How My Life Has Gone To The Dogs (Part 1)

OK So now I am blogging...who knew...

Not sure how I will use this forum or what I will have to say...but I'm gonna give it a go.

As you can guess from my blog title I am an Agility Dad...what does this mean?  It means my daughter Tamara is involved in Dog Sports.  It also means My other daughter Jessica will soon be as well.

We got our start with all this back in 2008.  My wife came home from a visit from the SPCA and told me that we found our dog and that she had put in an application on her.  I said "But we aren't getting a dog."  I knew this was something that both our girls wanted so much, but I also knew that it was gonna change our lives in so many ways....just how much I had no idea.

This dog would come to be know as Meeka.  As you can probably figure out Meeka is a rescue.  She is some sort of lab mix...possibly some border collie...but it could be anything.  She was about 7 months old the vet guessed when we got her in May of 2008.  So we have guessed her birthday as Sept 2007.

a young Meeka

When we got Meeka, I started to look into training options for her, at least some obedience.  I knew the girls enjoyed the Paws for Fun Agility Shows we had seen over the years, so I got in touch with Yan.  We did some obedience there and Meeka really caught on well.  The 1st session we did was in the spring and Jessica ended up doing most of the classes as Tamara was too shy.  We did another obedience session and an agility session in the fall and Tamara did both of these classes.  She did really well and at the end of the session she was invited to join the Paws for Fun Agility team.  She was thrilled.  Shortly afterward Tamara was asked to handle Tucker a papillion that lived at Yan's house.  Meeka was able to stay in the show with Jessica as a handler.  Yan saw something special in Tamara and invited her to train Competitive Rally and obedience with Tucker.  Meeka is/was ineligible for this (more about this in a future blog).  Tamara went on to get a taste of competitive dog sports.

We had a great 1st year with Paws for Fun, and met many new and wonderful people.  Also Tamara seems to have found her passion, her interest in dogs has helped her to come out of her shell so to speak.  She is a very different girl now, so much more confident and mature.

This is where I will stop this story for now, but be sure to stay tuned for Part 2, A Storm In The House.