Time for a Little Bragging

Hello everyone!  Thought I would take a break from your regularly scheduled programming and bring you a bit of self-indulgence.  Actually, since I have very little to do with any of the honors, I should really classify it as some family bragging.  Take a look at what our little dude brought home from our recent trip to Michigan.

That is one proud puppy! As mentioned in some previous posts, we had the opportunity to head up north and compete in the UKC Premier Nationals. Raven and his mother were in the top 50 UKC Agility Level 2 (AG2) Toy Division (4″) dogs in the nation. This got them invited to their annual Premier where they go head to head in the agility ring.

Hit the jump to see a few more shots of our little ball of fur.

A huge congratulations to Linda and Raven for getting it done in some absolutely crappy weather conditions. If it wasn’t just plain miserably hot they were having to slop through the course between massive storms. Not only did they qualify in the AG2 course, they took FIRST place earning them the top dog status in his class in the nation and a giant ribbon that Raven now points to whenever his brother tries to start talking trash about him. He keeps parading it past him whenever he gets a chance eliciting growls of annoyance.

Added a quick shot of one of the courses in case you are unfamiliar with the sport. Basically think of it as an obstacle course for dogs. Courses are designed by the judge and consist of varying configurations of jumps, contacts, weaves, tunnels and other types of apparatuses to challenge the participants. Some of the credit goes to the dogs, but the real accolades go to the handlers who spend enormous amount of time familiarizing their pups to the obstacles and teaching them to listen to their commands in the ring in order to navigate the courses. It is amazing to see it all come together for a successful run.

Grabbed a pictures from another event to show Raven in action – believe this was the Poodle Nationals held in St. Louis a few years back. He will be heading back down there with Linda to compete with other Poodles later in the year. Raven came to us with a strong pedigree. His siblings have done very well in the conformation events and he has proven his abilities in competition after competition.

Even from day one we knew he was going to be perfect for agility – confident, strong, smart and a healthy dose of cockiness – umm.. make that a huge amount of cockiness. If mommy screws up in ring he’ll unleash an embarrassing amount of sass until she promises to do better the next time ha! Here is a shot of Raven the day we first got him up in Wisconsin (his breeder is out of Minnesota but happened to be showing there).

That was a little under 7 years ago as this week he had his official birthday complete with a toy dog sized cake. This shot was taken mere seconds before he decided he had waited long enough and dived into the icing. With whiskers full of white fluff he turned to me and noted “Hey dad, did you hear I’m a national champion!?!” Benji responded with “What a cocky ass”

For a champion dog you need champion sized presents don’t ya’ think. “uhhhh mommy this damn thing is trying to attack me – you have exactly 2 seconds to get it off me or I’ll make sure to pay you back in the ring.”

I told you he was cocky hehehe. Anyway, I just wanted to make a quick post on our little champion. Congratulations again to Raven and Linda on the great accomplishment – I like to think I get a small amount of credit as I am the one who has to Sherpa all the gear around from event to event.

By the way, since it was Raven’s birthday and all, we opted to hold off on telling him we are picking up his new brother next week – hope the new one respects Raven’s alpha position in the family or there’s going to be some interesting feeling out time ahead.