Run & Training

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Leanne

I have discovered a slight flaw in my well-considered fitness and conditioning plan, in that Kim is too smart for her own good. She now refuses to run for the first toy now, and will only run for the second, meaning Mollie is doing twice as much work. I probably should have seen that one coming, to be fair! Dylan has tried this a couple of times as well, but Dyl is easier to outwit, usually by pretending to have three toys, one toy, throwing it in different directions, etc, whereas Kim doesn’t fall for those kind of mean tricks. Mollie is clueless and still runs after every toy every time.

Kim hasn’t been agility training for 5-6 weeks, partially because we’ve redistributed people at agility training and now there isn’t as much time for me to run 2-3 dogs in the session. As I just have Dyl there at the moment (I haven’t trained with Jet for months now, but that’s the disadvantage of borrowing a dog!) I can concentrate solely on him, but because we only get limited chances to use the equipment, I have to be more focussed with what we do. Less impulsiveness on my part, more planned training.

Because we have more dogs in the session now, it’s also given me a chance to work on keeping Dylan relaxed whilst the other dogs work. Lots learnt in the past few weeks about stress and adrenalin levels, and I’ve tried to spend more time observing what the dogs are actually doing and then acting to encourage them to be calmer. I can’t eliminate stress completely but I do want the dogs to respond in a way that tells me they’re in control of the situation and handling the stress in a positive way. I’ve adjusted the way I handle a couple of things with Dylan and so far so good. It’s been quieter anyway!

I’m just torn at the moment on Dylan’s waits in the ring at Hare’n’Hounds this weekend; at training, I have a strict break-and-you’re-out policy, where we walk (cheerfully) away from the equipment if he breaks his wait. He has 98% solid waits at training, but no wait at all at competitions. I know that I need to follow through with this at shows, and consistently, and I also know that as I want to stay in n G5 for a while yet it makes perfect sense to do this now (at this show especially because I have Kim and Jet so I still get a chance to run some courses). I know that Dylan only does this because of my poor training. But it’s still very hard to do it, because I just tend to counter it with the “well I manage with Kim” argument in my head. Which is a stupid argument! I’ll see if I can be brave enough to walk away this weekend.

Back at Drax

Posted on March 28, 2011 by Leanne

It’s been a while since we last flyballed, and much longer since we were running on grass, let alone at Drax!

Kim was back in Division 6 and the second team, where she belongs! We had hoped to take a strong 5-dog team but unpredictable entire bitches coming into season meant our fifth dog was bumped up to the top team, and we ran as a four. Our team ended up consisting of two Labs and two Lurchers, which was fun, and everyone ran well. We struggled a little at the end of the day and didn’t quite manage our run of wins from the morning, and ended up 2nd. Theme for the day …

Dyl was up with Barneys in Division 3; I ought to point out that I still think of Dylan and I as being subs for this team, but we’ve actually run with them all winter and as Dylan is running fairly consistent 4.8s now, we will likely be staying there until we find some new, faster, dogs and handlers to usurp us! It was very satisfying to smash our seedtime to bits and run an 18.66 fastest time, and we nearly won the Division but lost by a whisker to Sheffield (literally 0.01 seperating us!). All credit to Jet and Murphy, without whom we would have struggled to even break 19s, let alone repeatedly. Murphy was fantastic, running 4.2s ALL day over 12″, and Jet pulled off some equally amazing 4.4s. We finished 2nd anyway!

Dylan ran well too, no stuttering into the first hurdle and only some moments of silly dancing when he should have been focussing. He was generally tight off the box, although wasn’t using his back end nearly as well or as much as I would have liked. Always work to do!

Mollie ran well, as did her team, and finished 2nd. I was on the line for this team and that naturally means I can’t remember anything except they did good.

Back at Drax in a month, lots of agility in the meantime for Dyl, Jet, Kim and I.

12/52 British

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Leanne

12/52 British

Originally uploaded by kayanem

Rewind

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Leanne

Looking back on some posts from this time last year. Apparently we had a run of lovely sunny weather then as well, which is weird, I somehow remember it being later in the year. On the other hand, it doesn’t really seem like that long ago, I can remember exactly where I was stood as I took the photos, and every detail of the flyball and the walks.

I found this little bit on flyball points tucked away in one of those posts. Although my opinions on a lot of things have shifted and changed, my feelings on points haven’t. Seems timely to repeat it, one year on, as Dylan should get his FD-Silver this weekend.

The flyballers have exploded everywhere with their opinion on points, and I’m pretty amused reading them. I love points, I think it’s really nice to have these records of the time, energy and dedication your dog has put in. Of course my dogs don’t care, but if we’re going to use that argument, we might as well not bother with seed-times, divisions, tournaments or rosettes either. I know a lot of people are arguing that only fast dogs are rewarded with awards, but that’s up to you, surely? Kim’s Silver Award will always mean more to me than Dylan’s, because I know how hard we had to work to reach it. Dylan’s will be easy, he’ll probably get his by the end of the year. When your Bulldog gets his FD, be proud of it and stop comparing him to the Whippet on your top team who has just got his eleventy-billionth point.

When you get down to basics, flyball is about speed. It’s a race, fastest team wins. If you choose to own dogs who are not conformationally able to run all that fast, that’s your choice, and you’ll have to accept that you are unlikely to get as many points as one that is, just like you’ll have to accept that you aren’t going to be running in Div 1 at the Champs.

Original Post: March 28th 2010

Dylan did get his by the end of 2010, just. That was my goal … although goal sounds very serious, and it was always a bit of a silly intention, just because it means he has got an award for every year he’s been flyballing (3 in 2009). I like patterns. I’d like him to get his Gold this year, just so he can have one in 2011, but I think we might miss out, 5000pts a year is a little bit much for the amount of flyball we do.

Summer

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Leanne

My pledge to try and blog more often is currently not really working out. I do have the very good excuse, like the rest of the country, that there has been the warm, hazy hint of summer around and we’ve been basking in what might be the only sun we see all year. We seem to have bypassed spring completely, and gone straight from minus temperatures to coasting in the high teens.

The fitness training is working well so far. We’re four sessions in and I wasn’t really expecting to see a difference yet, but the older girls especially are showing signs of real improvement. Kim is looking especially good, she’s running faster and also recovering faster. The next step will be to add another session after a second 5-minute break, but with the unseasonably warm weather it seems better to wait until it cools down again. We can’t avoid it in summer but at least they have had chance to acclimatise by then!