The Dogs
The dogs entered my life when I actually took some time off from riding horses. I was in the process of purchasing my first horse in 1996, but the deal fell through leaving me devastated. I decided that maybe this was a message to try something else. Enter: THE DOGS.
I got my first dog, a 9 week old Border Collie puppy, in November 1997. I quickly started puppy classes with Ash and discovered, to my horror, that the puppy was smarter than me! Apparently this is a common discovery for first time Border Collie owners!
When Ash was about 9 months old, we started doing agility training. It wasn't too long before Peter noticed how much fun we were having and decided to adopt an older Border Collie / Australian Shepherd for himself. So, we adopted Irra, who was 3 years old and he started agility classes with her.
And that started something we never would have predicted...
Once we started competing in agility, we got more and more involved with dogs. We found out about Greyhounds and their plight when they retire. So we adopted Penny from NCGL in September 2000. A month later we rescued Soot, a Border Collie / Sheltie puppy. She was dumped on a backroad in Didsbury, AB with her 9 siblings and mother. I had no intention of getting another agility dog at that time, but got suckered in by a really cute face! Soot isn't the brightest bulb on the string, but she's a very sweet dog!
After competing with Irra for several years, it became obvious that her issue with people and other dogs was getting her too stressed out in the ring. So Peter decided to retire her. After an extensive search, we found an Australian Shepherd breeder that had a litter of puppies with the qualities we were looking for in Peter's next agility partner. CasselCreek Dirtwater Fox (a.k.a. Paprika) turns 4 in May and Peter is still trying to catch up with her!
In 2004, I moved my main agility dog, Ash, into the veteran's class at agility competitions as she is starting to show signs of her age. I started looking for my next agility dog in order to start the 2 - 3 year training process. I found him in Quebec. Creekside OneX was born on February 13th, 2005. He's going to give Rika a run for her money in a year or two!