Happy days are here again . . .

I thought I might start you off with an adorable visual for your day:

That’s Rippa and Yishai at the Outdoor Retailer show in Salt Lake City. We took Fury and Rips onto the floor on Friday and they did great being dog ambassadors, on top of helping us pick up premium dog swag for being cute. Rippa is, yes, actually sporting a badge. It says “Rippa the Dog.” And in the category, where it usually says “Exhibitor” or “Retailer” it says, “Dog.”" Love it.  We took the dogs to SLC with us and they were hatin’ staying in crates while we were away but when the work was done, everyone had fun.

So an update on Daca that I promised you: it looks like we have confirmed her rehoming – she’ll be flying out to Ohio to live with the Meyers’ family. Stephanie and her family (2 boys, one huz) are very experienced with rescue dogs and fear issues in general. She contacted me about two days after I placed Daca with the Sibleys and we talked a lot about her issues and dogs in general. Stephanie admires what I am trying to do with the breeding of these guys and after hearing both from the Sibleys and myself about Daca, she’s formulated a plan about what she’ll be doing with her and it sounds excellent. She’s also intending to include her in part of her frisbee dog expo troop and get into stockdog work with her – this is great, not only will Daca get the kind of management and handling she really needs, but she’ll be really realizing her full potential as a performance dog. Did I mention that she also still gets to be a family dog (she likes that).

I have been pretty heart broken over placing Daca with the Sibleys because here again we’ve got another failure in placement. I have talked extensively to them and we all agree that we tried our best to make it work, but in the end, managing Daca was going to be too much for their household. They are used to the more conformation/friendly Aussie and Daca definitely needs a stronger, more experienced hand. As I said, I will do an education write up about this when I get a chance because it needs to be out there. I have always said that most Aussies are sedans – you can take them out with the family, drive them where you need to, park them where you need to, but stockdogs – real high performance stockdogs – are more like Ferraris. You can get some amazing things out of them if you know what you’re doing, but if you don’t, baby it’s a crash and burn. I learned that the hard way with Fury.

The nice thing about this is that decision to rehome her isn’t out of spite or something specific. The Sibleys simply recognize that what she really needs they can’t fully offer her. If Stephanie declined taking her, or I couldn’t find anyone else for her, they were fully committed to keeping her and working with her. They’re great people and I’m grateful to having connected to them, even if it wasn’t all sparkles and joy.

It’s a learning process, but one I’ve chosen to make public so that others can benefit and for that, I have no compunctions.

And a parting photo of Fury with her badge and cordelette head halter:

Head halters are pretty sweet for dogs like Fury that have major needs to control their environment. That little loop around her muzzle chills her out unbelievably. She’s the world’s most mellow, happy dog with that thing on. Management, that’s the key.