Blonde girl

I'm back ˆ.ˆ that was fast!! But I just came to let something for you to see. It's not about the boys, but I am sure you will love her just as much. Here a video so you guys can see what I said about Ellie, she's indeed a special girlie <3

And she is already learning a lot of tricks, just wanted to show a sneak peek of her, the best is yet to come!

So much can happen in a month!

Hi guys, almost two months and I'm back ˆˆ with lots of news.

First we've had some agility competitions and the boys did fantastic! Koda is amazing me more and more, he is turning out to be such a confident and independent little boy. Now he is also showing the bad side of this, which is that he is not all the time next to me, when I'm not doing something he used to lay on my lap and sleep, now he is all exited about exploring haha. It doesn't have bad effects on our trainings tough, because he is so focused and really going to the obstacles forward instead of staying next to me kind of confused, and he is doing all the tricks with his new confidence and trusting me more and more.

High is also growing, we are coming along as a team and understanding what both want much better. It is amazing to run my giant boy, he has such a sweet soul and it visible in his eyes the joy and passion, although it is way easier to see when he is not barking so much, it happens when I run and give the proper command on time, yeah I can do it also on competitions!! found out that this last weekend, we were so connected, it was special. Not so good times but I'm not worried about that yet, we were close to our first exam to A2. It feels good... But it will come soon, we are connecting, and our time will come. We also had a super chaotic run, the last one of the weekend, and it was crazy! a loot of barks, yes he likes to complain with me, show me what I'm doing wrong.
Koda shined on our latest competition, setting best times all the time. My crazy pup <3

Koda, Duda, Shannon and High

Now we will have 3 months of no agility competitions, and I will put my heart and soul into running contacts. At first I just wanted because it does make me smile every time I see it, and I would love to do it with my boys, but after more than a year trying unsuccessfully I must say that it's now a matter of stubbornness, if that word exists. So many people came to me telling me to give up, but I don't do it, and I won't do it, I'm not a quitter. High's RC were almost done, but for some unknown reason now he refuses to touch the contact, so we went all the way back. Koda is much more complicated, think we will enroll on the next online class, see if we can find a solution. We are working!

High's RC before they collapse...

I have some other news that are not about my black boys, but are about a really special little dog that stole my heart pretty quickly. Ellie. And I found myself to be really good with shelties, not only koda, but the others as well. So I'll start from a place where you can understand how special she is...

Ellie is a stubborn sheltie, fearful and full of personality at the same time. She is sweet and her favorite place in earth is at my lap where she feels like she's the queen of the world and can bark with all the other dogs. I've known her for some time now, but I did't use to interact with her that much, until my boyfriend started training her. She was doing fine, but shelties are difficult and she never really liked it, so I started walking with her, and spoiling her, teaching some tricks, and we got along so well. Before I could notice she was my shadow... We are progressing as she wants, but it's stupid how happy I get every time I train her! she knows cik/cap and tunnels, we've done some short sequences, she's amazing. My eyes sparkle when she jumps and barks to get in the ring.

I used to only play with her in the agility field, throw the ball and let her run after it with koda, or run and let them chase me. Koda is such a good model! I say Ellie is becoming my mini Koda, that's perfect, I already love her! She also gives me some challenges and that's perfect. She used to run out of the ring and no one could ever train her because she didn't let people get her, nor follow hands. I worked on that first, she will gladly follow hands now, and first trick she learned was to jump on my lap so every time she would run out of the ring I set down and she would come running and do her trick, lovely lovely girly!

Then I tried to teach her pivot to start the heeling, but she would NEVER offer me things with her front paw, I've seen many dogs that don't know how to use the hind paw but never one that doesn't know that have front paws. So I made her do her favorite trick but every time she put one paw on my lap I'd reward her, gradually I put my hand closer and closer and now she is much happier knowing she has front paws hahaha. I'm sure she has many many more challenges to give me in the future, but I'm so glad for that!







I think next posts will come sooner this time! see u ˆ.ˆ

Happy Birthday

So as I promised here are the birthday videos of my boys. Koda turned 2 on April 2nd and High turned 3 on April 3rd. I could never put in words how happy they make me, give joy to my life every day and challenge me to try new things all the time. I'm thankful for everything and most of all for having them on my life.

I love you boys <3 here to many many more years together!

Good life

 Wow, I just noticed that I didn't post this year yet! I'm so sorry for that. It doesn't mean that I don't have news just that we were quite busy ;-)

The boys never get tired of the woods. They love to run free with all the other dogs and just play around... we should do it more often!

As I mentioned on my last post we are training at an agility school, and I'm really enjoying it! We've been training more than never and gaining a lot of confidence, mostly with Koda. I still have to keep up with High's hurricane competition mood, and try to calm down, but we are doing just fine.

We atended two competitions this year, one was a for fun competition and both the boys did fantastic! I am so proud of High because he really listened to me even when I thought that he would do something wrong he did great, all the mistakes were my fault... we ran on the open category A2/J2 and disqualified, and ran on his normal category A1/J1 and got 4th place. Beautiful contacts, dropped few bars only on the last run because he was tired, and had an awesome day after all.

Koda ran beautifully as always, I walk on the ring confident with this little boy! He doesn't stay yet so we have to let go and ruuun, and he is getting faster and faster, so soon it will be a problem... gotta work on that! He ran only the novice but got first place of all heights. Well done baby!

On the official competition I ran only on the A1/J1 with High and he did really well on the first run, perfect contacts, really loooud but that's fine, I just have to work with him because every time that there's a miscommunication or for any other reason he does a refusal and I try to put him back on the obstacle he almost bites me, and he is not like that on trainings, not anymore at least... On the second run I was mentally exhausted and he was even louder, so after he missed his best contact (see-saw) I kind of gave up, but it went better than I expected! perfect weaves, running contact on A-frame, and did all well until we disqualify on the last jump hahaha. Stories to tell.

Koda was perfect as always, but even faster and more excited! I could not keep up with his speed on the novice's straight lines, but he did magnificent and got first place. Although we had no competition, because there are only few people that attend to our regionals, and it is a new sport around here so not many people practicing yet, therefore he was the only dog of his height on novice.

I think that our biggest struggle lately are the running contacts, such a simple concept and so hard to do it! High have perfect strides, good jackpots, already on full height dog walk, but only for few repetitions than he slows down and misses everything, he is not adjusting well... think I'll try fewer repetitions and vary slower the approach. Koda is a never ending story... the reason why I started running contacts, but my biggest challenge! I don't know where I messed up but he always jumps of the end of the down ramp on the DW, always!! I go back to the ground, perfect. A bit higher, perfect. A bit higher, he jumps. It goes on and on for nine months now...  I thought about 2on2off but than I saw a video of Jenny Damm and Miss Lilli and it inspired me, I hate to give up and it's really rare for me to do it, so I will try more, be creative... one day we will have those running contacts. 

"I'm going to succeed because I'm crazy enough to think I can"

At last, out tricks... yes!! we have a lot of new things to show, but I'm saving as many videos as I can because their birthday is next month so I have two videos to make =) and I hope you'll enjoy it. Probably it will be my last post before the boys' birthday so you will see all the news and 2014 video update! 

till there ˆˆ

all in all

An entire year training at home, my first goal was to come here at the end of this year and say that I changed things, that all I did was worth it... it was! I don't have words to describe this year, it was unbelievable. My boys are greater than ever, and our love and connection grows every day.

My goal with High was to connect, we had similar passions and that brought us together, but now we have deeper reasons, there is nothing I'm prouder than my dog laying with his head on my feet right now while I'm writing this post. This is everything I wanted to accomplish with him. I love my silly dog and how after 2,5 years he've returned to the puppy mood I always loved, and his eyes show joy in everything he does... he is my dream dog.

We finally went on a competition, after an entire year we went to the Brazilian Championship for the first time. With no major expectations, since we are changing his A-frame... and he did a great job. I will not say that it's always awesome to run with him, on trainings we have a different interaction, and run as one, not aways perfect, sometimes really chaotic, but aways trying our best and running our hearts. On competitions all changes, I don't like to be on the spot light, I get to nervous and he feels it, he gets nervous too! He barks, he bites, he doesn't listen, my legs get heavy and I can't run, I forget to talk, I get lost... can you imagine?

But no, our last competition was not bad! High was awesome, he did his contacts, and got all the slalom entries right, we finished 2/4 runs. The ones we didn't finish were absolutely my fault, because I almost fall on a jump, and dropped it, on the other run he touched the contact but did't wait for the release, so I sent him back on... But I have no regrets, we can only grow, and we are working, having fun will always be my priority.

Koda is a different story, my goal was to come here and say, what I proudly say now, I did my agility and social sheltie from start to where we are by my self, I did it! I proved to myself that I can overcome challenges, and work out of all difficulties on the way to raise the dog I wanted. He is perfection on furry ball form! But yes, he is still a sheltie, do not expect to see him offering to go to anyone arms but mine. on the other hand, get a ball and he will run with everyone. I'm so pleased with all we've accomplished. There's a long road in front of us, but we've come a long way in such a short time. It's easy to run with him in agility, it flows naturally, my challenges with him will come in a different way, I don't know how, but they will, otherwise where is the fun? We had a lot of challenges, but overcame all, and I hope we continue this way.

He also competed, for the first time ever and already on the Brazilian Championship. He did an excellent job, only doing wrong on the parts I already knew he would, the obstacles he have difficulty. All in all, a perfect weekend, on the best companion we could ever wish for! I so thankful for the friends we found so far, and even though supported us all the way. They gave us strength to come this far, and keep going, and always try something new. Thank you so much.

Before the competition we spent a perfect week learning with Tiago Rocha and Dan Wroblewski. Carol Engelke was always there and helped us a lot, helped me to talk when my sis was not there hahaha. Not only them but all the Dog World team, thank you so much for everything, mostly for having us again, and for all your friendship. We love you guys!

And the final touch to the perfect year came now, on the end, and changed a lot, I decided that I didn't want to train by myself anymore, so we are training where I started, where all this craziness began, and I'm loving it, we found crazy people like us, and ooh it feels good, to share every experience, and learn together. Our journey is coming along perfectly, I'm glad that I took all the steps that brought us here. And may it keep coming next year.

It has been a perfect year! Merry Christmas to all of you!!

It's been a while!

We haven't done much...

The days are flying! and all the time I can find we use to train the boy's running contacts... no progress on them as well! we went all the way back to the floor with Koda, and High is going quite well! nothing to complain, we'll get there sooner or later.

Normal trainings are rare those days, but a strong foundation is fundamental, so we are taking this opportunity to work on that. I'll post the videos of our last training. Koda did really well, no more problems with tunnels, nor jumps. I'm also finishing his slalom  \o/ no videos though...
I'm really amazed with High's turns! all the bars were my fault, I was late! if I had done the front cross, like I did with Koda, the bars wouldn't have fallen, but I wanted to try this move... anyways, both of them did great, and I'm really proud!

Also, my pups are on Kjara's new video! it was awesome to be part of this video, both of them did fantastic! check it out =)




They are learning some new tricks! just some fun stuff to play around!




That's it! (=
Hope to come here sooner next time haha

Running Contacts

Okay, so here it is, my latest training! unfortunately I just remembered to film it on High's last run, but he did 5 nice JPs in a row \o/ and Koda did nice too, I'm proud of him! not much separation on rear legs but he was still accelerating, I need to find better set up, maybe coming from a tunnel so he'll have a faster approach... lets see how it goes  =D