Happy Birthday Trick Dog Champion and many more . . .

This post is two-fold. First because I now officially have news that Sassenach is my second Trick Dog Champion (TDCH), the third Tamaskan to ever achieve this title, and for now.... the youngest. And that is important to both halves of this post.

Firstly, I am very proud of my girls, thrilled with Sass and who she is shaping up to be. We submitted her TDCH application on Nov. 5, 2020, two days before her first birthday. Yes, she is currently the youngest Tamaskan TDCH as I write this out. But if you remember one thing I want you to remember she won't be forever. Inevitably she will lose that claim as another dog will earn it younger. The reason is that at some point someone will likely want the bragging rights (while it is possible they will just complete it at their dog's pace as I could have). They can have it. I am not one to put off my own dreams, to hold my dogs back from their potential because of others. There was no obvious logical reason to keep from submitting a title she could have rightfully earned months ago so I decided a while back we would submit for her birthday.

Now even after chewing on that choice I not only think it was the right choice for her, but I think it will be the right choice for Sundog on a whole. Sass could have done it at 6 months and she had already earned and thrived through the challenges of Novice through Expert. I intentionally "stopped" and we worked on other things. Still building and working on the skills used and more than what are required for TDCH. She has made me so proud in her joy, independence, and efforts towards training and learning. I asked myself why I stopped and while I wanted her to earn this title I knew it wasn't the right time, I didn't think it was right. But I couldn't articulate why I was vehemently against completing it before this point when all it would mean would be recording 1-2 things she already does regularly. Now I can.

I will not put Trick Dog Champion on any puppy I keep or promote my families to complete it before a week or so around their first birthday. In years to come you will never see a puppy in my care complete this title much before their first birthday give or take a few days. This is because I want to hold on to them as puppies. I want to always appreciate and know that joy I felt with Clara and now with Sassenach. I want to watch them learn and work for the joy of it without a competition, work through as we struggle and be proud when they succeed. I am very competitive (and that has its place), but I am also self-aware of this and I will not race past the abilities, safety, wellbeing, comfort, and stamina of my dogs. I put my love and my life into them and it would be irresponsible of me to promote or participate in a race to the finish when I know that I can see burn out and overwork, but that many don't see it. As a CTDI (among many other things) I see individuals, breeders, and kennels completing titles younger and younger - faster and faster. It starts as innocently as this, submitting for a first birthday, but next time it is sooner and sooner until someone cries, "My whole litter is trying to complete xyz first! I know they are only 14 weeks but we are going to get ...." As a trainer and instructor, I can often safely and efficiently work through things, especially the tricks, quickly and at a young age, but I've seen so much unintended hurt and pressure on puppies and their owners to race to the finish, rushing tricks or commands instead of taking time to proof them fully and ease into them. I will not be a part of that, I love my puppies and their families too much to knowingly place us all in those positions. So, I won't.

So later when you see our dogs, when you see my puppies, if you have one of my puppies know that while I want them to succeed in titles and earnings, I think proving your dogs is important and a way to show calculable skills and training that I think that the overall success of my dogs is more important and everything has its time and place.