Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Zisc! Another Westpaw Review

We love Westpaw, mostly because they offer this fantastic one-time replacement guarantee. I can test a toy out with Reiker, if it's not tough enough, they'll give me a free one (usually then an Archie-only toy) and I'm not out anything!

The WestPaw Zisc is a flexible frisbee toy made from Zogoflex rubber. It floats, stays on top of the snow pretty well, and doesn't mind being frozen or out in the hot sun. I expect you could dishwasher it, if you had a dishwasher!

I got my first one from a booth at an Agility trial in 2009 or so. It was blue, and Archie loved it immediately:

From Archie

From Archie

From Archie

He played with it on and off for a couple years. When I brought Reiker home, Reiker played with it a bit, but then I left it with him unattended by mistake and it ended up with a hole in the middle! I was immediately reassured by the guarantee policy, and traded it for an Orange one.

A terrible photo, but Archie shows his glee to have a Zisc again!

From Archie
"Yipeeeee!"

From Archie
"It's mine. You can't have it."

From Archie
"Oh but just throw it? Please?"

It's also good for tugging on:

From Archie

But mostly for fetching:

From Archie

And some video of the dogs playing with it:



Sunday, December 9, 2012

Sheela's first Q!!!

This is not a rescue related post. It's just an agility post!

Sheela was my gramma's puppy. She had some agility training up until about 1.5 yrs old, then was hit by a car and lived as a pampered house pet until about age 5. She and I did some more training together, and some competing without much success. She's since gone to live with a new family, where I joke she "Lays on the couch and eats bonbons" all day. Basically, a pampered pet!

But, once in a while, she still gets to come out to trials!



And a Q! Her other run of the day wasn't so spectacular.. Benji, her used-to-be-housemate, was ringside and she went out to visit him!



But we did get a nice photo with the Judge! This could very well be her only Q ever, so... Enjoy the moment, Sheela!


Thursday, December 6, 2012

Sasha/Gentoo Update!


Of course you can. She is kind of like your baby too...
She is a great dog, but needs to be worked with her coming back when called once or twice.. not a billion times... She is VERY social.. which is normal as that is my personality. She rarely barks - only when in her run outside and by herself. Her only other downfall is she will go up to strange dogs in dog park or on off leash walks along river and want to kiss every single dog... She wags her tail and lick, lick, lick..

She runs like the wind. OMG can she run.. She is like a greyhound dog..


She has brought great joy to our family!




That's a lot of teeth..

Monday, December 3, 2012

Dog Park Adventures

When I'm staying downtown, I occasionally use the downtown dog park. It's fully fenced with 6+ft chain link, and kept in good repair. In the summer, it has a water tap, and there are a couple benches and a couple trees. It's not huge, but more than enough space to run Reiker stupid, even with a chuckit. There are two entrances, so unless something really strange happens, I can always just squeak out the other entrance when someone comes in.

Reiker only attends the park when it's empty, or when people I know are the only ones there (ie: Gypsy). Today, Reiker and I were playing in the empty park after waiting for a small poodle to leave. A lady drove up, so we headed out. She put her dog in the park and returned to sit in her car (!!) while I put Reik away. As he was getting in the car, she asked if he wanted to play. I said no, but my other dog might. I went to get Arch and dawdled a bit (not planning to take him into a park with an unattended dog!) waiting for the cars to stop zooming past. She finally got out of her car, and I let her go by me to get into the park before I brought him in.

Arch was fine (I knew he would be, obviously) with the dog, and we chatted a bit. She wanted to know how Reiker and Arch got along, and wanted to know who could train her dog for protection. She was thrilled when I explained that she could just use her "speak" training and teach the dog to growl-bark on the cue "Guard". Her .. husband? came later and was also enthusiastic about it.

We stayed for about half an hour, some smaller dogs came and went, Archie mostly played ball.

Then, a man drove up and unloaded a catahoula cross. He had it on a choke collar and was using his hand to 'correct' the dog's face somehow. I wasn't close enough to see if he was hitting the dog or poking it or something else. I quickly determined the dog was on a metal collar and likely to be inhibited, so I leashed Archie and we zoomed out of the park. He only chased one car! I crated him in the car and discovered I didn't have any Five Star business cards, so I just wrote the website on a parking pass, and went back into the park to give it to Tara, the lady with the dog Arch was playing with. She seemed grateful, hopefully she'll contact us!

Overall a positive experience, but how do you explain why it's so risky to let a dog play with a metal-collared dog without offending anyone? I really wish I had an article..


A different trip to the same dog park...

Sunday, December 2, 2012

West One Year Update!!




Hello Courtenay, 

It's now been over a year that West joined us and it's amazing to see how much progress he has made.

Fast learner for good and bad.
He is a super little dog, very special !
He comes and cuddles with us in bed first thing in the morning before we get up.
He and Nina are getting along really well, lots of play time going on.
He's not herding her as much.
We are working on retrieving balls and Frisbees instead.
I take him to my friend's farm to visit with sheep but he could careless.
Too bad considering his very strong herding instincts.









He is doing very well with people generally and will often go forward to say hello.

Still a few things triggering lunching and barking.
People walking on the road with a dog on the leach ??? 
Strangers (usually men) approaching too fast.
He is doing much better with my husband, they play "come peek" on our walks.
Thanks to my husband who has been very patient with him and all the barking at the beginning.
He has gained 3 lbs (he on raw) 





I'm sending a couple of videos and a few pictures of this past year.








The Agility video is from 2 weeks ago, i entered him in 8 runs and he "Q" 4.
We are now in adv. jumpers, (1 more to Masters) and adv. gamblers.





Thanks again for doing all the ground work with him,

he is an awesome dog, i love him dearly.

Valerie