A long needed update

WOW I've been terrible at keeping this up sorry about that! Overall there hasn't been much to update. Bella and Hush continued to do Agility classes and doing awesome at it.

Bella did quite a bit of travelling with our friend and dog groomer Lorna and Ashley Phillips of "It's a Dog's Life" where she was used in grooming competitions. Lorna, and her daughter Ashley are amazing groomers and we highly recommend her salon! I see it as a testiment to the temperament of Bella. Here she just jumps into their family like a new member, travels, flies, does all the tourist things with them and is a well behaved ambassador to what the Standard Poodle is.

Not much has happened since last fall Bella finished her Rally Advanced title (CKC) last fall. We have decided at this time with school (mine) kids, and work we're going to just continue enjoying our dogs, working towards performance titles as we can.

I'm now into my graduate studies at the University of Saskatchewan, which is fairly life encompassing, so our dogs may be not out winning titles but we're taking classes, and getting out and about as we can.

A great update from our Kiah x Quade litter. Kacie (Ravenwood's Moulin Rouge) debuted at her first Flyball Tournaments this weekend and earned her FD and FDX! Way to go Kacie and her mom/handler Kari P.!

Spring is here! sorta. . . .

Well Spring weather is finally coming too us. It means backyard full of mud and slush and dirty dogs but they love it. It also means I'm in my last stretch of school for the year and have my head in the books.

Oz has found his family and left on Friday. He's only a couple hours away and is going to have a farm to play on and has a new small buddy to live with. We're going to miss him here but am so happy with his family- like I am with all my puppies families.

Agility started this week. Both Kiah and Bella are back in classes. It's been over a year for Bella with her puppies last year and she was SO happy to be back at it! She remembered pretty much everything (well except weaves but hey she's fabulous but not perfect!) and Kiah and Jillian are working well together.

Bella is a total fuzz ball because she is being used by a friend for a grooming competition at the end of May. She absolutely loves going to visit and get bathed and dried- as much as she tries to tell you otherwise I think she loves her 'spa days' I'll post photos after the competition!

Bella so excited to be back at agility

Another Video- Puppies introduced to the tunnel

Poodles make fabulous agility dogs.  Seriously fabulous agility dogs. You can't start jumping puppies until they are closer to a year but until that time foundation work can be done with puppies to set a foundation of confidence, focus and strength for when their body is ready to start doing the physically harder stuff like jumps.

We try to expose our puppies to many things in their weeks with us. The goal is to give them positive confidence building experiences.  This is what we advise our puppies new families to continue.  It is not about exposing them to everything under the sun, but that making sure they gain confidence and it's a positive experience as they get each new experience.  From grooming, to new people, to new places each thing a puppy is exposed to and gains a positive experience from it forms confidence. Confident dogs are dogs who trust their handler, are willing to try new things, and do not fall into fear. Confidence building can improve even on the most timid dog.  Learning new tricks, sit, down, etc all help build confidence in your dog.

So we start on this work at a young age. Today the puppies were exposed to a tunnel- similar to an agility tunnel - but smaller (OK it's a cat tunnel!) it's just the right size to give them the same experience as an agility tunnel they may encounter down the road with their new families.  The puppies proved to all be curious confident puppies trucking through it.  And here's our video showing some of their first exposures to it!

Bella and some more agility videos

Bella is really enjoying agility. She does wish however her mom was a fair bit faster cuing her! It wears her right out- exercise mental and physical- what more can you ask for!

Thanks again to Aiden for keeping me company and videoing

Bella's Agility Adventure

Last month we started into Agility lessons with Bella.  She is absolutely loving it- (though that tire sorta made her think "why" for the first time this week). We have a few weeks left of classes and then a break until spring.

Here's a video of bella working the teeter.  This is the first the teeter has been high enough to really TIP she did really well with it.  (Ignore our bobble with the last jump- Teri and bag= treats the rest of the lesson so why not now? )

Thanks to my son Aiden for coming out and using his new playbook to get this video for me