Monthly Archives: October 2010

How to Make Homemade Jump Bumps

  By Leanne | October 18, 2010 - 2:38 pm | Reviews
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Having watched Susan Salo’s Foundation Jumping video, and various other videos, and read several more books, I decided we needed some Jump Bumps (also known as Stride Regulators) for our puppy class at agility.

I ideally wanted 8 Jump Bumps, four at 4″ and four at 8″. CleanRun sells them for $39.80 and $79.80 [1], plus $416.43 shipping. That’s £335.17 ($536.03), which is a little out of my price range.

After doing some online searching, and some helpful family friends, it came to my attention that I could buy Half-Pipe Guttering, which meets roughly the same standards as the Official Jump Bumps. It’s rounded, which means that a) it won’t roll, and b) puppies can slip off it if they misjudge their stride.

So, I went and priced up at B&Q, Homebase, Screwfix and Wickes, because these are my local DIY stores*. The cheapest I could find was at Wickes, and so I purchased three 2m lengths of Guttering [2]. Once I got home, I cut each length in half to get six Jump Bumps.

Stride Regulators or Jump Bumps, Stage One

My Jump Bumps at 1m long and 10cm wide (or 3.2ft long and 4″ wide). I would have liked 1.5m length but I couldn’t fit the 4m lengths into the car and I didn’t want to waste the 2m. I would also have liked some 8″ widths, but nowhere in the known universe sells 8″ width guttering. Houses just aren’t that big.

Since we train our puppies in an indoor arena (floodlit brown sand), I really wanted my Jump Bumps to be white rather than Gray, Brown or Black, which are the colours sold. Cue leftover Matt Emulsion Paint [3], and a bright and cold October afternoon.

Stride Regulators or Jump Bumps, Stage Two - One Coat of PaintStride Regulators/Jump Bumps, Stage Three - Two Coats of Paint

It took three coats with a small paint roller to get the Jump Bumps properly white. Because the paint is Matt, it’s added a little bit of grip to the Jump Bumps, but I don’t anticipate any puppies being able to stand on these without slipping off.

Stride Regulators or Jump Bumps, Completed

So there are my Jump Bumps! They look pretty good, even if I do say so myself, and they cost me £13.17, which is a saving of £322.

*Local as in … about 40mins away. I probably should include petrol costs in this.

[1] http://www.cleanrun.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&Product_ID=1842&ParentCat=635
[2] http://www.wickes.co.uk/Roundline-Gutter-Length-2m/invt/431856
[3] B&Q Value Matt Paint This is the paint we used. Note it’s Interior Paint! I’m fully expecting the paint to scratch and damage with use, but it will be easy and cheap to touch up.

Roundabouts: Heelwork and Not Listening

  By Leanne | October 13, 2010 - 7:04 pm | Dylan
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Tasty

Really struggled with Dylan at agility training this week, he was running well but was making baby mistakes that I knew were my fault. I got frustrated with myself, Dylan started getting giddy and started just to take whatever obstacle he fancied, sometimes multiple times, until he remembered that I was present. Instead of standing back and reminding myself that Dylan was being confident and using his initiative (something I encourage) because I wasn’t being clear enough with my cues (something I don’t), I used AngryFace and AngryVoice and then immediately felt bad, which didn’t really help my feeling of frustration. Thankfully Dylan is a very forgiving soul and we finished up doing some nice running seesaws, which I think made us both feel better.

I tend to start worrying immediately after having a session like that, about whether I am doing right by the dogs and whether I am ok to even think about a future!puppy* if I can’t train the dogs I have now with the focus, effort and positivity they need and deserve. And then, thankfully, I have friends to tell me to stop being an idiot and to remember that as often as dogs will be dogs, people will be people. And, as I keep telling them, you have to have the bad sessions to get the good sessions. In the end I think we balance out.

So I did some heelwork practise with Dylan this afternoon, and I made sure to make it super-super fun to make up for Tuesday. Which seemed to work, although our heelwork isn’t very pretty, and Dylan tends to spend a lot of time mouthing my hand if he can. He is so cheerful about it though, it’s hard to find it anything but endearing.

*Which is to say, I am only generally speaking in terms of future!puppy. I can safely say that at some point in the future I will get another dog. When that will be is as yet undetermined.

Winter Agility Season

  By Leanne | October 10, 2010 - 11:28 pm | Agility, Dylan, Kim, Mollie, Training
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I know I’m lucky to have good, competitive shows at KC and BAA within travelling distance all year round. It’s got better and better every year, and this year I’m actually getting to pick and choose which shows we go to! We’re at Hare’n'Hounds next time because I love their shows, they always have a good mix of classes and such a friendly atmosphere. Dylan’s first Grade 5 classes! Really just wanting to see how he does against the competition, and hoping he keeps up the confident attitude.

All those shows mean no break though! I do think a break from competition and training is good for the dogs, although Kim doesn’t do much these days anyway. She does 10 minutes of training for agility a week, and I skip training with her the week before a competition as well. It seems to work for her, although she hasn’t got many competitions booked this winter. One thing about having single-day competitions seems to be the tendency for organisers to offer one or two Open classes only for Mediums and Smalls. I suppose I should be grateful that there are any classes at all, since lots of shows just skip the Mediums altogether! I’ve entered her in the Hare’n'Hounds Christmas show at the end of November, because they have a Graded class and good splits so she won’t get consistently nagging courses.

Dylan will probably get a month off in February-March, but that’s only sketched out for the moment. The summer diary is still very vague so I don’t know what I want to skip.

Snuggley Warm

Mollie feels a little bit left out, naturally, with all this agility talk. Perfect winter warmer photo though, don’t you want to sneak onto the sofa and snuggle down with fluffy Mol, maybe watch a few films?

Lune Valley

  By Leanne | October 4, 2010 - 1:20 pm | Agility, Dylan, Videos
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I’m cautiously optimistic about saying that Dylan really likes working indoors. His runs at Lune were all smooth, fast and – at the end – slightly bonkers. I’m happy to roll with this! I’m normally at South Durham this weekend, but the classes weren’t as nice for Grade 4 dogs, and I’m not a huge fan of the Prissick Base venue. It was a lovely sunny day at Myerscough though, they opened the big arena doors and the whole place felt so light and airy and huge.

Combined 4-5 Jumping was a nice course with a nasty start, and we got E’d. Dylan broke his wait, panicked, and then decided to just take a bunch of jumps in the hope he’d be forgiven. He wasn’t, but we finished up the run and his jumping was lovely, very smooth and neat.

Graded 1-4 Agility was a very fast, very open course, no seesaw (!) and a little bit run-of-the-mill style course. Dylan’s Aframe was a little slower than he can do, but the rest of the course was beautiful, again with the smooth gorgeous jumping. Not as driven as his run at Ribble, but still clear and a good run. Since the placings were generous I thought we might scrape a top-10. Apparently I’m a rubbish judge of Grade 4 though, since we finished 2nd! Less than 0.4s seperate 1st and 3rd, so bit of a close finish! Incidentally, this also gives Dylan enough points for his Agility Warrant Silver, which I only realised when I got home.

Graded 1-4 Jumping was a bit of a killer course, which ran much better than it looked – if you got it right! Dylan worked the first 6 obstacles lovely, very tight on the wraps, but he and I weren’t quite on the same wavelength for the angled flick-flack. He intended to bounce it, I certainly didn’t think he would, and he ended up crashing a pole to avoid running into me. Oops! Finished up anyway with 5 faults – maybe 10 faults? – but Dylan ended running strongly, which was what I really wanted.

Last class was Combined 4-5 Agility. Probably Dylan’s best run of the day, in terms of confidence and speed, but not mine! I wasn’t expecting quite so much confidence and speed, got left behind and was way too late with my commands. I’m going to have to brush up on this because I’ve got Jet at the next show as well as Dylan, and if he carries on running like this I’m just going to spend the day flailing along behind them both. Anyway, we got E’d, but Dylan’s contacts were fantastic, and I was very happy.

Apologies for the crappy Adobe overlay on the video, but I’ve lost all my video editing stuff in the big computer reboot 2010. I will try and replace with a better version eventually!

I’d rather spend a day getting E’d in all my classes, but running with this fast, confident, and driven version of Dylan that I always believed was hidden in there. I talk a lot about wanting a certain win or t move up to a certain grade, but in the end, if I walk away knowing we both gave 100% and it was perfect, the placing is just irrelevant. But still nice to get, because the Lune trophies are really pretty frosted gold glass type things.