I love Agility! I love running and jumping!

Hi! It's Cinnamon!

Yesterday we went to Agility training for the first time in a long while.

As you may have read in Mint's last post about Obedience and Rally-O competitions last weekend, I didn't enjoy Rally-O. The quiet competition ring made me very nervous and it was also hard not to bark in the ring.

So, yesterday Mum looked worried when she took my leash off before starting our run. It seems she thought that I might not want to work with her, just like I didn't at the Rally-O competition last weekend.

But, Agility is a different thing for me!! I love Agility. So, I enjoyed running and jumping, following her cues!

I just wish she hadn't made a mistake by saying "Walk on" instead of "Bang" at the See-Saw!! "Walk on" is a cue that Mum uses to make me go up a Dog Walk or an A Frame, while "Bang" is a cue for a See-Saw. Because she said "Walk on", I ran onto the See-Saw without slowing down, and, when I reached the end of the plank, it suddenly disappeared from underneath me, giving me a fright!!

When she made me go onto the See-Saw again, I felt somewhat scared, although I managed it fine in the end.

I love Agility!

However, it was so much fun overall!! I hope Mum doesn't make mistakes at our first Agility competition this year next weekend!!!

Our first Obedience and Rally-O competitions this year

Hello. I am Mint!

As Cinnamon reported in her last post about our first ever camping, I finally won Elementary Freestyle in a live competition five years after my debut in the sport!

In this post I am going to report about our first Obedience and Rally-O competitions this year, which were held the day after the Paws'n'Music competition.

On the day I entered Obedience Novice and Rally-O Excellent A 1 and 2, while Cinnamon entered Rally-O Advanced B 1 and 2.

The first up was one of my Rally Excellent rounds. Well, I enjoyed the course, but I didn't respond to Mum's cues quickly enough at two stations, so I lost two points, meaning it was a fail, as you need to achieve a perfect score 100/100 in order to qualify in the Excellent class.

Next I did Obedience. In fact I didn't get as nervous as I often do in Obedience competitions. When I am nervous, I tend to lag at the start. But, this time I was kind of eager to start. However, I must admit that I forgot to move precisely. For example, at left turns I was supposed to flip my back side with my right shoulder touching Mum's left leg, but I was making loose left turns. In the recall and dumbbell retrieve I had a little crocked sit.

After some wait, I did the group stays in the Novice ring. As you may know, I used to break my stays all the time in Obedience competitions, and because of that I was unable to graduate from the Special Beginners class for five or six years. However, since I became a Novice dog, I have never broken my stays, even though handlers have to stand away from their dogs with their back toward the dog. This time again, at my third competition in the Novice class, I had no trouble doing my stays! Even when a dog next to me lied down in the sit stay, I kept sitting!

After that, Cinnamon had her first Rally Advanced round. Because I was waiting in the car, I didn't witness it, but, according to Mum, Cinnamon didn't enjoy working in the ring. At the start she ran away from the ring, although she did stay with Mum after coming back into the ring. Mum says that it was very hard to keep motivating Cinnamon.

Having a rest in the car between our rounds.

Then, I had my second Rally Excellent round and I did better than I did in the first one. When I was doing the stay in the Rally ring, I heard someone calling Mum's name. It was someone sent by the Obedience judge. She said they needed us for the prizegiving.

As soon as I finished the Rally stay, Mum and I went to the clubhouse for the prizegiving. Can you believe it? I got a 3rd place in Obedience Novice!

I am proud of myself!!

Shortly after that, Cinnamon had her second Rally Advanced round. However, according to Mum, Cinnamon didn't even stay with Mum in the ring, so Mum called it off after several stations.

Now that we had been in all competitions that we had entered, I thought that we were leaving for home soon. But, after packing up all our stuff, Mum once again walked us, as she hadn't given up her hope that I had qualified in my second Rally-O Excellent A round. In fact she was right! I didn't only get a qualifying score (100/100) but also a 2nd place!

I had a photoshoot with my three ribbons
after I had a shampoo at home.

Yay! I got three ribbons in three different sports! I am so happy because Mum looks really happy!

Our first ever camping! And Mint's win in dog dancing!

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

On the weekend we went to our first competitions this year and we camped in Mum's car for the first time ever!

On Friday evening there was the Paws'n'Music (dog dancing) competition in Mangawhai, about 130 km from our house, and on Saturday and Sunday there were Obedience and Rally-O competitions at the same venue.

At first Mum was thinking about participating in the Obedience and Rally-O competitions on Saturday only, but at the last minute she decided to enter the Paws'n'Music competition too. However, the venue was far from where we lived, so Mum decided to stay in her car with us overnight so that she wouldn't have to make two round trips.

We arrived at the venue just before 4pm and the Paws'n'Music competition commenced at 5pm. After the competition, we had a walk around the small town of Mangawhai and then had dinner outside by Mum's car.

We also enjoyed chilling out on the grass and walking around the ground before it got dark.

Chilling after dinner

We went to bed at 9:30pm.

Our bunk bed in the car

I slept upstairs for the first time ever, except at hospitals!! However, it was a little annoying when Mint barked and disturbed my rest when Mum was out at the clubhouse to wash her face and brush her teeth. He is a mother's boy and he often barks if he can't see her for a long time. I wonder when he will grow out of it!

Because we were tired from the drive from home and also performing in the competition, we all had a very good sleep, although at first Mint was trying to get Mum's attention for a while by scratching the floor of his crate, which Mum ignored :-P

We woke up at 6:30 in the morning. As soon as we got out of the car, we enjoyed a good sniff at the wet grass.

So many interesting smells!

I think our breakfast was lighter than usual, as I still felt hungry after eating it.

By the way Mint won Elementary Freestyle in the Paws'n'Music competition on Friday evening! Although I didn't do well, I was very happy for him!

Well done Mint!

What arrived in mail today

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Today this certificate arrived along with some ribbons from a recent video event of RFE (Rally Freestyle Elements)!

This is a certificate for my new Freestyle (dancing) title called Vet MF/X (Veteran Musical Freestyle Excellent). I used to enter regular classes without the "Veteran" prefix, but last year Mum decided to switch me from regular classes to Veteran classes (for dogs who are eight years old or older) because she was not sure how long I would be able to continue to dance decent routines. At that time she was trying to stop my barking when I was dancing, but I couldn't stop barking because I was very aroused when dancing. I still bark sometimes but I managed to keep my mouth shut when we videoed my routine for the video event.

In a routine videoed for a previous video event Mum incorporated the "chin rest' in the routine in an attempt to calm me down so that I wouldn't start barking. This time she changed the part and replaced the chin rest with a simple move where Mum ran backwards while I ran forward keeping the position in front of her. With this performance I got my second qualifying score in the Veteran Intermediate class and as a result I got the Vet MF/X title.

I hope I can keep my mouth shut again when we video a routine next time!!

In the same video event Mint entered the Intermediate class. Mum was not sure if Mint's routine included enough advanced moves to qualify, but he did qualify as well. As it was his first qualifying score in the class, he will need two more Qs to get his Excellent title.

However, I am very impressed that he performed in such a difficult environment for the video. He did it in a park where we had found many chicken bones on the ground a few days before the videoing!! Mum was shocked when she saw many chicken bones on the ground, because she was planning to video Mint's routine there a few days later. Then, she let us find bones (As far as I remember, we found more than ten bones!) and picked them up before we got them, in order to clean the ground.

Here is Mint's performance in the park. In fact the judge commented "Nice work in an outside environment!"

Happy New Year 2017!

Happy New Year!!

We wish you all a wonderful memorable year filled with lots of fun!!

We celebrated the start of the New Year in Japanese kimono ;-)

In the evening on the New Year's Day we had a great walk in our favourite park, the Auckland Botanic Gardens!

As you can see in our smiles, we prefer walkies to modelling in tight clothes.
We hope to have many many more nice walks like this this year!