Natural K9 Supplies in South Miami, where we buy all our Orijen dog food (they have the BEST pricing anywhere on this food!!!!), has a monthly photo contest and the winner gets a bunch of awesome doggie goodies. We entered Orso’s photo (below) in the September contest and he won thanks to all the awesome people who voted for Orso’s photo by “liking” it on Facebook! Orso won a box full of lots of goodies that Natural K9 Supplies generously offered as his prize, see photos below! Thanks, Natural K9 Supplies! Photo of Orso that we entered in the contest: Screen shot of the contest results: Orso’s goodies & his rare opportunity to not only JUMP on the kitchen counter to investigate his goodies but also destroy the box they came in:
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Below are a couple of cute video clips of Mouse – our Doberman rescue – giving Karma some love. This might not seem like anything special, but Mouse is a very particular dog. We rescued him when he was about 4 months old and has always had problems with dog aggression. He also is very timid with people, despite our efforts to socialize him, and doesn’t really understand how to play with the other dogs in the pack. We suspect that he was separated from his momma and the rest of his littermates too early and never learned how to play within a pack. By the time he came to us, he was a wreck! He has come a long way since then – he is turning 6 years old in November. Yay, Mouse!!! Mouse is obsessively in doggie love with Karma. We didn’t expect this at all! He was not very nice to Karma when she first came home and we had to establish her place in the pack for her, since Mouse was being a grouch with her. Now, he doesn’t leave her alone and lets her do anything she wants to him, which is extremely rare for Mouse. For me, it’s awesome to see this interaction and wanted to share it with you. By the way, notice how Orso comes around at the end of each of the 2 videos to run interference. He is very protective of Karma! Sorry the quality is so poor, but it was shot in our family room with no lights on, so it’s pretty grainy. Enjoy! Tonight was great for Team Karma! Dee & Amaris from Applause Your Paws encouraged me to bring Karma to Amaris’ Beginner Obedience class right before Karma’s Puppy class and I did. Karma got to meet new dogs, all of whom were adults (I think, see short video clip below), and interact with new people. She did great! We all took turns working with each other’s dogs so that everyone in the class worked with each dog at least once. Since class was outdoors, I worked on conformation mostly with a little bit of obedience – with Amaris’ blessing, of course – and Karma was awesome! She held a stack for me several times and her gaiting is getting much better! What a success! Between classes, Karma hung out in a flower bed and destroyed some landscaping. What a little princess! For our puppy class, it was a full house! There were 8 dogs there today! What a wonderful turnout! Karma was pretty tired from the obedience class so she wasn’t as hyper as usual, but she still managed to find some energy to play with the other puppies. We left a little early because Karma was getting really tired, but we still got some fun photos, see below! By the way, all the snarling photos are just play! There was no aggression going on! Enjoy!
Thank you to Jimmy Stanchio of SACCI (Society in America for Cane Corso Italiano) for getting Orso’s Master Champion certificate out to us so promptly!
Tonight, Karma and I went to a group conformation handling class taught by Rosy Harkow of Rosewater Labradors and held at Tracy Hanna’s indoor agility facility, Paws in Motion.
The evening got off to a rocky start when Karma threw up in the Jeep on the way to class. Yay, Karma! When we arrived at Paws in Motion, she refused to pee, so I spent most of class freaking out that she would have an accident indoors, which thank the doggie gods that she didn’t! When I wasn’t stressed about her having a puppy pee-pee accident, I was stressing about her behavior. I know she’s a puppy and it’s only her second conformation class, but it’s not her second time around other dogs. She has been going to puppy class for 6 or 7 weeks already and is accustomed to being around other dogs. Tonight, she was a maniac! She was so enthralled by all these other dogs! It was very frustrating! She would literally be gaiting in one direction and her head was turned completely around! Same with stacking! At least she did stand patiently – kinda, sorta – for examination 2 of the times and held a nice stand 2 or 3 times. I left there very appreciative that Rosy, Tracy and the other class-goers were empathetic that she is so young and still learning! We don’t have this class again for 2 weeks, so it gives Team Karma some time to work on our skills! Stay tuned! In celebration of Labor Day and today’s gorgeous weather, I loaded the 4 dogs into the Jeep and took off to Grandma Eva & Grandpa Frank’s house for a beach day! Karma has just learned how to swim, so today was going to be her first time in open water! She did awesome! She went right in and frolicked like a madwoman! All 4 of them played for hours and Karma finally felt comfortable enough to go into the deep open water alone to play with Orso and fetch! It was so great to see her so confident in her swimming skills! Since I was in the water most of the time, I didn’t dare take out my camera to take photos. Instead I took over 30 different videos! Below are 3 videos from today. The first one is the absolute best video I have filmed of Orso and Karma interacting. It’s almost 4 continuous minutes long and it shows them playing fetch in open water with a coconut. The second video is about 2 minutes long and shows Orso playing with his JollyBall in the yard. The last one is a video compilation of all the remaining best video clips. It’s set to music and runs almost 5 minutes long. All 3 videos are awesome and well worth the watch! Enjoy! THE ***BEST*** VIDEO EVER OF ORSO & KARMA: Orso and His JollyBall: Compilation – not such great quality because it’s compressed, but still good: This morning, I took Karma to her first group conformation handling class at the home of our friends, David and Carole Baikow. David and Carole have been showing Doberman Pinschers since the 1960s and own Grand Champion Cardav’s Satish. I met them in February in Lakeland for Orso’s very first dog show weekend and we have kept in touch since then.
During a recent phone conversation, David told me that The Doberman Pinscher Club of Florida, for which he is the president, holds conformation handling classes at his home Saturday mornings and invited me to go with Karma. This was great news to me because there is a huge value to learning showmanship from someone like David and his friends, who all show working dogs. When we hired Orso’s show handler, Daniel Sanchez, he explained to us that it’s crucial that a working dog go into a show ring and ACT like a working dog! This was something Orso did not do since he was not trained to show like a working dog and we definitely feel that it hurt him in the ring at times. We did not want to make the same mistake with Karma, so David’s invitation to join his class put us in the right setting to get Karma off on the right paw! Karma and I will also be going to other group handling classes, since we can use all the help we can get, but it’s great to be getting guidance from working dog people so Karma can shine in the ring! Thanks, David and Carole! It was nice to be back to class with Karma! Last week’s class was canceled due to Hurricane Irene, so it has been 2 weeks since Karma had a chance to play with other puppies. She spent the whole afternoon playing and swimming at home, so getting her to wake up and leave the house to go to class was a mission! She did not want to budge! I was tempted to let her stay home tonight, but deep down I was also thrilled about the prospect of Karma being sooooo exhausted tonight that she would let me sleep in tomorrow! When I arrived for class, I snuck into the vet’s office and weighed Karma, since it had been a while since the last time I got a weight on her – she came in at 44.6 pounds! Wow, what a little piglet! She is gaining an average of 0.52 pounds per day since she came home! As usual, class was a great experience. We were missing 2 of our regular puppies, Nemo the German Shepherd & Bravo the Terrier, but we had a new puppy join us, so it was 5 puppies in total, including Karma. It was amazing how much all the puppies had grown since our last class 2 weeks ago! Before they all could run around and slide right under the benches; but now, they had to duck or they’d smack their heads, LOL! Despite being tired, Karma managed to find the energy to run around and play like a crazy girl! When it came time to work the obedience part of the class, it was very difficult for me to keep her attention! We did manage to learn a new command today “STAY” that she was able to hold for about 10 seconds or so! Considering all the excitement, I thought that was pretty good! We were sent home with the homework of trying to work that STAY for longer than that! Thanks to Amaris, our fearless Applause Your Paws puppy leader, who reminded me to take deep breaths when Karma didn’t want to listen to me! Below are my favorite photos and a few video clips from tonight. Enjoy! Video clip of us working on teaching our puppies to be comfortable with being held and touched by other people: Being puppies: This afternoon was Karma’s 2nd time swimming in the pool and she did great! She is much more comfortable than the 1st time a few days ago! Below is a 3 minute video compilation showing Karma’s doing a little bit of swimming! I apologize for 2 things – my squeaky cheerleader voice & the pool being dirty (our pool guy has been missing in action since last week). Orso, the resident camera hog, makes a few appearances and even shows off how he can fetch 2 toys at a time in the pool, LOL! Enjoy! The end of August brings with it the close of another South Florida summer and the hopes of cooler weather and dryer afternoons. Despite our heat and rain, it’s been a great summer full of many awesome experiences! Orso finished his AKC Championship, earned his Therapy Dogs International registration, and started his Rally-Obedience show career; I took off to Tahiti for a few weeks for many humbling SCUBA diving and non-diving experiences; Cleo and Karma joined our family; all that, among many other great things! We have no shortage of things to be happy about and grateful for. Along the way, we took some pretty cool photos of the Costa Bel clan, our furkids, and so did Kathi Wisdom, who is taking care of Cleo for us. In celebration of our photogenic furballs, we created an album to commemorate the summer of 2011. The print version should be on its way to us soon so we can set it on our coffee table for guests to enjoy. In the meantime, click here to view the online album or follow the link below, enjoy!
http://www.mypublisher.com/?e=SV6kgzMEAeu-jZ-tIC6iXHxjSKE7v_Ui1R-E6l3YPhDoZd2YyHhgJbalABoK0lZSs9PGc5z8Lhs=&_mp=67k/knLKFwzBk8ZAed5GBDFX9lgo9GSk%0A&showform=1 Karma finally outgrew the daytime crate we had for her downstairs, so it was time to upgrade her to something better suited for her size. I think she likes it!
Karma has been added to the online Cane Corso Pedigree Database. The Cane Corso Pedigree Database is a free service that runs on donations. It’s a very interesting site that allows owners to submit images of their Cane Corso so that photos show up on the pedigrees. Results from health tests can also be uploaded, among other relevant data. Orso’s online pedigree was recently updated to reflect all his accomplishments and health testing! Way cool!
To see Karma’s main page, click here or go to http://www.canecorsopedigree.com/modules/animal/dog.php?id=20529. To see Karma’s pedigree online, click here or go to http://www.canecorsopedigree.com/modules/animal/pedigree.php?pedid=20529. To make a donation supporting the Cane Corso Pedigree Database, click here or go to http://www.canecorsoforum.info/pedigreedonations.htm. Over the weekend, we took Orso and Karma out on the town to hang out with us. On Saturday, we went to Chili’s in the Grove and spent a couple of hours eating and drinking in their outside patio. We were headed back to our car to go home when we were stopped by 4 people in a parking lot asking us if our dogs were Cane Corsos. We told them that they were and they enthusiastically told us that they had Cane Corsos back home, in Romania! We started chatting and sharing smartphone photos and it turns out that they have a male who is also named Orso! What a coincidence! Another coincidence is that they just brought home a black Corso puppy around the same age as Karma! We hit it off and decided not to go home so soon. We spent the next 7 hours with them, hopping from place to place, drinking, eating and, of course, talking about our favorite topic – Cane Corsos!! Below is a picture that our new friends emailed us today, enjoy! From left to right: Yvonne Alemán (me), Monica Muntean Pazuric, Andreas Muntean, Diana Sime-Pazuric, Lucian Sime Pazuric, Agustín “Gus” Quevedo, Lionheart Buona Karma di Costa Bel (Karma at 15 weeks) & CH Mar e Sol Orso di Costa Bel (Orso at 14 months).
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