Everyone loves a challenge!

Well, I am home once again from a long teaching gig out east. It was tons of fun as always even if the weather was about 50 degrees colder than it was here in Colorado!

It was a great trip for the newly named "Vandal" aka "Torque" :-) He named himself, and, will live up to it with no problem I am quite certain!

He was amazing, during our 9 days on the road we "lived" in 4 different hotels, taught at 3 different facilities and were fortunate to be able to reconnect with some old friends as well as meet a bunch of new people.

He learned self control in the cliff notes version as the poor young man had to spend large quantities of time while I taught in either crates or X-pens. By the last day he had it all figured out and was quite content to amuse himself in between naps, I was very proud!

Vandal is quite the people dog he never misses an opportunity to meet everyone he sees and makes a point of displaying his thoughts about jumping on people, if you jump up you get closer to the petting devices known as hands :-)

He is also quite enamored with every dog he sees, the unfortunate part is that his idea of meeting and greeting is to jump square into each dogs face and bite whatever parts present themselves, not the smartest idea ever!

So, what is the deal with todays heading? What challenge am I referring to? The newest challenge raising a Vandal :-)

Don't get me wrong, my life is already filled with many challenges including but not limited to Merger, Wally, SoBe, Sparky and the list goes on, however, I seem to revel in challenge so I have added a Vandal.

He is going to be an awesome challenge however, very different yet again from the older kids here at the Peardot-Goudy household!

Some things I learned this past week: Vandal is VERY bold and equally independent. His independence is not a negative and he is very conscious of where I am at all times but he has no problem heading off on walk about when something interesting catches his eye. 

He is very fast already and has made it clear that he enjoys his time on a leash because he goes out of his way to make it clear that he needs one whenever he is out and about and could potentially wander into a dangerous situation.

I may even have to do something I have avoided with all other puppies, invest in a gentle leader! He has already at the tender age of 9 weeks and with a whopping weight of 12 pounds mastered the art of pulling me around like he were a sled dog!

Vandal loves to play with toys and loves to work for food, well he works for food until he doesn't want to anymore :-) I will be working very hard to insure that I keep food a priority as well as toys so it is a must that I have high value food rewards at all times.

Vandal got to see his very first dog run across the dog walk he reacted like any normal over the top, higher than a kite BC puppy, he screamed bloody murder!!!

He also was fortunate enough to get to watch a dog playing frisbee for about 3 seconds, interestingly enough the frisbee play had the same effect.

I will be diligently working focus and attention work with distractions, minimal at first but you can bet we will be cultivating the tremendous drive that I know he has and that I want but at the same time he will need to understand there is a time and a place.

Vandal is a wonderful mix of bold, brassy, smart, biddable, independent and equally appropriate and inappropriate all rolled into an adorable puppy form.

A challenge yes, but one I am most certainly looking forward to.

As I said earlier I just got home from the big trip and after only getting about 3 hours of sleep last night I can say in all honesty that I was not the most motivated person on the planet today, however I did clean my training building and set up some of the exercises that I found to be the most challenging from all of the past weeks seminars and spent some quality time with SoBe and Wally who were amazing if I do say so myself! 

We got a lot of practice on various weave pole entries as well as some great decelleration and weight shifting exercises, I will explain this in the upcoming blogs :-)

I am very excited about where I am with my dogs right now and I am very lucky to have the up and coming agility stars that I have.

Great ready for a wild ride, it's time to train the puppies!