Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Kenzie at 6.5 months

Some shots from Kenzie's first trip up the River.

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My first attempt at a stacked photo of her - 1 week shy of 7 months

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And a natural standing pose

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Monday, October 27, 2008

Kenzie's Herding Instinct Test

Other than a brief turn on ducks at the age of 16 weeks this was to be Kenzie's first exposure to sheep. It was a very long day that started with taking both girls for a run at the beach and then a drive down to Mt Compass for herding. We weren't on until nearly 2pm and my little girl was suitably buggered.

Any way nope she didn't pass her instinct test but 3 judges outside the ring would have passed her. I thought she did very well looking at the video and the verdict was to put her up for about a month and then take her back. If it had been a lesson situation the thought was she just might have been happy to go around the sheep by the end of the lesson. She was certainly very keen to get back in there and when they were moving she was really quite excited. On Sunday we had ducks - she certainly wasn't as keen as she was on the sheep. In fact she was really quite tired when I got her out the car to work her. She was starting to switch on and then a darn duck flapped in her face so that was enough for her to decide that they were scary. She was really nice on them at 16 weeks and the judges thoughts were that she needs a bit of maturity and maybe that will improve her confidence. So no pass on ducks either. The judge had seen her the day before on sheep and did say it was a bugger as she would have passed her on the sheep if she had been judging her on those.

Here is a link to her Sheep video:

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Training Session 22 October 08

Agreed to catch up with Tash for a session and thought I would take the opportunity to video some of Kenzie's work. Her heelwork is absolutely stunning and I am so tickled pink her with her. She is coming along fantastically and shaping into a very nice performance dog.

Monday, October 20, 2008

Kenzie's First Freestyle Demo - Meadows Country Fair

No videos or photos from today - but it was Kenzie's first "canine freestyle demo". We did 2 demos. She was good in the pen with Ness and while a bit scared of the people she tolerated at least a few kids patting her whilst I fed her.

Her demos consisted of puppy heelwork, sits, drops, going around, tugging, retrieving her toy and fronts. She did very well for such a little baby. The second demo she was pretty visibly stressed before I took her into the ring we had but once I got her doing a few hand touches etc she was happy working off-lead in a pen with people packed around the outside. Doing very nice attentive puppy style heelwork and interacting with me (even if she spent a lot of time hanging off my sleeve). Even the horse smells from the pen didn't distract her (much less can be said about her sisters performance).

She coped with the surroundings well and was extremely interested in the sheep. As long as people didn't want to pat her she wasn't bothered but we still need to work at her tolerating people patting her.

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Kenzie 6 month photo Update

Some photos of Kenzie taken in the last 24 hours:

First up we have Kenzie and the red ball obsession. She will chase this ball around the yard until I confiscate it. Problem is I gave her a purple one and I think it ended up lost in the creek never to be seen again so now its a strictly supervised affair.

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Next up posing for the camera.

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Then we have some of Kenzie and Ness:

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