Sunshine Obedience School-Gerianne Darnell

07/01/2024

Three new trees planted in the pouring rain today! A pretty variegated dogwood, a cascading yellow ornamental, and a baby tower spruce to go along with the adults lol. Thank you Marci and Lanaha Nursery. The planting crew was excellent. I look forward to the ugly supports being gone next year, but they are a necessary evil!

06/27/2024

The WCRL rally trials July 6-7 have been moved to Sunshine Obedience School in Council Bluffs due to the small entry. You can still get an entry in, the revised premium list is at www.sunshineobedience.com just scroll down to calendar of events.

06/26/2024

Because of the beautiful weather we did speed training this morning! Tracking and rally with Rayna and obedience and herding with Rita. Just a few minutes of each but we all loved it after the wicked hot weather the last two days. The girls like to multi-task as they can see sheep from the top of the pool! But then they are female lol. They are resting for an hour and then off to nosework class.

06/26/2024

This branch landed on my huge hosta. Some of the pots blew off the pool railing but luckily not in the pool, although I'm hoping the filter is ok, as it is off. All in all not too bad!

06/24/2024

Rayna and Rita are working on their Olympic Synchronized Swimming routine while we celebrated Robert's 14th Birthday in the pool today. I can not BELIEVE this wonderful little dog is fourteen! He looks and acts fantastic, and is fully recovered from his dislocated hip last winter. He seemed to enjoy floating about with mom and his border collie sisters.

06/23/2024

Here are my great nephews with ISU/SF49ers quarterback and all around nice guy Brock Purdy at yesterday's ISU youth football camp. I am a jealous great aunt, I should have rustled up another great nephew to take lol We grow our Cyclone fans from a young age!

06/17/2024

The premium list for the AKC Farm Dog tests to be held at Sunshine Obedience School on August 23rd is now available. There will be two tests and two judges on that Friday morning, so you can get the Farm Dog title in one day. You can get the premium by scrolling down to "Calendar of Events" at www.sunshineobedience.com

06/17/2024

Rayna earned her seventh Triple Q today with two first places and a fourth place. She is a third of the way to her RACH in just three weekends!

06/14/2024

The Doris May is in the water and now resting comfortably in her slip!

06/11/2024

Update! The boat (and George) made it safely on the journey to the Mississippi! Unfortunately the river is too high right now to put it in, but he expected that. There is some huge thing (crane or ?) that actually puts that huge boat in the water, then the wood has to soak up the water (and we hope it floats!). George was giddy when I talked to him tonight, so excited and relieved that the Doris May (named after his mother, btw, not me lol) made it there in one piece! I will keep you all updated!

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06/10/2024

Here is my husband George's boat leaving for the Mississippi River after a 20 year restoration project! We stopped at my nephew's home to get a picture with the Great niece and nephews and then George went on while I came home to the dogs :-)
https://youtu.be/zK2gYIci_qA

06/10/2024

Here are photos of the Ricochet kids' ribbons and a fun photo of the three of them.

06/10/2024

What a GREAT weekend of UKC nosework we had here at Sunshine! Beautiful weather, fun people, and done EARLY all three days! Rayna was the star of my household, finishing her Nosework Grand Championship today! That represents *200* Q's. She was fantastic. Thank you judges Susan Mikel and Beth McDonald; they put out fun and fair hides all weekend. Also thanks to hard working trial chair Shelly Rehmeier, secretary Norine Nieman, and ALL of the wonderful volunteers. You are so appreciated! Little Miss Rita was on fire, finishing her Advanced Grand Championship and all four Superior elements for her Superior title. She even earned a Master Container Q, having seen myrrh like two times lol. The Ricochet kids were an amazing group, Reign was High in Trial in both obedience and rally all three days! Erin and I had a fun time as usual, walks with the dogs, swimming in the stock tank, wine, and plant shopping. Throw in a little herding along with nosework and what a great weekend lol

06/05/2024

Here is Rita's belated birthday present. She will share them with Rayna I hope!

06/05/2024

Thanks to everyone that came to Rayna's OTCH party on Saturday night! It was a beautiful evening, and we had about 30 people in attendance. Thank you all for the cards and gifts, Rayna especially enjoyed the toys she received. They have been carried around and squeaked! Rayna came in after we ate, and she enjoyed greeting her friends. Thank you all for celebrating one of the most Unlikely OTCH's ever lol We are now both enjoying the next phase of her working life!

06/01/2024

Everyone is tired after the Patrick Shannahan herding clinic today!

05/30/2024

Here's some party details! We have nixed the idea of lighting the big pile of trees, etc. in the rain for a we**ie roast lol, so we will be totally inside (obedience room) and George will grill hamburgers and hot dogs. I ordered an OTCH cake for dessert! Here are some more precise directions for the detour, it is well marked:
Go ahead and put 11092 240th Street Council Bluffs in your GPS, then ignore the lady as you drive past 240th Street to the next road. Turn right on 253rd to Applewood. Turn right on Applewood, then turn right on 240th Street. The detour sign when you get to 240th street from Applewood will point LEFT, but you want to turn right as you are local traffic :-). We will then be a little ways up the road on the top of the hill on the left with the Basset Hound mailbox. The festivities will begin at 5 PM, Rayna and I will look forward to seeing you all!

05/26/2024

Forgot to say, you can either RSVP in the comments or send me an email at [email protected]

05/26/2024

Don't forget Rayna's OTCH party this coming Saturday night, June 1, at 5 PM at the obedience building! We will have a we**ie roast if the wind isn't 30 mph, lol, if it is windy or the weather doesn't cooperate, we will grill. I'll provide the we**ies, buns, fixings, potato salad and chips, if you'd like to bring something to share, that's great, but don't feel obligated, we would just like to have you come! Please RSVP so we know how much food to get. We'll be inside if the weather is bad, you might want to bring a chair along. We will have a great time and tell Rayna what a good girl she is! 11092 240th Street, Council Bluffs. There IS a detour, go past the usual turn to 240th street and turn right on the next road, it is well marked.

05/25/2024

The next WCRL rally trial will be July 6-7 at Companion Dog Club. You can get the premium athttps://www.sunshineobedience.com/flyers/2024/July2024premiumlist.pdf

05/21/2024

The Ricochet littermates had a fantastic weekend in Lincoln at the NKC obedience/rally trials. In obedience Reign earned four First Places, a Second Place and a Third Place for eleven more OTCH points, two High in Trials including a 199 1/2 score, and two High Combineds! In rally Rayna earned four First Places, two Second Places, one Third Place, one Fourth Place, a High Combined, a High Triple, three Triple Q's and 81 RACH points. Their little sisters Rita and Emma were cheerleaders. Thank you NKC for the terrific new venue, we appreciated it a lot!

05/20/2024

Happy 2nd Birthday to Rita Margarita, who is 25 pounds of complete naughtiness. I often picture her sire, my beloved Rick, rolling on the ground laughing at the Rainbow Bridge over what he sent me!

05/18/2024

Rayna's first High Triple Score! Scores 100, 100, 97. Guess whose fault the 97 was lol.

05/17/2024

Look what Rayna did at the NKC show in Lincoln today! Scores 100, 99, 99. She was also High Combined, her first. We lost High Triple on time. It slows you down when you have to read the signs while you're competing lol

05/14/2024

Linda and I took flowers to Bert's grave today on the first anniversary of her death. We miss her so much!

05/14/2024

My first Border Collie, OTCH Schuyler King TD, Can CD was born 45 years ago today! He was bred by Dewey Jontz of Runnells, Iowa. I paid a whopping $90 for him. Skye was the runt of the litter, but he grew up to be 54 pounds and over 22 inches tall! He was a big, beautiful dog who was handicapped by his very novice owner who had second dog syndrome (as in, I'm not going to make the mistakes I made with my first dog, I'm going to make a whole new set of mistakes!). Skye was my first OTCH dog. I had read about this thing called "OTCH" and decided I had to have one lol. I have a feeling Skye would have been a very talented herding dog, but he only got to see sheep twice in his life. Herding opportunities were few and far between back then. I have apologized in my mind to Skye many times over the years for the mistakes I made. Twenty years later I think that my lovely Riva was Skye reincarnated so I could get it right that time, and I did! Skye was best friends with my first Papillon Zipper. They spent many hours chasing squirrels together in their old age.

05/13/2024

Here is Rayna's excellent run this afternoon, thank you Erin for taping. She handled the person coming in the door really well, that would have freaked her out a few years ago. I'm happy with her work! I told my rally friends today that we're going to get good at this before we finish the RACH lol. The spins in master are still freaking me out, but they were SO much better this weekend than last weekend. I am having fun with this too! We'll see how she does in a multi-ring environment next weekend, as she has always done better at one ring shows.

05/13/2024

Rayna had another great rally day today! Scores 99, 100, 100! So far she is enjoying it. She also picked up her first Preferred Utility leg.

05/12/2024

Rayna earned her first RACH Triple Q today and 26 RACH points! Scores 98, 99, 99.

04/27/2024

Rayna got mail! Her OTCH certificate came yesterday. I also got a medallion from AKC with a letter "recognizing your valuable contributions to our sport as the breeder/owner of a dog that has become a Champion of Record through your participation in Companion Events." That's a mouthful! We celebrated today by earning her third Detective leg!