Nicki

NICKI UPDATES AS OF NOVEMBER 1, 2022

Nicki

Nicki had quite a busy couple of months competing in various trials – scent work (AKC, CPE and NACSW) and agility (CPE and AKC). It just happened that during these trials she completed requirements for few different titles.

In AKC scent work Nicki earned her Scent Work Buried Master (SBM) title.

In CPE scent work Nicki has earned her SNITCH (Sniffing Team Champion) title.

In NACSW scent work Nicki competed in two Elite trials and earned her NACSW Elite 1 title!

In the CPE agility Nicki earned her C-ATE title. This is the highest title dog can earn it the CPE agility. C-ATE (CPE Agility Team Extraordinary) title requires 20 clean runs (0 faults) at Level C in each of the 7 CPE classes plus additional 2000 points for the total of 5000 points.

Yesterday was the first time in almost 9 months that Nicki ran at the AKC agility trial. She qualified in the Standard run, which was her 10th Master Standard Q. As a result, Nicki has earned her AKC Master Agility Excellent (MX) title. That rounded up her Master titles in the AKC agility – she now has Master Agility Excellent (MX), Master Excellent Jumper (MXJ) and Master FAST Excellent (MXF) titles.

Happy Halloween!

_____________________________________

CONGRATULATIONS

Nicki

Sandy Creek’s Nicki spent few days at the CPE Nationals agility trial in Springfield, OH. She did an outstanding job. There were only five dogs out of more than 700 that finished the event with the perfect score – and Nicki was one of them! She also got 1st place in Colors and 2nd overall in Standards (16 in. Regular).Nicki is owned, trained and loved by Alex and Elvira Goldman !!!!

_____________________________________

Nicki 2022

May 8, 2022

Nicki had fun today at the NACSW NW3 trial held by the SPDTC at the Rice County Fairgrounds in Faribault.

She has earned her second NW3 title with a clean pass, NW3-I title and NW3-E title. She’s got second place in Containers, second place in Interiors and the first place overall (out of 36 dogs). We are so proud of our little girl!

_____________________________________

Nicki 01-21-2022

January 21, 2022

Wanda,

We wanted to let you know that Nicki has earned her AKC Master Excellent Jumper (MXJ) title today at the AKC agility trial hosted by the GTCGRC at OTR.

Alex, Elvira and Nicki

_____________________________________

September 13, 2021

Wanda,

In June Nicki earned her NACSW NW3 title at the trial that was held at the South St. Paul Commemorative Air Force Museum. She is not a really speedy search dog, but she was very consistent and got the first place overall at this trial! This is an incredible achievement as it was her first NW3 trial and we were absolutely blown away with the outcome.

Nicki

There will be very few scent work trials (NACSW, AKC and CPE) and CPE agility trials in the late fall, winter and early spring, so we are trying to attend these trials before the off-season.

It is not easy to get into NACSW trials and there are long waiting lists – we have seen some stretching over 50 teams. We’ve sent entries to several trials in MN, IA and IL and were extremely lucky to get into two NACSW NW3 trials here in Minnesota in the upcoming weeks. Having her first NW3 title, Nicki needs two more NW3 titles to get the NW3 Elite title. That’s a long term goal, one without any specific date. Some teams spend years competing at NW3 level (it is very challenging), trying to reach the Elite level.

In CPE agility Nicki is working toward the C-ATE (CPE Agility Team Extraordinaire) title – the highest possible agility title the dog can earn in that venue. Dog needs to make 20 clean qualifying runs in each of 7 different classes at the highest difficulty and then earn 2000 additional points from clean qualifying runs to get this title. Nicki is just over half way to this goal.

Closer to the winter we plan on entering some AKC agility trials. Nicki needs couple of Qs in each Jumpers and Standard to get her Master titles in these classes.

Nicki has quite a busy schedule in the next few weeks:

9/18 – 9/19 CPE agility trial at CACM Training site in St. Cloud, MN
9/25 – NACSW NW3 scent work trial at Kiwanis Scout Camp in St. Croix, MN
10/2-10/3 – CPE scent work trial at Bachman’s Cedar Acres Nursery in Farmington, MN
10/9 – NACSW NW3 scent work trial at Camp Confidence in East Gull Lake, MN
10/16-10/17 – CPE agility trial at Cloud Nine Dog Training in Maple Grove
10/23-10/24 – CPE agility trial at Cloud Nine Dog Training in Maple Grove

Here is picture of Nicki at the agility trial:

Nicki

Alex and Elvira

_____________________________________

September 9, 2021

Wanda,

Hope you, your family and your dogs are doing well!

We wanted to let you know that at the recent AKC scent work trial Nicki has earned her Excellent Buried title and as a result the overall AKC Excellent Scent Work (SWE) title. She also earned the Master Exteriors title (SEM) – her first AKC Master title in the Scent Work.

Nicki

Sincerely,
Alex and Elvira

_____________________________________

May 31, 2021

Wanda,

Here are some updates on Nicki.

Last weekend at the CPE scentwork trial at the Buck Hill Nicki has earned her CPE Scent Sport Level 5 CCSS-LCH (Champion) title. That’s a really big achievement and it is a result of countless training hours, trials, and qualifying runs. The fact that Nicki has become the very first dog in the state to get this title makes it so much more awesome!
Nicki

Back in March Nicki has got her NW2 title and the first place overall at the NACSW scent work trial in Winterset, Iowa.
Nicki

Nicki has also earned multiple AKC scent work titles in the last few months. With the Buried Advanced title she has completed her overall AKC Scent Work Advanced (SWA) title and she has also already earned the Interiors, Exteriors and Containers Excellent titles (SIE, SEE and SCE).
Nicki

Nicki has also earned her AKC Rally Intermediate (RI) title recently.
And of course Nicki is running at the CPE and AKC agility trials. Here is the video of her Jackpot run at the recent CPE agility trial:

You may recall that we were getting Nicki as a “household pet”. As you can see, these days she is a very busy girl, spending her weekends at the various trials in and out of state. She is very smart, capable and has multitude of very impressive achievements. We can literally cover the wall with her ribbons and rosettes. Nicki is still the same shy and awkward girl, but she is well known in Minnesota dog agility and scent work communities!

Hope you are as proud of this little girl as we are!

Sincerely,
Alex and Elvira

_____________________________________

January 7, 2020

Wanda,

It was such a pleasure to meet you at the show last Sunday!

Nicki has got her C-ATCH (CPE Agility Trial Champion) title last fall. She has got Excellent titles in Standard, JWW and FAST in AKC agility and works on the Master titles. She continues competing in the Scent Work in CPE and AKC. Last year she earned the Novice titles in Containers, Interior and Exterior in AKC. She has also passed the ORT tests for all required scents in the NACSW and we hope to get her in some NACSW trials this year.

Nicki is a very busy girl these days. She has agility, scent work or obedience classes every evening on weekdays. And she has heaps of fun with all of it (well, maybe not necessarily the obedience ?).

As we have mentioned, Nicki has qualified for this year’s CPE Agility Nationals (in Ohio) and we are seriously considering entering her into it.

When we’ve got Nicki from you in January 2017, you have asked us if we are going to “show” her. We replied that we are just getting a pet dog, that’s all. That was an honest replay – we have never seriously trained a dog before and did not have plans to do it. Yet, here we are three years later, taking Nicki to classes and practices most weekday’s evenings and spending half weekends in agility or scent work trials. Not to mention that once in two-three months Nicki has an adjustment appointments with the vet chiropractor to make sure she is in good shape.
It is crazy. Good crazy.

We are happy to have Nicki as our family member and hope that she is happy with us.

Thanks,
Alex, Elvira and Nicki

Nicki

_____________________________________

August 22, 2019

Wanda,

We wanted to let you know that Nicki has completed her third leg and has got an Open JWW title in AKC agility at the trial last weekend. Also, not sure if you are following the CPE (Canine Performance Events) much. Until recently the CPE was holding only agility trials. This year CPE added “Canine Scent Sport” (CSS) to their events. It is very similar to the “Scent Work” sport in AKC. Last month there was the very first CPE CSS trial in Minnesota. Nicki has qualified in all her 12 runs at a two day trial. By qualifying in 6 runs on the first day (two Containers, two Interiors, one Exteriors and one Vehicles searches) she earned her Level 1 title (CCSS-L1). It’s not clear at this time if the CPE scent sport events will get solid continuation and become as popular as the CPE agility events. However, it is a fact that Nicki has become the very first Miniature American Shepherd in Minnesota to get a CPE CSS title! ?

Here is Nicki next to her ribbons from that CPE CSS trial:

Nicki

Here is the link to the video of Nicki running Containers level 2 search (on the second day of the trial): https://youtu.be/6L1625fiJsE

As we have mentioned before, Nicki has earned AKC Scent Work Novice Containers title. Here is Nicki next to her ribbons from the AKC Scent Work trials:

Nicki

Nicki also participates in the CPE agility trials. She’s working on her C-ATCH (CPE Agility Trial Champion) title and has already advanced to the highest possible level in four classes out of seven. We will have to think about the way to picture her with the CPE agility ribbons as there is way too many of them. Just from the beginning of this year she has had about 45 qualifying runs in the CPE agility, with many resulting in the placements. Below is the link to the video of Nicki running Snooker course at one of the recent trials. She was one of very few dogs (just six or so) to qualify with the highest possible score (51) on this course. https://youtu.be/nVtl_CmgQiE

We hope you and your family are doing well!

Sincerely,

Alex, Elvira and Nicki

_____________________________________


Nicki

November 25, 2017

Sandy Creek’s Nicki with her AKC Canine Good Citizen and her Trick Dog Novice titles.