Merry Christmas! We are looking forward to a better year in 2011. My Mom has made it, has a new heart valve, is recovered well enough to move to a senior living facility to continue gaining strength. I have actually restarted training little Cricket, who has been somewhat neglected the last few months and acquired a few bad habits. We joined an agility class midsession and are managing to stay abreast of everyone else. She is doing just great- has no fear of any of the obstacles she has been introduced to so far. In November, just after she turned 6 months old, I took her to the shows in Monroe to socialize her and gauge how she does in crowds. To my surprise, she won the Nonsporting Group at the Friday night fun match! At the real show on Saturday, she was a bit squirrely, not wanting to stand still for the judge and jumping on him as we did the courtesy turn (oops!), and on Sunday, she dived for a piece of floating dog hair right in front of me as we were gaiting around the ring, almost causing me to trip. She did win her puppy class, which allowed her to go in again for more experience. She leaned into her collar at the shows, which made her move like a hackney pony. Nevertheless, I was pretty pleased with how well she did for no experience. She was friendly to both people and dogs and for the most part kept her feet on the ground- very difficult for her. In assessing how she is looking right now, I'd say she has a really nice, smooth gait with lots of power in the rear, looks good coming and going, has a proper scissor bite, nice dark eyes, and a good topline. I think her markings are pretty nice, albeit a bit dark. She is very striking. On the negative side, she has that curve at the end of her tail, is a bit long in the body, and needs to have more people go over her to give her a bit more confidence. Her small size will also hamper her somewhat, and some judges may not like the heavy spotting on her face, making it harder to evaluate expression . All in all, though, she is certainly showable in the breed ring. My plan now is to enter her in at least one show in Puyallup in January and the Mt Hood Specialty in Portland, as well. She needs more positive experience while she matures physically. The above photo showing Skookum, Cricket, and Flojo was taken by Jerry Vavra at the show. The following weekend, Cricket was in the Holiday Parade in downtown Seattle, which is a very noisy, crowded and fun function. I took her into the Grand Hyatt to get our costume, walked her all over the streets, and let lots of people pet her. After hanging around awhile, she seemed very confident and I handed her off to a club member to walk in the parade while I went back to the car to get Mom Skookum. I was extremely pleased with Cricket's behavior during the parade. She handled the crowds and noise very well, and didn't seem to be too embarrassed to be dressed in a Santa coat. What a good puppy!
Unfortunately, on Christmas day, little Cricket discovered that she can jump my fence and gate with no problem. Oh, well, I was meaning to replace that section, anyway... I'd better get busy.
