Tinbie and on Sunday she won Best of Breed again, with Tinbie winning Best of Opposite.

Also at the show, Willow, Blazingstar Brown Buffalobean, owned and shown by Christine, won her first 2 championship points.  Congratulations to Willow and Christine!

Congratulations to Eirik!

This is Flat Garden's Eirik XVIII.  He is Cava's sire.   Eirik is a Norwegian-bred dog that is owned by Llantrussa kennel in Wales.  Last weekend he won his first CC (Challenge Certificate) and Best of Breed at the WELKS show, under judge Mrs. Rosalie Brady.

We have not had a chance to meet Eirik in person, although Liz met his brother, Sverre at Crufts last year.   It was great to see some more recent photos of him and to hear of his success in the show ring.   Congratulations to Eirik and his owner, Christin, and breeders, Jon and Finn!

Happy Birthday to the Shorebirds!

Our Shorebird litter (Karo x Tally) turned 7 years old on April 24th.  It's hard to believe that they are now officially "veterans".  

Tala (Blazingstar Black Turnstone) had the good fortune to spend her birthday weekend with us and she seemed to thoroughly enjoy all the river time.  She has not slowed down one bit:

Silly Tala!

Leading everyone on a merry chase.... (Tala's in the lead)

Happy Birthday to Indy, Storm, Begbie, Tala, Kitty, Tima, Macleod, Harry & Dillon.  Dooley is very sadly missed - gone too soon. 

Roekkr CDI

Last weekend, Roekkr completed his CDI (Companion Dog Intermediate) in Thunder Bay.  We don't have the intermediate obedience classes offered here in Alberta very often.  So for those of you that are unfamiliar with them, the CDI is an intermediate level between CD and CDX.  The excercises are: Honour, Heel Free and Figure 8, Stand for Examination, Recall Holding Dumbbell , Drop from Heel and the Broad Jump.  

Congratulations to Roekkr, Joey & Linda! 

CH Blazingstar Longspur at Labrys Can CDI JH WC RA Am CD WCX RE

(back when he was 10 weeks old and didn't have any titles!)

Happy 8th Birthday Lupine!

Lupine turned 8 years old today. She celebrated with some bumper games in the snow. Yes, snow!

 

Here she is showing off her grey chin and her great teeth!

Lupine has always had a characteristic POUNCE when she gets to the bumper

There's that POUNCE again!

Ambition, Perserverance and Success

Flat-coats are very determined dogs.  When they put their mind to something, they keep trying until they succeed.   Puffin is no exception.  She likes to grab a piece of firewood as we head out on a walk.  Usually the firewood gets forgotten on the prairie somewhere, and our firewood pile is rapidly disappearing.   So we picked up and stacked the split firewood, out of Puffin's reach, leaving only the logs that still needed to be split. 

This did not deter Puffin:

Puffin is not our first firewood retriever.  Tally used to do the same thing:

And Tally's daughter, Pipit:

Puffin's Big Weekend

Puffin had some success at the Red Deer Show.  On Friday she won Winners Female for 2 points.  On Saturday she cleaned up, winning Best of Breed, Best of Winners and Best Puppy from the 6-9 month class for another 3 points.  She is now just 2 points from finishing her championship. 

Lupine - Scent Hurdle Dog

Keen and ready to race at the start of the night!

Lupine was starting to wonder if she was ever going to get her dinner!

Drummer, Token, Ryder & Lupine

Due South scent hurdle racing team

Our Due South team raced at the Red Deer show on the weekend and I'm pretty sure that Lupine finished her Scent Hurdle Dog title, as she only needed 3 clean runs to finish.  The racing was great fun, but with 9 teams entered, we raced until 11pm!  Even Lupine was getting rather tired towards the end.  Our team did very well, with a few hiccups, but fewer than the last time we ran. 

Update:  It's been confirmed, Lupine and Kona both completed their SHD titles!

Kona on the Move

As promised, here is a short video of Kona and Judy in the Open Female class.

New Blazingstar Champion - Ch Blazingstar Brown Coneflower RN

Congratulations to Kona and her owners, Judy and Allan!   Kona won Winners Female on Sunday at the Red Deer show, gaining her final 2 championship points.  She looked lovely in the ring and was shown by Judy.

When I can figure out some technical issues, I will post a video of Kona in the ring.

The night before, Kona and Lupine raced on the Due South scent hurdle racing team.  Kona did a wonderful job!

Kona and Judy waiting for their turn to race