News & Sports

April is coming to a close, and everything is popping here. Busy in the garden, busy getting the outdoor agility field ready for the coming year. Already done prep work and even mowed once. Agility equipment is starting to come outside, if the weather holds up it will all be outside pretty quickly.

Welcome to the new home for our consolidated events calendar.

Preliminary information is published for a regular class CARO trial June 01^st. Entry opens Wednesday April 30^th.

Click on the + to expand the section of interest.

There have been changes in CKC Obedience going forward in 2025. No more separation of the H & 18 streams in Open, everyone is back to a single stream. We have a new reference card available to summarize the required exercises for training. More details…

We are no longer making the full CARO rally sign sets, however for those who have the 2022 sets we do offer the new signs for 2025 so you can stay up to date. More details…

I'm a bit of a heretic when it comes to Tech. Not a Luddite, I don't have any issues with using smartphones, computers, digital calculators and an assortment of other modern tools. But I install apps and software and if I like what it does and don't need anything "better" then I just don't do the updates. No automatic updates, disabled on just about everything.

I started setting updates to disabled a long time ago, when I began to notice that apps and software that had previously done everything I wanted suddenly stopped doing things. Features were removed, usually for "security reasons". Sometimes the entire GUI and layout would change because "They" decided it was getting stale and needed a new look. In one case, an app that was "free" suddenly ducked behind a paywall. If you didn't immediately subscribe and pay money all the information you had stored in the app would be inaccessible. Legalized data kidnapping, because you have to agree to the terms and conditions to update the app, if you don't agree it won't update and if it doesn't update it won't open.

Sometimes it is very difficult. Adobe Reader was very challenging, they buried the update triggers in a number of redundant locations in the Windows Registry but I finally figured out how to corrupt them all. Still works just fine, no more surprises.

If I didn't ask you to fix something it is probably because it ain't really broke. And if you insist on trying to fix things that I don't think are broke, then I will go out of my way to break your stuff until you give up and go away. I still have working computers running Windows XP, Windows 7, Windows 8.1 on a Surface RT, and Windows 10. Some old stuff still works and it is useful to keep it working. I'll give it up when it stops being useful, which is why my Windows 95 computer is in a box in storage not on my desk. Someday I will get a Windows 11 (or 12?) computer, or maybe I will convert to Mac. Who knows. We will cross that bridge when we have a reason to cross the bridge, and crossing the bridge "because it is there" is not a good enough reason.

February has not been nice for weather, but if you keep the trials small then there are fewer issues. Our CARO trial in February was just working class, and only 25 runs but some people still managed to achieve some major milestones.

Congrats to Willow (Beatrice) and Luna (Sarah) on claiming the top CARO Working Class Champions title. Unofficial results are available, February here (PDF).

We have our first CARO trial of the year all wrapped up. The weather you expect from January, rain and warm one day and the bottom falls out of the thermometer the next. Thank you to Judge Whitney Shaver for coming out for a full slate of regular classes, and to everyone who participated and helped move things along at a reasonable pace so we could wrap up just about when it got dark.

Unofficial results for January, Click here (PDF).

We had our first CKC trial on the first weekend of the year. Scent Detection for the Poodle Club of Canada, with Judge Nathan Clarkson. Fortunately we had a very nice day, although cold. A few light snowflakes early in the morning, then the sun came out in time for the Exterior tests in the afternoon. Very well attended, especially in Masters division. The best part is that we wrapped up just before the Sun went down, and no one had to do any searches by candlelight.

Poodle Poetry & Pynky

Poodle Poetry

Some poodles are blue,
some poodles are black.
we can play outside,
'cause agility is back.

Pynky & The Brain

Pynky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?

I think so Brain, but it would be a better world if volcanos would stop venting and instead complain loudly.