Dog of the Month

Submitted by Julie Mihalcik-Eno, proud owner of Conifer
	Conifer is a beagle mix that we adopted from a family in McCoy, Virginia in August of 1997. Adopting Conifer was a spur of the moment decision. We saw an advertisement for 8-week-old beagle mix puppies in a grocery store in Blacksburg, Virginia, and later that day we visited the puppies and brought Conifer home. Conifer was our second dog. Our first dog was so easy to take care of that we thought a second dog would not be all that much more work. Ha ha. Conifer was such a busy puppy. She got into everything. She destroyed a few hundred pairs of socks and underwear, a popason chair, a few million Kleenexes, and a few hundred dog toys, just to list a few of her feats. One of her favorite things to do was run around the house with a pair of dirty underwear when we had company. Conifer was so much busier than our first dog.
After about 7 months of wild, busy, active puppy, Conifer and I took a few obedience classes from a woman who raised and trained border collies. I had to adjust some of the training methods for Conifer, since she’s not a border collie, but we did ok with the classes. It gave Conifer something to do besides run around the house with my underwear. In May of 1999, we moved to Ballston Spa, New York. A few months after we moved to Ballston Spa, I saw agility on television and wondered if Conifer would like it. So we started the beginner agility class with the Seiberts at JAZZ Agility in October of 2000. She seemed to enjoy the class, so we signed up for the next class and the next class and the next class… . After about 2 years of training we entered our first trial. It was a NADAC trial in Bennington, VT and we did not do well at all. The second trial that we entered went much better. Since then, Conifer has earned a few agility titles. I am impressed with how well she has done with agility. She stopped running around the house with our underwear in October of 2003.