I love those snow pictures. :)

Training video is great!

^ Exactly!
Thats one reason of doing that blog. I hope that I'm able to make more of training videos with her (and Ganon). And finding other people training with their shibas too.
I try to concentrate on more how-to-do rather than can't-do-with-a-shiba.

Thank you Saya!

I do mostly agility with my Shibas. We also do Rally, Nosework, Barn Hunt, Lure Coursing and some competition obedience when we have time. This is a short clip of my boy Koji practicing some basic commands at a friend's place.



All the commands are with verbal commands only (no body movement or ques on my part). He went from "sit" to "stand" to "drop" to "sit" again and then I released him and he came forward and I asked him to "drop" again. It is a "moving drop", meaning he "dropped" immediately after I told him while he was in motion coming toward me. He then held his "drop" position under distraction. I threw a string cheese to the side and the cat got it (not intended), so I threw another one closer to him and he still held his "drop/down" position until I gave him the verbal release. No treats were shown to him while he performed and he got the string cheese in the end as reward and verbal praise from me.

^ Navi thinks her main purpose is to be cute! Unfortunately I want to do a little more different things with her so she has to learn to other things beside being cute ;) And I really have to think more about my way of naming my dogs.. Navi is a bit more vocal than an average shiba (less than other breeds though) and she used to do those high pitch barks when she was waiting her turn or playing or.. It was as annoying as that "Hey! Listen!"... Never saw that coming when I named her. But she has gotten a lot better :)

If you have some questions or need more help with something in that blog feel free to ask :)

Koji looks so happy to work! Lucky cat to get the cheese. Ganon knows those too. But luckily the FCI obedience rules let's you to use voice&hand signal with that exercise (not in others though).
Here is Ganon training them last summer: Training
And here doing then in a practise trial: Distance control
The thing is to get the dog to keep his back legs at the same point. In the first video Ganon moves them switching stand-sit and in the second video a lot more... But Ganon seems to be pretty awesome now that I have Navi who can't do that at all yet :P

Here is update of our training. It's getting better! (but still so many things to train). Navi is now having super fun when playing the obedience games with me :D

Me neither :)

Navi had her first official dog show a week ago. She did really well and got a good review. She also got her first certificate (CAC) and placed best of breed :D

Congratulations! You have two beautiful Shiba Inu.

Onnittelut :)! Nähdäänkö erkkarissa?

@MirkaM Nähdään erkkarissa. Siis jos keksin kyydin. Nyrjäytin juuri nilkkani ja huomenna ois näyttely..

Thanks everyone :)

Thanks! That was really amazing.
Story goes that yesterday was international dog show at rovaniemi.
Navi got best of breed & CAC again. And got second place at Group!! :D
I was a bit lost when we got picked in top 6 at group judging. I was thinking "and now I do what? Okay others go there and I see what they do and see from that.." Looks like it worked because soon I noticed there is only 4 dogs left. And then placing started. And we werent picked until judge had to decide group winner and it was like there weren't so much difference :D great to get placed with a breed that doesn't normally place in groups and ofcourse because showing is still a pretty new thing to me :D

Seems like I will update Navis post every half a year ;)
But looking great!
I think Navi has grown up now. Right now she is in full coat and her cheeks are huge ;D



Back to what has happened after last update.
We were in the world dog show at the end of the summer but it wasn't very successful. Navi was already over her best coat and lets just say that there were so much competition! It was great to see over hundred shibas in one place from all over the world :D

We contiuned agility for another short course and it was fun.
http://youtu.be/NQ2JDYN78Rk

Last week thursday I finally decided to ask if they have any free spots in one of local agility clubs and actually someone had decided to leave her spot open that day! So after a long hiatus from agility we started again friday :D That was lucky. Now we can train weekly for several months.

We also trained a little more obedience at it started to look better. Right now I have some motivation problems with combo obedience+Navi (Navi is motivated. I'm not).

Then I decided to enter Navi one more show before we take a break until she turns 2yo. That show was finnish Voittaja (=winner) show.


She really suprised me by winning all the females and getting the BOS! And a nice title Voittaja-14 ;)





Ganon wanted to retrieve my glove


And Navi follows the example

Thanks you! It's easy to try new things with Navi. She is not the smartest but she is really easy shiba (friendly to other dogs and doesn't get provoked, well behaving and listens well).

Unfortunately Ganon has really bad hips so no agility with him :( But he would love it! He's more active shiba and it was really sad to found out that agility it's not an option for him. He has done a lot of obedience which he also likes.

Updates on the sporting events!

Our agility training is improving. We took part in "training-trial" at march. There were no all obstacles so we did great :D (teeter totter & weave poles are still in training).
We actually won this class:




Navi also had her first obedience trial this spring. We got enough points for first prize. Only thing we had problems was sitting on command.. Lol. I'm so happy she didn't have any problems with the trial environment or me being nervous. There is also video of this but it's pretty boring.

Oh. And the most important thing. Navi had her x-rays & health checks done and they are looking really good! Looks like we can keep doing all the things :D
Eyes: Clear
Knees: 0/0
x-rays:
Hips: B/B
Elbows: 0/0
We also took pictures of the whole back. It has been only a few years possible to get official back results from finnish kennel club. There has not been any problems but I though it's not a bad idea to took them while the dog is already sleeping on the table. And my dogs live a fairly active life.
Results of back:
lumbosacral transitional vertebra: LTV0 (normal) (Means the bones of back in the hips are normally formed).
spondylosis: SP0 (free)
vertebral anomaly: VA0 (normal) (all the bones of the back are normal and there is no any missing or extra ones).

Then there is this heelwork to music competition we took part with Ganon. I have had some interest at this sport but there was no courses near me so I decided to check it out by entering us into the event ;) I quess we did something right.


*Adding videos isn't so easy..

Thank you @WhoBitME

A little update.
We participated at weekend training of HTM&freestyle. Now I actually more knowledge what I should be doing in that sport. Sadly Ganons back legs have been a little worse so we haven't been doing HTM.

But Navi has actulally done a lot :D

We had obedience trial. It was a too hot day but we actually did good job. We actually got placed 3 out of 19!

In case video doesn't work..
Video of practice trial few days later.

Navi had probably last conformation show for this year (heavy shedding started) and she got her last certificate and is now Finnish Champion!


Laslty but not least we had another obedience trial. We needed one more result with over 160points to got the beginner title, but I didn't really believe this was the trial to get that because this was regional trial (once a year thing).

Yup. It went a bit better than I though ;)

Now we probably have to keep training now and then before we can progress to next class. Right now I'm waiting that our next agility class would start. I got a lot of inspiration while trying to find good agility videos of shibas :)

Thank you!
I live in Lahti, southern part of Finland. But my hometown is Rovaniemi so I travel to north now and then.

I'm sorry to hear that Ganon's back legs have been having some trouble. Poor guy. :( But I'm happy to hear all of your good news. Navi and Ganon are amazing. I find you and your dogs to be very inspiring. :)

Such great accomplishments! :)

Congrats on all your (and Ganon & Navi's) hard work!

@JaanaS I wouldn't have guessed that! Thanks for sharing your blog, you have a lot of interesting content on there as well.