Agility & Flyball Update

Tamber & Colin finished their winter Agility classes this weekend. Both did well. We have Tamber entered for a few runs in the local Agility trial in March. She entered the same trial last year and did well on on of three runs. Karen taped a little of Colin's last Agility class Saturday. He really does well and loves to do agility.


We drove to Blacksburg for Flyball practice this afternoon and both Colin & Tamber did great! At the moment we are limited to Flyball in practice down the middle of a working horse barn owned by one of the members family since the Rec Center gym is booked for basketball. Despite the barn distractions, both dogs did great. For the first time Tamber did about 4 complete runs (up over 4 jumps, hit the box, grab the ball and carry it back over 4 jumps). Colin has had a lot less training so he's not doing the whole thing yet but he did great today - ran over the 4 jumps to the box and came back (no ball involved yet). We hope to have Tamber competing in her first Flyball tournament in a couple weeks.

Pictures of a Black Dog

I tried again today to get better pictures of the black dog. Even with direct or not so direct sunlight, Colin is hard to capture in a photo.

Newly Groomed for the New Year

Tamber & Colin got a long overdue grooming today. It turned out to be one of the better ones they've had recently. Colin actually looks very handsome but being a black dog it is really hard to see how nice he looks in a picture. I'll try to get a few better shots of him in the next couple days.
On the topic of Colin being a black dog - that seems to be less and less true - he is really now only mostly black - more and more brown and white showing up. There are a couple areas on his face that really look white with the hair cut back in this grooming - I'll have to try to get pictures of the color changes. (if you click the picture above you can get the full sized image and see the white on the bridge of his nose - that's not just a reflection of the flash)

Monday night, Tamber & Colin went to Lynchburg with us for Aunt Fran's 90th birthday party. They behaved very well and seemed to enjoy all the people. Of course we have no pictures of them with the "guest of honor" at the party since she doesn't like them too close to her.

The Guest of Honor on her 90th!

Newman posing Colin
(everyone thought Colin looked very cute in this pose and he didn't seem to mind at all)

Tamber in her "Comfort Zone"

Happy New Year!

Wow - the fall flew past and we are already in January. The Cairns have stayed busy with long walks, play groups, Flyball & Agility classes. They were happy to have Shelby back home with them for a couple months.

Things got real interesting when Shelby decided to get a couple cats to take with her to her new apartment in Baltimore. When she first brought them to the house the Cairns were WAY too excited and curious and we had to keep the cats upstairs and the dogs down for a few days while they both got accustomed to having the other species in the house. Tamber fairly quickly learned to observe the cats calmly from a distance and slowly move closer as the cats learned to accept her. She finally got to a fairly comfortable sniffing /curious relationship with the cats. Colin, being the no holds bared, charge straight in type soon learned to keep his distance after being swatted several times for his impertinence. (neither the cats nor the dogs ever realized that there was no real danger in the swat of the recently declawed cats) Just when the dogs and cats were getting to the point of a respectful understanding of each other, the cats have moved out and we're back to just 2 Cairns in the house.

Christmas Card pose:

Tamber & Colin watch the cat in the bag (look closely for the cat):



Tamber and the cats have a stare down contest: