Obsidian B Litter Arrives!

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Obsidian B Litter: Blue and RedWe are very happy to announce that our Heart whelped two male and three female puppies on November 4.  Unfortunately, we lost little Pink Girl a few days later due to a heart defect.  The remaining four are vigorous and growing by leaps and bounds.  Heart is a wonderful mother.  If dogs are capable of having pride, then Heart’s big smile whenever we enter the whelping room certainly shows a lot of satisfaction in what she has produced (with a little help from Sota).Color Bands

We will be streaming video from the whelping box for the next couple weeks. The camera is usually on from about 8 am to 8 pm Pacific time.  The live video feed can be viewed at: http://www.ustream.tv/search?q=obsidian+b+litter.

The sire and dam of the B Litter are CH Isengard’s Tall Sippin’ Sota RN MX MXJ XF and Kaponomana’s Heart of Obsidian TDX MX MXJ PT.

 

 

Chilko

Posted on by Obsidian Master

On the 3rd anniversary of Chilko’s death, I thought I’d post this tribute that I wrote for our earlier website….

Chilko 2004 BSCA National SpecialtyChilko was our first purebred Belgian sheepdog. She came from British Columbia, where she had been rescued by Natalie Vivian. From Kamloops, she was transported to Bellingham, WA where we picked her up at Karyn Cowdrey’s place. Chilko had quickly made herself at home among the BlackFyre Tervs. We couldn’t believe how lucky we were to be able to bring that shiny, black dog back home. Natalie and Karyn became the first of a long line friends that we feel a special bond with through our Belgian Shepherds. During our trip home from Bellingham, Chilko’s collar broke as we were letting her out of the car for a potty break at a freeway rest area. She was off like a flash and for a moment Joan and I both imagined the tragedy that could have happen. But Chilko came back at our first call– something she would not do again for a couple of years.

Watch the video

I took my first herding and agility lessons with Chilko. Sheep universally reacted with fear when Chilko stepped through the gate. Neither we nor our trainers could fathom what sheep saw in her behavior that caused such a strong reaction. To humans, she looked no more predatory than the average herding dog. I loved those cold, rainy, winter mornings working Ian Caldicott’s black face flock with Chilko. From that wet pasture, it was easy to imagine generations of Groenendaels learning their first herding lessons on similar fields in Belgium. We borrowed Ian’s ram flock and brought them to our own field a few years ago. I was practicing on them one winter afternoon. A particularly feral beast jumped a dilapidated section of fence and tore off across the hill and then the neighbor’s farm never looking back. I went to the car to get a raincoat and flashlight, then Chilko and I returned to where the ram jumped the fence. I gave Chilko a track command and we were off. The hot scent was easy for Chilko to follow. She led through wetlands, oak groves, and across three farms before I caught sight of the ram temporarily halted at a fence line 500 yards away. I knew I’d never catch that ram myself so I sent Chilko on an away knowing full well she was not capable of an outrun at that distance, but hoping she could pin the bastard in a corner until I could catch up. Which she did. In the last light, Chilko and I sometimes fetched, sometimes chased, sometimes wrestled on the ground with that nasty animal until we brought him home. To this day it was about the most fun I’ve ever had with a dog.

Chilko jumpsNot knowing anything about how to start training a tracking dog, we began Chilko with games of hide-and-go-seek in the woods. An activity we would do for the rest of her life, eventually stretching the game into searches over two kilometers. Our first formal introduction to tracking was with Nancy Rose-Chism. She and her wonderful German Shepherds showed us it was supposed to be done. Chilko loved tracking more than anything in the world. She would pull in the harness so hard that her front feet would occasionally lift off the ground. She passed her TD first try at the 2004 BSCA national. She tore out a toenail during training a couple days before her TDX test. She was limping and on painkillers the day before the test. I’m still ashamed that I didn’t pull her- but those TDX tests are so hard to get into. I even did my best to position myself between Chilko and the judges as we walked to the start flag so they wouldn’t notice the hitch in her gait. But there was no sign o f lameness once she was in her harness. That track turned out to be an amazing piece of work. I still remember the turns and obstacles. We started urban/variable surface training about 6 months before the 2009 national. It was almost a completely different activity than our previous tracking experiences. During this time I met Dan Castle, one of the very best tracklayers a dog could ever hope for. A tracking handler’s only important responsibility is to understand what his dog is trying to show him. The dog actually learns to track from the lessons laid down by the tracklayer. Chilko loved Dan’s challenging paths across Western Oregon University campus. Only through Dan’s coaching did Chilko and I make fast progress during variable surface training. We came within less than 100 yards of the glove at the VST test at the 2009 national, an incredible accomplishment. It was just another one of those many proud moments I shared with my dog.

Chilko CDX TDX VCD2 OAP OJP NA NAJ HSAs RN HTADI

BSCA WDX-Competition

December 24, 2001 – October 6, 2010

Old Partner/Young Partner

Posted on by Obsidian Master

Rocky was one of the fastest Belgian sheepdogs in the country at the peak of his career.  He and Joan  competed in AKC National Agility Championships and the 2009 and 2010 AKC Agility Invitationals.  Rocky finally retired in 2011.  All those thousands of A-frame contacts and weave poles took there toll and Rocky had back surgery last year.  Since then, Joan has been keeping Rocky fit through a program of regular exercise, manual stretches almost every night, and frequent runs over short sequences of low jumps.  Rocky still has the spirit and drive of a top agility dog!  This weekend Joan entered Rocky in a local fun match.  You can still see the old guy still has it!

2010 Invitational video clip

2013 fun match video

And a brag about Joan’s new partner, Knife.  This weekend at the Sheltie AKC trial, Knife and Joan Q’ed 5 for 6, earned his first triple Q, and won 5 first places in the 26″ class.  Sorry, no videos from the weekend.

 

Rogue

Posted on by Obsidian Master

Rogue has never been one of those pushy dogs with a never-ending need for action and play. But he’s always been game for any sport or work. Rogue and I had our first herding lessons with a border collie handler, who told me that Rogue was the first dog other than a border collie that he’d wish to own himself.  When Rogue tested for his first professional wildlife detection job, the trainers from Working Dogs for Conservation weren’t sure about him because he didn’t show the obsessive ball drive that most of their dogs have.  But he went on to train with the experienced dogs and ended up performing just as well as they during the assessment phase of the project.  At seven years old, Rogue and Joan went to the AKC National Agility Championship in Reno. While they didn’t make it to the finals, they did make a respectable showing.

Rogue Gaia KuymalRogue is nine years old now. He’s retired from agility and we haven’t done a herding trial in more than a year.  But he is still the best working partner a handler could hope for.  Yesterday Rogue and I went out to vaccinate our little flock of sheep that we keep at my Mother-in-Law’s place.  We’ve done this chore so many times that he knows exactly where the flock will try to escape into the trees and he knows very well the pen in which I’ll want him to put the sheep.  Rogue is also aware that once penned, he’ll have nothing else to do but lie down while I give the sheep their shots.  So Rogue always takes the sheep to the pen via the “scenic route” which would cost us huge points on the gather if we were trialing, but I allow him this bit of fun without comment.  In turn, Rogue lies quietly outside the pen without pestering the sheep while I work.

Today, Rogue and I left early to do a turtle nest search at a private residence on Thornton Lake in Albany, where I’m doing a turtle conservation project.  As is his habit, he was a bit too playful during the first few minutes, checking out deer trails along the lake more than paying attention to turtles.  But once I called him over to do some detailed searches around the house, Rogue’s tail drops, he slows, and I see him shift into work mode.  I watched him air scent along a plume of odor that led him to a concrete planter, at which he sat and looked at me.  His alert signal that he found a nest.  I wonder what the heck he’s doing, but sure enough, inside the empty planter are a few old, shriveled turtle eggs.  Good boy Rogue!  He did a few more alerts on nests that had already been discovered and he passed by some turtle nests already found.  I have to assume these are western painted turtle nests, not western pond turtle nests–the only turtle species Rogue has been trained to find.  I have to remind myself to experimentally test Rogue’s ability to discriminate between the two species.

Rogue doesn’t get nearly as much training time as he did at the peak of his career, but these days he seems very happy to just accompany on my errands, do a couple of tracks each week, and visit the flock once in a while.  I’m pretty lucky to have Rogue as a partner.

Rogue is Rogue Gaia Kuymal VCD1 CDX MX MXJ XF HSAs HTAD2.  Bred by Peggy Richter.