January 2025
New Year,  New Idea!    
The nine puppies from Dare‘s first litter (Dare x Raina, whelped in June 2014) are all dearly beloved family members, cherished beyond all measure. One was placed as a Service Dog, doing real work for her person and another helped raise a young family on both sides of the pond, and while gone far too soon, is loved forever. The other seven have all been active in the dog world, earning prefix titles to date that include one each of GCHS, GCHB, and GCH DC (the DC stands for Dual Champion, indicating that the dog is a conformation champion as well as being a champion in the breed’s heritage sport, which for Malinois is a herding champion), along with two CH, eleven MACH (one dog with 7, one with 3, one with 1), one AGCH, and one PACH. Suffix titles from dogs without a prefix title in that sport include so far: in obedience, three UD, one CDX, and one PCDX; in herding, one HXAs and one HIAs; in agility, one MX, one AXJ, one MXP, and one MJP; and in tracking, one TDX. There are numerous other titles as well. Three dogs from this litter have already been inducted into the ABMC Halls of Fame  (one in Conformation and two in Agility) and two more are scheduled to be inducted this May (another in Agility and one in Herding).  To start off a series of occasional contributions from owners in Turick brown dog family about their dog:

“Bali”
PACH MACH7 Turicks Kinetic Balance CDX RA
MXB3 MJC2 MXP2 MJP2 MXF CA SCN CGCA TKP   
by Lisa Halpin

Bali is a wonderful companion and amazing competitor. This girl is happy, friendly and eager to please. She will go anywhere and try anything as long as we are together.  She truly enjoys teamwork!

Bali earned her first MACH just prior to turning 4 years old on on 6/17/18.  MACH2 came on 10/26/19; MACH3 on 7/7/21; MACH 4 on 2/24/22;  MACH 5 on 2/4/23;  MACH6 on 9/17/23; and MACH7 on 5/19/24.  Bali’s other agility honors include running at the 2022 National Specialty where she earned both the Agility High in Trial and High Combined Awards.  Also in 2022, Bali was the only Malinois invited to the 3rd AKC Agility Premiere Cup. With only 100 dogs in the country invited to compete, Bali ran all clean runs, made the 20″ finals, and placed 5th in a 20″ class that aside from her was comprised entirely of Border Collies. Now running Preferred at 16”,  Bali continues to love agility, still excels, and just earned her first PACH on 12/29/24.

Over the course of her agility career Bali has received many honors, including four consecutive years of first round invitations to the AKC Agility Invitational between 2021 – 2024. The top five dogs of each breed are invited to this event. In 2021 Bali was the #4 invite and with approximately 170 dogs in her 20” class she ran four clean rounds and made the finals, finishing on the podium in 3^rd place. In  2022 her invite was #3;  in 2023 it was #1, and last year, in 2024, it was #4.   What made last year’s first round invitation so special for us was that in July 2024, at the end of the qualifying year, I had moved the just turned 10 year old Bali down from 20” to a preferred height of 16.”  However, she still had to jump 20” at the Invitational, and she was perfect!  Competing against approximately 180 dogs in the 20” class she ran clean run in all rounds and made the finals, placing 5th. When interviewed by ESPN, the reporter asked me if I was surprised to have a 10 year old dog running agility, and I replied “No, not at all!  But I was surprised that she made the finals in the 20” jump height class since for the last 5 months she’s only been jumping 16 inches.”

In the years ahead, we plan to continue competing in Preferred Agility along with working towards our Obedience Utility title as Bali  earned her CD and CDX titles in three trials each, all with 1st or 2nd placements.