Flyball, Congrats, Photos and University

Posted on May 29, 2008 by Leanne

The dogs and I had fun playing out in the garden yesterday morning, when it was still sunny. It’s looking a bit nicer now, there is just one patch left that needs weeding as the rest got turned over at the weekend. Kim and I had a bit of a photo shoot as I really want a portrait (rather than landscape) image to go in one of her photo frames but I haven’t got a nice one. Sadly none of the photos were that great, so I think I’ll have to persuade someone with a big flash camera to have a go.

$Dylan\'s Curious$ I still have to buy some Vetrap for Kim, but after the weather this week I don’t think the ground will be hard enough for her to graze herself on again. I’m looking forward to flyballing at Tabley, I haven’t been before and although we’re sadly missing Lolly from our lineup in Barking, we are getting a secret weapon for the day which should prove interesting! The week after is Newark, then we have another two tournaments at the end of the month. Dylan isn’t officially running anywhere, but I think we’ll probably put a Starters team in at Doncaster or Clumber Park, so he has to work hard on his box for the next three weeks!

I have a couple of special congratulations for people and their dogs too, everyone has had a good May! Superdog Jet got her Flyball Dog Graduate award, less than 12 months since she started competing. She has turned out to be an amazing flyball dog after a shaky start, and she has so much agility and obedience potential as well. Katie is concentrating on her flyball at the moment but hopefully towards the end of the summer season she’ll also be making an impact in agility. Vicki and Pippa won out of Grade 2 at Nottingham, so huge congrats to them too. Pippa is such a fab little Medium dog, she’s been so close with several 2nds and 3rds and then she finally did it by winning a Combined 1-3! Charlotte and Tia got their final qualifier for Obedience Championship classes, which is especially fantastic considering the treatment Tia is currently undergoing for some serious back problems that have halted her agility career for the time being (where she also works at Championship!). Gina and the Super Sheltie Ember have been wiping the floor everywhere too, 6 wins in 2 months, including some Open classes, taking them up to Grade 6. I don’t think Gina ever thought Ember would get there! And of course Kate and Gin for getting through to the finals of Britain’s Got Talent tomorrow. Make sure you vote for her!

(I’m sure there are more special congrats that I’ve forgotten, but everyone seems to have had a good month. Hopefully June will be as successful!)

I had my last exam on Wednesday which means I’m officially done with university too. I graduate on July 14th, and I know I’ll regret saying this but my graduation ceremony is broadcast live via the university website so you would be able to watch if you were bored on a Monday morning!

Training in the Rain

Posted on May 28, 2008 by Leanne

The dogs and I had a fun session yesterday evening training in the rain! “Proper” training was cancelled so we lugged two jumps and the flyball box (and hurdle) to the park for a bit of an inpromptu training session with all three dogs. I think it’s good for the dogs to train in wet conditions as the chances are they’ll have to compete in it.

Dylan’s pull throughs and (push) outs are really improving, he has a strong out command and he’s beginning to understand the concept of a pull through. It’s hard for me to get my handling right because he doesn’t like me being in his jumping space, or the area about a metre in front or behind the pole, so I have to stand well back and try and direct him from there, which is a very new technique for me! We did get some nice figure-of-eights and two-jump-drill stuff done, which was good.

Kim and I are finally beginning to get back in tune. It feels like I’ve been so focussed on Dylan that I’d forgotten all the little tricks and quirks Kim and I have to ensure she’s working at her best. I rediscovered her in command last weekend, I don’t know why I stopped using it! In just means come towards me through the obstacles without jumping them until we get to where we want to be. It’s very useful, means I can do pull-thrus without having to handle at all! She has a very strong in command, just like her out command (lots of jump box training when she was younger!) but I haven’t used it for ages, I just kept trying to handle it like “real” handlers handle it, which I should know by now is not the way to handle Kim.

Mollie also got to play for a while, until she got silly and started trying to jump the wings and knocked everything over. She’s so much fun, she gives everything 200% and she has some fab tight turns over the jumps! Since she’d demolished my jumps I figured we should get the flyball stuff out, so the dogs got to practise their turns for the weekend.

Dylan did a couple without any aids and he is improving, slowly but surely. Maybe after another year of Starters and training aids we might finally get to see the wicked fast swimmer’s turn that I know he has lurking! We threw the jump back in towards the end because he was getting lazy with his back end, but it was an improvement, so maybe there is hope yet.

Kim and Mollie had fun playing flyball too, even if they didn’t wholly approve. (It’s not proper flyball if it’s not got four jumps and two teams!) I messed about with Kim and did some turnarounds with her, which she used to be awesome at and apparently still is! She used to run anchor dog after a bad collision with another dog in her team, so a fast turnaround used to come in handy, but as we run third now it’s unlikely she’ll ever need that again. Still, it’s always fun to play with!

Empty Weekend

Posted on May 24, 2008 by Leanne

We had a nice flyball session this morning!

Kim has grazed both her hocks, so I’ll have to start wrapping them up when she’s working on hard ground. I’ve used pad protectors on her front legs for ages but she’s always had a habit of skidding on her hocks and coming home with huge grass-stains. Today she has added to the grass stains with two big scabby patches, so the wrap is coming out!

Mollie was as crazy as normal, she’s running with Bailey in Nights at Tabley so they make enough noise for the whole team! Katie had to step in and run her for a couple of legs which I’m sure she must have been thrilled about. Mollie is always a challenge to run but at least Katie is used to the pulling after running Jetly!

Dylan’s first session was cracking, only a couple of mistakes and he was turning lovely off the box. Unfortunately the turn didn’t last when he did his second session, working in a team, and I pulled him out after a couple of runs. I wasn’t prepared to take up team practise time with boxwork. The only thing different was the boxloader, but that’s something he has to get used to, and running somewhere other than first, but again, something he has to get used to. It’s very frustrating because he can run up and down all day, he’s not too shabby with changeovers and he can be reasonably quick when he wants to be! Just his box letting us down, but we’ll keep working on it.

We have such a busy June ahead, 4 flyball tournaments starting with Tabley next weekend. Dylan isn’t running at the first two, so that gives us some more time to work on his box. Still no points up from Middlesbrough but I’ve got my fingers crossed, hopefully Kim will be at 9000+ plus at the end of June which will mean she’s only 1000 points away from her Silver Award. I never thought we’d reached Advanced, but we did, and now she has nearly gained double that in the past 18months. Definitely proof that the move to Owlers was a good one!

Creepy Contacts

Posted on May 22, 2008 by Leanne

I should have known something would go wrong at some point! Dylan has been so good and so consistent with his contacts until now that I should have been suspicious, nothing is ever that easy.

At the weekend at EMDAC he was playing in the practise ring with me and he was abruptly very slow and stalky on the downplank of his Aframe and Dogwalk. I did think it might have been the rain; he’s a cautious boy and he hasn’t worked on equipment in the rain before, so it was a bit more slippy than he’s used to. But at training again on Tuesday he was still creeping!

I’ll admit I’m stumped. Kim has never been a creepy creepy dog. Kim’s style was always to launch herself wildly from the highest point, which presents whole other training challenges. Mollie’s style is just to run and hope that eventually you give her a ball, which sometimes includes the reckless leaping but mostly just involves running. So Dylan’s creepiness is a new one for me, and I’m not sure what to do. He is hitting his 2o2o perfectly, and I don’t know how to reward the 2o2o without rewarding the creeping.

We tried a variety of things at training. I tried throwing the toy as he was coming down the downplank, which slowed him down. Great proofing for the contact though! I tried having someone calling him down, which kind of worked but not really because he was looking to me for direction and pretty much ignoring the other person. Again, great that he isn’t getting distracted by the person shouting him but not so great with the creeping, which didn’t go away. I also tried playing tuggy with him on the contact, which did speed up the creeping but it was still creeping, which I’m not happy about.

The general concensus on RuffDogs was to try doing some quick releases with him, which I will try but I’m worried about losing the 2o2o, and apart from that everyone was equally as stumped as me. I’m also going to try lowering the Aframe to see if that encourages him to stride out a bit more, and probably go back to food rewards on the contacts rather than a play after the release. If anybody has any other suggestions I’d be very appreciative!

Still Grade 2 … EMDAC May and Waldridge Fell

Posted on May 19, 2008 by Leanne

EMDAC

Kim and Dylan at EMDAC this time, but just for one day. Both were entered for 4 runs each but I ended up pulling Dylan from both his agility classes, he’s still not confident on the seesaw. He made up for it by having a decent run in the Helter Skelter (got E’d!) and an absolutely cracking run in the Jumping, got E’d again but I was so pleased with him, he really attacked the course, got his weaves perfectly and really focussed on what he was doing. Progress has been made!

Kim appears to have found at least part of her crazy again, as she was enthused all weekends about her runs and even if she wasn’t running up in 4th or 5th, we had some good moments. Primary Jumping was a simple course with 12 weaves, and her weaves are too slow at the moment to get us any really high placings on a course like that. It was nice to run though, and we did go clear and placed 16th, top Medium dog so not too fussed! Helter Skelter was her best run of the weekend, we came a very surprising 5th out of 90+ dogs! Our agility runs … well, the less said the better I think!

Waldridge Fell

Just Kim at Waldridge, lovely showground and a lovely show! Just a shame about the scheduling, it was too much all at once for both Kim and I to keep our cool.

We started off with a clear on the Graded 1-2 Agility (bit rough but we got round and Kim was working her contacts nicely), and thought, oh-so-briefly, that we had it in the bag … and then Bailey stepped on course and put in one of the best runs I’ve ever seen her do, it was absolutely paw-perfect and she nailed everything. Emma and Bails won the class by just over 2 seconds, and into Grade 3! I’m so pleased for both of them, Bailey can be a little terror when she wants and Emma has had to work so hard with her! Kim came 2nd but as the class only placed to 1st she doesn’t get any agility warrant points for it.

Things went downhill from there … Waldridge Fell had changed the ring plans on the morning which meant the classes were not in the order we were expecting. Because the class entries were so small in the Medium classes, we were walking the courses and then running immediately — no time to watch anybody run or walk back to the car to collect dogs! That meant I had to have Kim out and ready whilst I walked the course, which doesn’t work for her as she gets bored and tired. Immediately after we ran the Graded 1-2 Agility, we had the Graded 1-2 Jumping, although Emma and I didn’t realise that! We missed the course walking and so I had to run it blind, having watched 2 dogs run before me! Kim hit her weave entry and then paused to sniff something and missed the next pole. She was working and focussed so it wasn’t stress-sniffing, so I’m not sure what caught her attention and I wouldn’t want to speculate! We finished up with 5 faults but won the class anyway by 14 seconds.

Immediately after that we had to walk the Combined 1-2 Agility class. The results from the first class still weren’t out so we didn’t know if Kim or Bailey had won it, and I couldn’t decide whether to push Kim for speed or be careful to get her contacts on the course. I wasn’t that keen on the course in the second class anyway — it was the same judge and the equipment stayed in the same place, only the numbers changed. Kim doesn’t like repetition but she actually ran it quite well, just a shame about the handler! I should have layered a jump in but I tried to go around it, and ended up pushing her past the jump she should have done. Refusal … and now we’re stuck in Grade 2 still!

Immediately after that (and I do mean immediately!) the Open Pairs class was calling for Mediums, so Emma and I walked that and then queued with Kim and Bailey whilst the judge took a quick coffee break. Whilst we were in the queue for Pairs, we suddenly realised the ring next to us was running the Combined 1-2 Medium Jumping, so we had to desert the Pairs queue and go and run that, despite not having walked that one either! Kim threw in a nice clear and came 1st again, by just over 3 seconds.

We then ran Pairs and Kim and Bailey both went clear in a decent time, but we had some seriously tired dogs on our hands. I think they finished 4th out of the Medium pairs. I’ve never asked Kim to run 5 full courses back to back in training, let alone competition, and she was exhausted. I’m so proud of her though, she gave me everything she had to compete under circumstances I know that she doesn’t like, and I let her down on the 2nd agility course.

I have to admit I’m really disappointed that we’re still Grade 2. I came home so pleased with Kim at EMDAC and so downhearted from Waldridge Fell. It reinforced all my reasons for not doing Kennel Club shows — Kim won 2 classes this weekend, but they weren’t difficult wins and there was no achievement for us. We may be 1 Jumping win closer to Grade 3 but it feels frustrating slow — Kim has already won 3 Jumping classes, beating dogs from higher grades to do it, but we won them as Grade 1′s so they don’t count. She came home from EMDAC with lower placings but I felt like we’d achieved something, we beat a lot of good dogs, have some more points towards the League Tables and the Dog of the Year awards, and hopefully are on our way to qualifying for the Finals in August.

Enough about that, I make enough arguments for BAA shows as it is! Kim was much better this weekend in herself, she was bouncy and tugging in the queue and running smoother on course. She got a handful of AW points too so we’re an inch closer to the 200 points. We aren’t competing again in agility for 6 weeks/2 months, so we can get some proper training done and come back refreshed for the middle of the summer season.