RODEO: AKC Greater Swiss Mountain Dogs

We attended a seminar called "First Draft" in February, put on by the Bernese Mountain Dog Club of Northern California.
Thank you to all their volunteers for a great class.

Holly has been drafting with her Swissies since 2001, but it had been a long time, and Jeff had never taken a class. We learned a ton and look forward to working with our girls in this area of historical purpose for Swissies.

Check out these videos on You Tube! Echo Getting Started                   Echo Next Step




All photos and videos in this post graciously taken and provided to us by SUSAN ROBINSON. THANK YOU!!

Hi there RODEO Fans and Friends!

We have had our heads down, working on dog show titles. Which means we have been loading up 2-3 dogs, several crates and tons of supplies, to drive three, 12 or even 24 hours to a show locations, and then stay in Motel 6, week after week, showing dogs.

We never spent so many days out on the road showing before, but we had so many promising dogs to show and titles in progress.

So many great accomplishments, its hard to pick just a few to highlight!

We started showing Nexpa towards her Grand Championship in August. Every month she was stacking on the wins. Best of Breed and majors in August, Select Female at the National Specialty (supported entry) in Colorado in September, where over 100 Swissies were competing, and another 5 point major at the Golden Gate's big shows in Pleasanton, CA in October. She finished her Grand Championship in December, with four wins in a row in Antioch, CA, and also an Owner-Handled Group 3!

Echo came to live with us in July 2015, from Snowy Mountain Farms. She decided she wanted to stay! We started showing her right away. She got multiple reserve wins to 5 point majors before starting to win herself. Her first point was in December 2015. In January 2016, she took off running and earned her championship with a six show winning streak culminating in BEST OF BREED and two shows with champions defeated. Echo's winning run was with handler Anthony Groth. Echo finished with TWO five point majors, one four point major, one AWARD OF MERIT, one BEST OF BREED, and a few extra points.



Atlas was really shining this year too, with Back-To-Back Best of Breed wins over the champion entry in November in Tucson, followed by Back-To-Back winners dog in Costa Mesa, CA in December, where he finished his championship with his third major - a big 5 point win. Atlas was handled by Holly to his first three majors until the final run, where he was shown by Barbara, Lauren and Stephanie House. After all I cannot show three dogs at the same show, all on my own! He finished with FOUR majors, and TWO BEST OF BREED wins over specials. Also, Holly put Atlas through the Canine Good Citizen Test, earning that title together.


Now what are we going to do with all our free time?
To start with, we will take time off from dog shows for the tax season. Then, we will be bringing the girls back in the ring for Rally Titles. Besides obedience, we will be working with our girls on carting and herding.
We will also be rooting for our other boys out there being shown: Gandalf, Murdoch and Leroy.
Nexpa has just passed all her preliminary health tests for breeding (eyes, shoulders, hips, elbows) and we are considering puppies after the April 15 tax season comes to a close.

Looking forward to another year of accomplishment in 2016- until then, time for some well deserved R&R for the dogs, although they might miss their travel beds!


 

We are so proud of our budding therapy dog, Murdoch.
With his owner, Andie Hansen, he has gone through many levels of Canine Good Citizen courses and now has completed therapy dog training and started his actual therapy dog visits.

Being a therapy dog is different than being a service dog. A service dog assists their person who has a disability. Therapy dogs visit people who benefit from the presence of the dog. It can be anything from calming the nerves and souls of weary travelers at SFO airport, like our friend Hilary and her Swissy girl Kona, listening to children read, or visiting sick or infirm.

We don't have a lot of experience with Swissies as therapy dogs ourselves, so we are excited to watch Murdoch and Andie's journey.

We wanted to share more about a friend of ours with amazing accomplishments with his therapy dogs.
While not Swissies, they are big dogs with a lot of similarities.

Check out our friend Tommy Dickey's information on his Great Pyrenees dogs as therapy dogs. Both his boys have 1,000 therapy visits! We have become friends with Tommy at the shows and he has helped us show our Swissies! We really enjoy our Pyrenees friends and love watching Tommy's dog
Teddy work in the obedience ring. They are both very charming!

Click on the picture to learn more about Tommy's therapy dogs.

Our little 14 month old puppy really made us proud in Reno this year.

She finished up her Rally Novice title with two scores in the 90s and a 4th place.
She followed that up with back-to-back majors to finish her championship.

We are so proud of this young girl, out of Wookie and Mon.
She is Wookie's third champion and Mon's second, and youngest to achieve a championship for both.

Check out her Winning Weekend Here

View her complete show win history at Infodog, with links to photos, here

On July 18, 2015, Gandalf earned his AKC championship in Portland, OR. Presenting Gandalf in the show ring has been so much fun! Win or lose, this big happy guy always makes us smile. Greetings start with lots of jumps and kisses, but he is a smart guy and quickly gets back to work being a show dog, as long as you deliver the treats. 

Gandalf finished with FOUR major wins. Two five-point majors with Holly, and two four-point majors with DaLena. Can you say "over-acheiver"? Making us proud, the last win included beating two male specials. The next day, his first outing as a champion, he raised the bar to BEST OF BREED.

We are hugely grateful to Gandalf's owners, Adam and Christine, for raising and training Gandalf and being part of all his shows. Thanks for letting Wookie and Hero's boy shine.

You will not see many puppies competing in the various AKC performance venues. I even had an exhibitor ask me how old was my dog and WHY was I showing her. Well- for many reasons, including she knows how to do this and thinks its fun! At a couple days over eight months old, Ms Nexpa earned her first leg in Rally Obedience and a green qualifiers ribbon. Two more to come - we guarantee it! We remember Wookie getting her first Rally Advanced leg at this same show in 2014.

Rose City Classic, held each January in Portland, OR is a large show and one of the biggest shows each year on the West Coast. Wookie's son Gandalf, 23 months old at the time, won Winner's Dog for a five-point major. This big lovable energetic guy reminds us a lot of his sire Hero and is a very nice combination of his parents. Thank you to judge Dana Cline for this huge win. Looking forward to seeing Gandalf finish up his championship in 2015 -- only 2 points to go!

Little Nexpa went out and showed in the AKC Beginner Puppy Competition in Stockton, CA on Nov 23. She came away with a "Working Group 1", meaning she was the best puppy from that group of dogs. She had to beat out quite a few other youngsters for this honor and make many graceful turns around the ring. She had a great time learning about being a show dog.

Moving right along towards her ADVANCED Rally title, Wookie and Holly made an impressive first place finish at the ALL BREED dog show on October 19, 2014. With over 100 entries in the various obedience classes that day, Wookie's 97/100 in Rally Advanced was good enough for first place in her group, the Advanced "A" group, as well as the highest score for the "B" dogs, who are more experienced. She was the only Swissy to qualify in any obedience event the entire three-day weekend. We are SO PROUD.

Pups have been leaving us for new homes. While we love each pup very much, we feel a lot of joy as each pup is matched with his or her new family. As much as we would like to keep them ALL, it would be a bit much, don't you think? So, we are really happy to match puppies with families. Here is a great picture of the stud dog from this litter, Mon, with his two kids Pi and Leroy. Pi at left is a girl born the SAME DAY as our litter, from another breeder in the midwest. Leroy at right was our green collar boy and we are thrilled that he gets to live in Vermont at Swiss Run.