CH, U-CH, U-ACH, U-CD, Woodlyn Moptop Puffed Rice, CD, Canadian CD, CGC,OA, NAJ,TT
Ricky is my best friend and companion. I got Ricky by a lucky (for me) break. The lady who wanted to get him couldn't because of some conflicts. So, my friend Lynne, his breeder, offered him to me at a price I couldn't refuse. I had mentioned to her earlier that I wanted a little long coated dog that I could love, and I wanted to brush him while I was relaxing, I had heard it made a person feel more relaxed. I had been looking at Papillons, but when she offered Ricky to me, I was unbelieveably surprised and happy. He has been the best dog I have ever owned. Ricky is a Chinese Crested Powderpuff. To learn more about the Chinese Crested breed go toWoodlyn's Chinese Cresteds
Ricky is the first dog I have ever trained in conformation, obedience, and agility. I have only had "pet" dogs before, teaching them sit, down, and other cute tricks like roll over, and so forth. I have learned a lot from working with this neat little dog. He came to live with Jerry and I, along with Kite, when he was just a little puppy. He came with the agreement that if my husband or Kite did not get along with him, or the idea of him living with us, he would go back to Lynne. It only took a day of so for me to know he was staying, no matter what. Kite and Jerry did adjust to him, although not as readily as I would have liked. But after some time all the little problems were worked out and Ricky blended right into our family.
Conformation came first. That was kind of scary for me since I had never done anything like that before. Lynne encouraged me to go to classes with her and her puppy, so I did. Ricky learned quickly what I wanted of him. But I had lots to learn in handling him. How to make him more animated and happy looking. It took us a bit of time since I was so inexperienced, but Ricky earned his AKC Championship when he was about two years old. In 1995 the Chinese Crested breed was finally recognized in UKC, so we competed in that venue, too. Ricky became the very first Chinese Crested Champion in UKC.
Whenever Lynne and I would take our dogs for a walk, Ricky would always look at me and I thought then he might make a good obedience dog. I really doubted my ability to train him, but we started classes. I started entering him in obedience trials along with conformation, Lynne told me there is hardly ever a conflict, well let me tell you, there was a conflict almost every time! Ricky did well, even though I was quite frazzled when this happened. On the day he got his first two points in the conformation ring, he qualified for his first leg in his CD title. We did go on to get our AKC CD, UKC CD, and Canadian CD. We qualified in both AKC and UKC two times for our CDX, never getting that last qualifying leg to finish the title, Ricky just quit heeling. He loved all the other exercises, but would not heel.
We heard about agility and our interest ran high. We found out about a trial being held just 30 miles from our home, so we had to go take a look and check this out. We decided on the spot to take classes and train our dogs, never thinking we could get our dogs to do these neat things! After a year of training one of the club members asked us why we weren't competing, the dogs were ready. So we did. We had our ups and downs. To see more about this go to Adventures of Casey and Ricky We earned our Agility 1, Agility 2, and eventually our UKC Agility Championship. Ricky and I went on in AKC and earned our Open Agility title and Novice Jumpers Agility title. We need one more qualifying score to earn our Open Jumpers Agility title, we plan to try for that, yet. Ricky is now eleven years old, and although he is feeling and acting really good, yet, I know our time is limited for achieving this.
After eleven years of grooming Ricky's show coat, Ricky decided he had had enough! He really began fighting me during grooming time, just would not behave while I tried to brush him out. I want him to live out the rest of his life without any worries, so I decided to have him shaved down. It took a bit to get used to, but we both love it! To see his new look go here.
We've spent some wonderful times together, training, traveling, and thoroughly loving each other.
Pictures of Ricky
Ricky's webpage made by his breeder, go here.