Monthly Archives: June 2008

One Step Forward …

  By Leanne | June 18, 2008 - 2:35 pm | Agility, Dylan, Kim, Training
8 Comments

Creepy contacts are still an issue.

I’m not sure whether to keep pushing or to leave it now. In reality, Dylan’s Aframe is not that bad, he is nailing the 2o2o no matter where I am or what I’m doing. The creeping isn’t even particularly slow — I’m going to liken it to Spice’s contacts from this video of the IFCS World Champs — it’s just not the striding pattern I want. On the other hand, Dylan is a big collie and asking him to run full speed down an Aframe ramp might just be a bit too much for both his brain and his body to take. I know I wouldn’t want to do it.

In desperation, and because I trust Kim and Dylan, I even tried a two-dog Aframe to try and persuade Dylan to stride down the plank. Which was hilarious, because Kim thought Dylan was cramping her smooth Aframe style and took out her stress on her cage ball a lot! Dylan hit his 2o2o every time and waited for the release so at least I know that no matter what I throw at him (even a small Terrier Lurcher, if necessary!) he will nail it. Kim also hit her contact every time, proving she is awesome and doesn’t actually need a handler or any formal contact training (or so she thinks!). You can see a three-dog dogwalk here, to get the idea. Definitely a don’t try this at home moment.

Dylan is working all his jumping sequences nicely, he’s picking up for the next obstacle fantastically now and it’s ridiculous but I get secretly very pleased when he sets off on his own course due to my bad handling, it shows how much his confidence has grown. His “out” is looking fantastic and he’s wrapping much better, although my timing still need work! I have to say as well that his weaves were awesome at training, he is so much faster than Kim and has such a nice pattern.

I’m not even going to talk about the seesaw, but suffice to say we’ve gone back a few steps!

Firefox 3 Finally, a touch off-topic, but Firefox 3 was released today and if you haven’t downloaded it already, go and do so! Firefox is a better, smarter and faster equivilent of Internet Explorer, and although you might need a day or so to get used to it, it’s definitely worth it.

Dylan is on form this week!

  By Leanne | June 12, 2008 - 5:06 pm | Dylan, Dylan's Blog, Flyball, Training
3 Comments

Mollie and Dylan Mollie has clearly been having words with Dylan recently; he’s overcome his fear of the seesaw and flyball is suddenly exciting! He had a fantastic training session last night, he did some perfect swimmer’s turns off the box without any training aids at all.

We’re going to start introducing a command word now to remind him what he’s supposed to be doing and make sure he turns into the box. More hassle for the boxloader but that’s what they’re there for! At least he isn’t fussy about what ball he gets.

Dylan is definitely best running lead at the moment. I’m just really chuffed with his progress this week, the runs with the Starter team at Newark really seem to have done him some good and he’s a lot more focussed on the line. We also had a bit of speed from him which was nice! It looks like he’s going to turn out to be about as fast as Kim, probably a bit quicker over the big hurdles. I’ll be thrilled if he turns out to be half as consistent as Kim, as I always think it’s more valuable to have a consistent 4.8 second dog rather than a dog who can go up to half a second slower or faster depending on the race or the weather or the day! Having said all that he hasn’t really done any 2-lane training yet against faster dogs so we’ll have to see if they draw him on or not. He did seem to be chasing a little at Newark but it’s hard to tell if he can even see the dog in the other lane with three rows of netting between them!

The running orders are out for Doncaster next weekend and it looks like it should be fun — three rings of flyball!

Dylan is one brave boy!

  By Leanne | June 11, 2008 - 4:20 pm | Agility, Dylan, Dylan's Blog
5 Comments

Finally, we did the seesaw!

I was beginning to think we were never going to get there, but at training yesterday I decided just to go for it. Not my normal approach to things! I like to have the groundwork and be confident that we can achieve what we’re aiming for rather than just taking the plunge and potentially freaking myself and my dog out, but Dylan and I felt like we were working on the same wavelength for once so I just sent him over it before I could start overthinking!

He did it perfectly! Skidded into his 2o2o perfectly and held it before he got the ok to come and play tuggy. I’ve never been so proud!

Obviously with Dylan things are never as straightforward as they seem, because the third time we tried it he lost his balance a bit and kind of fell off the side just as it hit the ground, which meant he wasn’t braced for the bounceback and it caught him on the leg. We had a big play anyway, I need him to stay brave and confident on the seesaw. The next couple were a bit cautious and then we took a break to do some Aframe and jumping exercises, and then we did a few more before calling it a night. The last one was back to being nice, right to the end and riding it down, so I’m very pleased. We can actually run in some agility classes now!

We’re still having a problem with creepy contacts, I tried several of the solutions offered by people last night and none of them worked! Quick releases actually seemed to slow him down. I tried varying my position to the Aframe, increasing and decreasing the amount of noise I made, and winding him up for his approach. He nailed the contact every time but he’s very slow to hit the 2o2o and I don’t have that time to waste in competition, sadly! Emma spent some time watching him and came up with a possible solution for next week, so we’ll have to see if that works!

Newark Flyball

  By Leanne | June 9, 2008 - 11:25 am | Dylan, Flyball, Kim, Mollie
2 Comments

Kim and Mollie were in a scratch team due to some dog complications, so it was mostly the normal Night Owlers with Kim thrown in to bring a bit of speed to the proceedings! Kim ran well all day, but she just wasn’t quick enough to bring down the times under 22secs, as certain dogs (good old Stripe!) decided they were on a go-slow. Mollie ran brilliantly though, she was fantastic over the 13″/14″ jumps and she wasn’t too stiff the day after so we’re very pleased with her. We managed to lose every single race all day, but we had fun and the dogs enjoyed themselves. Although it did rain again!

Dylan also ran in a scratch Starter team! I wasn’t planning to run him but one of his fellow Little Owlers was also there on the day, so we joined up with some dogs from Rotherham and the tiniest poodle from the Daventry Bumbles, and he was fantastic! Still not running flat out but he was a lot more focussed, lining up after his runs with the rest of the team. We were mainly changing into Lucy but he did change with a speedy little dog from Rotherham called Finley, and the different dogs didn’t phase him at all. The only problem we had was with his box (as ever!) but Rotherham use a very vertical and narrow style of box that just doesn’t suit Dylan at all, he couldn’t work out how to turn although he did make a noticable effort to approach the ball from the right, which is great!

His little Mix’n'Match team came 2nd overall and ran the fastest time of the day, a 20.94, so very very pleased with Dylan! He’s back in Starters for Doncaster and probably Clumber Park at the end of the month, just because there isn’t room for him in the teams at the moment, so his Division debut will probably be at our favourite tournament at York.

We actually went back down to Newark on Sunday to help out with Barneys; my mum runs super-Murph when James is away and they were a bit short-handed so I went to stand on the line and keep an eye on changeovers as they were running a new line-up. They did better than we did and came 4th, not too shabby considering the heat they had to run in!

A Walk on the Canal

  By Leanne | June 5, 2008 - 7:28 pm | Dylan, Jet
4 Comments

A Walk on the Canal - Jet and Dylan A Walk on the Canal - Dylan wants a treat

A Walk on the Canal - Bailey, Dylan and Jet A Walk on the Canal - Dylan in the River

A Walk on the Canal - Dylan, Bailey and Jet A Walk on the Canal - Dylan in the River

A Walk on the Canal - Dylan, Bailey and Jet Thanks to Emma for the photos (click to see a larger version). The dogs did not swim in the canal but in the river that runs alongside it for a couple of miles. The river has a lot of iron oxide in the soil, hence the apparent reddish tinge to the water; the water is actually very clear and fresh. The fields were alongside the canal banks. Dylan would like to go on a 5 hour walk every day, but right now he wants to go on his normal 2 hour evening walk. Any volunteers to take him?!