The last few weeks have been very exciting and very busy.
Kate and Bing BOTH earned their Canine Good Citizen cerfiticates last weekend at the AKC Conformation show at the high school. Bing has gained so much confidence with the herding that we decided to give it a go. In the past I’ve been concerned about how he would do with Accepting a friendly stranger, supervised seperation, and greeting another dog. The sheep have helped him to blossom and have given his training a real boost. He surpassed my expectations with the CGC – no problems with the friendly stranger or supervised seperation, and only a minor (and fully acceptable) amount of quickly calmed barking with the neutral dog. Kate’s sticking spot in the past has been supervised seperation. A small amount of whining, again, easily calmed. We were very proud of them.
We’ve been taking herding lessons Friday mornings since the herding instinct test 8 weeks ago. It’s nearly all cardigans which makes it especially fun. We are quite proud of the good showing cardigans made this weekend.
This weekend was the AKC Herding trial. Both judges were sticklers for no ‘gripping’, which was challenging for Bing as he likes to taste the sheep. He qualified both days on his Herding Test, working with me to take his sheep through a mishapen figure 8 around cones, with two changes of directions and an acceptable recall. He was amazing and has really found his calling. Kissing the judge is a lovely example of how far our beloved Bing man has come in the last 2 months.
Kate. Holy cow, Kate! At their herding instinct test 8 weeks ago, and at her early lessons, Kate seemed more concerned with breaking a nail than getting the sheep. This weekend she was celebrating Indepence Day with a rocket up her keister. That girl was flying loops around me, leaving me completely bewildered and wondering where my ‘calm’ corgi went. Somehow we managed to get the sheep around the cones. She was quite reluctant to recall today, and I was afraid we were going to blow it (normally she has quite a nice recall). But she finally got a few brain cells to rub together and despite the seductive siren call of the sheep came back to me and so qualified both days.
We won 6 stunningly beautiful ribbons (a ‘qualified’ ribbon for each dog, each day, and a ‘new title’ ribbon for each dog today).
Streaker and Cory, Bing and Kate’s classmates had really nice runs and also earned their HT’s.
Everyone is sacked out. More soon.
CH Wales Tails Kiss Me Kate, HT, CGC
“Bing”, Wales Tails Roque’s Crooner, HT, CGC
