Decided to combine all my dogs' life story threads into one since we have a new addition now and it is too crazy to have 3 separate threads for each dog. Here are links to Maluko and Koji's old threads. I will be keeping all updates here from now on.

This is Koji's old thread

Maluko's old thread

Got a new addition to my pack - Introducing Taiyo (previously known as "Tony"), who just joined Maluko and Koji, 2 weeks ago. Taiyo is 7 months old today and has already started Agility foundation classes the week I got him. Taiyo means "sun" in Japanese and is his call name. His registered name is Masakado Rising Sun. He was bred by @lindsayt and Leslie Ann Engen (San Jo Shiba) and is related to both Maluko and Koji (he is Koji's cousin).

Taiyo's dam, Farrah


Taiyo's sire, Lennie


Taiyo at 6 weeks old


Taiyo about 6 months old


Taiyo's first night with me


Koji is doing really well in Agility and Barn Hunt. He also dabbles in Competition Obedience a couple weeks ago and earned his Companion Dog (CD) title with a score of 193 and a 2nd placement at the Puyallup show 2 weekends ago. We just got back from Rose City Classic in Portland, OR and Koji got 6 Qs out of his 8 runs over 3 days of showing, including 1 Triple Qs and 1 Double Qs.

This is one of the 3 chair back covers that I got for Christmas. The big ribbon on the right was a pleasant surprise. Koji earned the High in Trial for the Non-Sporting group at the Dobie Trial in November 2013 and a friend picked up the ribbon for us as we were playing Nosework when the ribbon was handed out the next day.


Old dogs can definitely learn new tricks. Maluko (8 years old) came to me at almost 5 years old as my first dog and has made so much progress in the past 3.5 years that we have been together.

I never thought we would compete in anything, but it was her that I took to our first Rally trial. She earned her Rally Advanced Excellent (RAE) title in just a year. She then got her Nosework Level 1 (NW1) title and made it to the Master level in AKC Agility. At a trial 2 weeks ago, she got her first 2 Master Standard Qs with some MACH (Master Agility Championship) points. Here is my sweet girl's Standard run on Friday that weekend. She may not be a speed demon, but the progress she made is just amazing. This is a dog that had no formal training for the first 4-5 years of her life and who used to walk the agility course, just to amuse me, and now she is actually running. I am very proud of her and look forward to more agility fun with her in the future.



Finally, this is a rug that I got a couple weeks ago.. Thought it was cute and had the 2 Shibas did the down/stay while I snapped the shot.