Bluebells

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Leanne

The gang had a good morning flyballing … in the rain. Where has my nice summer weather gone?!

Dylan was all over the place with his training. He ran terribly in the first session, really slow and bad bad box, but he ran much better in the second session. We did have two lanes up though, but Dylan wasn’t running against anyone, and I wonder if he thought he got a free pass to be lazy. Must work on that … Kim was grumpily playing stooge dog for Biba all morning, and Mollie only got one session as she came up slightly sore mid-way through.

Two of my friend’s lost their dogs in this past week; both to different cancers, and both way too young. I want to tell them both they I’m thinking of them and their dogs, but find it difficult to think of anything good enough to say. What can you say? I can only hope that they know my feeble “I’m sorry”’s are heartfelt, although insufficient.

For Moss (2005-2010) and Mishka (2003-2010).

Northern Festival of Agility: Part Three

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Leanne

Waldridge Fell.

The KC Novice Olympia Qualifier was a tricky little course, but being a Combined 3-5 I wasn’t expecting easy. I walked it and quite liked it – Julie Buchanan was judging and she always includes a wall and a brush fence, which I love. The only thing I wasn’t so keen on was the dogwalk approach, it was very offset and I was a bit concerned as to whether Dylan would keep his balance. As it happened, he skittered on the edge for a moment but kept powering on and did it nicely. We did perfectly on the rest of the course, until we reached 16 – it was a push out around the wing to the Aframe. Push outs are the one thing I feel I can handle well, and that both my dogs fully understand and can do, so I have no idea why Dylan came off 15 very lazily, and then came to a complete stop next to me. We both looked at each other, I shrieked a bit and he finally understood, and we finished up clear.

I’m still not awfully sure what happened there. Obviously we had some miscommunication, but Dylan always offers something if he doesn’t understand what I’m asking, he never just shuts down completely. It was very weird, almost as though he’d gone to sleep for a second than then suddenly woke up and began to work again. He seemed alert and interested when he stopped, so I don’t think anything upset him, or that he had hurt himself. Mystery!

Worst of all – or best of all, I suppose? – we placed 8th overall. I was slightly shellshocked at this news! If we had run smoothly Dylan would have been comfortably in the top-4, which would have qualified us for the Novice Semi’s. This just … wow. I can’t get my head around it at all.

Nic Jones set a thoughful kind of Grade 3 Agility; easy for the dogs, tough on the handlers, which is perfect for Grade 3! I wasn’t awfully sure on how to handle the box and I’m still not sure I did it the best way. Dylan’s contacts were excellent though, and we came 4th.

Can’t remember the Jumping courses at all, think we might have got an 8th in one but it’s all a bit of a blur. It was too hot!

Sunday was baking hot. I felt like I was living in an oven. The Grade 3 Jumping was a nice course, a straightforward call off at the start and then a blast around really. Dylan got stupidly wound up in the queue and I had a feeling he was going to get a bit daft, but he blew past me completely at the start. First time he’s ever acknowledged a command and then done something else anyway, cheeky boy! So, big E in that one.

Grade 3 Agility was a challenging course, and really needed a wait start – I think we’ve established I don’t have one of those anymore! I had to handle it from behind and it wasn’t the fastest way to do it, and that kind of set us up for the whole run. Dylan had lovely contacts but didn’t feel as fast in the straights as he had been, but it was still a nice run. I’d watched two very fast clears earlier in the class so I knew the best we could hope for was 3rd … which is what we got!

The final Grade 3 Jumping was not my cup of tea, nice course but all minimum distance boxes, and I knew Dylan wouldn’t be able to pick up any speed. We ran clear but I felt Dylan was really on the slow side and I thought we had no chance of getting placed. Somehow came 7th, I can only assume everyone else got E’d!

The final Grade 3 Agility was a super simple blast, no weaves, and there were about 300 clears. I went in with the aim of getting a really fast final dogwalk, and I got it, but unfortunately the judge marked the down contact. I disagree, and am confident that Dylan got it (right hind paw) but he came off to the side due to my positioning and so we were in the same situation as Newton Heath but this time I know he got it. Win some lose some!

Northern Festival of Agility: Part Two

Posted on May 25, 2010 by Leanne

Beach.

The beach at Redcar is gorgeous, all endless miles of sand and sea. Dylan and I spent a couple of hours there by ourselves earlier in the week, but the girls arrived on Thursday and Dylan was ridiculously excited to see them again so we spent all afternoon there.

Probably one of the few times you’ll spot me on camera; Mum took over camera duties whilst I tried to persuade Kim to swim. She didn’t, but she went much deeper than normal and didn’t flail like an idiot, so maybe her one and only hydro session did her some good.

Also, have I mentioned the weather? Because the weather. Wow. Every single picture looks bright and sunny and warm because it was.

Northern Festival of Agility: Part One

Posted on May 24, 2010 by Leanne

Most perfect agility holiday ever. Redcar is a fantastic venue; I’ve raved about it before, but it’s a huge rugby club/football club training ground, so perfectly flat mowed lawns, nice big exercise areas, and 400m away is the Stray, a beautiful and huge dog friendly beach. What could possibly be better?!

Hare’n'Hounds ran the first half of the week, Saturday to Tuesday. Due to some flyballing issues, I didn’t enter Saturday so we travelled up on Sunday morning with Dylan.

We had a so-so run in the first Grade 3 Agility, it wasn’t a very hard course but I held his Aframe contact and we were very wide and messy around the turns. And the dogwalk was slooooooow! Came a surprising 5th, and Julie’s Winnie won it.

I can’t even remember what happened in the two Grade 3 Jumping runs, so it can’t have been particularly good or bad. I have a vague recollection of one being fiendishly difficult, can’t remember where we went wrong but I know we did!

The other Grade 3 Agility was a nice smooth course, nothing really difficult about it and all I wanted from Dylan was a fast dogwalk. It was reasonably quick, but not quite what I wanted, but he flew around the rest and did a beautiful seesaw for me. I messed up at the end because I ran ahead of Dyl and then heard him crack a pole, but I wasn’t sure if it had fallen or not. I was so busy thinking about that I forgot about the pull to the last jump, and poor Dylan went very wide and then kind of scrambled over it. Eek, bad handler! We got another 5th anyway, good start!

Monday; Grade 3 Jumping was a smooth course, ideally needed a wait start which I don’t have anymore. Made completely the wrong handling choice for the start as a result, we were very messy around the first turn, but still finished 4th. Very pleasantly surprised by that one, I didn’t think we had much chance as it was a nice fast course.

Lovely Grade 3 Agility course, again needed a wait start to get the fast dogwalk from Dylan, and so again he was a little slow to start. A little wide to the weaves as well, but apart from that it was a really nice run, fast and smooth and we came 2nd, behind a cracking little Pointer. We’re getting closer though, so near to that 1st now!

Combined 3-4 Agility … I think we’ll pretend this didn’t happen. I missed the course walking and then tried to run it anyway, and just made a complete hash of it. Trained Dylan’s contacts and bless him, he tried really hard anyway!

The Combined 3-4 Jumping was another superfast course, there were loads of clears so I decided to gamble a bit and leave Dylan in the weaves. I do this at training all the time, but I’ve never dared just run off and leave him in competition. It paid off anyway, he stuck in them and I could get the front cross in and keep him tight to the finish. We finished 12th, not a bad result for my slow Grade 3 dog!

Tuesday … smallest classes of the week and I so wanted the win, I thought we could do it! Had a blitzing run in the Graded 1-4 Jumping, although I called it perfect on twitter and it wasn’t (we were really wide to the second tunnel, I didn’t give Dylan enough information and he wasn’t sure if he should be going on or not). We came 2nd, best ever placing in Jumping. Not really disappointed, Dylan ran like a true pro and was fast, sharp and extended in his jumping. Couldn’t have asked for better from him. (Fab course from Nigel Staines too, loved it!)

The Combined 1-3 Jumping was a basic box type course, all a little tight without much room to stretch. We ran a clear that bagged a 7th but Dylan never really had room to speed up and I didn’t find it all that inspiring. Can’t remember the Graded 1-4 Agility at all, apart from that it was quite hard and I sent Dylan the wrong way (nice contacts though!)

Bit of judge switching went on the afternoon, for various reasons, and so Dylan’s Combined 1-3 Agility was judged by Nigel Staines. He set a fab course with a really tricky pull-thru at the end; Dylan smoked the course, fast contacts and beautiful turns, and then we got scuppered on the pull. Arg! Heard everyone sigh in sympathy, so know the run was as good as I thought it was, and we finished up with a smile.

Black and White

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Leanne