Birthday Boy!!

YAY!! Cricket turned 3 today!! He's growing up SO fast!! I can't believe I've had him for 3 years, though! It's mind boggling!
 In other news, I'm SO sorry that I haven't been active lately! I've been gone for 2 months. I'm back now! :D  Also I have FINALLY uploaded the video of Cricket's latest trial to Youtube! It took me so long because youtube has been acting weird on my computer. :P Click HERE to watch the video.
Now time for some sad news. I had to give Ripp to a friend. We could no longer keep him because of several reasons, but the main one is that he kept running off. One time that he ran off the neighbors said he jumped on their young toddler. He didn't do anything to the toddler but it scared the toddler and the parents. That was the kicker. So I had to give him to a friend who has a farm. My friend has horses that he can herd, too. We've been keeping in touch and he seems to be happy there. I'm sad that I had to give him away, but it was all for the best. He is MUCH happier where he is now.
Well I hope you are all doing ok! Thanks for reading! Follow me for more posts about agility and dogs! Follow me on Instagram: @westie_agility
Would y'all be interested in training tutorials??

Love y'all!
~W.A.G.

The Agility Trial 5/2-3/2014

We just got home from the trial! It went really well! The first day wasn't so great but the second day was fabulous! I'm SO proud of Cricket! He's in advanced levels now and he still does well! 

Here's the breakdown from the weekend:

Day 1:

T2B: NQ. Jumped off the second A-Frame contact.

Open Fast: NQ. Would hardly do anything. Super distracted so I pulled him.

Excellent Standard: NQ Refused the Seesaw once. Other than that, a GREAT run!

Excellent JWW: Q. Got our AXJ title!! Moved up to Masters!

Day 2:

T2B: Q. 5Points towards his T2B title!

Open Fast: Q. One more Q and we'll have our OF title!!

Excellent Standard: NQ. I accidentally pulled him away from the A-Frame and caused him to refuse it.

Masters JWW: Q. 10 points towards our MACH title!!

YAY!! I'm SO happy with how well he did!!

On the way home today!

All the ribbons from the weekend!

All of Cricket's ribbons!

Thanks for reading! A video of his runs will (hopefully) be uploaded to youtube soon! haha

~W.A.G.

Old Trial Video

SOOOO... I found this video on my computer and realized that I had forgotten to upload it! So here it is now! This video is one of our trials from 3/7/2014

Click HERE to see the video(opens in new tab)!

Well I guess that's it! Post again after tomorrow's trial!

~W.A.G.

Trial!!

So We're about to head to a trial today!! This is going to be a two day trial because it fell on a time when I could do two days. So I'm really excited because there are two possible titles to be won at this trial! He only needs one more Excellent JWW Q to get his AXJ title and move to Master!! He needs two Open Fast Q's to get his OF title and move to Excellent!! YAY!! I hope we are able to get them this weekend, but I am going to be happy with whatever Cricket gives me! I know he does his best and I do mine and we have TONS of fun and that's all that matters! Thanks so much to everyone who is following our progress through the Agility trials! Love y'all!!

~W.A.G.

Trial Results!!

So the trial went really well! YAY!! He had his very first Excellent Standard run! He didn't qualify but he did really well! He now has 2 Qs in Excellent JWW! That means he only needs one more and then he'll have his AXJ title! :D  That's pretty awesome! I'm so excited! Here are some pictures from the trial. I'll have the video link for you later. :)

"I'm reddy tu go du 'Giwitys!!"

"Dese mai Ribbunz dat I won!"

"Dis mai 'Westie' face!"

"I is worn out aftur 'Giwitys."

"I poke mai nose outa mai crate!"

"I is snuggld up wiff mai toy dat I got at da 'Giwities!"

Thanks for reading! I made another video of Ripp so I'll make another post with links and with updates later.

~W.A.G.

Ribbons!

So I changed Cricket's ribbons and started hanging them in a different place. There's more room where I have them now so I won't have to box them up so soon. This is how I used to have them:

They were on bulletin boards. This isn't all of them. I was going to have to put some of these in a box to put the newest ones up.

So I moved them to hanging on string on a different wall:

This is all of them! There's plenty of room for these and for more strings to be put up!

I like the way they look like this!

This wall is going to be the official ribbon wall!

Hopefully we'll have another ribbon or 2 from tomorrow's trial!

Wish us luck!!

~W.A.G.

Vet Visit.

So I took Ripp to our vet today because they have to give him a standard exam before they can prescribe flea/heartworm medicine for him. 

On the way there he was a gem! I've never seen another dog travel as well as he did! I was so glad that he wasn't super stressed.

Here's what he was doing on the way there:

"I'm just chillin'!"

 Then we get to the vet and he's just sniffing everywhere. He was really calm though! So the doctor did the exam and said "So his papers from the shelter say that he was born on 12/20/2011 but I highly doubt that he's that old. I think he's about 1 year younger than that!". I was amazed! So Ripp's only about 14-15 months old!! Ripp also got his first round of booster shots today (they did this because he is still so young and they figured that he hadn't had them yet.). 

So we got his flea/heartworm medicine and came home. I just couldn't believe that he's so young! I'm glad, though, because that means I'm not getting as late of a start on agility training as I thought I was. :D

So he's feeling pretty dragged down right now. Booster shots do that. I remember them doing that to Cricket. It's pretty sad though because he's just been lying around all day.

This is pretty much what he's been doing ever since we got home:

"Momma... I is not feelin' too good." :(

  Well I hope that Ripp starts feeling better soon! 

Post again later!

~W.A.G.

Video link

Here's the link to the video from Friday!

Click HERE to open video in new tab.
Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoy!

~W.A.G.

Trial Results!!

So here are the results from Friday's trial! We got a Q and 8 points towards our title in T2B(we now have 18 points out of the 100 that we need for our title!), We got a Q and a 1st and our title in Open Standard, and we got a Q and a 1st in Excellent JWW! YAY!! Here are our ribbons that we got that day!

YAY!! I love the title ribbon! It's the first title that I've gotten that's brown/tan! They're usually brick-red/white.

Here are the course maps from from the trial(I scribbled on some of them)  :

T2B:

Open Standard:

I scribbled on this one wrong. After the weaves, you have to go back over the jump THEN to the table.

Excellent JWW:

So those are the course maps! I have videos and have edited them but they're not on youtube yet so I can't link them yet. So I'll link them to here once I get them uploaded!  Thanks for reading! 

~W.A.G.

UPDATES!! :D

Here are the newest videos that I've made of Cricket and Ripp!

Click HERE to go to Cricket's video.

Click HERE to go to Ripp's video.

Cricket and I are going to a trial tomorrow! I'm so excited! :D If he qualifies in Standard he'll have his Open Standard title! :D *Fingers crossed*

Also some updates on Cricket's feet.

We were feeding him just regular dog food and didn't realize that he was sensitive to grains. So he ended up licking all the fur off of his feet. It took us a while to figure out what was causing it but when we did, and started feeding him grain free, he stopped licking his feet! :D

Here's what his feet looked like at at the worst:

So sad right? :(

Here's what they looked like after about 2 months:

Starting to look fuzzy.

Here's what they look like now:

SO WHITE! :D

I'm so glad that they stopped itching! I felt so bad for him. :(

Well I guess that's about it for this post! Thanks for reading! 

~W.A.G.

Getting Close!!!

Ripp is doing his weaves almost perfectly! He still gets them wrong sometimes, but that's ok! He's also starting to do SEVERAL obstacles in a row! I'm SO happy!! Pretty soon I'm going to set up a real course for him and see how he does! :D YAY!!!!!

~W.A.G

It's COLD!!!

I did a bit of agility training with Ripp and Cricket yesterday and I about froze my hands off! I'm looking forward to Spring! But Ripp is doing well in his training! He's just about got the weaves down pat! Cricket's getting some REALLY hard weave entries lately! I'm so proud of him! YAY!!  Well I hope it warms up before too long! I probably won't make another video for a while. It's too cold. :) Post again later!

~W.A.G.

Updates on Ripp's Agility Progress.

This is Ripp doing his weaves! They're all in line now! YAY! He's learning so fast that I can't believe it!!

Here's the video I made of him doing agility yesterday!

Click HERE to go to video(opens in a new window).

I'm extremely proud of him!

I'm hoping to take him to visit a trial sometime in February so that he can get used to the environment, and maybe so he can get measured to see what height he'll jump. I kinda measured him with a yardstick but that's not super accurate. He'll either jump 20" or 24". But if he jumps 24" I'll enter him as preferred because I don't think he really needs to jump that high. 

So anyways... thanks for reading/watching! I'll post later with some more updates! :)

~W.A.G.

Agility! (It's pretty much my favorite thing to talk about!)

So I've been training more with Ripp! That's what I ended up naming him. I think it suits him! He's responding really well! He's learned the jumps, the tunnel, and he's almost got the weaves! This is super exciting for me! He's also starting to do several obstacles in a row! He's learned basic commands such as sit, lie down, stay, sand shake. He knows how to come but it's not proofed yet. He still gets so distracted sometimes that he doesn't listen. We're working on that and he is getting better! YAY!

 Here's the latest video I've made of him:

Click HERE to go to the video (opens in new window)! 

As for Cricket...He's doing great! I've been doing some hard jump patterns with him and he's learning fast! I have a trial coming up with him at the en of Feb. and also one in the middle of March! Wish us luck!! Please, feel free to subscribe to my Youtube channel! Thanks for reading!!

~W.A.G.

A New Furiend!!

So I've been looking for a new dog to do agility with. I've been looking at Border Collies and was considering buying a puppy. Then I decided to rescue one instead of buying a puppy. So I was looking and looking but nothing was turning up. Then my mom and I were out shopping in a town that we hardly ever go to. She wanted to go into this store but I didn't want to so I just went into the pet store that's next to it. I walk in and there's this Border Collie crated next to the door, ready for adoption. The local shelter had brought some of their dogs to feature them at the pet store and he was one of those dogs. He was beautiful! I just stared at him for a few minutes. Then I started asking the shelter people, and the foster, questions about him and their adoption process. I asked them what his name was. They said it was Prancer. I asked the foster if I could let him out and pet him. He said I could, so I did! I called my mom and asked her to come over to the pet store when she was finished. She came over there. She said to ask my dad if I could have him. I told the foster guy that I was interested but I would have to ask my dad. He gave me his number so I could call him and let him know what my dad said. We went home. I asked my dad and he said I could get him! I called the guy and we set up a day to meet at the shelter so I could adopt Prancer. I get to pick him up tomorrow if we don't get snowed in! YAY!! I'm SO excited! I can't wait to start training him! Here's a picture that the foster took of him:

 

Isn't he so pretty? He looks like he may have a tiny bit of Australian Shepherd in him. I think I'll change his name, though. He doesn't seem like a prancer to me. Any name ideas? I really want him to have some kind of action/agility type of name. Here are some names I like:

Mathis

Ripp

Hurricane(Cane)

Surge

 Pace

Charge

Turbo

Flare

Zip

Feel free to suggest names! Or rank these names for me, from 1-9. 1 being your favorite, and 9 being your least favorite. :)  Thanks for reading! I'll write again later telling you what I end up naming him!

~W.A.G.

Gluten Free/Paleo Dog Treats.

So today I thought I'd share one of my recipes with y'all. This is one that I use a LOT! My Westie boy is highly allergic to grain so I adapted this recipe to be grain free. There is nothing in this recipe that I wouldn't eat for myself!

Ingredients:
~2 1/2 Cups: Almond Flour.

~2: Large Eggs.

~1 Cup: of pureed fruit or pureed cooked meat(if using cooked meat, add a bit of broth to make is easier to puree).

~1/4 Cup: Chicken or Beef Stock.

Instructions:

~Put all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix thoroughly(Mixture will be fairly dry).

~Put parchment paper onto a cookie sheet.

~Put the dough onto parchment paper and spread out until it's about 1/4 inch thick, or thinner if you want it to cook faster.

~Bake dough on 170 Degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes, or until firm.

~Cut into desired sizes.

~Bake on 170 for another hour, or until desired done-ness.

~Let cool.

~Reward.

Makes aprox. 300 treats(depending on how big you make them).

Notes:
"What is almond flour?"

Almond flour is finely ground almonds. It is used in a LOT of paleo recipes. It can most likely be found at your local health food store. Sometimes you can find it in a regular supermarket.

I hope y'all like this recipe! It takes a fairly long time to bake because you basically have to dehydrate it. I actually have tried to dehydrate some in a dehydrator, but it doesn't turn out as good. Thanks for reading! I hope y'all enjoy making these treats!

~W.A.G.