In mid-2014 I was making plans to get another dog around the middle of the following year, with the main aim to train for agility trials and also to take over from Sparkie at our Superdog performances. But the Superdogs disbanded a few months later and we moved onto a dairy farm. Near the end of 2015, I realized I would soon need to train up another dog as my assistance dog so Sparkie could retire when she was ready (at that point she was coming up to eight years old). So at the beginning of January 2016, I contacted a Koolie breeder in NSW, and on February 3, I picked up a nine week old tri-colour Koolie from the airport in Melbourne.
I'd always wanted to call a dog "Shadow" and thought how fitting it is for an assistance dog especially, but I found the name is really common these days. So I chose "Skuggi," which is an Icelandic word that means shadow.
Skuggi worked as my assistance dog for a few years, but unfortunately, his reactivity and nerves eventually prevented him from pursuing this career.
In December 2017 my passion for dog agility was rekindled and I decided to see how Skuggi did with it. Immediately he had all the enthusiasm for the sport that Sparkie never did. We started competing the following year and never stopped! We are learning together and every course I run with this speedy boy is such a rush, he's so much fun. We won first place in jumping at the Victorian State Trial in 2019, and since moving to New Zealand, Skuggi has earned his JDX title and now competes at the highest level of jumping. Skuggi also has his Novice Trick Dog title from Do More With Your Dog.
Skuggi has such a happy outlook on life. His tail wags almost constantly. His favourite things are fetch, agility, and snuggles. He is a very vocal dog; regularly making a variety of howls, whines, groans, and weird mixes between them in addition to standard barking. He also jumps straight up and down on the spot when he gets really excited, which is apparently a well-known Koolie trait.
Follow his adventures at www.facebook.com/SkuggiTheKoolie.
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