Best of Winners

As mentioned a few post ago, Odin was shown in his first three dog shows and took Best of Winners in his second show. We got the picture yesterday from the show and are so proud of him and can't wait to see how he does in future shows.

Weekend of Ribbons

This weekend we continued Odin's debut into the world of confirmation and headed to the Olympic Kennel Club Dog show at the fair grounds in Enumclaw on both Saturday and Sunday. Odin was shown by his amazing and talented handler Lisa Merki once again and they had a great weekend of showing.

Saturday was by far Odin's best day and took first place in his class and the winner's group which is the round of showing for all the class winners for those of you who are unfamiliar with how this whole show thing works. To our surprise Odin took first in the winner's group which meant he got to compete for Best of Breed in his second dog show ever. Not too shabby if I do say so myself. Best part of him being able to compete for Best of Show was getting to see him compete against his dad, Jake and Loki's dad, Sam for the same award. While Sam took the win and won Best of Show, Odin won Best of Winners. He got a bunch of ribbons for his good work along with a food dish and leash holder which were prizes given by the Washington Brittany Club. We also got a picture with the judge, Lisa and Ben since this was his first big win with points earned towards his championship.

Competing for Best of Breed on Saturday

Sunday Odin was a little hyper since he hadn't gotten to run around much the night before since we didn't want to have to give him another bath and blow dry and decided he didn't want to stay standing in the stacked position very long so it made Lisa's day interesting. Despite this he won his class again and took reserve winner's. The other excitement for Lisa was she showed her Pointer puppy, Harper and took Best of Winners so it was a good day of dog showing for her.

Competing for Winner's Dog on Sunday

Loki also got to come to the shows with us even though he was just a spectator for now since he is too young to compete. Not sure if we'll show him but he enjoyed being around all of the other dogs and of course getting petted by all the people. We also got to see Loki next to Sam which was fun and Sam's owner Liz got to meet him as well.

All in all it was a great weekend and Odin proved that he is really a great show quality dog.

Odin's Debut

For our loyal readers who probably were wondering why after 2 years we decided to get Odin professional groomed last week well it was for his ring debut today at the Rainer Sporting Dog Association Dog Show in Enumclaw at the Fair Grounds. The show had over 700 dogs and was held outdoors for the confirmation events so the cooler weather was greatly appreciated by both the people and the dogs. Odin is being shown by his wonderful handler Lisa Merki who has know him since he was a puppy. They make a great team and Odin really likes her and of course the treats that she has in her pockets :) Were so proud of him for being behaved at his first show and were happy to report that he did AWSOME- he won first place in his group and took reserve in the Winners group.

We're looking forward to this weekend as Odin will be in shows both days and are excited that we'll get to be there in person to see Team Lisa and Odin perform for the judges. Guess we truly have a show doggie after all.

All in a weekend- Birdies, Sun & Water

This weekend with the weather in the high 90's we headed out bright and early Saturday morning with the boys to meet up with Lisa and her girls to head down to the trainer for some training before it got to be too hot to do anything. We met up Andy and his wife LoAnne and their boys Oscar and Chase and Dick and his boy Max who were training as well. This weekend we worked on more backing for Odin as this is his main area of concern and some fine tuning for hunting season.

While at the trainer we also decided to continue Loki's introduction to birds and based on how well he has been doing and his reaction to the pop gun and the shotgun last weekend we decided it was time to introduce him to the shotgun. After a few rounds at distances that got closer to him each time with no problems, Chris decided it was time to go for it and let him have his own bird. Boy was he a happy bird dog once he got his bird.

Since the weather wasn't cooling off on Sunday we headed down to Ben's cousins- Mike and Pam who live on Lake Hicks for a day of fun. We spent our afternoon floating around, swimming and Ben got to go tubing. The day ended with a great BBQ dinner before we packed up to head home with two very tired boys, three if you include Ben :)

All Polished Up

Ben tends to like the "wildman" look when it comes to Odin but we finally decided to let him get a proper grooming. Thursday Odin headed to Der Pet Haus in Bellevue for an appointment with Keith who handles all of the Brittany's. Since we have never sent him to a professional groomer before we weren't sure what would all be done outside of trimming him.

We were pleasantly surprised by how much of a proper Brittany Odin looks now while a little puzzled that they shaved the whiskers and eyebrows but were sure he will make a grand presence at his debut in the coming days now that he is all polished looking.

Happy Boys

Sunday was supposed to be a sleep in day but Ben and the boys had other plans as we headed out of the house at 4:45am to make the drive down to Chris's place in Eagle Creek for training. The drive takes about 3.5 hours each way and the boys sleep the entire way so they don't mind it, can't say the same about us.

Chis was a great host and had let everyone know the day before that he would be smoking ribs so we could have a potluck lunch. Everyone brought goodies to go with the ribs and had a good day of training and socializing.

Loki got to play with more pigeons as well and is showing that he is quite the retriever and a bird dog. While he does have a little trouble actually retrieving the birds as they are usually the same size as him he does make a good effort to figure out how to make it work.

All in all everyone had a good day and were looking forward to next weekend since hunting season is right around the corner.

Loki and Harper

One of the greatest things about having hunting dogs is having friends that also have hunting dogs and train with the same trainer. It makes it much easier when we say were training this weekend and not having to explain why and what for each time. Over the last year while training Odin we have become great friends with Lisa and her Pointer girls- Erin, Daphne and Harper. Were lucky that she lives in Shoreline and is always up for training with our boys.

Yesterday we headed over for the afternoon to do some backyard training before heading back to Chris's place in Eagle Creek next weekend to tighten up on the basics for Odin and Harper and to let Loki play with a birdy. 

After a while Loki and Harper decided that they were done with the bird stuff and it was playtime. Being that they are both puppies, Harper is 8 months old and Loki is almost 11 weeks they got along great and chased each other for about 2 hours before collapsing and falling asleep. Amidst all of this running and playing Loki stumbled upon the pond in the backyard and decided it was prime location to follow the others and get a drink. We all watched as he hovered over the pond and then fell in since it was a bit of out of his reach. Luckily Ben was there to pull him out before he got freaked by the water and later we caught him trying to get into the pond again. Guess he's a water dog as well.

Even though Loki had already fallen in the pond once...

...He sure wasn't 'fraid a nuthin!

Were definitely looking forward to another doggie play date very soon.