How did you get started?

Remi? You asked your parents for a Ferrari when you were 16 and got told "NO!" too huh? Parents are evil! My mom used to breed Rotties, she wasn't big into Schutzhund but she always had titled studs. She was more into AKC obedience. My dad used to breed pointers... I'm a guy so...obviously I hovered towards shooting stuff and training dogs to bite people... I still do both...LMAO!

I was looking strictly for a pet when I came upon a puppy that I fell in love with, but was a show prospect and a bit out of my price range at the time. The breeder and I struck up a friendship, and kept in contact while I saved, and eventually bought my first show prospect from her. She mentored me for many years, set me up with my handler and we even co-owned several dogs together. We've recently separated as that arrangement was doomed to fail in my opinion, but we still keep in contact. Not as exciting as most stories, but that's it for me

Well, I haven't really done anything yet, but I'd like to someday train my younger dog to herd. Both of his parents were cattle herders, and even though I'd rather have him on sheep, I would imagine coming from a long line of dogs that actually herd for a living would give him perfect drive for it. He has tried to herd several things, too. Mostly stupid stuff like leaves when it's windy outside, but I think he'd do fine. Haven't actually started him yet, but it's my dream :) Just a thought though, I have seen a few teenagers at the school I go to with *mustangs* and even that is a bit much. haha.

I have always been a dog lover. When I started working here, the K9 unit was always looking for quarries to come out and lay tracks, take bites, whatever. So naturally I was interested. It was the same idea as you, blown away by watching a dog do what it was bred to do. I am in love with the breed. A few years later, my BF was lucky enough to get into the unit, so now I live with one. It is something I am working towards, I technically can't even apply yet. In the meantime, I still quarry, take courses and read whatever I can. As for agility, I always wanted to train my lab as a bird dog, I just didn't have the resources. We ended up getting into an accident where we were hit by a car that had been rear ended. As a result, the Lab is extremely fearful of loud noises now, so I guess guns would be out of the questions, or at least it would take a lot of work. I wanted to do something with him, and a friend was in an agility class, so I took him.

I purchased a pomeranian pup for just a pet. Having done my research I knew that poms needed tons of socialization. So I took her to an obedience class like I do all of my dogs. The trainer invited us to an agility trial he was attending. There I met a friend of his who was going to do a beginning agility class for my trainer. So I enrolled her. She was ok at obedience. but at the agility class she was outstanding. Having never seen a obstacle in her life, in that first 1 hour class, she did a complete course off leash including the weave poles. The trainers were amazed, they had never seen this before. My pom loved it. We have upgraded trainers and she is a born agility competitor. She often beats the traditional traditional breeds. So for her sake I am learning to handle her properly. I have made many mistakes in her training process, but her talent and love for the game has allowed us to continue. She now has many titles in multiple venues and she is only 3 years old. Here is her in action http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0udOEWIvU_E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MhsnwmC36U Not bad for a fru-fru lap dog.

I think you know my story? Oh well... I'll tell you again! So we were getting a second dog, and my mother wanted a Springer- I told her she would have to be prepared for a lot of walking and twice the amount of mood- considering I wanted a Weimaraner, but apparently that breed is too big. Anyway, July 2008 I got my Springer puppy. I did some research on her pedigree and discovered she had some top working dogs in there, that were very well known, plus her sire was a FTCh. We soon discovered Fern's nose was very powerful and she LOVED to hunt out her ball or toy when we hid it for her. So from there, I progressed to the outside world and started hiding things for her around the park and fields, and then my mum would hide things for her in wooded areas and she loved it- plus I thought it was fun! At Crufts 2009 I purchased a training dummy and a acme whistle and 'attempted' to teach her to respond to the whistle, but not knowing how to 'blow' the whistle, I managed only to teach her a perfect recall! And then, trying to be adventures by throwing her dummy onto an island, it got stuck in a tree and is still there now... Anyway, at Crufts I spoke with the trainer who is huge in the gundog world and does a lot of demonstrations, and coincidently he had training classes in the city I live in. I went along and took part in the training classes, then when I moved up to advance, while the other dogs were doing agility, I got some one-on-one lessons; so I learnt what whistle commands to use and how to get my dog to retrieve and what not. However, I still wanted to take it up a notch and take her hunting, and enter her in trials. So I started emailing and ringing around, but no one was interested and said that because I was a city dweller there'd be no point. Yet I am stubborn and continued to search around- eventually I found a club and in January 2010 I started classes. We moved straight into intermediate and in February went on a shoot. She is now in advanced and we're going into tests/trials this Saturday as well as hopefully being involved on shoots and beats this season. ..... She's my first working dog, and only working dog. I have no intention right now to work another dog. Yes I love working her, but she's a dog that needs a job and it's cruel to let her go to waste, hence why I'm working her. I used to want a whole kennel of working dogs, but now, not so much.. think I'll just settle for the odd rescue mutt.

I started agility with my Aussie because I thought is would be good exercise for both of us. We took lessons once a week just for fun, never thinking we would compete. Then my trainer asked us to go do a demonstration at a park with her because she wanted to show people what beginners looked like. We got to the park and my dog locked in. We had a beautiful run. My trainer said I should try competitions because my dog showed so much more focus in public than she did in practice. Now my Aussie is 5 years old and we travel all over to competitive agility trials. She is working on her Championship in AKC agility. It's so much fun. Give agility or any dog sport a try!

Well I haven't actually don't anything with my dogs yet, but I'm thinking about carting. It looks like a really cool sport, and by the looks of my two pups they're going to be good at it. Their mother is a apbt mix of some kind, but I think they might have some great dane in them as well because they're barely more than three months old and are already nearly as tall as she is. What actually got me into the idea of carting is that I really like horses, particularly driving horses. Thing is horses need a heck of a lot of care and they're very expensive. Then while looking around some sites for horse sulkies and carriages I noticed they had dog sulkies and carriages as well. http://www.dogdriving.com/ That was the first site I found on it.

My story starts from when I bought a chubby golden retriever puppy from a family who lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I was a city person who lived in a large apartment and wanted to try and raise a big dog. From the day I brought him home, I played the piano with him on my lap. Soon he started sitting straight up on the piano bench with me while I played. He had grown to love music, which helped him go to sleep and calm down. One day he got to watch people dance to music on the street. When we got home, I played some music on my ihome and suddenly he jumped up and started to hold my hands and try to dance. It was very odd. So from that day, whenever he heard music, he got up and danced, whether it was a solo or if he grabbed a partner.