New Dog

Exciting news!!! We got a new puppy!

We adopted Tesla on January 20, 2017. Tesla is an 11 month (approx.) old Australian Cattle Dog (aka Heeler)/ Greyhound mix. We adopted her from a working kennel who take in rescues and train them to be police sniffer dogs. Tesla didn't have the drive for sent work that they were looking for and they were looking to rehome her to an experienced sport/working family. I have been thinking about getting a new dog for quite some time but nothing ever panned out and in January the stars just seemed to align. My first dog Khazi is getting older now and at the age of only five she is having problems performing the way she used to, I still train with her and use her as my teaching demo dog for tricks and agility but she is not loving it the way she used to and her body isn't holding up to the harder stuff. When I bought Khazi I wanted a pet, my passion for dog sports came after I adopted her and I knew she would never last long sporting as she is a giant breed who is more likely to have hip issues and has a shorter life span. So I was ready to bring a sporting dog into the family. Dog sports are not only my passion, they my job and I need a dog who is ready and eager to perform. So Khazi is happy to slow down and be our family dog and Tesla is super charged and ready to go. Now Tesla isn't perfect, she is quite reactive to dogs and other  people outside the home, that is the risk you take when you adopt a dog and have not been there to raise them properly from puppy hood. These reactivity issues don't bother me though, I went though a fair share of problems with Khazi when I first got her so I am confident I can get Tesla to a place where she feels secure. Tesla is a sporting dog without a doubt, with out any prior knowledge she is already excelling at Disc Dog, Agility and competition obedience, so now it is time to work on her reactivity. I have worked to rehabilitate reactive pet dogs many times in the past however I have never owned a reactive dog myself, so we are enrolling in a reactivity class specifically tailored to working/sporting dogs. I am so excited to get started on that training as I know Tesla has such huge potential so be a stellar sporting dog. She is getting better every day and she can now go for a 40 minute walk where she will only bark about 3 times. When we first got her she barked at absolutely everything. So far I have not really been able to do much agility training with her outside the basic equipment we have at home. She does not feel at all secure at the training facility I work in and has a lot of trouble calming down. She will bark nonstop the entire time she is there and has trouble focusing. Now being the rockstar that she is, she will still take almost every piece of equipment and all the while working without food (she is too uncomfortable to take treats). She will work for her disc for a tug but again it is hard to keep her focused. In just three days I am enrolling her in the reactive dog class I mentioned above, a disc course (intro to flips) and an interactive play class. I am so excited to start. I took an Obedience Games class through the Fenzi Dog Sport Academy and I was extremely pleased with the results

so I have high expectations going into these new classes they are offering.