There's a Storm a Brewin'

Meet JLS Storm a Brewin', "Twister," our friend Susan's 3-1/2-month-old Dal puppy! We were at USDAA agility this weekend and finally got to meet this sweet, handsome liver baby.

Here's Twister stretched out in the cool grass.

Jazz was completely enthralled with little Twister. At first, she was a bit jealous that I was paying attention to him, but she quickly found out that he's lots of fun to play with!


There was lots of play bowing and chewing on each other.


I was really pleased with how well Jazz did with Twister. Although we have no puppy plans, it's nice to know that Jazz would accept a puppy and have fun, too!




While Jazz and Twister were getting to know each other, Tess and Twister's big brother Ripley were running agility at a USDAA Dog Agility Masters Tournament. It's a team competition, and our original team was supposed to be Tess, Ripley, and our adopted Border Collie Sammie. The team name was "Dalmatian Sammich" (two Dalmatians with Sammie sandwiched in between). Well, Ripley's owner had a knee injury a few weeks ago, but she was going to work hard in physical therapy and tape her knee so she could run on the team. Unfortunately, Sammie's owner fell the week of the tournament and broke her wrist in two places, so she couldn't run Sammie on the team. Then the day after she broke her wrist, I ended up in the emergency room with kidney stones! We were a medical disaster!!




Fortunately for our team, a friend with another Border Collie named Seeker stepped in to fill Sammie's place on the team. Since Jan is an EMT and we had had so many medical emergencies, we changed the team name to "Rescue 911"! Susan managed to hobble through the courses with Ripley, who ran incredibly well for having an injured handler, and Tess and Seeker ran nicely and "Rescue 911" came in third place in the team competition, earning a very nice bronze medal.



As for me, I spent the two days at the trial drinking gallons of water, visiting the ladies room, and playing with the puppy :)

Splash 'n Dash Luau

This past Sunday, our training club, Splash 'n Dash, held a summer luau. We enjoyed beautiful weather and had lots of fun with our friends and their dogs!

Here's Tess in her Hawaiian shirt and Jazz in her grass skirt

Rocky, Tess, Jazz, and Sammie enjoying the sunshine

Everybody in the pool!

Obedience Class Today

Jazz's Misty Pines obedience class met at Wexford Plaza Shopping Center today for some real-world obedience training.

We practiced heeling with all the distractions of an outdoor shopping plaza, as well as sits and downs. Here's Jazz in a sit-stay at the flower shop. All the dogs wound their way through the flower shop past all the plants, which was probably more of a challenge for the boys than the girls :)


Then it was off to the pet store, where we had to leave the dogs in down-stays in the aisles while we shopped!


Here's the whole lineup of dogs from our class at the plaza.

We ended our class with down-stays at Starbuck's. All the dogs stayed in a down outside while our instructor treated us to a drink at Starbuck's. Jazz did very well with all the distractions and the other dogs and I'd say she passed Shopping 101 with flying colors! It was a great experience to take our training on the road and practice in a different environment. I hope we have the opportunity to do it again soon!