2009 has been a varied year for my dog adventures and some traveling.

Ariba, the Princess is 11.5 years old.  She is pictured below in her Princess crown.  Slow down is not in her criteria.  She completed her Master Agility Champion #13 this year and now has 18 of the Double Qualifiers out of the needed 20 towards her MACH14.  She was shown sparingly this year as we concentrated more on obtaining titles with Chica.

Chica was shown in February and April and obtained her Companion Dog Excellent title in AKC Obedience.  We are now in training for our 3rd level of Obedience called the Utility Dog.   This is a much more diverse training but she is doing very well and we will be showing her this upcoming February. 

Starting in April, I concentrated on showing Chica in a different venue called USDAA agility.  She completed this very difficult title in 10 weekends and 1 day going from the beginning levels to Agility Dog Champion.  There are really no local shows in USDAA agility so this meant that we had to do more traveling this year than we have in the past. 

Cindy decided with this much traveling; Dan should have a new toy – a GPS system.  He in the past had used maps to plot our way to the shows….but with modern technology – The Garmin has proven to be very easy.  He also decided to try out a new adventure called geocaching.  You use your GPS system to find things that are left behind by another person.  It can be a small tube with a rolled up piece of paper in it with a pencil, so you can write your name on it when you find it or it may be much more elaborate and bigger container containing a note pad and other trinkets that those who found it before may add to it.  Interestingly enough this is a world wide game.  We found that there were 3 items hidden in the fields where we take the girls for their twice daily walks and 1 located near Camp Bandy where most of our local agility trials are held.  

We continued our herding work with the ducks.  She finished her Herding Started Course A in May and also obtained 2 legs towards her Course B ducks.  In the B Course the ducks are not contained by any fences.  So this means that you better be able to keep all your little ducks in a row.  In September, my friend Cheryl worked with Chica to finish up her B Course title on ducks as I had to work that weekend.  You can see a video of Chica and Cheryl at http://www.nightflightbordercollie.com/queenguinevere.htm

Just click on the picture of Chica herding her ducks.

In July Chica finished her MACH2 in the AKC agility program.  Overall Chica completed 8 different titles this year.

Cindy decided to cut down to 2 days a week at the Portage County Home.  Even with that there is little time left in the schedule.  Besides the dog training there is teaching agility classes every Wed. at Camp Bandy, doing photography and working on keeping the web site updated. Both of us continue to take the girls for their daily walks in the mornings for an hour and in the evening it is a toss up whether Dan comes along again or my walking partner, Marcia and her 3 dogs. 

We were able to spend some time this past summer at my brother’s cottage where the girls got to go swimming.  This is a favorite past time for the both of them.