Kanzu continues to enjoy therapy dog visits to several locations. One of his favorites though is an Alternative School in San Bernardino.  For Easter, Kanzu arrived at the school as the “Easter Dog”.  He delivered candy filled Easter Eggs that were hidden for a hunt.  One egg held a photo of Kanzu and the boy who found that won the golden egg with a crisp Two dollar bill inside.  Kanzu on the other hand enjoyed lots of treats. A great time was had by all!

Each year the American Kennel Club (AKC) honors the top 5 ranked agility dogs in each breed. These top 5 scoring dogs are invited to compete at the AKC Agility Invitational in Orlando Florida in December. This year, for the first time the AKC is also honoring the top 5 dogs of each breed competing at the preferred jump height. While the Preferred Jump Height dogs are not invited to compete, their names are entered into the program along with a photo and they are recognized at the annual banquet. This year Kanzu was the #1 Preferred Rhodesian Ridgeback. Kanzu’s handler Vicki LePenske will be competing at this year’s invitational with Kanzu’s gal pals Echo and Scarlett who are the #1 and #2 ranked agility Weimaraner’s in the country. Vicki will be at the banquet to accept Kanzu’s award and to celebrate their partnership and achievement.

On March 22, 2013 Kanzu earned his PAX (Preferred Agility Excellent) title. In March 2012 in order to extend Kanzu’s agility career with less wear and tear on his body, he began competing at the preferred jump height of 20 inches rather than the 24 inches he was jumping during his MACH career. He continues to love to run with Vicki and enjoys being at agility trials with all of his friends. One year after he began jumping at the preferred height he earned his PAX. This title is earned when a dog has earned 20 double qualifying scores on the same day on the Jumpers with Weaves and the Standard courses. This new title was especially enjoyable because it was at our favorite location, the Navy Training Center in Point Loma CA and with one of our very favorite judges, Beverly Morgan-Lewis. Thank you Vicki LePenske for your excellent handling of Kanzu and for loving him every step around each and every course.

Recently the AKC added new agility titles to recognize consistency and longevity. They began recording levels to the Master Agility Excellent (MX) and Master Excellent Jumpers With Weaves (MXJ) titles. For each 25 qualifying runs in each class a new level is awarded; Bronze, Silver, Gold. When the dog reaches 100 qualifying runs a century title is awarded. Since receiving his MACH in January, 2012 Kanzu has been competing less frequently and now in the Preferred jump height. The weekend of May 18 and 19, 2013 Kanzu gave a special gift to Linda and agility handler and special friend Vicki. Linda and Vicki not only share a love of Kanzu but they share the same birthday. This year they celebrated their shared B-day at the San Diego Rhodesian Ridgeback Club 2-day trial at Navy Training Center in San Diego. On Saturday Kanzu earned his 30^th qualifying score in the Standard class earning his MXP3 title and on Sunday he earned his 30^th qualifying score in Jumpers with Weaves for his MJP3 title. And to make the weekend even more special he earned a beautiful rosette from the San Diego Rhodesian Ridgeback Club for being the High Scoring Rhodesian Ridgeback in the Trial. It was a very special birthday for Linda and Vicki.

Kanzu is a registered therapy dog and does lots of therapy visits with our local Love On A Leash Chapter. However, long before he became a registered therapy dog he would visit with Linda’s speech therapy clients. Recently, Kanzu has been busy doing lots of speech therapy. He has become an active part of Linda’s therapy practice.

Justin is a 7 year old boy who was born with a syndrome that has a very large tongue and a cleft palate called Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome. Justin’s tongue was so large that it impacted his ability to breath, swallow and eat and speak. It was surgically ‘reduced’ by a long-time friend of Linda’s, Dr. Jeff Marsh in St Louis who has extensive experience with this procedure.

Even after surgery, Justin continued to have a severe speech impairment. The next clinical question for Justin was whether a surgery for his cleft palate would make it easier for him to speak. Dr. Marsh arranged for Linda to evaluate Justin and work with him to determine if more surgery was indicated and to assist Justin in improving his speech.

When Linda and Justin met, he did not move his mouth or tongue for any sounds. It was a big job to get Justin motivated to move his tongue and lips to make speech sounds. Enter Kanzu the speech therapy assistant. Justin met Kanzu and soon repeat visits became the motivator and reinforcer for speech therapy drills. When Justin met Kanzu, like so many of the children we visit, his first impulse was to climb right on him and try to ride him. Kanzu was a very patient assistant and allowed lots of hugging and snuggling and even a quick mount. When we shared the photo of Justin and Kanzu, Dr. Marsh commented; “I love Justin’s enthusiasm and Kanzu’s tolerance”. Kanzu is a fantastic speech therapy assistant and seems to love the attention. And best yet, Justin is improving rapidly and speaking more. He especially loves to watch videos of Kanzu doing agility and calls out commands to Kanzu as he watches along with the run…..he gets great speech practice as Justin tells Kanzu: over, table, jump, climb it, tire, tunnel!