(4 months old)
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| NIKITA'S BEGINNINGS | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Nikita 6 weeks old | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nikita was my first siberian husky. Born on May 10, 1996 she came home on July 24, 1996. My friend and I had both wanted to get into agility so we both went out and got puppies. She got herself Shasta, a tri coloured border collie and because I had wanted a siberian for many years before I got Nikita. I had done alot of research into the breed but still was not quite prepared for what I got. Nikita was not quite what I expected, she was a stuck up little cow of a dog. She hated everyone and anyone, including me. At 9 weeks old she became more familiar with the area of Calgary that I lived in than I had. Many nights were spent chasing her around the neighborhood trying to catch her. She became an expert on undoing the clasp on a leash, bolting out of the yard and slipping out of her collar. At 4 months of age we began our training in puppy school. She already new sit, down, and heal, but we were having problems with that word called COME she didn't seem to think that she should have to learn what that meant. Nikita also went through puppy school with her yard mate Shasta an overly friendly border collie. I wouldn't say that they were the best of buds but they tolerated each other. However when it came to another dog in school picking on Shasta, Nikita decided that that was not acceptable and proceeded to remove a rather large chunk of the dogs fur. It seems that only she was allowed to pick on poor Shasta. From puppy school we went straight into obedience, with with the site of agility coming ever closer. In obedience we were doing quite well. Nikita was capable of doing everything that was required (whether she chose to or not was the question) until it came time for the long down stay. Out came various distractions, I wasn't worried about any of the toys as Nikita hated them all (I had bought her almost every kind of toy that you could imagine and she wouldn't play with any). But then out came a bag of treats, the instructor proceeded to crumple up the bag and there went Nikita chasing after her looking for a few little tidbits. Two weeks prior to the end of obedience we began our training in agility. In the first class I was basically told to drop out because I had a siberian and they couldn't do it. Well that was a challenge I wasn't going to pass up, I set out to prove them wrong. Nikita however was trying to prove they were correct, she wouldn't do much of anything,except the wall and the teeter. She loved them both, the teeter she introduced herself to when it was on full size and when it banged she thought it was the greatest thing. The wall she thought was a giant hill that she had race over as fast as she could. When it came time for jumping due to her age the bar was only on 6 inches, she looked at it like it was a waste of time and refused to go over it, instead going to hide under the wall or just plain sitting in front of it and refusing to move. The dogwalk she was just plain stuborn, she didn't care what kind of food or trick you tried she just pulled and bucked refusing to go. It ended up taking about 3 classes before we were able to get her across. When it came time for the next set of classes she would do the obstacles in her own sweet time, she refused to be rushed (she was that way with everything that she did). We entered the second level of our training and I wondered what got into her. All of a sudden she was running across the dogwalk, it took 3 times to get her to do the teeter properly, she thought fly offs were much more fun. We joined the Calgary Agility Association at this time and began going to club nights. Unfortunately Nikita was still only 10 months old and we had a very long time to go before actually being able to trial. By the time she reached a year she was able to run a masters level course not nessarily in the time allowed but clear. She had practised many times in the fezdome where the trials were held, so we were anxiously awaiting the day we could enter our first trial. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Nikita at 7 months | ||||||||||||||||||
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| 3 years old | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Nikita's favorite spot! (4 months old) |
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| Nikita at 10 months | ||||||||||||||||||