Monthly Archives: December 2010

Reflection, Patience, 2010

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I read back a lot of my blog from earlier in the year to write the dog’s 2010 reviews. It does make me smile quite a lot, sometimes. With hindsight, I shouldn’t have been so impatient with Dylan and I’s lingering in Grade 3. We were balancing on the edge of winning a class for a long time, but not such a long time that I had any right to lose patience. I knew I had to get faster contacts and reams of confidence before we could go anywhere, and when we did get all the boxes ticked, I immediately wanted out of Grade 3.

You’d think I’d have learnt with Kim that sometimes it’s about pulling it all together at the right time, rather than just assuming that having the right components is going to make a car. I feel like I should have relaxed and let things roll, rather than being so focussed on getting to Grade 4.

I know I am very focussed on where I need or want to be, but I am not always appreciative enough of where I am. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy the training and work we put in to reach whatever end, because my favourite part of training is doing it. But I do need to make changes to how I train. I need to be more focussed on the small details, and less on the big picture. I need to figure out what I need from today’s training session, I need to spend more time rewarding my dogs, I have to put in more effort with the little things.

Mostly, I need to have confidence in myself, in my training methods, and in my dogs. Especially because I am optimistic that 2011 might involve some serious steps towards Future!Puppy, if everything goes to plan!

2010 Review: Kim

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My Kim.

My one, lonely, goal for 2010:

  • Kim to get her 20,000pts (Ice Blue Moon Award) in BFA Flyball

I was perfectly aware that wouldn’t happen! We’re making good progress though, Kim has got her FD-Gold this year (15,000pts) and is currently just under 16,000pts, with the points updates only just having reached the Champs in August. I think she’ll probably level off somewhere around 17,000 for 2010, which means we should reach her FD-Blue sometime next year.

Kim and I have had kind of a strange, backward, wonderful year. I took a few new approaches to her agility, mainly throwing out her startline wait, and she fell back in love with the idea of agility and running like a crazy dog again. She won a Grade 5 Jumping class in July, and then in August won another two jumping classes and two agility classes as well, which threw us straight into Grade 6, just where I didn’t want to be! So of course, at her first Grade 6 show, she promptly won her first agility class and got her first win towards Grade 7. She also picked up around 200 AW points this year, which is somewhat surprising!

She’s very much semi-retired from agility, and only gets to run when everything meets my specifications of “nice Kim classes”, which involves a pre-entry check of good venue with good footing, good classes (no C6-7s thanks!), and then an on-the-day check of suitable weather conditions and smooth, flowing courses which will not nag or make her sad. It works for us, and I am so thankful for every single run we do.

Contrary to the normal passage of time, Kim (and Mollie) has gotten faster with age in flyball. Kim was running steady 4.8-5s times over the summer over 9″, and is currently cruising at around 5s over 12″. She has run in every team, in every position, with every old and new dog we have. She doesn’t care, she just wants to flyball.

Her heart murmur has faded, and this year (touching wood for the final few days), she has had no injuries or incidents. Kim is fit, healthy, noisy, wicked, and still dictating terms to everyone. I couldn’t ask for more!

I know some people think goal setting is something unfair on a dog, but I like to have a goal. I like to sit with Kim and say here is this thing, that doesn’t mean anything to you and doesn’t really mean anything much to me either, but it’s a measure of time and patience and love, which should mean something.

Rolling on, for 2011, just one goal.

  • Kim to get her 20,000pts (Ice Blue Moon Award) in BFA Flyball

Gap Farm December

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I was boxloading for Mol’s team so didn’t get to see much of their racing or times, but they did look good from where I was stood and lost some of their races by a nose, really unlucky! Mol had a great time anyway since she was running over 9″ with her partner-in-crime Bails.

For various reasons, I roped Emma into running Kim in Barneys for me. I felt kind of bad afterwards as Kim really wasn’t running her best! Definitely not down to Emma’s handling – which was excellent as always! – just a case of Kim’s jump fitness has dropped off and so she wasn’t able to power over the hurdles as she usually does. I got to run her when Dylan was out in the last race of the day anyway, and I could certainly tell her jump speed was off. Her ground speed was fine, so I think we just need to get back to training and get her running 12″ on a regular basis.

Dylan, on the other hand, was fantastic! He was super confident and comfortable as he was running between Lucy and Jet, or Lucy and Kim, all girls he loves! The difference is incredible, he powers into the first hurdle without hesitating and it makes such a difference to his singles times. He ran lead in the afternoon and clocked a 4.740 line-to-line (over 12″), which is the fastest he’s ever run. In fact, he clocked 4.7s on every run he did when running lead, which is excellent. This fact is still making me smile three days later! His boxturn was not excellent, so we still have something to work on. I feel fairly confident saying that if we can train Dylan to a better turn and he runs with the same enthusiasm he did this past weekend, we can get him down to running 4.5s kind of times. I never thought that would be possible!

Dylan and Kim’s team came 1st in Division 2, after some very close racing, and Mollie’s team came 3rd after some even more close racing that really could have gone either way, so all in all a good day!

Wyre Agility

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Mission accomplished!

I love Wyre. For whatever reason, this show just sings for me every year, and we have such a good time. I am fully prepared for next year to be a complete disappointment, but up until now, big thumbs up for Wyre.

In contrast to last week, Dylan and Jet were in the same two agility classes, with only seperate jumping classes to give me something to do. Jet ran first in the C3-5 Agility (P2), and had such a lovely run until I made a really stupid handler error at 15 and caused her to drop the pole.

Since Dylan wasn’t on for ages, Jet and I scootled off to her G1-3 Jumping. Bit of an odd course as it was just jumps, no weaves/tyres/long jumps! Since I had made myself paranoid about poles I handled it very safe, and to be honest I thought it was a fairly ‘meh’ clear. Jet was lovely and smooth but only working at maybe 70%, so it was a bit of a surprise when we came 4th!

Dylan then came out and ran in the C3-5 Agility (P2). I remembered all my notes from yesterday and really concentrated on making him happy, and the cheerleading seemed to help. He was a little cautious over the first half but picked up beautifully after the dogwalk and finished really well. I then had a minor panic and sat chewing my fingernails for two hours because there weren’t many clears and I really didn’t want to win, but Dylan judged it perfectly and came 2nd. I’ve told him he can do that again!

G4-5 Jumping was a lovely open course (I spent all morning watching this ring and thinking how much the Medium 6-7 would have suited Kim!), tricky for the handlers but not for the dogs. Again, I remembered all my notes from yesterday and Dylan really picked up from his first agility run. He had a drivey run with big smooth jumping, just a little wide on the turns but I wasn’t asking him to turn tight as I wanted to keep that ground speed and just let him roll a little. But he came 1st, which is his first Grade 5 win! I’ve told him he can do that again too.

Of course, I got a bit overexcited by that and totally hashed up the G3-5 Agility with both dogs, different mistakes but on the same section. Oops! Must keep concentrating next time!

Refocus

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Dylan; Stay happy, relaxed and positive. Walk the course and look for the smoothest line, don’t underestimate his abilities and baby things. Make sure he gets to stretch his legs before each run, make sure he is fully warmed up. Look to keep him calm but focussed in the queue, minimum on barking if possible. Be clear with cues and verbals in the run, especially use left/right when needed. Lots of play with Mouse after the run, find something positive from it.

Aim for happy, fast, driven dog, even if wrong course.

Jet; Try to play with her 3/4 dogs before she runs, but then let her relax and focus 1/2 dogs before we go to the line. Don’t try to flick-back, keep moving, especially on contacts (except seesaw). Run as fast as possible, use sharp verbals (no drawn out sounds!), give her room on corners especially as most likely to bounce. Don’t let her see anyone in a hat.

Aim for top-5 placing, at least.