Cocoa ASCA and CKC registered TESTED CLEAR OF: |
Quinn ASCA CKC and AKC registered TESTED CLEAR OF: |
Puppies have arrived! 4 red boys and 4 red girls arrived on February 7, 2015.
My goal in this breeding is to produce confident, versatile dogs with correct structure. My expectation is that puppies will have a natural working instinct on all types of stock, and plenty of drive in obedience, agility and other dog sports. While puppies aren’t always the mean average of the sum of their parents, I think Cocoa and Quinn should have driven pups that are biddable and easy to motivate with food, toys and praise.
Cocoa is my first purebred Aussie. I got her at 10 months old, and I didn’t even know herding was a thing people still did with their dogs! As I became more involved in dog sports and my training goals changed, Cocoa was right there with me. She is the best kind of dog a newbie could ask for: always willing to try something new and never takes my training mistakes personally.
In obedience (and everything else) she is very eager to please, and remains fairly confident in trial settings. She is a real team player and loves to work with me, which makes her so enjoyable as a training partner. She is my first competition obedience dog. Her 3 Novice level Q’s were all High in Class, and in Open she has 1 HiC and 2 High in Trials. We’re still working on getting ready for Utility!
She has several points in CKC conformation, including a major, but I have not had time to show her much. I expect that she’ll finish her Championship. She is moderately angled in the front and rear, and her movement is correct. She is a lovely rich, dark red and does not sunbleach in the summer.
Considering that she is my first herding dog and doesn’t have a lot of titled working dogs in her pedigree, I think Cocoa has done very well. She has developed nice square flanks, and is very biddable. She does not have a lot of natural eye and tends to work fairly close, but she is very kind to her stock. On the farm she is fairly handy helping with chores, and she earned her Advanced Sheep and Open Duck titles in her first weekend of Trialing. Her first experience with Cattle was trialing in Started, and she scored very well with an 86 and a 97/100. She needs more training and exposure to cattle before I trial her again. Here is a video of Cocoa we made to experiment with using a camera on a drone:
Cocoa is very confident with dogs and people, and is easygoing in social settings. She does however take her job as 2nd-in-command very seriously, and has been known to recite Mom’s laws to the rule-breakers. She is happy to train in obedience, or herd sheep, or go for hikes or sit on the couch; whatever you want to do is what she wants to do.
Quinn has been extremely focused and keen in all his training right from day 1. On stock Quinn is a very talented and stylish worker. He works wide and uses moderate eye on his sheep. With very limited exposure to cattle he has shown a lot of natural ability, he hits heads and is a strong and stylish heeler. He enjoys working ducks and has had some great scores.
He can be a little pushy but is generally very biddable and always keen to work. Quinn is very enthusiastic and focused in obedience and rally training. He is very social with people and dogs and has a very solid temperament.
Quinn is a very handsome and correct in structure. He has a nice front and great rear angulation, with a lovely natural ear set and dark red coat. He has produced offspring that are excelling in agility, and several puppies from his last litter (born May 2014) are already quite keen to start herding.