Dogs:

Polo PIII, PS, V-AAD, AD, MX, MXJ, EAC, EJC, OGC (retired...begrudgingly) Big Jake AD, OA, OAJ, NAC, NJC, NGC (my mom runs him in agility these days!) Pollyanna NA, NAC, NJC, NGC   ADCH Fox Creeper TrailBlazer TM, GCh, JCh-Silver, RCh-Bronze, SCh-Gold, StCh-Bronze, MX, MXJ, JE, EAC, EJC, OGC "Blazer" English Breakfast at Cliveden AD, NA, NAJ "Kipper" (I have master snooker & jumper legs, too!) Windsor's Fergi (the Frog-Dog!)

I have been doing agility since 1992, when I took my JRT, Polo, to a Jack Russell Trial I read about in the local paper.  The rest, as they say, is history!  He enjoyed a long, happy agility career, retiring two years ago at age 12.  He still doesn't understand why he doesn't get a *turn*, so I have had to start leaving him home when I travel to trials.

At  14 years old, he can't seem to make the connection between doing too much and being unable to walk the next day!  

When Polo was 4, I bred him and I fell in love with a puppy, and even though I hadn't planned to, decided to keep her... Pollyanna.  My mother picked a male... Jake.  The others were carefully placed.  I still have those two pups (my father wouldn't let my mom keep Jake, so he ended up with me, too) and they are such holy terrors, that I learned the ultimate lesson about breeding...so many people breed a dog because they have a special one and want another one just like it...good luck!  These two couldn't be more different than their dad.  They are JRT through and through...pure evil.

So, I ended up in obedience classes .  I befriended a woman in Jake's class who also had a JRT, Blazer.  One night, she wasn't there and I was told her husband had died of a heart attack the night before.   It was a terrible tragedy, and she was left with many dogs and horses and was having a hard time coping.  A few months later I was told she had left Blazer with another friend, and had not picked him up for several weeks. Some  of her friends were urging her to place him, and she said she would give him to me if I would find him a performance home.  I agreed, and so began my journey in JRT rescue (I have placed over 50 JRT's since).  He was the coolest dog!  I couldn't believe she could give him up.  I placed him briefly in a couple of homes, but he didn't work out. I then placed him in an agility home in the Midwest.  After seven months there, it was determined he wasn't going to work there either, so he was returned to me at the AKC nationals in Atlanta in 1998.  I decided 3 times returned meant I should keep him and I have never regretted it. He is my first ADCH dog and has taken me places I never would have thought I could go.  We were invited to film 6 of the 25 pilot episodes of Zig & Zag Alpha Dog Challenge on Animal Planet, we were invited to compete in the Purina Incredible Dog Challenge in 2002, he has made television commercials and done print ad work (with all his earnings going to pay the vet bills for the constant flow of rescue dogs I foster), and most recently made the USDAA Top Ten for 2003 in the 16" Snooker Category.   

April 1, 2000, I got married (at a Sirius USDAA trial...in the ring) and my husband fell in love with another rescue I took in the next year.  He was a pitiful case I actually paid a rescue fee for to get him out of a horrible foster home.  He had every parasite imaginable (inside & out) and was COMPLETELY INSANE!  He was 2+ years old and had lived his whole life in an 8x8 pen with 3 other JRT's.  They regularly beat him up, and rarely let him eat.   I placed him repeatedly once I had him healthy. He kept coming back...and one day I came home and my husband announced that he had "named that little dog".  I said oh, no, we don't name foster dogs...to which he replied, "I named him, cause we're keeping him!"....UGH, no, not that untrainable little monster!  So, enter Kipper, JRT #5.  He tries my patience daily, but has completely stolen my heart.  I joke that I only agreed to keep him because he is little and can jump 12" in USDAA, giving me a dog in another jump height!   

Finally, last July, we had another unplanned addition to our family.  I agreed to help with a BC rescue from Alabama, and half  way home my husband asked if I would like to have her for my 40th birthday...I had given him a little red MG for his 40th the year before (see the photo above w/all the russells in it), so he figured I might just want a little red agility sports model for mine.  So, enter Fergi, the kicker was when we found on her papers that her birthday was January 12, 2003, the same day Blazer finished his ADCH, we decided it was fate.

Oops...don't look to your right but I think we have an impostor in the group.

ADCH Champion Blazer

Blazer