Black & White Sunday: Trying to Catch Her

A girl and her 2 boys!  

3rd Bloggiversary!

Looks like I missed Tails of Teach's 3rd Bloggiversary!  It was on Sunday the 13th.  I can't believe I've kept this going for 3 years already.  Even though this past year has really slacked off with the posts.  Its not for the lack of trying ... LOL!

So when we started the blog our family was a family of 3, myself, Randy and Teach.  Then last year we became a family of 4 with addition of Tucker.  I guess at some point I should have changed the name from Tails of Teach to Tails of Teach and Tucker since I mostly post about both of them now.  But I'm leaving it for now.  Maybe sometime down the line it'll change but for now its still Teach's blog.  He just allows posts about Tucker.  HAHA!

I think my last "true" post was back in October or the first of November with a recap of Tucker's show at the East TN Collie Specialty.  Since then we have taken Tucker to one more show in Pennsylvania.  But we weren't so lucky at that show and didn't come home with any ribbons (but still came home with the best dog!).

On the way home we stopped at Gettysburg Battlefield to walk around and stretch our legs.  And of course I had to get pictures.  It was right around sunset so we got some really cool pictures.

Teach and Tucker continue to excel with their agility training.  There is a show coming up the first weekend of January we are going to.

Tucker has accomplished doing 6 straight weave poles for about 3 weeks now.  So proud of him.  Doing them 2x2 is the only way to go!!  I think it took us about 6 months to get here.

Teach is still learning them.  I've struggled finding a motivator for him doing the 2x2 method and our awesome trainer told me to have him weave for dinner.  So that's what we do now.  I put an empty bowl on the reward line and if does them he gets a bite.  And we do this until dinner is gone.  We are also progressing, albeit slow!  

Lets see ... I've been taking lots of pictures so I have no excuse for not posting on Black and White Sunday or Wordless Wednesday.  I need to learn to use the scheduler and start scheduling these posts!  

I did get try my camera skills getting pictures of Madalynn with Teach and Tucker for Christmas Card pictures for my family.  We got some really cute ones!!  Everyone did so well and if wasn't for Madalynn's favorite (Uncle Randy) we wouldn't have gotten smiles from her.  HAHA!

So with that I'm going to save some pictures for future posts and not share all!  Thanks to everyone who has stuck around to read and see the pictures.  Maybe one of these days's I'll get better at writing blog posts.  Until then ... enjoy the pictures.

Wordless Wednesday: We Want What You Have!

Monday Mischief: First Agility Show 'n' Go For The Boys

Yesterday we went to our first Agility trial.  It was a Show 'n' Go for NADAC and offered Touch 'n' Go and Regular Classes.

This was in a newer faclity where the footing was sand (it was an indoor horse arena) so besides adding the new atmosphere of a trial we were also getting some new footing experience.

Over all both boys did excellent.  We've only been taking lessons regularly since May so I really didn't expect a whole lot.  But wanted this experience to be fun and for them to enjoy themselves.  I do think we accomplished both.

I only entered the Touch 'n' Go and did 3 runs with Tucker and 2 with Teach.

Tucker was up first and I didn't follow the set course, instead I just ran through a few obstacles and called it good at the end of the dog walk.  We had once instance of him running off to sniff but over all he listened fairly well considering he was mach-90 through there (or it felt that way).  I love videos because I felt he was all over the place when I was out there, but seeing the video he wasn't really that bad, even looked good.

Here's videos of the second and third run.  The second I felt was our best.  We did go off course at the tunnels, but again I wasn't focusing on doing the whole course, I just wanted him to listen, go through the tunnels, and get his contacts.  

We still need a lot of practice to be trial ready but seeing and experiencing this was good for us so I could see there is hope we'll be able to get out there and compete.  I need to work on my handling a lot more (I'll always say the boys are handler handicapped) especially with Tucker where he's so fast.  I can see a lot of stuff I did wrong.  Gotta love a video!  And they do say you're your hardest critic.

Now for Teach, who I was SOOOOO proud of, he was a rock star.  I think where he is slower and also has a lot more obedience/rally under his belt he listens/focuses better so I felt better about his run.  His first was his best and we almost has a collision in the second.  Like I said ... I still need LOTS of work ... probably even more than the dogs.

One more note, and I'm not sure you can hear it on the video but Teach and Tucker had their biggest fan there watching, Madalynn.  She LOVES her boys and every time they got on the dogwalk (which was closest to her) I heard her squealing in joy.  Thankfully Tucker never did go see her, which really could have happened.  I think she enjoyed her first agility experience as well.

Over all this was a great experience for us.  Agility has been something I've always wanted to try and I'm so thankful to have found a great trainer relatively close!  

Now some of you may wonder why I added this to the Monday Mischief Blog Hop since it sounds like we did great at the trial.  Well the mischief has to do with Madalynn and Tucker.  When they are together for dinner time this is what you always see:

And if you notice she is concentrating really hard on sharing her food with Tucker.  Some may think Tucker likes this position because food is dropped by her, but its because she always gives him some of her food.  These two are going to be trouble!

Black & White Sunday: These Two...

A Real Post

WOW ... It's been a long time since I've actually posted anything.  There's a reason ... our life has been busy and boring ... HAHA!

Several weeks ago my family lost our Grandma.  She was 92 years old and lived a very full and wonderful life.  We're all going to miss her!

My Grandma and I at my wedding in 2011.

The boys have been good.  They are keeping us busy.  As you saw yesterday they got to start agility lessons.  I've wanted to do try agility for a long time.  My friend Laura has built equipment but I found out yesterday that's the easy part of agility.  Its all about handling and the dog being focused on you.  We have a long road ahead and I look forward to trying it with both of them.

Of course there has been time for hiking.  I can always find time to throw that in there.

Had lots of backyard fun.

We celebrated Tucker's first birthday and also our niece Madalynn's!  Hard to believe they are both a year old.

We do have a conformation and obedience show in 2 weeks.  Teach has one more leg for his BN title and we're hoping for some points for Tucker!!

That's a good run down of what has been going on with us lately.  I hope to get back on a regular schedule with posts.

Black & White Sunday: A Few Christmas Pics

Christmas Eve at the In-Laws

Christmas Morning, with their stockings

A girl and her boys, Christmas edition

Black & White Sunday: Seriously Cute

A girl and her boys

Beginner Novice

I meant to have this post out last Monday and didn't get around to it.  So here it is a week late.

Teach and I went to Magic Valley KC dog show 2 weeks ago and showed in Beginner Novice for the first time.

We have been working on this for some time now after finishing our Rally title last spring.  I wasn't nearly as nervous about this as I was with Rally just for the fact it was all ON LEASH!

Teach had several people come to see him.  One which was his biggest fan.

She even had her Smooth Collies are my Best Friend shirt on!

Here is the video of our performance.  He didn't sit on the figure 8 so I figured that is where we lost our points.

We came in 2nd in a class of 7 with a score of 195.  I was very proud of him.  He was very happy and relaxed.  The judge was also very complimentary of him and said you don't see Smooth Collies very often. 

Our next show will be at Winston-Salem in a few weeks.

Introducing Teach's New Brother, Tucker!!!

That's right ... we have a new member to our family.  His name is Tucker and he is a 12 week old Blue Merle Smooth Collie.

He flew in yesterday from Colorado Springs from Wild Wind Collies.  He is out of Ch. Wild Wind's Rev On The Red Line "Flyn" and Ch. Wild Wind's Deuces Are Wild, CD, HSAsd, RA, VA "Deuce".  

I'll be honest ... we weren't completely ready for a puppy and had told Shelley we wanted to wait until next year.  But things happen for a reason and this little guy became available ... so here he is now.

It was a very stressful day for us yesterday with getting him here from the West.  He got on the plane in Colorado at 7:50 their time and was to arrive in Chicago around 11:30 central time.  Well his flight had to be diverted to Springfield, IL because of storms and held there for 1/2 hour.  So he was about an hour late getting into Chicago. From there he was to leave at 2:30 central time and arrive at 5:20 eastern time in Charlotte.  Well he didn't get to Charlotte until about 7:30 and we didn't get him until almost 8:15.  We kept checking flight aware as minutes would tick by and his flight kept getting delayed.

Randy and I decided to head to Wal-Mart to buy cleaning supplies because I knew he would be a mess.  He was in the crate for over 12 hours.  That is a very long time for a 12 week old puppy.  Surprisingly he wasn't that bad and came out of the crate wiggling and wanting to pay.  Completely unfazed.  We got home last night with him after midnight, played for about an hour and then went to bed.  He cried for 2 minutes then never heard a peep out of him.  Slept through the night and no accidents.

So Teach now has a little brother and I do think they both are going to get along just great!

Tucker also got to meet his little cousin, Madalynn.  She is only 3 weeks younger than him.  Its going to be so much fun to see those two grow up together.  

Its going to be fun to see this new adventure unfold and become a multi-dog family.