Koan Grinds Her Own Nails

Over the years I've used different kinds of nail clippers and Dremels to grind our dogs' nails. My preference is to use a Dremel as I think it's easier to get a shorter nail without endangering the quick. 

As Koan has gotten older, she's become increasingly adverse to having her nails trimmed with any option. Mind you, it's ONLY her front nails. I can still use a Dremel to grind her rear ones. We had to start using drugs to calm her and even that was proving less and less effective in the past couple of years.

I don't want to stress her out, but I don't want her to tear a nail in agility on a contact, so I did some research and I found that many people make their own nail boards or scratchboards and teach their dogs how to use them. I figured I could do that - and so I did. I followed the information found at Canine Lifestyle Academy on how to create the board, but here are many options.

She's very food motivated, so was easy to train. 

Koan Loves Her Scratch Board!

The Toller Welshie Experiment

I'm sure I'm not the first to have these two breeds in the same household, but after having Tollers exclusively for so long, it does feel like an experiment to have added a Welsh Springer Spaniel to our Toller-centric household, though granted, there's only one Toller in residence now. I'm pleased to report that so far, things seem to be working out quite well.

Koan seems to enjoy Angws's company, though since he's only just turned 13 months old, sometimes he is very annoying and she has to put him in his place. She used to boss Baco around and sometimes he would lose patience with her. I wonder how she feels to be on the other side of this? So far she's managing, no doubt due to her age and the fact that she's the bitch, so naturally assumes she should be in charge. Sometimes they play rough and sometimes they play very sweetly together.

Angws has done a lot since he's been with us. He completed a puppy obedience class, an AKC STAR puppy class, and a pre-agility skills class all by the time he was six months old. He is currently in Part 1D of a four-part agility class for beginner dogs and recently started a novice Rally class. Occasionally he decides he'd rather run circles around the ring than work the exercise as intended. My agility instructor calls him our class clown, but he's pretty impressive when he puts his mind to it and is already doing short sequences. 

Future Agility Dog!

He's far too big to fit there now!

He's gone to some conformation handling classes and has already been in a 4-6 month puppy class where he got a Group 4 in Sporting, and two B-matches where he was awarded Sporting Group 3 both times, and he even had to beat other dogs each time! He's also been to a couple of conformation shows, though no points yet. We are working on keeping his head up in the ring vs. on the mat, not running up on other dogs with his ground-eating gait, and winking at the judge. Just kidding about the last one, but he is pretty affable in the ring, and it's easy to get his tail, and sometimes his whole body, wagging.

At home, we practice some obedience, a little agility, and occasionally some scent work. He's showing great aptitude for scent work in particular and recently found a container hide more easily than Koan, who occasionally gets so wound up and excited she starts alerting on every box.

Koan refuses to take a backseat to Angws and has been working hard in multiple venues this year. She has already earned her RE title, another double Q towards her MACH, finished a few Advanced Scent Work titles, and earned her first Excellent leg in Containers, Interiors, Exteriors, and Buried. 

I'm looking forward to seeing what else Angws and Koan will accomplish this year!