Monthly Archives: June 2007

June Update

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I just wanted to mention what an absolute star Kim was last weekend at the Yorkshire Bouncers show. We had four classes and I was hoping for a couple of top-10 placings to bump us up the League Tables, but Kim just really enjoyed the courses and ended up with a 7th, 2×3rd and a 2nd. One of her 3rds was in Intro Agility, where she was 0.6 seconds off the winners time (the top 4 dogs were all 28.–, whereas everyone else had a 31.21+ time); frustratingly for me, I misjudged her dogwalk contact command and she stopped before walking on to it, losing around a second on her time — I know this is our weak point, and I’m going to have to work on timing. We have 6 classes this weekend, plus Lucky Dip Pairs, so I’ll have to see what we can do.

I also took Mollie to agility training on Monday, what an embarrassment that was! When she works, she’s amazing, completely fearless and very fast, but her attention span is like a gnat. Unless I can get her completely focussed on me, she just bombs off to look for a ball. (It didn’t really help that Bryn was there, since Bryn is the one dog that really does send her loopy). I only worked her for about 30mins and then she did a perfect 12-weaves for me, so I left it at that. I wish I had my own equipment to train on, and the patience to stick at it with her, since I know she’s got the potential to be good enough to do really well. On the other hand, she ran like a lunatic at flyball last night against MurphyWhippet, matching him stride for stride to the box where he gets her every time. And we all know she’s a flyball dog at heart!

There have been some interesting discussions on http://ruffdogs.co.uk/ and on the Agility Forum about contact training, and training different methods for different obstacles. I know there are some agility people reading this blog, so feel free to share your thoughts – I’d love to know why you chose to use 2o2o/4off/running/4on/whatever, whether you’d do the same again, and if it works! (If you don’t want to post a comment, feel free to email me at kayanem@gmail.com)

Dylan’s Blog

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I’ve been really working with Dylan and his target training at the moment. We spend a couple of 10 minutes sessions a day working on his target with a variety of distractions. (I did lose his clicker yesterday which is going to make training today difficult, I’ll have to have a look around when I’ve written this!) He’s working really nicely, only very occasionally getting distracted.

We have flyball training this evening with the girls so Dyl will be visiting his flyballing friends, and this weekend I’m competing with Kim, but I think Dylan will be staying at home with Mollie for that one.

Dylan is developing his own herding style when we’re out and about on walks at the moment. He goes out very wide and circles me and the girls, doing his little sheepdog thing with his head down. He’ll ‘down’ from a distance now whilst he’s pretending to herd and he’ll do lefts and rights too. I still don’t think he could have been a proper sheepdog, he’s too much of a wussy boy, those sheep would have been scary!