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!

Lake Elmo UKC Shows

We had an awesome weekend at the UKC shows hosted by the UGSDA in Lake Elmo, MN on July 17-18, 2010. It was so great to see everyone again!

Saturday:
Show 1 judge was Polly Dake-Jones. Halle took a reserve in the Champions class out of two dogs.
Show 2 judge was Joyce Lea-Hanson. Halle won the Champions class out of three dogs.

Sunday:
Show 1 judge was Diane Raymond. Halle took a reserve in the Champions class out of four dogs.
Show 2 judge was Nina Marie Sherrer. Halle won the Champions class out of three dogs. She went on to win her first Best of Breed and a Group 3!

We could not be prouder of Halle! She has far surpassed our expectations for being so young. She now has two of five wins needed for her Grand Championship. We likely will not be showing her until October - we are planning to head up north for shows in Bemidji, MN. Looking forward to it!

Also, again I would like to thank everyone who let me handle their dogs this weekend - Rebecca, Debbie, Melissa, and Patty. All of them are great dogs! I had a great time with all of them and I really really appreciate the experience.

Halle's picture with her ribbons from the weekend will be posted on her page on our site. (:

Puppy update!

The puppies are 4 weeks old now - so hard to believe! They're adorable and so fun to watch play together. Sometimes one of them will take on one of the "big dogs" and bark at them. So funny!

Here are their 4 week pictures. We also took stacked pictures this week which are posted both on our website and our Facebook page.

We put the x-pen around the kiddie pool that the puppies are in about a week ago because four of them were able to get out. Rose still can't get out on her own because she is so small. Yesterday was weigh-in day - our smallest is Rose at 2.2 lbs and our largest is Ozzie at 5 lbs. All of them are very healthy and doing well!

The puppies are starting the weaning process by eating puppy food (American Natural Premium Endurance Formula) mixed with water three times daily. They still nurse from Millie, just not as often.

I have started the routine of bringing all of the puppies outside when they are let out of the pen to start potty training. I think that this really helps set some ground work for house breaking the pups after they go to their new owners.

We will be going to Lake Elmo, MN for UKC shows next weeked, July 17-18, so if I don't update before I definitely will after the shows!

Happy Birthday!

Last Saturday, June 19th, our Rosco x Millie litter turned one year old! We invited everyone to get together at our house for a birthday party. We had 11 dogs here total - Mom Millie, Dad Rosco, Grandpa Nikko, six of the puppies (Bella, Knox, Hans, Pepper, Jaeger, and Halle), Emma (Pepper's white GSD friend owned by Pepper's owner's sister), and Stone (my sister's Chihuahua x Yorkie puppy). Of course, we also have six brand new puppies (almost 2 weeks old) that were enjoyed by everyone!

We were expecting it to be a bit crazy with all of the dogs, but we were wrong. It went very well and everyone was very well behaved. Thank you to my sister, Lindsay, for buying an awesome cake!
Here is a picture of it:

We really enjoyed seeing everyone with their puppies again! Everyone has gotten so big. All of the puppies have great temperaments and it was fun to see how they are maturing. Many of them are in the "leggy teenage" stage right now xD All of the owners are doing an awesome job with their puppies!

I posted plenty of pictures on our White Whillow German Shepherds Facebook page. Here is the link to the page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/White-Whillow-German-Shepherds/104283486277643?ref=ts

Please feel free to "like" our page!

Happy Birthday puppies!

Rock n Roll

Our theme for this litter is.... Rock n Roll!

Introducing...

White Whillow Eleanor Rigby "Ellie" - Yellow Collar Female
White Whillow Every Rose Has It's Thorn "Rose" - Pink Collar Female
White Whillow Someone Like You "Leon" - Green Collar Male
White Whillow Make A Memory "Jovi" - Blue Collar Male
White Whillow Poker Face "Lena" - Red Collar Female
White Whillow Bark At The Moon "Ozzie" - White Collar Male

Puppies are here! (Cont.)

Little late in updating... unfortunately I wasn't feeling my best so we were a day late with pictures also. Everyone is doing very well and Millie is being a good mom.

Puppy #5 - Red Collar Female - born at 11:15 PM
Puppy #6 - White Collar Male - born at 11:25 PM

Puppies are here!

We are up to four puppies right now - 2 girls and 2 boys!

Puppy #1 - Yellow Collar Female - born at 6:18 PM

Puppy #2 - Pink Collar Female - born at 7:36 PM

Puppy #3 - Green Collar Male - born at 7:54 PM

Puppy #4 - Blue Collar Male - born at 8:23 PM

We have a theme picked out for names for the puppies, but I will wait until everybody is born to say what we have chosen. (:

UKC Championship Picture

Here is Halle's UKC Championship picture (: