Saturday, March 30, 2013

Nari's on a role

I haven't been posting that much about our agility trials, so here's a quick update:

We were in Canton, GA last weekend. The weather was super cold and it was an outdoor trial (20s to 30s when we got up). The girls loved the weather, me - not so much.

Nari finished her Master Gamblers Champion title!! AND SHE WON MASTER CHALLENGE STANDARD!! Now Nari is qualified for all 4 tournaments at Cynosport. Pretty awesome. Starbuck is also mostly Qd for Cynosport but I've decided that I'm just bringing Nari.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend :)


Monday, March 25, 2013

National Puppy Day pic - and a new puppy!

I have no idea where National Puppy Day comes from and when it was started but a ton of my FB friends were posting puppy pictures. So here's mine - baby BattleStar! You must be thinking - whoa who is BattleStar? Well... she's a little Sheltie pup I picked up yesterday. I had no plans of getting a pup anytime soon, but my friend found her for me and said that I couldn't pass her up. So, here she is:
Introducing Sirius-Trek's Shoot for the Stars.
AKA 'BattleStar' !



Sunday, March 24, 2013

Puppy day!

Apparently yesterday was International Puppy Day? I had no idea until I saw friends posting a bunch of adorable puppy pictures :) Well.... stay tuned for some very special puppy pictures later today. For now, here's a picture of Nari from our trial on Friday.

She finished her Gambler Master Champion title with a first place finish AND too first place in the international style standard course !!! So now she's qualified to compete in every tournament at USDAA Nationals this year :)

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Happy Spring!!

Yesterday was the first day of spring! The girls are loving this weather - as long as it isn't raining :)

Last weekend we went hiking in Birmingham, AL after our agility trial. Starbuck thought it was a little too warm so she jumped in the creek!!

She never does that - she hates water bit was just so cute :)

Hope y'all are enjoying spring! Look out for more pictures and a surprise next week on my blog ;)



Monday, March 18, 2013

Review of the ToughHound All Sports Collar!


A little while ago I was contacted to test review the ToughHound All Sports Collar! You can find this collar at the dog bark collar store (http://www.dogbarkcollar.com/). A direct link to the collar is: http://www.dogbarkcollar.com/toughhound and the collar retails for $29.95. 

Nari - looking pretty in the ToughHounds All Sports Collar

The ToughHound All Sports collar " is made from highly-durable polycoated webbing which will allow you many years of rough and tumble play with your pup. The ToughHound’s non-porous surface dries quickly, will never absorb offensive odors and makes mud easily removable. The collar also features an integrated stainless steel laser-engraved nameplate which won’t jingle of fall from its ring."

I love bright colors so I was excited to see that the collar comes in 8 colors - there's your standard black and brown along with six other colors. Pretty much every collar I've had for the girls disappears in their thick, black fur. That becomes a problem because I'm constantly checking them to make sure that they have their collars on (drives them crazy). 

For my girls, I chose a bright pink collar so that it would really pop against the black fur - and I totally love the color! Just look at Nari digging - you can clearly see the collar and how pretty she looks in it! 
Digging around in the mud showing that the ToughHounds All Sports collar is bright and easy to spot

Another great aspect of this collar is that there are no hanging tags - your dog's information is laser engraved on the nameplate. Nari completely HATES hanging tags! We actually kept finding her tags laying around the house and could not figure out why they were falling off. Then we walked in the living room and found this:

Nari in mid-chewing of her tag

That's right - Nari had been chewing off her own tags!! That's pretty scary because she could have seriously damaged her teeth but not with the ToughHound collar. Another bonus to the ToughHound All Sports Collar is that it's perfect for performance dogs. My dogs compete in flyball and agility - both sports require your dog to run at high speeds. Since I've always been worried about the girls getting injured while running with hanging tags, I've just had them practice agility and compete without any collars. That's pretty scary when you're worried about what would happen if your dog got loose without a collar. 

I tested this collar for a week and had the girls practice agility (the first picture is Nari after agility practice, notice totally clean looking collar), flyball and running around in the mud. The collar passed our tests with flying 'colors' :) Here are some pictures of the mud testing: 

Alpha digging, digging, and digging until she can fit her head in the hole. 

What is this? A super dirty Alpha and a very clean looking collar! 

WOW - look at that - Alpha is completely dirty and yet the collar is completely clean and visible. Here's another picture where you can clearly see just how dirty she is and how clean and bright the collar looks:

Yep - she's filthy! And she slipped by us and ran through the house like that :) 

Here are some closeups of the collar after Alpha's hole digging adventure:


Not only is the writing on the tags completely visible - but the collar hardly has any dirt on it. That's pretty awesome.

You can see in the close up pictures above just how clear the laser engraving is and how sturdy the collar is. I've never bought a collar with a buckle before because all of the ones I've seen are just too much trouble to have on a small dog. But because the collar is made from highly durable polycoated nylon-webbing it's a breeze to put on and it's very secure. I was also very impressed with how sturdy the hardware was. The only downside I found was I wouldn't use this collar on dogs under 10 lbs - I found that because the hardware was so nice that it might be just a little too heavy for teeny, tiny dogs. 

Overall we give this collar 4 paws for:
- Awesome nameplate with no hanging tags
- Bright colors
- Durability and no cleaning required!
- Price is quite reasonable - customizable nameplate, you can even choose the font

As a disclaimer - for providing this review I did receive a ToughHounds All Sports Collar that I picked out. The views are completely my own, I was not required to give a positive review in exchange for the collar.