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Kris Seiter ~ PCOTC
Agility Training Director Kris Seiter For as long as Kris
can remember, she has spent her entire life with animals. Growing up with
as many as 20 dogs at a time, as well as cats, rabbits, rodents, birds and
even a monkey, Kris's love for animals has grown into a life long
passion.
Kris also shares her home with her
Mom and Dad's tiny Pomeranian named Melba and Border Collie, Flame. Melba spends her time
with Kris during the competitive season and returns home to relax and live
the life that all dogs should live during the off season. Melba
is able to transition so well back and forth between homes and has
different positions in both canine packs.. It's just very hard
for Kris to give Melba back after her competitive season is over.
Flame spends time with Kris to learn agility skills and then is training
to be a service dog for Kris's father. Always informally
training animals as a kid, Kris seriously began training dogs 16 years
ago, starting with competitive obedience . After 8 years of successfully
showing her keeshond, Randall and her Pomeranian Rushka, in competitive
obedience, Kris's interest turned to the For the last 9 years, Kris has trained and competed in agility. Working with her rescue dogs with all types of temperaments and behavioral issues, Kris tries to build confidence and motivation through relationship. Kris sees each dog as an individual and therefore applies different training techniques for all dogs especially for dogs that are fearful or have been abused. These dogs need special attention and during their training sessions sometimes the tiniest improvements are the most important. With innovative ideas and play based training sessions, fearful dogs can learn to love the sport of agility. Kris trains about
100 students weekly in the NY and NYC area and helps her students develop
great relationships with their dogs. One of Kris's main goals is to
inspire her students to love working with their dogs and to develop the
confidence in their own training to not only build stronger bonds, but
enable them to reach their individual goals within the sport. Currently, Kris has
6 dogs competing in agility.
Kris has earned over 150 Agility
titles with 8 different dogs to the Championship level from the three
largest Agility Associations in the United States.
LOCHLAN, MX, MXJ - 2006 World Championship Grand Prix Finalist 26" Divison
Lochlan's biggest accomplishments are: 2005 World Cynosport Games, November 2005 - Phoenix, AZ having 3 top ten placements. 4th in Master Team Gamblers, 5th Grand Prix Quarter Finals and 9th in Master Team standard. Lochlan has
also earned his
USDAA Master Gamblers Championship, USDAA Master Pair
Relay
Championship, his USDAA MAD (Master Agility Dog Title) Master Snooker and
Master Standard Title. He is also a Tournament Master Bronze level in
USDAA competition. I 2005 World Cynosport Games in Scottsdale, Arizona Kris and Lochlan qualified for the Master Team Finals Event with her sister Kim and her Border Collie Phoenix and her friend Nicole Fischer with her Standard Poodle Mayday. Coming into the finals in 15th place out of over 200 teams, they finished overall in 27th place. Lochlan has qualified for all
events in the 2006 World Cynosport Games in Phoenix, AZ in November 2006.
In November 2006 at the World Cynosport Games
Lochlan was a Grand Prix Semi-Finalist 7th Place 26" Division
MACH2 Finch's Peach Melba
Delight
- call name Melba - aka Melba Toast At six months
old Kris's mother said to her, Melba is so active, please take her for
awhile and train this little dog that needed to do something. Melba earned her MACH2 on 11/25/06 at the Thanksgiving Cluster in Springfield, Melba is currently working in the Master's level in USDAA and is also very close to her Nadac Championship. The most difficult thing about Melba is she is constantly going. It's rare she stops getting into trouble and Kris always finds herself chasing after her. If Kris can't see Melba, that means she's getting into something. It is, however, difficult to give Melba back to her parents when she is done competing since Kris thinks of Melba as her own. Below are a
list of Melba's Accomplishments: Melba - 3rd
Place 2003 All Star Dogs Championship Winner of
several local Performance Grand Prix's Melba has the
PII (Performance Dog II) title in USDAA and the PIII Snooker Title. Melba is a granddaughter of CH Finch's He Walks on Water, the most decorated Pomeranian in history. Lollie P. Rushka, MX, MXJ, EAC, EJC, EGC - call name - Rushka - Born - July 31, 1996 Rushka is
Kris's first agility dog. After showing her in obedience, Kris saw an
agility trial and thought training in agility would help Rushka's
confidence. Rushka is so shy and very nervous around people she doesn't
know, however, she loved to run and still does today. At 10 years old she is still competing and even though it initially took 3 years for her to do a seesaw, she now does it for fun whenever she gets the chance. A lot of patience and positive reinforcement enabled Rushka to finally gain the confidence she needed with this piece of equipment she didn't like. At 7 pounds she runs very fast, but likes to stay far from Kris when she handles her on course. Each dog has their own style of running and Rushka always likes to take big loops around an agility course. Kris hopes Rushka will continue to compete for as long as she still enjoys it. Rushka's greatest asset is her jumping ability. She loves to jump and it's rare she ever drops a bar. Today she looks quite different since she has a condition called Alopecia X and has lost most of her hair. However, Kris says she looks like a little teddy bear and she is often mistaken for a
puppy. WARLOCH - Call Name - War - Born - June 22, 2004 - Lochlan's half brother War is
serious, strong and powerful. He has tons of drive, a work ethic that
doesn't quit and is brilliantly smart. Kris is constantly coming up
with games for War to learn to keep him busy. At this point in his
training, he has about a 50 'word cue' vocabulary and she continues to
add more as his training progresses.
War is a dominant male and has tested every boundary possible with Kris, however, after working with him and being a strong leader, War no longer feels the need to dominant every situation. He is always cleverly getting into trouble and Kris often says, "Why can't you be more like your brother Lochlan?" War's best friend is Kris's rescue Keeshond Hermione. They can literally play for hours and drive everyone crazy with their wrestling antics. War's heritage is strictly Scottish. Both his parents are imports from Scotland. War is working in the Open/Excellent level in AKC, and all levels in USDAA. He was recently a 2006 North East Regional Steeplechase finalist. War has qualified for the 2006 World Cynosport Games in Phoenix, AZ November 2006. Kris looks forward to War's career in agility and his great potential, but most of all, he's developing into a wonderful dog. Nothing phases him, he's as stable as they come, something Kris isn't used to. Even going to a Met Game with over 50,000 people in the stands cheering didn't bother him. DAM (Dog Agility Master) Team Tournament 2007 World Cynosport Games Qualifier - Fairhill International 2006 Cynosport World Games - just over two years old, War posted some very respectable times. He had one of the fastest times in Team standard at 26" and this included one refusal. The World Games were a great experience for such a young boy.
Danika Hermione
AD, NA, NAJ - Keeshond Rescue Every once in a life time comes a dog that you were just meant to have and Hermione is one of those dogs. Kris can't imagine her life without this innocent little soul who is so special to her. Hermione was born in a puppy mill and came with a severe spinning disorder. She spins in rapid circles counter clockwise to relieve stress. Hermione is also very shy, sound sensitive and has CCD. She's the type of dog that in the wrong hands wouldn't stand a chance due to her hyperactivity and all her special needs. Hermione deserves the very best in life and Kris is determined to give her everything possible. Hermione is beautifully trained in agility and Kris has worked hard on getting her to balance her body by turning in the opposite direction and doing a lot of straight line running. Hermione only runs on her left lead leg which makes getting her to turn very difficult. Hermione has the most sweet sensitive personality and is so loving that even though it took 2 years to get her Agility Dog title, titles are only icing on the cake compared to Hermione's happiness. Hermione also has suffered from IBS for a long time until Kris recently found out the culprit to all her digestive issues. Today Hermione is symptom free from IBS and enjoys a semi-raw diet.
Kris will continue
working on Hermione's agility career and see if she can build greater
confidence in the competition environment.
Noordelijk Engel Nadja AX, AXJ
- Born January
28, 2000. After starting off so well, Nadja had a set back in her training program when she developed severe noise phobias and was unable to continue her agility career. At that point, Nadja was given some time off and slowly introduced back to agility training. She took an entire year off from competition and during that time had very short positive agility training sessions. Her love for
agility returned and she was less worried when out on a course and she was
slowly reintroduced to competition.
In
the Fall of 2007, Kris will debut her
Draco is currently in training and loves agility almost as much as he loves chasing an old rope and eating dirt. Born September 23, 2005, Draco now stands 25" at the withers but moves with a lightness to his step with beautiful flexibility. Draco was an extremely mischievous puppy and demonstrated strong resource guarding behaviors which got him into loads of trouble. Kris has spent endless hours teaching him that just because he wants something doesn't mean he always gets what he wants due to intimidating others in the process. Draco has an extremely high prey drive which needs to be managed and he's getting better as his training continues. Draco is always howling, expressing his opinion on everything from play time to announcing his arrival in class or as he escapes from his crate and is so very proud of himself. He doesn't bark, but he sure howls constantly and doesn't mind if you howl right back to him. Whether Kris's dogs do agility in the back yard for fun, or compete at the highest competition level, her dogs are part of the family and are first and foremost her K9 babies. Kris has been serving as the Agility Training Director for Port Chester Obedience Club for the last four years.
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Site Last Updated
Friday May 02, 2008
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Performance sport of Dog Agility.
All
are at different levels and require different techniques in order to get
the best possible performance from them. She is showing 2 Rescue
Keeshonden, Nadja and Hermione, both have had rough starts in life and are
extremely noise sensitive, 2
Border Collies, Lochlan and his half brother War, 2 Pomeranians, one is a
rescue named Rushka who is fearful of everything and one is her parents
Pomeranian named Melba who is known throughout the East Coast as one of
the smallest agility competitors. Melba even has her own fan club.
Lochlan
is a beautiful athlete with a very soft,
sweet personality. He has a beautiful physical structure with a very
powerful rear end which enables him to fly through a course. Often he
is hard to manage due to his huge stride and his need to do everything
with exuberance. His favorite game is playing football with his Dad or
swimming in the pool pushing a big plastic egg around.
Lochlan is the type of dog that was born to run. He flies through the
air at tremendous speed and he's the lead chase dog in the pack. He
just loves having the other dogs chase him and he bolts from the house
screaming to the agility field.
n 2002
Lochlan became the "Live to Run" Tournament Champion. He also holds the AKC MX and MXJ titles and in Nadac the EAC, EJC, EGC Elite titles.
Hermione swims in the
pool and vernal pool almost every day which is surprising for a keeshond, but she
just loves the water. Often
she is found taking a relaxing swim with a toy in her mouth or leaping
into the pool with reckless abandon. She is inseparable with her
border collie brother War and they play like gladiators everyday.
Nadja started
competing in agility shortly after her first birthday and in 5 months she
has earned 3 agility titles.
Alaskan Malamute, who was imported
from Canada, named Draco. 