Radical Canines

Growing up, birthday month was October with all 3 of my siblings having birthdays in October! Now as an adult, we still have birthday month in October, but in this house, we also have birthday month in February! On the 1st, Ryder turned 10. Honestly, the idea that he’s 10 is mind boggling. He’s always been a thinker and rather serious dog so as he’s gotten older I haven’t noticed a change day to day. He’s a little more grouchy with the other dogs than he used to be, and he doesn’t run as much when we’re outside, but he still loves to wrestle with Rumor and on some days with Ratchet. He loves to chew on antlers and his favorite thing is still, without question, food. One of the best things about Ryder being a white dog is I don’t notice him going grey. His copper on his face is starting to fade, but overall he’s in great shape, especially for a 10 year old dog!

On the 5th, I turned 32 and celebrated my birthday weekend with all the dog sports! Rugby, Ryder, and I went to a CPE agility trial on Saturday. Rugby had a perfect day, going 4/4 Qs and Ryder did his thing earning 2/4 Qs. I was especially proud of Rugby’s weave poles, which had been a struggle when we were there in January. We still didn’t have any clean entries the first attempt but he nailed the second attempt each time! Sunday Tom and I took Rumor and Rugby dock diving. Rumor jumped a new PB (with Tom) of 14′ and Rugby broke into the double digits with me. Even more exciting was his hesitation is getting less and less on his initial jump which is awesome, and honestly my main goal for dock league with him. After dock diving, we went and played toss and fetch league with all 4 boys. Rugby did great tracking, Rumor made some 3 point catches for Tom, Ryder hustled (a little), and Ratchet had AMAZING handoffs! We wrapped up the evening with a nice birthday dinner and called it a weekend!

On the 17th, Rumor turned 9! This is also just crazy to wrap my head around. Rumor is still as goofy as ever, just check out those dock diving photos from GrooveStar Studios. I can’t look at them without laughing! He still loves dock diving and playing toss and fetch. His endurance has declined a bit and he’s starting to loose some muscle mass, but overall he’s doing great. Especially considering his cardiomegaly diagnosis a few years ago. We’re switching up our supplements to Myos, for some added support to hopefully build some of that muscle back in addition to continuing our normal fitness regimen.

The red dogs and I are wrapping up Birthday Month with a freestyle clinic! Well, Rugby’s doing a freestyle clinic, Ratchet’s just coming along to hang out. I’m also FINALLY doing my externship for my CCRP certification which brings me just one step closer to wrapping up the program!