Redcar

Posted on September 28, 2009 by Leanne

Flyball at one of my favourite ever venues, walks on the beach and beautiful weather. Can’t ask for much more!

Dylan and his best redhead girl Skye were up with the Barneys in Div 2, and we came 1st, just pipping the lovely Monsters gang, and most of the racing went to 5 legs so we had to work for it.

I was a bit unsure how the team would be to run in as I don’t much like scratch teams; they tend to be unbalanced and in this case, there were 3 fast dogs, 1 reasonably fast dog, and Dylan. Technically there is less than .5s seperating each dog’s singles time, but it’s still a bit disconcerting to find you have the noticably slowest dog on the team. But actually the team all ran really well together, and they weren’t miles faster without Dylan.

The Owlers gang got a lovely walk on the beach after they’d finished racing; Dylan, Jet and Chip hit the sand early and then picked up George, Norah and the Labradors a little while later.

The girls had a bit of a miserable day on Saturday, since I flat out refused to take them down to the beach. They have the stamina and the drive to do a crazy beach session and then race the day after, but they wouldn’t be as fresh and their times would have suffered.

We stayed in a slightly odd but clean and friendly hotel on Saturday night, and actually got a bit of a lie-in on Sunday morning! We trundled the 5minutes to the venue for about 9am, and only because I was Vice-Captain for the wayward Night Owlers. I’m not quite sure what happened, but a team who, on paper, should have run around 20s (if not high 19s) somehow ended up running times varying from 21.94 to 30.09 with the same 4 dogs and no lights! Not quite sure how that happened, but thankfully we all have a very good sense of humour.

As it happened, the girls ran brilliantly on Sunday, so I think we made the right decision in not letting them visit the beach! Again we had a scratch team, and the girls ran their paws off but couldn’t make up the losses, and we came 4th overall in Div 5. I admit I was a bit more relaxed than I would normally be, and so if Kim got an early changeover light I re-ran her every time. She was having a blast over 11″ (with Bailey in the team) and having her slow up a bit towards the end of the day wasn’t going to make a difference to the decision. We also did a fantastically awesome turnaround, Kim belted down the line and then didn’t even hit the 10ft line before she’d spun around and re-run. I think we impressed the ring party, and we won the leg, so that’s the important bit.

They did eventually get to the beach though, on Sunday afternoon. It was worth the wait; they had a blast with Bailey. It was a gorgeous afternoon as well; we (Emma, me, and the 4 dogs) paddled out in the breakers for a while, although the dogs did go a bit deeper than we did!

Dogs in Doorway

Posted on September 27, 2009 by Leanne

Sad Sick Dogs … and Happy Flyball

Posted on September 25, 2009 by Leanne

The collies have both been ill this week, which has meant I haven’t had much time to post on the blog, however much I intended to! Dylan picked something up last week and we thought it was his unfortunate eating habits (a towel, this time!) but since Mollie came down with it too, it seems to be an bit a tummy-bug.

Mollie had also lost an unexpected and unpleasantly surprising amount of weight – 18.85 down to 17.72 – which isn’t what we wanted to hear. Andy (our lovely vet) said she’s too thin now, and I agree; it’s not so much how much she weighs, but how much she’s lost in such a short amount of time, and she’s normally starting to hover around 19kg at this time of year, as her winter coat comes through. So the Mol is on a fattening, she’s getting some extra goodies in her bowl and she’s relishing the opportunity.

Kim is fine, no illnesses, and she is loving her new agility training regime. Her next competition is hesitantly scheduled to be Wyre in December, depending on the classes, but now the decision has been made and she officially has the “Semi-Retired” tag, I don’t feel all that anxious to enter her. So, at the moment, she gets 10-15 minutes of training a week, which usually equates to a couple of warm up jumps and then 3/4 courses, and she is just looking like my old Kim. Fast and argumentative and reckless.

Redcar tomorrow, flyball flyball flyball! It seems like ages since we were last competing, (it was ages!) and although we have 3 scratch teams in, it should be fun. Dylan has just got his Flyball Dog Graduate (3000pts), although I don’t think he’ll get his certificate this weekend. But what a good boy! Kim is well on her way to her Gold as well, which is a bit surprising as I didn’t anticipate us getting all that many points this year. Having said that, at the rate she’s going she won’t get it before this time next year, so let’s not get too excited! She and Mollie haven’t got much chance for points this weekend either, I can’t really see her team going under 22s as it’s a bit of a mix’n'match, so let’s just hope we get some good racing and can really go all out for speed and not bother playing it safe. (I hate playing it safe, it’s boring!)

Surprise

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Leanne

New layout for undermybed.co.uk – I like it. Do you?

Things we did this weekend.

We played training games.

We played cage balls.

We played football.

We also visited Castle Hill, and whilst the dogs were in the car, I took the opportunity to actually go up the Tower. The Tower isn’t open very often and I’ve never been up before, and despite living in Huddersfield for 50 years, neither has my dad. So we wandered up.

Shame I forgot my camera.

I also had a slightly more productive weekend with the dogs. I spent a ridiculous amount of time working on very simple cavaletti and jump grids with Dylan (we have an excess of sports equipment around our house, you’d be surprised how good some of it is for inpromptu dog training). I video’ed every attempt and then also videoed Kim working the same exercises. Kim is my standard for how a dog should jump.

From watching the videos back, it seems pretty clear to me that Dylan’s jumping form is significantly better when he’s working in front of me. His arc is cleaner, he judges stride patterns and take-off points more cleanly, and he tends to power off his hind legs more, which makes him faster. All of these things suffer when I’m in front or racing him, and the basic conclusion is that he cannot do two things at once, ie. jump and keep up.

It looks (or seems, or feels) to me as though he is beginning to panic about being left behind, and therefore begins to panic about everything. Dylan is a classic worrier, you can almost see the thought process as one thing leads to another in his mind, and he can’t control it all and panic steps in.

Unfortunately, I cannot handle him on Grade 3 courses from behind, because most of them involve long straight lines of boring.

BAA Promotion

Posted on September 13, 2009 by Leanne

Dylan got his automatic promotion to Primary in Agility and Jumping, finishing 5th* in both the Agility and Jumping Leagues and 4th in the Introductory Maxi Dog of the Year League (661pts).

Kim was 7th in the Novice Medium Dog of the Year League (954pts) and has not got promoted in anything, thankfully. She was 24th* in both the Novice Agility and Jumping Leagues.

*What can I say?! My dogs are equally balanced in their agility and jumping skills.

Kim will not be doing any more Novice classes – she can have a couple of Pawsbility runs next summer, but the courses we get at Novice are harder than what we get at Grade 5, and whilst I enjoy the challenge, Kim doesn’t like being nagged. So there we go.

I’m looking forward to running Dylan in Primary though, that should be fun! He’s 1 win away from his BAD-Bronze which I would quite like, so we’ll have to see if we can find it somewhere.