IACP MEMBER BRAGSHelen Marie Capps
 Merlot the Excellent Merlot is now 9 ½ year old, eight years ago (February 24, 2002) I adopted her through American Brittany Rescue. She was a year old, an untrained, incorrigible run-a-way. When I got her home the first day, fortunately I had closed the garage door when we got home, on one of the many trips out to the vehicle to unload she bolted out the screen door into the garage. It took 10 minutes in an enclosed garage to convince her it was OK to come to me and back into the house. Fast forward – She earned her Canine Good Citizen certificate the end of the first year I had her. She earned the AKC Companion Dog title (CD) in June of 2004 which included off lead heeling and recall. She earned her Rally titles, Novice, Advanced and Excellent in 2005. (Advanced and Excellent is off lead) In 2006 she honored me with the AKC Companion Dog Excellent title (CDX) which is all off lead and includes a three minute sit stay and a five minute down stay in a line of dogs (usually outside) while all the handlers are out of the ring and out of sight. In 2007 she and Magnum both earned the RAE (Rally Advanced/Excellent) title. She was the ninth Brittany in the US to earn one and he was the tenth – Merlot was scheduled in the ring 2 minutes before Magnum. We had been working in agility during that time starting in 2004, building her confidence for the obedience rings. I knew, eventually, we would compete in agility. Merlot started competing in Jumpers in 2007 and earned her novice title. There were multiple times when the Whirly Girly Merlot would get the better of her and she would fly around the ring jumping jumps and running through tunnels not listening to her handler (me) trying to get her to do the “right thing”. In 2008 she earned her Novice Standard title (this is with contact equipment, A-frame, dog walk and teeter). We held back a year getting to that class because Merlot was cautious of the equipment, especially the teeter. She did earn her Open Jumpers title that year. LONG dry spell in ’09 where Merlot didn’t qualify in any of her agility runs. THEN 2010 came along. In January she finished her Open title in Standard with a first place and she was off. March 7th she earned her first leg in Excellent Standard with a second place, March 21st she earned her second leg in Excellent Standard with a clean run and first place and in June she earned her third leg in Excellent Standard with a first place and her Excellent Standard Title. WOW! My first Excellent titled dog. But she wasn’t finished. Before her long dry spell – in June ’08, she had taken one Excellent Jumpers leg with a second place. March 21st the same day she got her second leg in Standard she ALSO earned her second leg in Jumpers with a second place. In July Merlot earned her final leg in Excellent Jumpers and her title with a first place. Two Excellent titles in two weekends, what a girl! This has been an unbelievable year for the little ABR rescue girl. We don’t trial often, and she has earned legs in all the weekends we have been out this year. Merlot started on her quest for Jr. Hunter title July 2010. She is the only one of my JH dogs who has earned the title – four legs in four tries. She also earned a perfect score on Sunday the 18th of July with four tens (ten points in each of the categories they score on – Hunting, Bird Finding, Pointing and Trainability. Remember this is the little gal who was given to ABR eight years ago. After a year of “neglect” the original owners decided she was too much work. This is the dog who her owners said was a bad dog. The dog who ran away and chased cats and beat up on the little Min Pin she lived with. Merlot? Merlot turned into a great little dog – after some gentling and training she has done all sorts of things for me. She earned her CGC within the first year, she has her CDX (second degree obedience) she has her RAE (top degree in Rally) and in the past few weeks earned her Excellent Jumpers and Excellent Standard titles in Agility and today finished her Jr. Hunter. She earned four titles this year and three of them within the past six weeks. Am I proud of this little throw away rescue? You betcha! Helen Marie Capps From Vivian Bregman
I had a great spring and summer last year, or rather Sugar and I did. She is now: AKC OTCh, UKC OCH, ASCA OTCh Sunrise MsSugar of Kelev UDX4, OM4, VER, RN. She finished her AKC OTCh at Trenton Kennel Club in the pouring rain in 2009!! by going second in Open to my instructor. Then she won the both the Open and Utility classes at the UKC Invitational. The way the UKC works it is to give points for every score over 190. Then the top fifty dogs in the country, all breeds, are invited to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Sugah was first in Open and Second in Utility on that list, so I went. It was only a twelve hour drive!! There were three shows. On Friday there was the Invitational itself where I was pleasantly surprised to win both Open with a 198 and Utility with a 195.5. Saturday's show she was third in Utility with a 195, and unfortunately she missed the Open Drop on Recall. On Sunday she did much better with a first in Utility with a 194.5 and score of 195 in Open to be High Combined. Last month she finished her UKC Grand U OCH meaning she now has even more titles in obedience than Goniff!! And my friend and I are going to the UKC Invitational again this summer. Don't expect to win again, but you never know!! She's still having a wonderful time showing so I'm going to keep going. At least, until Mazel is ready to show. Probably sometime this summer/fall. A few weeks ago I started her career in ASCA, but altho she got four legs our of four shows her scores were in the low 190's. She needs more work, but at least I know that she doesn't run out of the ring. Vivian Bregman 10th July 2010 Quick report from Indiana. Se Vivian and Ms Sugah on U-tube CLICK HERE From Paula McCollum 10th may 2010 This past weekend at a show in UT, Suzie finished her OTCH!!!!!! We went to the show with 115 OTCh points, 4 or so UB wins, but no OB wins. At the last 3 or 4 shows we'd managed a 2nd in OB at least one day. So we'd been close.....and on other days, not so close. On Friday, we won Open B and went HIT. It was amazing!!!! I knew I had a chance at winning. I was more nervous than ever during stays (and she's solid on stays) and walking in for awards I was shaking knowing I had a chance but scared it was 1/2 pt off again or you just never know how the judge might see it. :o Well, we did win and I can't even begin to explain the relief I felt. We did it, we really did it!!!! The next day I was so happy to come to the show and have no pressure. It felt wonderful. I was watching the class thinking, whew, thank goodness I don't have to win today, everyone is doing too well and we'd never have won. Whew! Going in for awards was wonderful, no pressure, it didn't matter. Well...I'll be darned if we didn't win again! I think I said something stupid, like "Again!!!" I was just in disbelief. Then we managed to win a run off and earned another HIT! My word! What a wonderful couple of days. That night I was just giddy with that disbelief. Sunday it caught up with me and I was so tired I could hardly move. If I'd not wanted another UDX leg, I'd not have shown I was so tired. It showed, lol, but we did get another UDX leg. The obedience people down in UT were WONDERFUL. They helped make it very special. I love my blues, but now it's on to that pointy eared one. There will be more blueticks--it's the breed I love the most, but I'm taking a break because I'm TIRED after two!!! Very tired-- they almost killed me. ;p Thank goodness we did it!!! I love my Jebbie and Suzie. Paula Paula McCollum Precision K-9 - www.precisionk-9.com Treasure Valley Search Dogs - www.tvsearchdogs.org IACP - Pro #1363 Boise, ID Bluetick Coonhounds: OTCH UUD Smokin' Bullet Jebediah Blue UDX3 VER Bh (NAPWDA Cadaver/SAR Last Updated: Sunday, November 21, 2010
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