Happy Birthday Taz!!!

 This is Taz . 

This is his favorite past time.  Playing with the ball!

Taz joined the Munro family household in February 2008.  His birthday is September 24, 2007.

Baby Taz

Taz's favorite past time besides playing ball is chasing the cats.  Gizmo enjoys the game, whereas the foster cats do not.

Gizmo lounging

Taz is still working on his flyball skills.  He has his Flyball Dog (FD), Flyball Dog Excellence (FDX) and his Flyball Dog Champion (FDCh) titles.  We are still working on him being comfortable in the lane and I hope that next year he will be burning up the lanes again.  I had the opportunity to time him the night before the Diamonds tournament.  With no dog in the other lane and not having to pass a dog, he clocked in at 4.69 seconds.  Mighty fast!

In the meantime, we are working on his agility skills.  He is going to have to jump 22inches and has some very stiff competition.  The handling skills I will have with him will be vastly different than the skills I use with Pepper.  So far he is proving to be faster than Pepper on the agility field as well.  He needs to learn some control but that will come as we work through the different exercises.

Taz jumping 22 inches

We are most fortunate to be able to watch his brother Flash grow up.  We are also fortunate to be able to watch him excel at agility and know that Taz has that same potential.

Flash descending the A-frame

Happy Birthday Flash and Taz!

Busy Month!

Boy this month sure has been busy for Pepper!  We started the first weekend of September in Regina with the Good2Go flyball tournament.  Pepper's team got into the groove and really started to rock the lanes!  I also got into the groove with her on Sunday and was able to pull off a few one foot passes with Holly.  My little princess has come along way from a year ago when she had troubles dealing with a 7 foot pass!  Rage was able to pass Pepper extremely tightly (one foot) as well.

This past weekend was the Diamonds in the Ruff's (our club) flyball tournament.  It was a SUPER busy weekend for all!  Taz got to come along and hang out in his kennel.  He enjoyed being included in the excitement even if he was not running the lanes.  Taz and I were able to fit a bit of training in and he made an executive decision to approach some strangers for a sniff which landed him load of cookies!

Pepper has started to pick up speed and broke her own personal best time.  Her new personal best is 4.81 seconds.  When we get our passing down, she will gain a few more hundredths of a second.  She may not be able to sustain that speed all weekend but I am happy she can bring it when called upon!  Needless to say, my legs were killing me from all the sprinting, trying to bring her home faster!  Here are some photos courtesy of Anita Yee.

Pepper starting

Pepper bringing home her ball!

For this weekend we shall be switching gears to run in two agility trials.  On Saturday, it is the Michelle Wudrick Memorial Trial and on Sunday it is the D & S Annual Starters Trial.  We can only hope for a Q or two this weekend.  We seem to be stuck in a 5 fault rut that is keeping us from getting Qs.  Our instructor Shirley says that some times it is better to not move up too quickly.  I know we are close and there are a few things we need to work on (like our table) but we shall get there.  I am proud of how far we have come over the last few years.  I remember thinking "how am I ever going to keep up with her when she really gets some speed"  as she was not yet able to work away from me.  Now she is comfortable with a few feet of distance and an awesome lead out.  It sure shows how much she has grown up in the sport!!

I will keep all of you posted as to how we do on the weekend!  I am hoping that someone will be there with a good camera to take a few pictures of our runs!  Wish us luck!

Happy Birthday Pepper!!!

Saturday, September 4th was Pepper's 4th birthday!  She has been a part of the Munro family for 3 years and 8  months now.  I still remember the day we got her.  We had just moved into our new house the day before.  We drove to the Saskatoon SPCA in hopes of finding the right dog.  There she was, sitting in a kennel, waiting to interact.  We took her out and played with her and talked about her.  We found out she was just turned in that day and the family had 24 hours to change their minds.  It was hard waiting but we prevailed.  We drove back the next day right before close and picked her up.  She was ours!!!

Grandpa holding Pepper for the first time!

She was exposed to the entire Munro and Holfeld family that Christmas as we had Christmas supper in our new house.  She was well behaved!  Everyone loved her and she was entertaining!

The next year, Taz joined our pack!

Taz as a young puppy playing with Pepper

And here is were we are now at with Pepper!  She is a flyball athlete and an agility star!  She makes me proud every time she steps into the agility field or the flyball lane.

Starters trial last year

Happy 4th Birthday Pepper!