We traveled an hour and a half down to Le Center, MN for Red Pine Kennel Club's second UKC show weekend on July 2-3. We brought Millie down to finish her Championship - she needs just one last competition win. She showed so well (very proud of her!), but no competition win! She took Reserve Best Female under judge Gene Reynolds in show one. Here's a picture:

Next shows July 16-17!

Happy Birthday!

We held our second annual birthday party for our puppies on Saturday, June 18. Unfortunately, the weather was quite interesting and did not want to cooperate. The sky remained cloud-covered with little peaks of sunshine here and there. Soon after people started arriving it began to sprinkle - most of our back yard is covered by a huge tree so the light rain was still manageable. It soon began to pour, and we all headed inside to the kitchen - mud and all! Everyone was so good-spirited about the rain and all the puppies got along so well. We were so excited to see Knox, Hans, Pepper, and Jaeger from our Rosco x Millie litter (born June 19, 2009) and Remmie, Riley, and Ozzie from our Bubby x Millie litter (born June 8, 2010) - and of course their wonderful families who have done such a great job of raising them all! Millie, Halle, and Lundy had a blast with all the company, and Stone had a blast with everyone too (he thinks he's a German Shepherd...)

We took LOTS of pictures, including stacks of everyone! Check out the album on our Facebook page: 2nd Annual Puppy Birthday Party (2011)

Thank you for a great day, everyone! We absolutely love to see our puppies as they grow up.

First Post of 2011

...and it's already June?

Okay, I realize I haven't posted in a LONG time. Let me try to summarize our year so far.

Our first UKC shows were at the end of March, hosted by the UGSDA. We had a great time! We brought Millie out to show again - she enjoyed it very much. She took two Reserve Best Females on Saturday, and I was very proud of her for showing well all weekend. Here's a photo from the weekend (photo by Thomas Photography):

In April, we added a new addition! Our new family member is a black/tan male from Kerstone German Shepherds in Kansas. We love how this boy is growing up, and cannot wait to start showing with him! We are expecting big things from him.

Introducing... Kerstone White Whillow Special Agent AKA "Lundy" (pictured below at 12 weeks)

In May we attended the White German Shepherd Dog Club International National weekend in Burnsville, MN. We entered Halle, who took a Reserve Winners Bitch in one of the Saturday shows. We also tried out Rally Obedience run-throughs and Halle did very well.

Our next shows will be in July - I am also hoping to trial in rally in July!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from White Whillow! And a very happy New Year also!

December 2010 Shows

We attended and helped out at the United German Shepherd Dog Alliance's December 4-5 shows in Minneapolis, MN.

Show 1 judge was Carlos Rodriguez. Halle took Champion of Champions for her final win towards her UKC Grand Championship!!! She is now UKC Grand Ch. White Whillow She's Fine, CGC! I absolutely love her Grand Championship photo.

We moved Halle up to the Grand Champion class for shows 2, 3, and 4 - no placements in any of them, but it was a lot of fun to show with all the Grands! It was a very large class of very nice dogs.

Also, thank you to everyone who let me show their dogs this weekend! I absolutely love to show and love the opportunities to show others' dogs.

I also have to throw in a little brag for myself.. I tried out UKC Junior Showmanship this weekend. It was definitely interesting and different from regular conformation. However, I really enjoyed it and plan to continue doing it. With the help of Halle, I earned four Best Juniors this weekend (:

That's it for us for 2010! Our next conformation show will be in March 2011. In the meantime, we'll find other fun things to do (:

Quick November Update

Just thought I'd write up a quick post. We haven't been up to too much lately, besides working on obedience at home. Our next shows are this coming weekend, December 4-5, hosted by the UGSDA in Minneapolis - we are excited!

Halle and Millie have been loving the snow! It's always fun to watch them play in the first snow fall; they get so excited!

UKC Shows and CGC's!

I apologize for not updating for awhile! It's been a busy couple months.

We went to UKC shows in Minneapolis, MN on September 25, 2010 with Halle. They were hosted by the NLAEDA. No placement in show 1, but Halle took Reserve Champion in show 2 under judge David Kitredge. Silly girl closed her eyes for the picture... must have been a long day.

The following day we took both Millie and Halle to test them for their CGC's. CGC stands for Canine Good Citizen. The CGC basically tests the dog's manners in public places and around other people and stresses responsible dog ownership. The CGC consists of 10 different parts. Here's a link for more information about the CGC test.
http://www.akc.org/events/cgc/program.cfm

Millie and Halle did great and both passed to earn their CGC titles! I'm very proud of both of them. Here's a picture of them with their certificates from the AKC (they are also wearing their tags that say they are CGC certified.)

We traveled up to Bemidji, MN for UKC shows October 9-10. It was the PBDTAI's first UKC show and it was a wonderful show! Great place, relaxed atmosphere, and a very fun weekend. Halle took Reserve Champion in show 2 on Saturday under judge Barbara Lauer. On Sunday she took Champion of Champions in show 1 under judge Fred Bock. This was her fourth win towards her Grand Championship! Only one more to go! Our next show, and last one for this year, is December 5-6 so we are hoping to finish up her Grand that weekend.

Reserve Champion

Champion of Champions

Halle at Leech Lake - October 10, 2010

Halle's First Day at Agility

On Saturday, September 12th my mom and I took Halle to an agility fun day at Leader of the Pack Canine Center. They like to hold these fun days a week or two before their Beginning Agility classes start. I really like this training center because they only use positive reinforcement and really try to teach owner and dog how to bond and work well together. Halle is very in tune to me, listens well to commands that I give her, and reacts well to my body language. We are learning from each other, and I love working with her.

We were the second to arrive and so we started off with plenty of one on one attention and direction from Linda (owner and trainer of the center). I walked Halle around the place to let her check it out a bit and the first thing we tried was a simple jump. Linda held Halle and I walked around to the other side of the jump and told Halle to come. She took the jump right away and got plenty of praise afterwards! Throughout the time that we were there Halle got better and better and "jump" and seemed to start learning what the command meant.

Here's a picture of Halle jumping:

Here's Halle jumping over a broad jump (many dogs think they are supposed to step on it, but Halle never touched it):

The next thing we tried was the hoop jump. As a command I call this "circle". We worked this one the same way we worked the jumps at first - Linda held Halle and I called her through. No picture for this one!

Weaves were our next obstacle to tackle. I treated the weaves as three separate obstacles. Going through the first two poles and coming back to me through the second and third would be considered the first, etc. Halle did well with the weaves and seemed to enjoy doing them until we got towards the end when she was tired - then she didn't care for them too much :)

Here's Halle doing the weaves:

After working on the obstacles inside we headed outside to try bigger and tougher ones. First off was the dog walk. This tends to be a harder obstacle for large dogs because the boards are skinny and the dog has to coordinate itself to make sure all feet stay on. I use "walk it" for a command. The first part was getting Halle to realize what was expected of her when she walked up to the board. At first she put her front feet on and tried to walk up half on/half off. After a few more tries she got all her feet on the board and walked up, across, and down no problem. She enjoyed the praise afterwards and was more than willing to do it again!

Here's Halle on the dog walk:

Next to try was the A-frame. It took Halle a couple tries to get all the way to the top, but she did it! She seemed to really like this obstacle.

Here's a couple pictures:

Halle did very well with the tunnels. She was pretty comical - she would go to the other end of the tunnel and poke her head out waiting to see me and then she would continue out of the tunnel. (:

Here's a picture:

Overall, we had a wonderful time trying out agility and we are very proud of Halle for how quickly and easily she took to each obstacle. I plan to get Halle into an agility class hopefully within the next few months and once we reach a level that we can compete, I would love to trial with her. Lots of plans for the future!

Time at the Lake

I did not get a chance to blog so I apologize!

Last weekend we headed to Sauk Centre, MN with Millie, Halle, and Ozzie. A friend of our's lives there on the lake and invited us up to have some fun. We went up Friday night and did not get there until around 7-7:30ish. The girls and Ozzie were very excited to see everyone - we met my sister, Lindsay, and niece, Gabby there who had their dog, Stone. We also met Lindsay's friend, Cindy, and her mom there. Cindy owns Jaeger (Rosco x Millie).

We had a nice dinner while the dogs ran around playing together. The dogs eventually tired themselves out and relaxed a bit inside while we talked and played cards.

Saturday morning we got up and had breakfast. Ozzie and the girls were excited and ready to go. We headed over to the lake and let them swim. This was Millie's second time swimming and she was SO excited when she saw the water. She absolutely loved it. This was Halle's first time seeing water and, to my surprise, she literally jumped right in! I think she was a little surprised at first and had to realize what she had done. Each of the girls did jump off of the dock a couple times, but mostly went from the shore. Ozzie had a blast too! It was his first time seeing water (at almost 12 weeks old). He swam in the water just like the "big dogs" and, of course, went and rolled around in the sand afterwards because that is what puppies do!

We went back to the house to grab a few things and then we went out on the pontoon with Jaeger, Millie, Halle, and Ozzie. Jaeger was "king of the boat" as he enjoyed his spot sitting on top of the seats. Ozzie was TIRED. He had already had such a big day (and weekend!) and he passed out right away and stayed sleeping our entire time on the boat. Millie and Halle enjoyed laying in the sun and sticking their heads out when the boat was moving. This was their first experience on a boat and they loved it. It was a great way to dry them all off too!

After we got back it was almost time for us to head home. It was an hour and a half trip for us so we left around 4 because we had to be back for other plans that night.

Monday was Ozzie's last day here. Jim came to pick him up that evening. Ozzie is living with him and his daughter who absolutely fell in love with him from seeing pictures. He may even keep his name! We are happy that Ozzie has gone to such a great home, but it was definitely hard to see him go.

August 2010 Shows

We went to UKC shows hosted by the UGSDA on August 7, 2010. It was just one day - two shows for German Shepherds, Berger Picards, and Beagles.

The weather was interesting. It rained during our hour long drive there and continued to rain throughout the first show. The shows were outside so everyone was pretty wet. After the rain it became very hot. I spent most of my time in the shade, but from the time I spent in the ring (in the sun) I did get a little burnt.

Show 1 judge was Dawn Todd. Halle took Reserve Champion out of three dogs.
Show 2 judge was Karen Todd. Halle won the Champions class for her third win towards her Grand Championship!!

Here are Halle's pictures:

I also had the pleasure of showing Atlas (Atlas Kennels). He won Best Veteran show 1 and Best Stud Dog both shows. Thanks again Tracie for letting me show him!

We brought our three remaining puppies (Ozzie, Leon, and Rose) along for some socialization. They had fun!

It was a very fun day and it was great to see everyone again!