Well, we had a quiet winter which burst into spring with a couple major events.
First, in March we attended the Kooikerhondje National Specialty in Louisville, KY. (We aren’t allowed to call it a Specialty due to AKC rules about club sanctioning, but functionally that’s what it was!) I took Casper and flew with him to Indianapolis, and we drove from there to Louisville. It was great spending four days seeing old friends, making new ones, meeting dogs and going bourbon tasting! Casper got to meet Lincoln, Barbaro, his Dutch friends, and everyone who only knows him from Facebook posts! In the actual show he was a victim of my terrible handling and took Reserve Winners Dog one day.
After that, we decided to take a maybe-forever break from conformation.
We participated in our first Barn Hunt trials this spring, and in just three short months and a few trials, both Braam and Casper finished their Instinct titles. Braam had one Novice Q before realizing that he’s not allowed to actually HUNT the rats – thus he decided he didn’t want to play the game anymore. Casper meanwhile powered through his Novice and Open titles, finishing Open with a beautiful run that became High In Class. The next day, he was back to try Senior (a bigger ring, 2 and a half minutes, and twice as many rats!) and he smashed it with a Q in just over 2 minutes that had the judge boasting to observers “that dog just started Senior today!”
These last months have seen a lot of turmoil and transition in the Flyball world. Casper has been running with two different teams and on May 26 in Bremerton, he earned his 5000th point, to finish his Flyball Master title (FM). As AKC only recognizes 3 Flyball titles (FDCh, FM, and ONYX) this had been my goal for him for a while! He is now just a few runs away from becoming the #1 Kooikerhondje in NAFA standings.
Even more exciting, we’ve been working on breeding plans and importing a new puppy! To be continued…