Monthly Archives: October 2008

Aframe/Team Trios (2009)

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After all the long discussions with various people on how to improve Dylan’s creepy Aframe contact, it seems that we’ve finally made some progress. As I said before, he’s had a break from working on the Aframe and so we came back this week and really attacked it. There was a big improvement! No creeping on the down plank, just a check in his stride half way down so he could get the 2o2o, which I’m very happy about. He also started jumping the apex towards the end of the session which is great, we’re finally getting towards the Aframe performance I want.

Weave entries were worse though! His weaves are great generally and once he’s in, he weaves right to the end regardless of where I’m stood. But he is skipping the entry … think weaves are going to be my focus for next week!

I’m trying to maintain some perspective for EMDAC and remind myself that it’s still a month away and not to expect too much, but I’m feeling pretty excited about running the boy. Dylan’s sister Kai also made her competitive debut this past weekend at NAWS, from what I hear she had a very positive experience all round, so I think Nat is probably feeling the same at the moment! The November EMDAC also marks Kim’s first Novice classes and I’m not really sure what will happen there. I have been trying to work on the weaknesses we have with more difficult courses but as the classes are Novice Plus (Combined Novice, Graduate and Masters), even if we do go clear I’m not really expecting anything.

Team Trios: Personal Ads

The Team Trios Qualifying dates for 2009 haven’t been released yet, but working off the assumption that they’ll be similar to last year …

Kim (Novice Medium) and Bailey (Introductory Medium) are looking for a Primary Medium team-mate for the Team Trios 2009! [SORTED]

Dylan (Introductory Maxi) is also looking for some teammates! He’s had top-10 placings already in Introductory and has a lot more to come speedwise, but we have no consistency so no promises on him gaining many points.

If you’re interested, leave me a comment here or email me at kayanem@gmail.com

(BAA Team Trios Rules & Regs).

Website Updates

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New layout! Well, technically just a bit of an update on the old one. New header/footer, some slight colour changes on the links, nothing too noticable except the header image. This post is a run-down of various UMb related things, one post is better than many.

Shows: Show Diary has been updated. Results pages have been split into Agility Results/Flyball Results, and I’m also keeping a page of more detailed stuff that reminds me what happened on each run. So far Dylan’s is a long line of E’s. The Agility Qualifiers and Classes links have gone. It was too hard to keep updated, although I do still have all the information so if someone wants it to try and set up another database, they’re more than welcome.

Media: Video Archive has been updated and reformatted to make it easier to use/read. New photos in the photography section, let me know if I’ve missed any credits. I’ve also added a page for the Agility Eye covers, although I’m not sure exactly when they were used (if anyone does, please let me know!)

Links: have been updated.

If you spot any problems let me know! Sitemap can be viewed here: http://www.undermybed.co.uk/sitemap.php

Stats

I’m a sucker for WordPress Stats, I love it. undermybed.co.uk averages around 1,100 hits a month, although generally that figure is on the rise by 100 or so hits since I first installed WPStats. (That’s an average of 40 hits per day). Not a huge amount but always more than I expect.

Most people on my blog click off to:

http://bouncingbackbailey.blogspot.com

http://jetpops.undermybed.co.uk

http://flyinkai.blogspot.com

http://giruff.blogspot.com

http://summerick.blogspot.com

Most people arrive via:

http://flyinkai.blogspot.com

http://summerick.blogspot.com

http://giruff.blogspot.com

http://ruffdogs.myforum-online.com/viewtopic.php?t=6601

http://bouncingbackbailey.blogspot.com

Hosting

On a slightly unrelated note, I’m on the hunt for new hosting. Streamline.net have been good for the past couple of years but I’m getting loads of 500 errors since they changed some of the servers, and a couple of friends had a horrendous experience with their customer service over the summer.

These are the important things for me:

  • PHP
  • MySQL database
  • bandwidth
  • no more expensive than what I pay now (I pay annually but it works out at £2.35 or $3.74 a month)

I’m currently using the Streamline Power User plan which has tons of features, most of which I don’t actually use. But it’s so much cheaper than anywhere else that I’ve found, so I’m not sure what to do! Recommendations or suggestions welcome.

Hydrotherapy

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Mollie and Dylan had a fantastic time at hydro again on Wednesday evening. I took my camera but as you can probably see I wasn’t a very good photographer! Bit too worried about getting it wet, and I couldn’t find the right settings.

Mollie spent about 15 minutes swimming on the rope against the jets, 7 minutes at the start and then another 7 later in the session. Dylan did about 12 minutes (7 & 5) as he hasn’t quite got Mollie’s swimming stamina yet! He’s a lot more subtle about signing when he’s tired too, we have to watch him. Mollie just starts lolling her tongue about and flailing, but Dylan just huffs very quietly. Of course, Mollie spends her whole time barking when Dylan’s swimming without her so you can’t hear him huffing. Although having said that, Dylan spends the whole time screaming when Mollie’s swimming without him. He really went into mad collie mode, Sarah said he just looked like Flloyd used to when he swam (um, for those of you who know Sarah or Flloyd!).

They spent the rest of the time just playing with their toys and diving in like nutters, which is when I took the photos. You can see how awesome the pool is, it’s circular and the jets are angled to create a current. Because it’s circular, you can also work on building different sides of your dog depending on their injuries etc. It’s also deep as it was originally built for rehabilitating injured Greyhounds (hence the poster in the background).

BAA Promotion & Agility Training

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Please excuse the unrelated Mollie photo, I love her paws and couldn’t resist including it!

I’ve just noticed that the League Tables on the BAA Website have been updated!

My application with Kim was obviously successful as Kim is currently 2nd in the Novice Medium Dog of the Year League, 8th in the Novice Agility League and 8th in Novice Jumping League. All good places to be! I don’t expect her to do particularly well this year in the Leagues as I’m going to be cutting back on the number of runs we do per day/weekend, so she naturally won’t have as many opportunities for points. It would be nice to qualify for the Finals again or get promoted to Graduate, but I’m not going to chase points or campaign her for it. Considering our training session this week I’m wishing she was still in Primary but we’ll see if she can be a little bit less manic at shows!

Dylan wasn’t promoted, thankfully, so he is still Introductory. He’s currently 13th in the Intro Maxi Dog of the Year League, 29th in the Introductory Agility League, and 9th in the Intro Jumping League. I’m really optimistic about the BAA shows this year with him, he was absolutely fantastic at training and I can’t wait to run him at EMDAC. He really kicked up a gear and I think that’s partially due to me sorting a startline routine which gets him switched on and excited. I’ve discovered that he hates being made to wait etc whilst still on his lead; we get a faster and more responsive run if I leave his lead behind as we start approaching the first obstacle and set him up with him loose. Everytime I think he’s going to just set off without me though, and I really need those waits!

It does make me smile though, one week I’m saying how much I love working with Kim, and the next I’m saying how much I love working with Dylan! This week was the first time I’ve really felt we were working together, we just had a lot of fun and blasted around all the sequences with no problems. He nailed every weave entry and was turning nice and tight, although we did have a few more poles falling than I would have liked, which was obviously a result of the extra speed he was working through. Having said that he wasn’t flinching and pulling up after knocking them (positive!) but was making an effort to correct himself and clear it when we approached the next time, so I’m not too worried at the moment.