Monthly Archives: November 2010

Gap Farm November

  By Leanne | November 22, 2010 - 5:55 pm | Dylan, Flyball, Kim, Mollie
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Mollie was running in the second team. I was boxloading so have no idea what their fastest time was, I think something like 21.35? They all ran well; Mollie always loves running with her mini partner-in-crime Bailey, but the team was something of a last-minute jumble compared to the originally planned line-up. Really good racing for them though, especially against Monsters!

Dylan was always slated to run with the first team for this competition, but Kim got bumped up to join them at the last minute. I ran Dylan and my lovely mother took over running Kim for the day, because Kim doesn’t actually care who she runs with and my mum has the supernatural ability to change into any dog with any dog regardless of how much practise she’s had.

I think our fastest time was 19.29, or something like, which wasn’t too shabby all things considered! I was really pleased with Dylan, he didn’t stutter at all and ran into Norah with only a slight head-dip to say he wasn’t entirely comfortable being so close to such a hairy-scary girl. I honestly think having Kim on the team was such a confidence boost for him!

I also got my first ever 0.00 on the lights (out of 2 attempts, score!) and Dylan clocked a 4.95 on that run, which still isn’t perfect but is at least going in the right direction.

Enter Stage Left

  By Leanne | November 20, 2010 - 3:05 pm | Dylan, Photos, Training
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I’ll admit, yesterday’s photo was completely staged.

Dylan’s just not smart enough to read a magazine.

Actually, (don’t get too excited, Dylan really isn’t that smart!) it was a staged shot. I haven’t done many staged shots of the dogs, unless you count the biscuit shoot, and I really don’t. Mentioning that is just an excuse to link back to those photos, which I still make me laugh.

Dylan is my perfect actor, because he will happily do his tricks whilst I’m contorted into all kinds of positions with a camera in front of my face, trying to get the perfect shot. I knew what I wanted for this one, and it was pretty easy. Just an old magazine, dog in a down on top, and then a flat command to get his nose on the floor.

The wistful look is all Dylan though, I can’t take credit for that one.

I’m kind of getting to enjoy the challenge of staged shots. It’s interesting to have an idea of how something should look, and then going out and trying to figure out how to actually pull it off. I feel like such a baby at this whole aspect of photography (or most aspects of photography, really), because I can’t even start thinking about lighting and backgrounds and everything else. Just getting the dogs to do what I’d like is hard enough!

Fog

  By Leanne | November 19, 2010 - 7:57 pm | Dylan, Photos
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It’s been very foggy today.

Being a good dog owner, I looked outside and thought about what a lovely walk we could take, since there would be no golfers playing golf in the fog. The golfers have a hard enough time playing in the bright sunlight, considering the amount of misplaced golf balls we recover on a daily basis, so we’d have all the greens to ourselves.

I thought about how nice it would be to get some photos of the dogs in the fog, and what an opportunity it was. I thought about the grass sparkling with dew and the dead trees and the very eerie fog, and what lovely atmospheric photos it would give.

And then I thought some more, about how damp and cold it looked, and how creepy the fog was, and how if anyone attacked me with some kind of axe-shaped object, no-one would hear me scream. So instead I made the decision to stay indoors, with the happy warm glow of my computer.

So my dogs have been forced to spend the afternoon gazing wistfully out of windows and reading magazines to pass the time.

Why We Compete

  By Leanne | November 17, 2010 - 11:07 pm | Agility
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… if you train but never compete, it’s easy to convince yourself that what you’re doing is hard, or hard enough. It’s easy to ease up in training; easy to say “that’s good enough”.1

I’m still not quite sure why I was reading The Fellrunner this afternoon. I’m almost certain it had something to do with not having a computer and having read everything else in the house, because I’m not a runner and I’m certainly not a fell runner. But I happened to read the above comment in an article, and immediately fell in love with it. Of course the author was referring to running, but for me it is equally applicable to agility.

I don’t train with a club or experienced trainer. I think most people who read this blog know that. I am extremely fortunate to train with a group of friends, who push me and discuss with me and, inevitably, stand and spend far too much training time chatting and eating buns. It’s a brilliant group and I love it! But it requires me to put the pressure on myself to do well, because I don’t have anyone to do that for me. I don’t have a trainer standing there each week telling me I’m not working hard enough, that I’m not getting the best out of my dog.

And I think that’s what it comes down to, because I always want to let my dogs reach their potential. If I don’t, I feel like I’ve let them down. I know I have these amazing, athletic, honest dogs, who love agility. How can I justify letting them drift around a course once a week and think they’ve done as much as they want to do, or can do? I can’t. And so I try to train them to the best of my ability, (which isn’t always to the best of theirs), and we work hard to have fast weaves, fast and reliable contacts, beautiful jumping and tight turns.

So we come back around to the quote. How do I know if I’m doing the best I can for them? How do I know I’m not just saying it’s good, when really it’s just good enough? Because we go and we come 2nd or 8th or 19th, and I know we we could have been tighter on that turn, or faster on that Aframe, or smoother on that line. I know my dogs can do that, because they’re awesome! So I get pushed to do better, to train better, and not let myself get complacent in either my training abilities or the training we do.

I’m not sure I’ve done anything with this post but write down a stream of very tangled consciousness, but I still love the quote, and maybe I’ve at least revealed I’m secretly a much more boring/interesting (delete as appropriate) person than you thought I was because I read fell running magazines. Very occasionally.

1. Mountain Running in the USA: A Singular Experience “Mr P”, The Fellrunner (Autumn 2010)

Mud

  By Leanne | November 13, 2010 - 3:02 pm | Dylan, Flyball, Kim, Mollie
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Paws in the rain

Autumn is so pretty from the waist up, with all the golden trees and blue skies. From the waist down, mud.

Flyball in the mud is not as difficult as agility in the mud, so we plugged on. Kim thought the whole thing was kind of stupid, but she’s a professional so she ran paw-perfect, apart from slipping on the box a little. I’m not sure Mollie even noticed the mud, but towards the end of the session she was struggling to see the mud-caked balls in the box and we had to have a special clean-ball-for-Mollie campaign. Her eyesight is kind of noticably failing now, it’s really sad. We have said for a while that her eyes will be the reason she retires from flyball; she knows the jump rhythm and the strides to the start etc, but there will come a point where she can’t see the other dogs very well, and that’s not safe.

Dylan stuttered horrendously on his first run, and then realised he was running into his old, familiar teammate Lucy. So, perfect striding all session, despite the poor footing and the occasional slip and slide moment. It really does confirm that it’s a confidence issue, which is a relief, but also rather frustrating! Unfortunately he’s probably going to be running into Norah this weekend, because we’ve had to switch the teams around unexpectedly and it’s not been possible to put him with dogs he knows and is confident with. Circumstances that I can’t change, and the team can’t change, so we’re just having to work around them!