AKC to accept Mixed Breeds in 2010

The great news of the week is that starting in April 2010, the AKC will allow mixed breeds to participate in Agility, Obedience, and Rally. This is a tremendous opportunity for Mixed Breed owners and their dogs.

While there are a number of other organizations that allow mixes in agility, including UKC, USDAA, ASCA, NADAC, CPE, and DOCNA, not all of them are available locally. And even the ones who are seen locally are not numerous. In Columbia, each year we have one UKC trial, two ASCA trials and (starting this June) USDAA. You can find more opportunities in Kansas City and St. Louis, but still not that many per year, maybe a total of 10-15 trials for all those venues combined. In contrast, There are many AKC trials available. Not just the two in Columbia, but many in Kansas City, Lawrence Kansas, St. Louis, etc.

For owners of mixed breeds wishing to do Obedience or Rally, the change is even more striking. They will go from having perhaps one or two opportunities per year in a 100 miles radius to many.

AKC's new program will be a particular boon to our local 4H kids, many of whom have mixes. I'm super-excited about the new program and can't wait for it to start!

Do a demo for us!

My van, fully loaded. There are two Dobermans and a Min Pin under there, and you can't even see the other tunnel...

Now that it's out of the van, it looks a bit more organized.

Ginger takes a break in a lull between crowds.

Jura goes after a thrown toy as a reward.

Vegas, Mr. Suave and Persuasive. Do you have a treat for me? I am starving you know.

"Come do a demo for us" they say. "It's for a great cause, and you'll get a lot of exposure."

And they're right of course. It is always for a great cause, and it is super exposure for our training center. And we enjoy doing them. So we usually do at least two or three a year, and yet we also turn down several others each year. Why?

Because holy beejeebus, it's a crapload of work.

Today, we had a demo at the MU Veterinary Teaching Hospital Open House. We were set for three performances of 10-15 minutes each at 10:30, 11:30, and 12:30. For this Open House, we spent several hours copying brochures and locating our other paperwork (enrollment forms, business cards, the form for our new summer camp for kids, etc). Then we went to the training center last night and pulled two sets of 6 weave poles, 8 metal 4' solid-base jumps, two 15' tunnels, 8 tunnel weights, poles and bars, 20 sets of ring gates, feet to go on the ring gates so they'd stand up, the CCSC sign (digging frantically in the closet to find the darn thing), one of our exercise balls, rally signs and stands, cones, and chairs. I also made sure we had sun screen, paperclips and clipboards. For the dogs I had treats and their training bags, but that stays pretty prepped.

Then this morning we had to load it all. Two other people had already loaded the gates, rally stuff, and paperwork. I arrived at our building before 8:00 a.m. and loaded the two tunnels, weights, four of the metal jumps, all of the jump bars and both sets of weave poles. All on top of three dogs. I found I couldn't fit the rest of the metal jumps in, so instead went and pulled four more jumps, our freestanding wing jumps.

Off to breakfast, then we arrived at the site at 9:30. After some confusion about where we actually were supposed to be, we now had to unload everything and set up our rings. We started setting ring gates only to find that one Bachelor's Degree (me) and one PhD (Ginger) can't count for snot. We needed 26 sets of ring gates for the size rings we wanted, not 20. But having learned the hard way that at demos you always gate everything, we made our rings smaller instead of leaving gates out. If you don't gate everything, people try to drag their dogs through tunnels and over jumps willy-nilly, willing or not. Since we don't like to see dogs traumatized for life by well-meaning but naive owners, we gate. Today we also had to deal with high winds, so we ended up using tracking stakes from Steve and Jamie's van to help hold things down.

So after almost another hour of setup, we were finally ready for our first demo. And that's always the fun part. Talking to people, especially kids, about a sport I love to do, one that is accessible to all dogs of all sizes, shapes, and types, is great. The crowds were wonderful, the kids asked funny and perceptive questions. We were a bit shorthanded this demo, with Andrea in Omaha and Kathy in Wichita. Steve and Jamie had a dog, and I worked all three of mine, even 11 1/2 year old Viva. Ginger worked both her adult Springers and the 3 month old puppy had a great time with the crowd. Liz showed up with Standard Schnauzer Vegas and he demonstrated the exercise ball. We talked and explained until my voice was pretty much gone.

Our dogs were, I have to say, amazing. They worked the rings and the crowds, allowed innumerable hands to pet them and lots of chirping children's voices over their heads. Viva, the old Dobe, is a pro at this stuff, but Zipper the Min Pin is still young and I was just so thrilled with his attitude and patience. Ditto the Springers, the Weim Faith who was pretty much always mobbed, and Vegas too.

Finally we were finished with demos, but not at all finished with our day. We had vet student help to break things down, but we still had to repack the cars, then haul it all back to the building, take it all out and put it back. Even though our last show was at 12:30, it was almost 2:30 before I and the dogs finally arrived home. Where they promptly crashed into sound sleeps, exhausted by their day.

We do love to do demos, but now perhaps people may understand why we just don't do that many...

(originally posted at http://www.pinkpin.blogspot.com)

A New Venture at CCSC

Summer is coming (hard to believe on days like this!) and kids will be out of school and fancy free So, some of our instructors have agreed to organize a Kid's and K9s camp.

Your thoughts and suggestions would be welcome as we work out the details.  Here are the basics:

-1 week in length per session.

-Mornings (cooler temperature, more active dogs & kids)

-Several activities each day (craft/projects interspersed with basic training & play)

-Children entering 1st grade to 5th (?)

-Basically well behaved dogs (and kids!)

-Small groups of Children & dogs per instructor

Here are questions we are working on: what dates? Just before the summer session in the Columbia schools begins? Not in August?  Evening events geared toward kids, dogs & families?  Half day activities on weekends that are focussed on 1 or 2 things?

You may answer to this blog or to the CCSC website (www.columbiak9sportscenter.com )

Thanks,

Ginger

Oh Good grief, where does the time go?

You would think I would be incredibly rich if I had one penny for every good intention to get back to the CCSC blog - I won't add Kathy & Andrea's pennies!  WE could own the entire building by now.

Lets just say that like everyone else there has been too much going on with too little time.

What's new?  

Lots - lots of new classes and new activities over at the center and good people who have been writing stories about us in the local press - and some new ones to come - and

new dogs - --

Since I last got around to telling anybody anything, Jura became a Dad - he was a "back yard breeder" no less and sired a singleton B&W baby whom we have called "Colin".  Colin is now 12 weeks old and just passed the new AKC S.T.A.R. puppy class last week so like it or not, he is on his way.  His co-owner is a Veterinarian who also has springers (including Colin's Mum, Kelcie) who lives in the Chicago area and specializes in reproductive medicine - so bringing Colin into this world with Kelcie as a Mum was well within her area of expertise.

The picture you see of Colin is on the back of Jura - who has turned out to be a great Dad and Miss Ailsa has turned out to be a really good Auntie (and Governess - she lets no bad behaviors go by).

Orientation is on Wednesday evening at 6:30 and there are SATURDAY classes now!

More to come - I promise.

Ginger