We met and worked for Sara Carson from The Super Collies!!

Hi! It's Cinnamon!!

This week we had a chance to meet the super talented dog trainer Sara Carson from The Super Collies and work for her as demo dogs at her dog tricks workshops!!

She was such a nice person that we all fell in love with her instantly!

It was so much fun to work with her!! And Mum, who is also a certified trick dog instructor (CTDI), helped Sara as her assistant.

Sara was kind enough to show Mum and Mint how to play Frisbee!

She even took these beautiful photos of us after three two-hour workshops on a hot day!!

We hope Sara will come to New Zealand again soon!!!!!!!! Next time hopefully with her own super talented dogs!?

*) All photos on this post except for the first one were taken by Sara.

Dancing at Pet Expo again!

Hi! It's Cinnamon here.

I am sorry we didn't post anything in September because Mum was too busy to help us write a post.

On the weekend (both Saturday and Sunday) our dog dancing team "ChoreDOGraphy Connection" participated in Auckland Pet & Animal Expo again. When I participated in the event for the first time 4 years ago, we were a team of only two two dogs, a friend and me. The next year no other dogs were available, so Mint and I did it. But, last year there were nine of us, and the team consisted of eight dogs including us.

These photos are from Saturday.

I was the first dog to perform. As always, I barked a lot while dancing :-P

Woody did a nice Heelwork to Music routine.

Gypsy and Pip did a pairs routine, which looked like fun!

Fletcher's routine was dynamic!

It seems that many people thought Solace's mum was a real nun.

Sam's routine looked stylish :-)

Mint didn't bark like me, but he didn't look fully awake.

Sofie did an awesome routine as always!

On Sunday I did much better and I didn't bark at all while dancing! I did put my nose to the floor once, but it was Mum's fault as she dropped a treat!

Mint did better on the second day too, but Mum forgot the last part of the routine, so she had to do some improvisation.

By the way, can you see the stains on the carpet in the video? They were made by horse manure on Saturday after our show. When Mum and her friends found them on Sunday morning, they were very worried that we might get distracted by their smells. But, we were absolutely fine!!

I hope the audience enjoyed our performance as much as we ourselves did.

Dog dancing demo at a local school

Hi! It's Cinnamon!

Last Friday we visited a local school to perform dog dancing in front of the children there, and we thoroughly enjoyed it!!

A couple weeks back, when Mum was helping the instructor of a tricks class as an assistent, she happened to hear that one of the students of the class was a teacher of a local school. So, Mum, who was looking for a place where we could practise our dance routines in front of an audience, asked her if we could visit the school to perform dog dancing. And the answer was 'YES'!

On Friday morning we arrived at the school half an hour before our show, and a while later our friend, Sofie the Blue Heeler, and her mum arrived as well.

When we were preparing our props for the first show, young children started coming into the hall (We did two shows). They were all well-behaved. Once the audience were ready sitting on the floor. Mum and I went up on the stage and performed my new routine. Every time I did a trick, I heard cheerful laughs. All in all, the young audience seemed to enjoy our show. After me was Sofie and then Mint.

Once the first group of children went out of the hall, older kids started coming in. Then, we found a familiar face in them!! Our next-door neighbour was there!! We were very surprised and excited at the same time!! A few moments later, we spotted another familiar face. A younger sister of the next-door neighbour who we had found earlier! The sisters are very good friends of ours but they had never seen us dancing before. So, we were very excited to be able to show them our dance.

All our performances went really well. Although we had some trouble on the slippery stage surface in the first show, we could perform more comfortably in the second show after Mum put a piece of carpet that she had brought just in case. We did make a few mistakes in our routines, but who cares!! Everyone looked enjoying our performances.

After the shows, we went to say hello to our next-door neighbours, then their friends all gathered around us, trying to pat us. Surrounded by so many children, we found ourselves in the darkness in the centre of an excited crowd!! But, I really enjoyed all the attention. You can rarely get that level of attention!! I felt like I was a super star!!!

I hope we can do something like this again soon!!

Busy busy weekend! - Auckland Beagle Club Fun Day on Saturday

Hi!! It's Cinnamon.

I hope everyone had a great weekend! We had a very busy but super cool weekend.

On Saturday we went to the Auckland Beagle Club's Xmas Fun Day in Cornwall Park. Although there was also a walk before the fun event with lots of yummies (mainly for humans) and games (for both humans and dogs), we couldn't join it as Mum was unable to get ready early enough.

When we arrived at the park, only a few dogs were there, as most of the members were having a walk to the summit of One Tree Hill at that time. But, shortly after we arrived, this little one came to say hello to us.

His name is Luke. He is so adorable and friendly!

Like most puppies, Luke didn't seem to understand the concept of "consideration", though.

But, because I was being nice to Luke, a human rewarded me with lots of tummy rubs!

Although we couldn't run around with other Beagles as the venue was not an off-leash dog park, we enjoyed mingling with each other.

After people and dogs came back from the walk, we did some games, such as biscuit hunt, seven legs race, potato and spoon race, and bag race. In the biscuit hunt, we collected three biscuits but three was not enough to win the game, as the winner found nine biscuits!

After all the games finished, humans had BBQ.

We didn't get any sausage or meat from the BBQ, but Mum gave us the biscuits that we had got in the biscuit hunt, because we were sitting nicely and patiently. The biscuits were in a bone shape and very yummy (Sorry no photos of the biscuits, coz we ate them all ^^;).

As it was so much fun, I am already looking forward to the Fun Day next year!

Pets Picnic in The Park 2012

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

A week after SPCA Devonport Dog Parade I told you about in my last post, Mint and I did another dog dancing demonstration at Humane Society Pets Picnic in The Park in One Tree Hill Domain.

Actually I did demos in the same event last year and the year before, and the one I did two years ago was my first ever dog dancing demonstration in public!

This time I invited our friends Kurosawa the Retradoodle and Marvi and Milia the Chipoos over to see our dancing for the first time.

Well, this demonstration turned out to be in one of the hardest conditions I had ever experienced. For one, there were a couple of families having a picnic lunch just by the ring. (You know it's so hard for Beagles to ignore food especialy when they are off leash!!) Also, as soon as Mum put my stool in the centre of the ring as a preparation, many kids started coming into the ring to play with the stool. To our relief there were no kids in the ring, when Mum and I were called into the ring for my dance performance, but just when we stood at the starting position near my stool, a toddler wandered into the ring and SAT on my stool with some food in his hand!! He stayed sitting there for a while, so we had to wait until his mum came and took him out of the ring!

After the little human was taken out of the ring, my music finally started. But, my stool smelled so nice that I couldn't concentrate on my performance. I just couldn't help checking the smell of my stool several times during my routine...

Again Mint did a little better than I did. But, again he was so eager to jump that he was jumping when he was not supposed to! Why can't he stay on the ground!?

In our dance demonstration our colleague Fletcher the Border Collie also performed. Because there were only three of us in our team this time, Fletcher did two routines, of which I especially loved his limbo dance routine. It was so unique and cool!

Well, Mum didn't really want to show you videos of our performance this time, because we both made many mistakes in our routines. But, who cares!! I don't mind showing a video of me making mistakes :-)

After our dance demonstration, many competitions took place. Mum didn't plan to enter us to any of these competitions, but, encouraged by Fletcher's human, she entered both of us to the Best Quick Trick Contest, and I won with my handstanding trick and Mint got placed the second with his jumping rope trick!!

Sorry we don't have any videos of us doing our tricks in the competition. But, here you can see how happy we were, having got prizes! (Our prizes were in the red bag Mum is carrying in the photo.)

After the Best Quick Trick Contest, there was the Potato Race, where humans run holding their dog's lead and a spoon with a potato on it with ONE hand, and our friend Kurosawa and his mum won it!! Well done, the Team Kurosawa!!

Devonport Dog Parade 2012

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

We have been very busy every weekend for the last few weeks. Two weeks ago and a week ago we did dog dancing demonstrations at doggie events, and on the last weekend we went to agility competitions.

Our first dog dancing demonstration of the year was at SPCA Devonport Dog Parade on March the 25th.

That day Mum was very nervous for several reasons. After the Paws N Music competition at NDOA (National Dog Obedience Assembly) last October, we hadn't practised dancing much. So, a couple of weeks before the demonstration at the Dog Parade, we started practising our routines again. It seems Mum thought that it wouldn't be too difficult as we had practised tricks regularly. But, what Mum didn't realise was that dancing to the music is totally different to simply doing tricks on commands. When you dance to the music, you need to hit every trick at the right timing, but when you do tricks on commands, you can do them when you think you are ready. Also, because we were to do our demos on the grass, we had to change the skateboarding part of my routine.

Another thing that made Mum nervous was that it was the day when some road rules were to change. Until the previous day we had some road rules that you wouldn't find in any other part of the world. In countries where vehicles must run on the left side of the road, giving way to the traffic coming from the right at round abouts is nothing unusual at all, but you also had to give way to the traffic coming from the other way and turning to their right at intersections, when you wanted to turn to your left. However, the NZ Transport Agency has decided to change the rule and a couple of other similar rules to make them compliant with standard road rules around the world, and the change came into effect on the day when we did our demo. So, Mum was very worried that many drivers might still be confused about those new rules, creating a high risk of traffic accidents.

Anyway it turned out that all those worries were unnecessary. Who cares if you make some mistakes in your dog dancing routines!? Some sniffing makes Beagles' dance performance more interesting and lively! In fact that is what happened in our demo. I admit that I just couldn't resit sniffing the ground at the beginning of my routine, but I could hear the audience's applause when I went back to dancing!

Mint did a little better than I did, in terms of 'not sniffing'. But, he was so eager to do his favorite jumping tricks, he was jumping even when he was not supposed to. But, again, never mind!! If the audience was enjoying watching what we were doing, that's great, isn't it?

In terms of the changes in road rules, we didn't come across a situation affected by the changes at all. So, Mum's concern was unnecessary again.

Well, after the demo, Mum bought us little muffins specially made for doggies. They were so yummy!!

Sorry we have no photos of our dancing this time. But, I promise I will show you some photos from another demo in my next blog post.

Mint is two years old!

Yay, yay!! It's Mint again! Because today is a specially day for me, my sister Cinnamon let me write a post again. Thank you, Cinnamon!

First of all, I want to declare that I am not a little boy anymore, now that I turned two years old today. So, don't dare call me 'Puppy' anymore!

As you may know, I started competing in agility last November. In New Zealand, in order to compete in agility, all dogs need to have their height measured by two recognised measurers so that they can be allocated into the right height class. But, until they become two years old, they can only be issued a preliminary height certificate, instead of a permanent one, because they might still continue to grow, and once they become two years old, they cannot compete without a permanent certificate.

Actually my Mum was very worried about my second measuring, because my height at the time of the preliminary measuring was very close to the upper limit of the Mini dogs, 430mm. If my height had exceeded the upper limit, I would have had to compete as a Midi dog. The hurdles for Midi dogs are more than 20cm higher than those for Mini dogs. So, my humans even thought about giving up doing agility with me if I was classified as a Midi dog, because they thought that jumping the Midi height would give too much stress on my body. But, fortunately, at a recent measuring I was confirmed to be a Mini dog, at 417mm!

Well, today my humans were both smiling all day. At first I didn't know what was happening, but as soon as Mum brought out a blue tee shirt from our doggie clothing basket and put it on me, I knew what they were up to. Yes, another photoshooting! I am not a big fan of cameras, but I don't mind posing for them either, because I can get lots of treat if I pose well.

Sitting...

Lying down...

From the back...

Here Cinnamon joins me...

Without those silly hats...

Don't you think I did very well? What do you think I got for posing so well? Noooothing!! No presents or cakes! The toys around me in the photos are not my birthday presents. In fact, most of them are toys that Cinnamon or I got in trials or competitions. But, that's OK, because I am not a wee little boy anymore! I am a big independent boy now!!

Hello 2012

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Happy New Year!

I hope everyone is having or has had Christmas and New Year holidays.

This year we had a very quiet but relaxing New Year's Day, partly because we couldn't go out as it was raining. But, yesterday we did a New Year photoshooting at home where both Mint and I wore a new collar that our Mum had just made for us. This is one of some hundred photos that our Dad took yesterday.

We had a really busy and exciting year last year. I wonder what is in for us this year.

Our Year 2011

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Can you believe that another year has passed already? What was the year like for you? The year has brought us a lot of changes and surprises.

January 2011

In mid January Mint was hospitalized. It seemed that Mint had eaten something toxic, which paralysed his nerve system, but the vet couldn't figure out what Mint had eaten. It took a few weeks before he got back to his normal self.

In the following week after Mint came back home, we moved from our previous house to a rental house where we lived for two months until our humans found, bought, and moved to our new house. When we were living in the rental house, we had a chance to go on a trip to Rotorua.

In late February there was a big earthquake in Christchurch and many humans and doggies lost their houses, which was really sad. And less than three weeks later there were even bigger earthquakes in Japan. Watching roads and buildings being pushed away and flattened by big waves caused by Tsunami was really saddening. Many lives were lost. Now, more than nine months later, there are still areas no one is allowed to enter because of radiation contamination. All I can now is believe in people's strength to overcome challenges.

Four days after the earthquakes and tsunami in Japan, we moved from the rental house to our new house. Our previous house was close to the city centre, only fifteen minutes by bus from a bus stop in front of the house to the city centre. Our new house is far away from downtown, but for giving up the proximity to the city centre, we got a great living environment for both humans and dogs.

In early June, I had the honor to be a member of the judge panel for my friend Honey the Great Dane's "Dancing with the Doggie Stars" contest. It was rewarding to see so many doggies and their humans with no experience in dancing working so hard on their routines while enjoying the time spent together. A few days later Mint got placed the first for the first time in an Obedience trial!!

In mid July my dearest boy friend Mango the Mastiff took me to a Dream Date full of adventures!!

In late July I turned four years old and on my birthday I enjoyed my birthday cake that Mum had made for me.

In late October we went to Porirua, Wellington, 600km away from our house, to compete in a national dog dancing competition, and, as many of you know, I won and Mint got the second place in the Elementary Freestyle class!

In November Mint made a debut in an agility trial, and in December I won the Elementary B class and Mint got his first clear round in another agility trial!

December 2011

Well, that's our year 2011.

We wish you all the best for the year 2012!!!

Merry Christmas! ... and our first swim at K9 Aqua

Hi! It's Cinnamon.

Merry Christmas, everyone!! I hope you all are having a great day with your family and friends.

Well, do you want to know what Santa brought for us this year?

It's SWIMMING!!

How do you think he brought it to our place? By bringing along a swimming pool? No way! That's impossible, you know. Instead, he arranged so that we could have a swim in a doggy swimming pool at a place called K9 Aqua. (Yes, it means that we didn't need to clean our veranda. But, that's OK, as it anyway needed to be cleaned.)

Actually Santa's present for us arrived a day earlier, on the 24th.

In the morning Mint and I had breakfast a little earlier than usual, and its amount was less than usual. I didn't know why, but I just thought that Mum might have forgot what time we usually have breakfast, as she is so forgetful.

Three hours later Mum and Dad told us to get in the car. Neither Mint nor I knew where we were going. About twenty minutes later, we arrived here.

But, I still didn't know what we were in for. We patiently waited in our crate for whatever was happening.

Then, as a dog came out of a building, Mum took me into the building. Inside I was put on something thick and uncomfortable. I knew what it was, as I had worn it several times before. Then, it rang a bell ... It's swimming!

At first I was a little scared of the deep water.

But, I quickly figured out what I needed to do.

Yes, I can swim!!

After I enjoyed swimming for about twenty minutes, it was Mint's turn. For Mint, who had never swum before, it was going to be the very first swim!

Even wearing a lifejacket was a completely new experience for Mint, so he looked really timid when he was walking up the ramp.

It was so funny to watch Mint trying to keep a hind paw up above the water surface!

But, thanks to the instructor's assistence, he was able to float about ten minutes later.

And soon he started swimming!

I was very impressed how brave my cowardly little brother had become!

Here is a video of our first swim.

Both of us enjoyed Santa's present for us, our first swim at K9 Aqua. I hope everyone has got a nice present from Santa too :-)