Monthly Archives: June 2009

Unexpected Surgery

  By Leanne | June 10, 2009 - 7:24 pm | Health, Kim
5 Comments

Just a very brief post to let everyone know that Kim went in for her acupuncture treatment today as usual, but shortly after arriving the vets got very concerned about the lump on her back. They were worried enough to put her under general anesthetic and take it out, which is something we had wanted to avoid if possible due to her heart murmur.

She is currently home, safe, and feeling extremely sorry for herself. She is going in for her post-op checkup on Friday evening, and is tentatively scheduled to have her stitches removed in 10 days time.

Kim will not be competing at Otley agility this weekend, or at Doncaster flyball the week after. It is very unlikely she will be training or competing again before mid-July at the earliest.

Honeysuckle Cottage 2009

  By Leanne | June 9, 2009 - 6:32 pm | Dylan, Flyball, Kim, Mollie
1 Comment

This will be a familiar venue for some readers, I think, as it’s where the Delinquent Dogz agility series is held. I’ve never been before and it’s the first time there has been a flyball tournament there. It’s a nice venue; the ground held up incredibly well, and a lot of teams ran some quick times on it, especially considering the weather. The exercise area was a bit limited, especially when people insisted on throwing tennis balls for their dogs which meant we couldn’t let ours off-lead at all. (One of my pet peeve … seriously, who thinks throwing a tennis balls into an unknown selection of flyball dogs is a good idea?!)

Kim and Mollie were down a team in Nights on Saturday, a scratch team that came 3rd (?) in the end. Kim ran anchor in every leg, something she hasn’t done for a while! But the other dogs in the team usually run with a height dog and can’t cope for various reasons with 14″, so she was needed. Mol had fun, as ever, but didn’t wreake as much havoc as she normally does. Bit suspicious that … it may have been the weather, though. Because damn, did it rain! We haven’t flyballed in rain like that for a long time, and it was pretty miserable. We were all cold, wet and fed-up before racing had even started.

Dylan ran in a declared-time Barneys on Sunday, and we came 2nd. We won’t discuss our race with the eventual winners, but it should be noted there were some very dodgy decisions re: changeovers, which with hindsight we really should have argued out but it’s easier said than done. The team clocked 18.81 in the first leg of the day, so we couldn’t really push ourselves as our breakout time was 18.79! (Running 18.79 or under would have resulted in us losing the immediate leg; running 18.79 or under more than 3 times and we would have been disqualified).

I have to confess, I would have happily been anywhere but flyballing this weekend. The weather was awful and I felt really ill (my cold finally catching up with me). Sarah, Katie and Jane (and my lovely mum, of course!) made me laugh on Sunday and I felt better about flyball in general, but it was still a really miserable weekend for me. After weekends like this I really do wonder how much flyball is going to feature in future diaries.

Agility Training

  By Leanne | June 3, 2009 - 9:26 pm | Agility, Dylan, Flyball, Kim, Mollie
2 Comments

Some interesting sessions this week; two, in fact!

Kim = Must. Support. Obstacles. Kim has changed her running style slightly during her injury and recovery time, and I need to be right there with her and supporting the obstacles before asking her to turn, otherwise she will turn too soon.

Kim also ran with Katie, which apparently made her lose all sense of self-preservation. She did the Aframe in two hits – one to hit the up-board and fly the apex, one to hit the down-contact and continue on her merry way. My heart stopped, I swear! But damn, she nailed both contacts and it was fast … but I’d prefer her not to try and kill me when we’re on course, so I think we’ll stick with our four-hit running contacts rather than encouraging anything else so crazy.

Dylan worked for 10mins on Tuesday, and his Aframe was excellent, straight off. Five-hits rather than Kim’s four, but I do ask him for the stop at the bottom. Smooth, fast, driven. Couldn’t ask for much more … well, I’d like him to do that in competition, but that may be too optimistic!

Tonight we also skipped over to Atomic Dog Training to see Nat, really as a bit of a test to see whether Dylan would react any differently in a completely new competition-like environment. The answer was generally no; he wasn’t quite as quick as he is when training indoors at our usual spot, but he was still relatively going. Nat and I had a chat about his contacts as she’s been through some similar things with Dyl’s sister Kai on the dogwalk. It was a little bit strange as we experimented with toys and handler positioning, as Kai and Dylan work in a very similar way!

Dylan’s contacts were good. Not perfect, not yet, but much, much better. If we could walk into a ring and I could be confident that his contacts would be like they were this evening, I’d feel we could at least challenge for some respectable Grade 3 placings. He’s around 4/5s off the winning times at the moment, but I know we lose more than that on his slow and steady contacts.

Flyball this weekend at Wickersley, and Dylan is running up with Barneys without either of his girls as backup, so fingers crossed! Kim is doing the opposite and standing down a team to give the Nights dogs a height-dog break, and Mollie is in with her for the lower jumps. The week after we’re at Otley both days! Kim has all Combined classes but again, the aim is just to get her up and running smoothly again. Dylan has some Graded 1-3′s and a few other mixes, but I’ll be happy if he gives me some nice drive-y contacts! He’s also got the Pedigree Pairs with Jet on Sunday, maybe we can manage 2 clears in the same Pairs class this time!