What a great year 2009 has been! In December 2008, I found out that Lok was going blind from PRA. In 2009, we trained in Rally and Obedience and Lok got his RL1 title. Then, due to stress, his obedience fell apart and we gave it a break and worked on tricks for awhile. We took up skijoring and got out on skis once at the beginning of the year, and have been out a couple times so far this winter. I'm really hoping this can become something fun and freeing for him to do even when his sight is completely gone. During the winter, we worked on disc in the basement and put together a nice little freestyle routine for a blind dog. Lok competed all summer and even took fourth place (and was very close to third) at a local competition with a pretty competetive field! Lok's eyes got worse and worse all summer, but even so, he ran in a UFO major in Colorado in August, making probably 3/30 catches in the whole routine. He had a blast though, and I was proud of him! He also ran in the Ashley Whippet Invitational World Championships in Naperville in September. Another poor round, but he had a blast again and even got a newspaper article written about him! http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=6623893322121422964
Jun officially joined the family in March! Jun, who already excelled in toss and catch, came a very long way in her freestyle disc training. At the beginning of the year, she would not play with multiple discs. After an entire spring and summer of work on this issue, Jun can now do an entire two-minute freestyle round without sticking on a single disc! This has enabled us to start building up a repetoire of freestyle moves so we can do a lot better in competitions next year. Jun learned a crazy amount of tricks, took obedience classes and got two legs of her RL1. Jun also started skiing!
Elo came to live with us in September. He has been doing amazing, learning obedience and tricks, and I'm starting to think he may actually have some drive after all. He will now voluntarily play fetch the whole time we're outside (or until his feet get cold), will tug and chase rollers with the disc, and has officialy made two catches out of the air!
I'm so proud of what my dogs have accomplished in 2009 and can't wait to see what 2010 holds for us!
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What a fabulous year! I love watching your dogs perform on the field. Especially Lok. They both have incredibly inspiring stories and you are such a rockstar for coming as far as you have with them! Cheers to 2009, can't wait to see where 2010 will take us! Happy New Year, T!
ReplyDeleteOh my gosh, T... Don't take this the wrong way because it's soooo not meant that way. But that photo that you have of Jun at the top there... She looks like you there. I dont know what it is exactly... Weird! I sooo dont mean to say you look like a dog. Thats NOT IT! Have you ever seen that, where a dog and owner share a look? That's what I mean. Lol!
ReplyDeleteOh, Em, that made me laugh so hard!! I have no idea what you're talking about, but Jun is such a pretty girl, so I'll take it as a compliment!
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