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"You will always live in our hearts"
October 1997 to April 2005
"Diggs" is a 5 year old male Doberman. His registered name is: Renejades Executive Orders and he was bred by Nancy Christensen in Colorado. Nancy named all of this litter after Tom Clancy novels. We got the name "Diggs" from one of the characters in this novel that was a General. However, it came to be quite a coincidence that Diggs' first time in the spotlight was for digging.
When Diggs was only a few months old, we were contacted by the Humane Society of the Pikes Peak region. They were building a new facility and thought it was only fitting that a dog do the honors at the ground breaking ceremony. Could we train a dog to dig on command in only 3 weeks? We decided to give it a try. We got in about 10 training sessions before the big day. Diggs wasn't perfect yet but we thought he'd do okay. We were a little worried about the large crowd as Diggs had not been in this type of environment before. When it came time to take his place beside the Mayor and the board of directors, he made his presence known by popping all of the balloons decorating the podium. The crowd loved it and applauded loudly. Well, that was it for Diggs! When he was given the command to dig, he jumped to it like he'd been doing it all his life. Dirt flew everywhere, covering the Television cameras and all of the people in the front row. The more the crowd applauded, the better he dug and he soon had everyone laughing and clapping for him! He made the news on all three of the local stations and a Star was born. People recognized him everywhere he went after that.
When we started our "Dog-Bite Prevention" talks at the schools, Diggs was the big hit with the kids. They loved seeing this big, ferocious Doberman attack and bite a man and then snuggle up to them for treats. But the most constant question was, "Can he do any tricks?" So we decided to teach him a few just to please the kids. His best are his impressions of a show dog that turns into a crazy dog and his dead dog that miraculously comes alive again.
He's done numerous modeling jobs as well. (thanks to his good looks!) His intelligence never ceases to amaze us. All of his tricks have been built on his own natural behavior. When he started opening doors using his paws to actually turn the knob, we thought it was cute and encouraged it. But then, he started opening doors to let himself out whenever he wanted and it wasn't long before he started opening the kennel and daycare room doors to let the other dogs out to play with him! We started locking doors after that and so far, he hasn't figured that one out. We'll keep our fingers crossed.
Diggs has had a limited show career that even included a Group first! However, he soon decided he didn't like judges and that was pretty much the end of that. As a working dog, he shines and so far has his WAC (even though he pretty much destroyed the course and the judges umbrella) and his BH. He's been through 2 police dog academies and now that we have more time and focus, (and a wonderful group of people to work with) we hope to continue with his Schutzhund career and complete those titles.
