Monthly Archives: October 2009

Cameras

  By Leanne | October 10, 2009 - 3:14 pm | Photos, undermybed
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I know I can get great shots with my little Kodak.

Dylan/WaterBowlDylan in the snowKim

However, I’ve been hankering after DSLR camera for a while. I can get action shots with the Kodak, but it’s not fast enough to catch the exact moment I’m aiming for. I’m sure that’s partly down to me, but my timing isn’t that bad. I can changeovers in flyball.

Half a second too late ...

There are various other reasons, like picture quality and having a really great lens, but it’s mainly for the dogs. As you would expect.

I have some very kind friends who let me play with their DSLRs, on occasion, and although I love Emma’s Canon EOS 400D (aka the Canon Digital Rebel XTi), I really love Cat’s Nikon D50. Which hasn’t been produced in forever.

So, the hunt goes on. From the reviews I’ve read, the D50′s replacement, the Nikon D40 seems to be held up at the best entry-level DSLR ever, worshipped by camera lovers everywhere, partially because it comes with an awesome kit lens. Unfortunately it’s also no longer in production, and the new equivilent D3000 is apparently a) terrible, and b) more expensive.

So, does anyone have any other suggestions? I will consider other options to the Nikon, I just really like their kit lens’.

String Theories

  By Leanne | October 8, 2009 - 9:00 pm | Agility, Dylan, Health, Kim
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Dyl’s weave entries are improving at a rate of knots, so chuffed! It’s so nice to see the hard work paying off. No problems now with 90° angles, either side, and we’re working back to being fairly comfortable at 45° (better on the soft side, at the moment). He’s picking up weaves when flicking back away from me too, which has been one of those things I never really thought about until it came up and then realised the poor lad was confused.

Other things to work on though: Contacts. Always, always. They’re much better, much more confident (especially the Aframe) but I want more drive to the very end. Pull-thrus. We have mastered pull thrus in a box (Must.Give.Room.) and Dyl is wrapping wings nicely now, responding to a steady cue, but we still kind of suck on parallel jump pulls. We can do one. Give us two or more in a row and we fall apart. This is because of the MGHM (Must Give Him Room) rule; Dyl needs space, and it’s hard to give him space and clearlycue pull thrus from a distance. Or, rather, I find that hard.

Next topic!

I have been so lax with entering shows, I missed loads of October/November entries which I’m a little bit sad about! On the other hand, I know I have loads of shows planned from the end of November onwards, and I don’t think it does the dogs any harm to have a break from competition and just do some light training. Dylan worked really well at South Durham, the placings are starting to look like they’re within our grasp, and so (conversely?) I’m happy to step back a smidge and work on making everything as good as it can be.

Kim seems fine now, by the way, and will be competing at Rotherham in 2 weeks. She is occasionally hiccoughing and reverse sneezing, but that’s about it. I’m hesitating to call the original episode just a reverse sneezing moment, because it lasted for 20minutes on a fairly constant basis, she had super-pale gums, and it also didn’t feel like reverse sneezing. (Been there, done that!) Coincidentally however, she did have a RS episode several years ago when there was a new concrete wall being built at our old training venue, and our next door neighbour is currently building a new garden wall. Apparently there is something in a new concrete mix … ? Vicki also mentioned central heating being switched on and releasing spores into the house. Who knows, but it’s interesting hearing the theories!

South Durham

  By Leanne | October 4, 2009 - 12:03 pm | Agility, Dylan, Jet
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One of those days that tried to be a bad day, but was secretly a good day.

I only took Dylan, but he made up for being 1 dog by doing the work of 2, as he had seven runs over the course of the day! We started off with Combined 1-7 Jumping, a class I knew we had no chance of getting placed in, but it was a lovely course and I chose to take Dylan the “long way around” the handling options. He ran it well, went a little wide at times and took it at a rather leisurely pace. He was about 6s off the winner in the end, which wasn’t too bad.

Graded 3-5 Agility was a lovely course, and Dylan ran it beautifully; he was a little lazy over the first 2 jumps (I think he was hoping for a turn to the seesaw, no such luck!) but he kicked up a gear and did some lovely contacts for me. However, on finishing I found out the judge had marked his Aframe down contact (hmm!) so we didn’t go clear. I normally try to be philosophical about faults, but I was very disappointed after that class; Dyl’s time was 30.661 and the winner was 30.022, so it was a really competitive run (we would have placed 3rd).

We had quite a break before the next lot of classes, and so we had chance to meet Cat and gorgeous, supercute Pogo, Tracy, Garry and the Aussies, watch Julie and super-Winnie run a few courses, and watch Julie and Gertie get their first win to Advanced by winning the Combined 1-7 Medium Agility.

Dyl and I ran the Open Large Pairs next with Katie and Jet; we never manage to get it quite right! Jet was E’d and Dyl had 5 faults for a pole, but Jet and Dyl always have a good time running Pairs, stealing each other’s leads and jumping on each other’s heads. Always goes down well, but it’s a good job we don’t take it seriously.

Dylan and I wandered over to run the BC/WSD Combined 1-7 Jumping next, which I again figured we had no chance in, but no reason not to give it a shot! He actually ran really well, worked the difficult sections without an issue, finished in 26.35 and somehow in 15th place! Not necessarily a huge achievement, but he was the top Grade 3 dog by a couple of seconds, and that’s a much needed confidence boost for me.

It went a bit downhill after that! Combined 1-4 Agility was completely my fault; I was worrying a little too much about the dogwalk lure after our fiasco at Dog Vegas and didn’t really think about the Aframe! Dylan had a bit of a nutter run after that and started jumping whatever he fancied, including the cloth tunnel. Very naughty etc etc but I tend to just let him go providing I’m not telling him otherwise, it’s taken a long time to get him confident enough in the ring to just stop worrying and run.

Graded 3-5 Jumping was another E; a nice course but really too straightforward for us, all straight lines and a little bit boring. So of course, Dyl backjumped, entirely my fault for being lazy with my cues. Oops!

Combined 1-4 Jumping was a tricky course, and was taking forever to run. With hindsight, I should have come back in 30minutes, but I joined the superlong queue and Dylan just got bored and lost interest in the whole idea. (So did I!) The timer broke for the dog before us which meant Dyl was set up and then taken off the line for the lady to re-run (she did a fantastic re-run and I hope she got placed with it, she made it look very easy!), which really didn’t help his concentration. He went clear but it was messy and slow, and he got confused by the long run across the ring without any obstacles. Poor lad!

Congrats to everyone else who did well!

Sad, Sick, Puppies (Again)

  By Leanne | October 2, 2009 - 7:56 pm | Health, Kim
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What a week … thank you for all the texts and emails that got back to me, I’m not sure how so many of you found out as I only told one person! But thank you very very much, it meant a lot to us.

For those who don’t know, Kim scared me half to death on Tuesday this week. We got home from work and she ran out with the others, chirpy and cheerful and noisy as normal, and then started stopped dead and started sucking in air, and visibly shaking all over. I can only describe it as being like the moment when you get something caught in your throat, and try to take a breath to cough and clear it, except Kim was constantly trying to take the breaths and never getting enough breath to cough.

She immediately ran over to me for reassurance, which is when I got seriously worried; Kim milks her injuries and afflictions for all their worth, but it’s always in the kind of snobby way, graciously accepting the rightful adorations of the commoners, and so on. She only comes for physical hugs when she’s in real pain. She managed to catch her breath for about 30s before starting again, and so on.

Ten minutes later and we were at the vets. So many things to be thankful for, not least the incredibly understanding vet nurses, Andy, our fantastic vet, and all the people who let us take up their appointment time to get Kim checked over as soon as possible. Thankful too for the fact our vets practice is only in the next valley, because I don’t think I’d have coped travelling any further.

Kim, of course, stopped her episodes as soon as we walked in the door. It now looks as though it was something simple and trivial and that’s another thing to be thankful for. It isn’t her heart or her lungs (another thing) and she is slowly getting better. It’s further and further apart now – she’s done it 4 times today, twice this morning, once this afternoon and once just after her tea. The vet rang a couple of hours after she got home to check on her, and there was an offer to keep her in overnight for truly safe measures (it was less stressful for Kim to stay at home, especially since we’d established it was currently under control).

Again, thank you for all the concerned emails and texts. Kim gave Mollie a huge telling off this afternoon for daring to lie on a towel in the doorway (the towel was whipped away, the doorway guarded most ferociously) so you can be guarenteed she’s feeling better.