The Motor City K9s have been busy since our last report!
We finished 2014 with parades, bell ringing and care packages for our troops overseas, both human and K9. We kicked the year off with a celebration of our accomplishments and chance to do some goal setting and we welcomed 4 new members to our troop!
We are very proud of our Dog Scouts who passed the AKC CGCA test and earned their titles. Michelle Neu with Sassy, Julie Benson with Shelby, and Sally Hoyle & Julie Lawler-Hoyle with Katie and Sam all passed with flying colors! We also have two new Dog Scouts, Betty with Amy Schupska and Lizzy with Diane Baughman. We are really proud of our new scouts!
And we have even more titles! Sam Hoyle earned his AKC Advanced Therapy Dog title. Sassy Neu and Tyson Angiulo earn titles in Barn Hunt. Odie Schuler and Tyson Angiulo earned Nose Work titles and Drizzle Perez earned his first legs in Nose Work. Katie Hoyle earned several new Agility titles. We have many dogs regularly competing in these and other dog sports and it’s wonderful to see all these dogs continue to work hard, learn new things and achieve goals both big and small!
Julie Benson and Shelby were thrilled to be able to meet Victoria Stillwell again! Victoria was quite impressed with Shelby’s uniform and commended both Julie and Shelby on the accomplishments they have achieved in the few short years since she saw them last. Here’s the proud mom Julie with Shelby and Victoria! Love those smiles!
Our troop loves to do things to better our community and to that end we had the opportunity to talk with a group of Brownie Scouts about Dog Scouts, dog care, behavior and training, and Service and Therapy Dogs. Dog Scouts and Therapy Dogs Shelby and Odie and Dog Scout and Service Dog Katie all participated along with Julie Benson, Diane Schuler and Sally Hoyle. The girls and their parents and leader were a fantastic group and were very interested in learning. We finished the afternoon with a meet and greet for the girls and dogs and may have even managed to win over a very fearful child and grandmother! They at least got close enough to pet Katie. 🙂
We tried to enjoy the outdoors this winter. Betsy Conway with Burt and Sally Hoyle with Katie attended the Winter Outing at Dog Scout Camp on the COLDEST weekend in several centuries. It was almost impossible to get outside at all but we were able to at least get in a couple of snow shoe walks when the sun was shining brightly. Later in February Melissa Perez set up a Dog Sledding day that Drizzle, Sam and Katie enjoyed though the wind proved brutal for the humans involved. Julie and Shelby, Sally, Katie and Sam, and Amy and Betty all participated in the Frost-a-Thon and had a very respectable showing coming in second place as a troop. We were very happy to get some financial support from non-walking troop members Betsy and Bert, and Vickie Lomas, Duncan and Shadow!
Now we are very glad to FINALLY see some warmer weather here in Michigan. Though we continue to bounce back and forth between winter and spring we were recently able to get in our first hike of the year. Sam had PLENTY of opportunity to work on finding poop to pick up on the trail we hiked. He’s pictured below with some of his finds. We all have cabin fever here and look forward to getting out and enjoying warmer weather with many more hikes.
We have so many things coming up in the next few weeks! Barn Hunt Lessons, a Children’s Health Fair in Toledo, a shaping/tricks training day, badge blitz day, a CGC/CGCA Testing Day, hiking and letterboxing. A number of troop members are finishing up our Letterboxing 3 Badge and/or Letterbox title so we are very busy finding those last few boxes, carving and preparing for our big event that will take place in June. It’s going to be a blast and everyone is invited! Please let us know if you can come!
Until next time…happy spring and happy trails!
Sally Hoyle
Troop Leader, Motor City K9s, Troop 217
Vice President, DSA Board of Directors