Anne Goldenberger's Zoe
Make it stand out
I adopted Zoe from the Humane Society at ten months old. Since my husband was out of town, I put a “hold”on her and went back the next day with him. We turned her loose in the fenced area with a ball, and Craig went to sit in a chair. Zoe, being the bright girl that she is, ignored the ball (and me) completely, went over to Craig, put her front paws on his lap, leaned her head on his shoulder, and gave him her best ear kisses. And so, of course, home she came.
I picked her out because I had always wanted a dog to train, and so we began obedience right away. The HS counselor had said she would be good for agility too, but I didn't know much about it at the time. Soon I learned she had many aggressive, reactive tendencies, and so I kept her out of agility, but in obedience class for about a year, until I felt I had enough control over her, and then we started training at Sno-King.
We had our mishaps with her aggression along the way— but thankfully, with lots of support from Sno-King folks, we resolved our issues quite completely. She still isn't thrilled with other dogs near her, but has learned to tolerate (and even ignore) them.
Zoe is a work-aholic with a great food drive, and a fairly thick skin, and tolerated all my bumbling attempts to learn my part of the agility teamwork. Even so, there were nights I would come home in tears of frustration over learning how to shape and time my commands to keep her on course. We spent a full two years in agility training before her first trial.
She is still probably the most graceful jumping dog I have ever seen. Her Velcro tendencies have given me some training challenges along the way as most of our trials are NADAC trials, with distance a required part of qualifying on all their courses.
Make it stand out
Zoe earned her NATCH (NADAC Trial Championship) at the Extreme Agility Team trial at Argus Ranch on April 21. She also went to the USDAA World Championships last fall in Scottsdale, and has qualified in DAM team and Steeplechase so far this year (2007). She also has four Grand Prix qualifiers to her credit. Zoe earned her NATCH2 on February 16, 2009.
Zoe and I are working to finish her MAD in USDAA, and are just about to begin competing at the Utility level in UKC Obedience, and the Mixed Breed Dog Club. She spends most of her waking (and sleeping!) hours at my feet, patiently waiting for the next time she gets to go out and earn some more cookies.
Name: Zoe
Registered Name: Zoe The 2-faced Dog
Breed: Mixed
Owner: Anne Goldenberger
Titles Earned:
NATCH2
UCDX
MB-CD
CGC
HIC
AAD
ASA
TN-O
TG-N
WV-N
JV-E
JS-O
GS-E
RS-E