Moxie and Miko

My 2 older dogs, both rescues, are of ... uncertain parentage, you could say. People who know more than I guessed that Miko is probably Kelpie mixed with who knows. He's retired from agility now but keeps busy with nose work, and would love it if I let him take up tracking again. 

Moxie, who is some combo of Aussie and BC, still competes in agility (fingers crossed he can stay uninjured for awhile) and does surprisingly well at nose work -- considering that as a tracker he makes a good carburator smile emoticon He would love to herd sheep but has to make do with the cat.
I'm attaching a very poor quality (2007 cell phone) video of Miko tracking in one of Debi Best's classes. Also attaching an "Essence of Mox" photo. All that's missing is the bark!

Maggie

This is from the early 90's, when agility was a new sport. I think this was at a NADAC trial. Maggie was perhaps the best agility dog I will ever have. Although she looked like a mini-Lab, she was probably mostly Cocker. She also had her UCD and was a dynamite tracker and therapy dog. Mostly, she was a wonderful friend. I still miss her.

Zula, EEK, Bianca

This is now. Zulu (on the left) has recovered from a long battle with kidney failure caused by autoimmune disease. EEK (in the front) is a Pap x BC as my best guess. Bianca is probably a purebred. She was my foster BC.

She-ra

She-ra Princess of Power (Sheba-Inu/Shetland Sheepdog cross)
is happily blasting off her contact from the dog walk!

She-ra, Flurry and Trick getting a 2nd place in Bay Team. Not bad for a Sheba Inu mix!!

Nakita

I want to share with y'all a very special dog from my childhood. The story is long, but I hope you'll read it through to the end and maybe it will remind you of a dog that touched your life in a way that you'll never forget smile emoticon

The story begins when I was in grade 2 and my elderly grandmother moved in with us. However, living in the same house as her son and his family was a little more codependency than she desired, and so we set her up in her own little living unit near ours on the property. She wanted a dog to keep her company at night, and so we responded to an ad in a little local paper about Akita/Black Lab mix puppies for 50$. I remember it all so clearly... pulling up a dirt driveway to see a grassy yard scattered with black, fuzzy puppies. 

I hopped out of the car, intending to pet each and every puppy. The first puppy I reached was a female who looked me straight in the eyes, then wiggled into my hands. From her, I moved on to the next puppy... and the next... but that first puppy followed me to each other puppy. My grandmother made her selection - a giant, roly-poly fluffball male pup she named "Amigo." As we were getting back into the car, that same little female puppy who had been following me tried to climb into the car with me. I didn't know what to do... I looked from her pleading, chocolate brown eyes to my parents with confusion and heartbreak. But what will be, will be... and that little girl pup was allowed to come home with me.

I named her Nakita. Nakita Grey Suanna, in full... Suanna being after an aunt I had lost to cancer. She went by such nicknames as Kita and Monkey, and was my ever-present shadow.

It was about the same time in my life that I really began to learn about dog sports. I watched every televised event I could find, mostly conformation and agility. So I taught Nakita how to stack and gait, and my father helped me build our own agility course in the front yard... we put metal rods in the ground for weave poles, used my tire swing as a jump, and made a pause table out of old scrap wood. For Show & Tell in school that year, I hauled my agility equipment, Nakita, and her brother Amigo to my school for a performance by "Jairi and the Dynamic Doggie Duo!" I even made "Staff" passes for my friends who would help move equipment.

In addition to our home-style agility training, I taught Nakita to retrieve objects by name and hold them in her mouth for photos. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to locate a photo of her I am quite fond of... her sitting in front of my mother's koi pond, holding a rose in her mouth. She was also an excellent "just for fun" search and rescue dog. A favourite game among me and my friends was for one of them to go hide somewhere on our 9 acres of shrubs and brush, and Nakita would find them. Her tracking skills also worked against me once, when in a childish fit I "ran away"... only to be found by my own dog that my dad has sent after me!

One sunny summer morning when she was a few years old, Nakita and I were making our way up the front walk to the house when she suddenly whipped about in front of me. She was snarling, teeth fully bared, hackles up, and slowly stalking towards me. I was mortified. What had I done to suddenly enrage my most loved companion?! I backed away from her slowly, calling to her in a near tearful panic to calm down and be a good girl. I reached what she deemed a suitable distance back, and she began to fervently bark at the house. My parents came rushing outside, down the porch steps - straight into a rattlesnake sunning on the front walk. As soon as my father made to take care of the snake, Nakita came to my side meekly and wiggly, licking my fingers and gazing up at me with a look that clearly said "Please don't be mad, I love you.. I had to do it for your own good." 

When I was 18, I became pregnant with my first child. Nakita took on a motherly role to my stomach, always sniffing and gently prodding, then gazing up at me with those same warm brown eyes... that were now surrounded in grey fur. I couldn't wait for the moment when my baby son would meet the dog who had carried me through childhood.

One rainy morning about a month before my due date, Nakita wouldn't come up for breakfast. She was laying in the driveway, soaked, and unwilling to move. We carried her onto the porch. And when those eyes so full of love met mine... I knew it was time to say goodbye.

I spent the next few weeks silent, sullen, and lost... trying to figure out a path in life that I could manage without my beloved girl. And when my son was born, I held him tight and whispered to him about his canine guardian angel who would always look over him.

Abbey

Here's my first agility dog, Abbey. If there was ever a dog who deserved to be a new breed, it was Abbey.

Poppy

Next to her is Poppy, my latest addition. She is coming off having seven puppies, all have found homes thru rescue. We are working on getting her confidence back and dealing with her fears. She was picked up on the streets of Redding and had her puppies a couple of days later. Maybe mini Aussie mix?

Lucy

This is Lucy, age 15 now a BC/Sheltie mix, she was marked for euthanasia when I literally tripped over her crate. Her big brown eyes captured me. 14 years later, she is still here. She has multiple titles in agility including 4 CATEs (CPE, NADAC), was a flyball dog and once tried herding - not good, sheep are mean. She has traveled cross country - was the CPE Specialist High In Trial at the 2011 CPE Nationals in Minnesota, also was one of ten dogs that had perfect Nationals that year. She was 11. She still runs for fun now. But spend most of her days controlling the rest of the pack - she is still the Queen.

Yoshi

Here are some photos of my fantastic little mixed breed, Yoshi! We adopted him from a local rescue in June 2014. So far, he has competed in dock diving and all-breed straight track lure racing, and has earned points towards titles in both venues. In 2015, we will expand to trying weight pulling and Rally as wellsmile emoti

Prezo

I will start by talking about Prezo. Here is a link to Prezo's blog

http://prezosblog.blogspot.com/

Prezo came to our family totally by accident and not planned in 1972. Our neighbor in Daly City, CA, came home one day from Arizona with this fluffy white puppy, and he said his name was Prezo. I could barely pronounce it, but eventually I remembered it. Over the next year, I would take Prezo out of the yard, with their permission, of course, and walk him all over the neighborhood, up to the store and to the local park. They were fine with that since they didn't have time to walk him, and they were glad he was getting out. 

After the first year, they told my dad that they could not longer keep Prezo, and since it was obvious I was so attached to him, could we take him. Strangely enough, my dad said yes, since my dad made it perfectly clear that he had allergies to dogs. His deal was that Prezo would stay in the large basement/garage we had with the attached yard, rather than in the main house. "Deal!" I said. 

I had Prezo until he passed away at the old age of 15 in 1987, and we rarely spent a day apart after that. 

Here are some photos of Prezo. I still have more to be pulled from albums and scanned, but this is a pretty good collection so far.

Lily Tomlin

She is 4.5 years old adopted from Borderland Humane Society.

CGC

Agility - OAC, EJC, TN-E, WV-O, XBR-N, O-XGT-N, RS-N, JS-E, GS-N, CL3, CL4-F

Rally-RL1

Nosework-NACSW ORTs passed on Birch and Anise

Teal

Here's one of my foster dogs, Teal, a border collie/lab cross. The first time I interviewed her, she peed all over my feet while I was petting her! But I was really impressed with her ball-drive so I took her home! Later, she proved how good she is at working scent. She is currently on a K9 SAR team, an remarkably fast, hard-working and skilled area-search dog.

Ginger

Here is our All American girl known as Ginger. Her stage name is Calcuba Special Blend BN, RA CGCA She is 3 yrs old and a puppy rescue from Furry Friends. She is 8 lbs of love and fun and can hold her own with our three Cairn Terriers. She is my husband Jim's dog but I train her in Obedience and Rally and compete with her.

Dakota Doing Splash Dogs

This is my muttface smile emoticonDakota (CGC CA SRD PD Mondioring OB1 Diabetic Alert Service Dog) is a 5 1/2 year old GSD/Lab cross. 

We've dabbled in a little bit of everything but our main sport has been dock jumping. He has a personal best of 23'1 in distance, and 6'8 in height. But we've also trained for mondioring, weight pull, nosework, agility, rally, lure coursing, bikejoring, IPO, and he's shown potential in things like SAR but I unfortunately am not able to dedicate time to that. 

And for the bitesports, we mostly do the obedience portions, he's a bit of a softy when it comes to the actually bitework and disengages easily. But we have fun and that's what counts!

Tika

An assortment of photos from Tika the aussie cross ("Craussie")'s adventures. [Most photos are mine; the weaves, nosework, and dog on a log were friends' shots.]