Monthly Archives: February 2011
Change Year
My mother and I have been calling this year a “change year” for flyball, because we know that by the end of 2011 our teams will look very different. We have a great set of puppies and new starters who will be hitting their stride over the autumn and summer, ready to start jostling for serious places in the teams, but we equally have several dogs who are showing their age, and need to be eased back from their current roles as mainstays. This is one of the things I love about flyball; the old dogs teach the new dogs and leave behind a legacy, and once time has rolled around the new dogs become the old dogs and teach the new dogs the next time around.
(Kim was taught by Moss and Fly, Flloyd and Seb. Mollie was taught by Stan and Bryn, Zara and Harvey. My old ladies are now teaching Roxy, Lara, Sully, Diva and Fly.)
Change years are inherently good things, albeit a little bit sad, a lot of fun, and often extremely unpredicable. Things need to keep moving though, otherwise they get stale. I am really looking forward to the Flyball Fever/Rocket Relay seminar in 2 weeks, and I think I’ve made some progress on how and where I need to go with agility training. I have three documents on my USB called contacts1, contacts2, and thingstoremember: the first one is a list of links to articles, blogposts, videos, as well as c+p’d conversations regarding 2o2o contacts. The second is the same, but for running contacts. The last is all the snippets of poems and quotes I love.
Gap Farm February 11
Excellent flyballing, some very good racing.
Dylan was on brilliant form, the specialised training we’ve been doing recently has been hugely and noticably beneficial for him and a few of the other dogs. It was very cool to see real results so quickly! His boxturn wasn’t brilliant, he is coming away much sharper now rather than turning wide, but he isn’t executing the swimmer’s turn as he should be.
Dylan was also very confident as he was running with his best girls Kim and Jet, and his old Labrador friends Buddy and Lucy. All dogs he feels very comfortable with! Kim wasn’t quite on her usual form, I’m beginning to think that the Gap Farm matting just doesn’t suit her, she never seems to run at her best there. She’s unusual in that respect as I think most teams have found that their teams run equal or better times on the matting. Kim has always prefered very hard ground though, like sports halls or sun-baked turf, so maybe I shouldn’t be too surprised. She brought the hurdle height down for the others though, so it was worth keeping her in that team.
Mollie unfortunately drew the short straw. We knew she was going to be unfit and really needed the spot in the bottom team, who ended up running in the second arena. It was more dimly lit than the main arena and although it was perfectly fine for most dogs, Mollie really struggled to see. It was exactly the kind of light she has the most difficulty with, a kind of muted half-light with deep shadows but no real bright spots. She ended up interfering a few times simply because she lost my mother, and she kept mistaking various non-ball objects for balls which caused some chaos as well. We are just going to have to pull her if the team ends up in that arena again, although I think by this time next year it’s unlikely Mol will be running indoors at all as her eyesight will have deteriorated further by then.
Next flyball at the end of March, plenty of time to get Mollie back up to fitness and hopefully work a little more on Dylan’s box.
7/52 Possessive with Yoghurt
Hare’n'Hounds Valentines
I seem to remember saying back in November that I wouldn’t run three dogs again. Well, I did, and it was better – either because I was prepared for the chaos, or because everything just ran more smoothly!
Kim ran her G4-7 Agility first, had a lovely run on an interesting course, and won it. I can’t believe I get to type this, but Kim is now halfway to Grade 7! She has both her agility wins, and she’s enjoying these occasional competitions so much.
Dylan’s G5-7 Agility was a really nice course, but we got called on the dogwalk contact. I’m not sure if he missed it or not, I can’t tell on the video, but he was running a little slow and steady and for some reason, very creepy on the seesaw. Hmm …
Jet ran a beautiful clear on the handler-challenging Redmills C1-7 Jumping, and finished 18th. Which … well, it was a fast course and she was only 2s off the winner, so that’s a good result. She was also the top Grade 3 dog by a long way! We went straight from that ring to the G1-4 Jumping and made a complete shambles of the course, which was a little bit frustrating! It was a very difficult course for 1-4, but nothing we couldn’t handle … or so I thought. The most annoying thing was that Jet popped the last 2 poles of the 12 weaves again. We must work on this!
Kim’s C1-7 Jumping was the same as Jet’s, and she ran a nice clear but we had a silly dithering moment where I was just a stride lazy and it nearly caught us out. Think Kim ended up 6th or 7th, out of the placings either way but she enjoyed the run, a nice stretchy course for her.
Jet’s 2nd in the Graded 1-3 Agility was extremely unexpected! It was a nice course, suitably challenging, but had two aframes and a seesaw rather than the traditional dogwalk-aframe-seesaw. Jet’s Aframe is not her strongest peice of equipment, and she did too acceptable but creepy Aframes and I thought that would keep us well out of the placings. Apparently not!
Dylan had three jumping classes in a row, starting with his half of the Redmills Jumping. It was a lovely big, open course, and Dylan actually opened up and ran it really well. We got E’d, but it was a good run. I was happy! We then went into the G5-7 Jumping. We got E’d multiple times, but I made personal progress by practising what I preach and pretending nothing had happened and that whatever we did was what I meant to do. It worked for Dylan, his confidence was visibly up! We went straight into the BC Jumping and ran clear, he finished 19th.
Kim’s C5-7 Agility was the same as Dylan’s earlier course, and we had a slightly on-the-edge run but managed to get around clear anyway, and finished 4th. Not too shabby! Her C5-7 Jumping was the same as Dylan’s again, and we made pretty much the same mistakes. Clearly I learn nothing from my mistakes.
Dylan’s G4-5 Agility was quite a tough course for 4/5, but ran much better than it walked. I got to watch most of this class run, and wow, the standard of 4/5 dogs was through the roof! Dylan had a decent clear and finished 5th, just out of the placings, but I intentionally took him the long way around the pull-thru so I’m quite pleased with that.
Long time off from agility now, not back until April! I did want to try and enter some in March but it all got a bit expensive with the seminar and Crufts!