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One private lake, three days, fifteen dogs and a fabulous instructor!
The Alberta Portuguese Water Dog Club once again held its Annual Water Camp in July. We flew in Sarah Kahn from Spokane, Washington. Sarah is a recognized PWDCA Water Trial Judge and owner/trainer of “Bean” and “Ace”, two PWD’s who have earned their American Platinum Awards of Merit! Sarah provided fantastic instruction to dogs and handlers ranging from beginning Juniors to those actively competing at the Courier level. Sarah’s positive techniques and practical suggestions helped us start the beginning handlers and dogs off “on the right paw”, and we’re sure the trial run-throughs will help our competitive teams at the higher levels too. We were all reminded of the importance of land training, of breaking the skills into attainable sub-steps, and of course we all got wet! As a matter of fact, we got a bit wetter than we planned because in typical Western Canadian fashion we had some drenching downpours mixed in with the beautiful sunshine. This of course resulted in some (beautiful??) mud in our land training and camping areas… but we all know that PWD owners need to possess a good sense of humor, so we smiled and hauled on the raingear. Thanks to Sarah and all our hard-working members who organized a great camp, and of course the members (new & old) who learned and laughed with us this year!
- Robin Illchuk, Secretary APWDC.
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