My Dog life story

If you haven't realized this yet I am crazy about Cattle Dogs (: especially my babies Dingo, Sassy, and Mick. I have 6 dogs, 5 are Australian Cattle Dogs (Comanche, Cherokee, Dingo, Sassy, and Mick) and 1 Lab (Shadow). I train 6 dogs total, 3 of them are mine (Dingo, Sassy, and Mick) and 3 of them are not (Chloe, her sister Pheobe, and Macy). I also sometimes run my friends Portuguese Podengo Picanno (Zoe) in Agility.
My 2 Australian Cattle Dogs, Dingo and Sassy, are my life. I show them in Showmanship, Rally, Obedience, and Agility. Agility is my absolute favorite!
Mick is my new Cattle Dog Puppy. He doesn't live with me. I co-own him with my personal agility trainer, Zach. I hope to start training/ showing Mick in Obedience, Jr Conformation, and Agility!
My blog is all about my dogs, which is a completely unavoidable topic for me!

The real joy in agility is stepping to the start with your best friend at your side, not crossing the finish, victorious over others.

Once you've been loved by a Cattle Dog, you'll understand...

I'm not just a dog person, I'm a cattle dog mommy.

 The crazy cattle dog lover (:

My Dog-Life-Story

I was born March 1, 1998 into a family with dogs who worked cattle and a Chihuahua named Spike. We lived on a farm. When I was 18 months old we got a miniature Australian Shepherd, named Apache. No one really called him my dog, but I knew he was my dog. No one had a bond with him as great as I did. When I turned 2 we moved to a ranch-style home, where I live now. At the time, we had Daisy- a Red Australian Cattle Dog, Cowboy- another Red Australian Cattle Dog, Apache- the mini Aussie, and Spikey- the Chihuahua. Over the next few years, Daisy found a new home on a big farm and sadly Cowboy was poisoned in our backyard. At that point we only had Spike and Apache, so Apache became an inside dog. We found out when i was around 3 that Daisy had been bred and we got pick of the litter. We brought home a little female ACD named Cherokee.A few years later, in April (I had just turned 5 in March) my mini Aussie, Apache, got killed. It was late and stormy and he got out of our fence and onto the road, he got ran over. I was devastated. A few months had passed and I was getting ready to start Kindergarten in August. I guess it was June or July. My parents traveled to Fitsugh, Oklahoma and brought home a blue ACD named Fitsugh Comanche. A couple weeks before I started Kindergarten, Spikey passed away from old age, 16. Winter and spring of 2004 (I think), Cherokee and Comanche had 2 litters of puppies. After 2 litters, we decided breeding wasn't our thing. We didn't keep any of the puppies we bred. Between the ages of 4 and 8 was when I really fell in love with dogs. That's when I started training Comanche and Cherokee. I didn't train them for competition and we didn't go through any classes. I trained them just for fun. I trained them simple commands like sit, down, stand, and how to walk on a leash. For my 9th birthday my mom took me to a dog trial. My cousin Aaron trains and shows dogs for a living and has a training facility about an hour from my house. I watched him at trials and I told my mom I wanted a dog to train. I also told her " I wanna be just like Aaron one day" (: It just so happened that summer we found out an ACD puppy needed a home. On July 21, 2007 I got an 11 week old puppy named Bongo. I changed his name to Dingo, Australian Dashing Dingo. When I first saw this puppy it was love at first sight! He was def my dog! As soon as I got Dingo I started training him. We started in classes at the Evansville Obedience Club and in January 2008 we started in 4-H. My 1st year in 4-H was amazing. Dingo was an awesome dog and learned so well. We got Overall Grand Champion and Champions in all our other catergories. We have been in 4-H for 5 years now and do very well each year. We compete in Open Obedience (AKC), Excellent JWW and Excellent Standard (AKC) Agility- working towards our MACH!!! He is also showing in Open and Elite NADAC. Anyways, in October 2010 we saw a commercial for the Vanderburgh County Humane Society. Showing on the commercial was this beautiful, but overweight tiny ACD named Sassy. Immediately my mom and I fell in love with her. After begging my dad, the next day, October 2, 2010 we went down to the Humane Society and adopted Sassy. I kept her name and it truly fits her personality, Australian Shining Sassy. We got her down to a good weight and helped the many issues she had. When we brought her home she had ear mites and an eye infection. She has something wrong with her rear leg, it will never go away, we think she was hit by a car. It sometimes makes it hard for her to run agility. She is also missing several teeth. She is the sweetest dog ever though and she has made so many improvements. In the beginning she was supposed to be my mom's dog, but some how she's turning out to be my dog. We are working on Agility. She has already showed a few times in NADAC, but that's all. She also has her Beginner Novice Title. Sassy also shows in 4-H. Her 1st year was last year and we got either champion or reserved champion in all of our categories (Dingo got overall Grand Champion 2011 as well as 2008, Sassy's score was right behind him though for 2011). Currently I have 5 dogs, Comanche- 8, Cherokee-10, Sassy- 4, and Dingo-4. We also have the Evansville Fire Department Arson K9, Shadow-2. My dad works on the Evansville Fire Department as an Arson Investigator. The arson dogs have lived with as for as long as I can remember. 1st we had Murphy, adn then we had Sadie for 9 years. Sadie passed away in August 2011 due to a cancerous tumor in her mouth. April- May 2011 my dad spent 5 weeks in Maine for training and got the new Arson K9, Shadow. he is a very exuberant puppy.

So now you know my dog-life-story. There really isn't much else to me other than dogs. Agility is my passion.

 ACDCA National Specialty 2011, North Carolina.