Meet the new puppy.

Are you ready for some supper adorable puppy pictures?

Well here you go!

Puppy in a cup.

It's Puppy time!

Puppy attack!

Not my puppy not exactly but he is part of the extended family. By that I mean he is  my mom's  new puppy and I figured it was about time I introduced him. She has had him for a little over a month but as you can tell because I just finished writing about the dog show in June I am a little behind in updates.

Puppy pose.

This is Napoleon, called Poe for short. He is a Yorkshire Terrier puppy. My mom requested they not dock his tail she really likes it when Yorkies have there natural long tail.

Puppy racing.

He is an adorable little guy really brave and friendly. He has the wonderful classic puppy personality that has never met a stranger he loves everyone and just wants to go go go. He loves Sadie and Simon and does not really seem intimidated by the large size difference. He will chase them around it takes a lot of effort to try to keep up with such larger legs.

Puppy Kisses.

For some reason he has decided that Simon is the best thing ever, Simon doesn't like it but he puts up with the attention. Po will climb on Simon  when he lays down and I even caught  him snuggled up next to Simon but they moved before I could get a picture. I make sure to give Simon a break if he seams to have had to much of the attention.

Puppy and his hero.

Sadie on the other hand likes him just like she has with every puppy she has ever meet. She plays with him and will even lay down to be more on his level. I have seen her crawl on the ground army man style so she is as close to on his level as she can get.

Puppy jumping for joy.

June Trial Part 3.

Simon with all the ribions from the trial.

Over the next few days Simon did better than I had hoped. However he did show me a lot of things we need to work on and his performance was not always ideal. I also think three days of a trial was a little overwhelming for him and towards the end although he still seemed to enjoy hanging out with me and exploring he didn't seam very motivated to do the exercises.

Working on relaxing.

In the end we received six qualifying scores. Four in obedience and two in rally. This meant that he had surpassed the requirement for his beginner novice title in obedience (you only need 3 qualifying scores but I had entered for all four days of the trial so I figured it would be good practice for him) and we had two out of three legs for his rally novice title. We hadn't prepared as much for rally as obedience and it showed. Also during the first and last day I made some handling errors that ended up costing us.  Still it was better than I had expected for first trial for both of us and it was a good experience.

Relaxing, napping same thing.

The big things we need to work on is improving his focus especially when heeling. He would lose focus sniffing, lagging and forging. Most of the higher levels will require off leash work so we will really have to improve. He also had a bad reaction to a German Sheppard while we were there puffing up and growling. I talked to the owner after apologizing for his behavior and she thanked me saying that her dog was about to have the same reaction when I moved Simon away. The dog was giving Simon some pretty hard eye contact before but I hope to get Simon to a place where he doesn't react like that in the future.

My friend and her show/sled dog Keegan. 

Other than our own stuff Simon and I enjoyed watching the agility dogs and the conformation dogs.
I had friends in both so it was fun to cheer them on and relax when I wasn't showing with Simon.

My other friend and her Borzoi Ranger. 

Also I figured some training to settle in strange situations was a good idea, He did pretty good most of the time in what I would consider really weird situations for him but occasionally we had to move back so he would behave and could settle down. I really enjoyed the experience it was a great place to show and the support I had from all my friends there was amazing.

Some photos from dog watching.

Afghan

Standard Poodle

More poodles.

Portuguese Water Dog.

Irish wolf hound.

Samoyed.

Cane Corso.

June Trial Part 2.

Thursday was the first day of the trial and I wanted everything to go well. That morning we woke up super early and when to the dog park for a hour so Sadie and Simon could play. After that Nik walked Sadie while I hooked Simon up to the bike and we did about two miles.  I was doing my best to make sure Simon had some of his energy used up and he would be on his best behavior. I was a little terrified that he might be naughty in a public setting.

I had been to this trial before because it is really close to my home. But this would be my first time going as a competitor not a spectator. I really love this trial it takes up most of the Blackfoot fair grounds and always has so much going on. They have conformation, agility, rally and obedience. They also have places for people to camp on site and grooming stations for the conformation people.  Because Thousands of people go to this show they have a ton of awesome vendors as well. All kinds of dog leashes, collars, treats, grooming supplies, dog beds, crates, as well as food vendors for the humans.

As I mentioned before I knew a lot of people at this trial and I was lucky to have some friends that let me put Simon's crate and my stuff in there tent so I could leave it/him and know he would be safe. We got there pretty early in the morning and I set up my stuff and then we walked over the to Livestock building that obedience and rally would be in. I checked in for both of them and walked Simon around the area to get him used to it. We had a few hours before we were due in the ring so I walked Simon around the whole fair ground so he could go the bathroom and get any extra energy out. We also worked on some attention games I was trying to keep his focus on me. I also ran into a friend from out of town that I didn't know was going to be there who offered to come watch us in the ring.

When it was time for us to go in the ring I was pretty stressed and it didn't help that I was scheduled back to back in obedience and then in the rally ring. Obedience was first and Simon did a fantastic job considering the new situation. His stays and recall went amazing. The one thing I really would want to improve is more attentive heeling. We then went straight to the rally ring.  I hadn't prepared for rally as much I thought I had and we didn't do very well in the ring that first day. I wasn't sure what all the signs meant I didn't know there was a map I could have looked at before and I felt rushed and stressed. We didn't qualify in rally but we did in obedience. I got to talk to a lot of my dog training friends after and they congratulated me on on first qualify score in obedience as well as offering tips to improve our rally performance. I was told about the maps and given a book that explained what every sign meant. Also  offered to walk me through any of the signs I still wasn't sure on the next day.