As far as anyone can tell, she's a little over a year old (for listing purposes her birthday will be a year before we took her home). She was picked up as a scruffy, flea-infested stray a little over a month before we got her. The rescue got her from the shelter where she was fostered for about a month while the fleas were killed off and she recovered from her spaying (not only is it state law for rescue dogs to be spayed, she is so far from breed standard that it would be irresponsible to allow her to be bred, even if we had her history.) Once her adult coat comes in, we're going to try to list with AKC's PAL (purebred alternative listing) since she still doesn't look entirely Sheltie, or least a "proper" one. But her coat has come a long way since we adopted her. Our goal next year is to pass the Canine Good Citizen test. CGC's test is a good benchmark of what we need to work on since she was a bit of a pain on a leash (still pulls a little but now doesn't sit down at random points, she needs to walk on a loose leash for the test) and cowered at moving vehicles (a passing bike is a possible movement test).
Provided we can get all that settled, we'll take a stab at a pre-agility class or the herding instinct test (assuming we get her listed with PAL). I'm not sure which I prefer, since they have different relationships between the dog and the handler. While she likes being close and wants to please, I think the independent thinking of herding may be good for her. We'll see how this next year goes.
In the mean time, we'll stick to silly tricks. Keeps everyone happy and keeps her from destroying too many toys- one a week is her limit (yes, really... we blew the toy budget in the first month).
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