Monthly Archives: June 2011

Langsett

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GirlsThis is the first time we’ve walked Langsett. We’ll be back again, I now understand why it’s so popular!

We walked the three mile route as we didn’t know the area at all and didn’t want to get lost. The map in the car park said it would take 2hrs and we were a little concerned that it would be very hilly from that kind of estimate, but it really wasn’t and we walked it in an easy hour with a couple of five minute breaks. Think we’ll go the long way round the resevoir next time!

The dogs enjoyed themselves; Kim spent most of the time crashing through the undergrowth chasing rabbits and squirrels, and the collies spent most of the time on the path or in the muddiest puddles they could find. Wood

We met quite a few people and not many dogs, but we passed everyone by without a problem (except for a small scared Spaniel who did bark frenetically until we’d passed, but everyone ignored him). Mollie did manage to terrify a small child about ten minutes in, thankfully with sensible parents. The little girl put her hands together, palms outwards, in a greeting pose as Mollie was walking past. Mol loves children, and so on seeing this she walked over very gently, slowly wagging tail and her friendly face on and touched her nose into the little girl’s hands. I don’t know if she maybe licked her, or if the girl just didn’t like the feel of Mol’s nose, but the little girl shrieked like a banshee and burst into tears accompanied by proper screams. Mollie immediately moved away and got a cuddle from the girl’s father instead, which reassured the other little boy and left me happy as well. I kind of wish we’d been able to stop and let the little girl meet Mollie again, but I wasn’t brave enough to suggest it and Kim and Dylan were keen to move on as they don’t like children (too unpredicatable, like puppies!)

Bench IThere were poems carved into the tops of the benches all the way around; I didn’t get photos of all of them but I bet they’re out on the internet somewhere!

Long Summer

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Excellent flyball training this past weekend, all the dogs worked extremely hard. Dylan still isn’t comfortable running with Norah but she’s not in his team this weekend so I am hopeful that he’ll be relaxed and happy about being in the ring.

Our official complaint to the BFA regarding the incident at Swallownest has been upheld. I’m not comfortable blogging about it really, except to say I’m extremely grateful to everyone who supported us through the decision to log the complaint, and to the BFA Disciplinary Committee for their prompt and decisive action. Although I’m relieved, I’m also a bit sad that it came to this. The dog belongs to a team we have respected and enjoyed racing against for years, and have had a good relationship with in the past. I hope they are able to acknowledge that this wasn’t a personal attack or similar. I also hope that the dog is not as stressed and afraid in the future.

Time to move on.

We took the dogs to Digley for a swim on Sunday, it was too hot to walk and Mollie was exhausted following her hard training on Saturday. I was prepared for once and took an empty plastic bottle with me to throw for them (fill it 1/4 with water and it’s brilliant), so they got a really good workout but stayed cool. We even managed to persuade Kim to swim a couple of metres! She still flails around quite a lot but she’s not as panicked as she used to be.

It was far too hot on Monday to do anything, so we’ve had a quiet week. Agility training as usual (I’ll blog about that seperately!) and we’re planning a long walk this morning which includes going somewhere completely new, and meeting a tiny puppy!

Kim gets her photo on this post because she does not get to meet the puppy. Her tolerance for puppies is currently hovering at -47, with likelihood to drop to -368 on actually meeting a puppy.

Blog Action Day: Volunteering

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I’m not on the Clean Run list, so I don’t know what the status is in the USA regarding volunteers at trials. I suspect that it’s the same as it is here, and across Europe, and the rest of the world.

I am probably not the best person to be blogging about this for one fairly obvious reason: I don’t offer to volunteer. Or rather, I don’t offer to volunteer at Kennel Club shows.

You can offer T-shirts, sandwiches, raffle tickets, goody bags, gifts, refunds, whatever, but if you only give me the option of a half-day or full-day to offer to volunteer for, I’m not ticking anything.

I help at BAA shows because …. well, it’s a condition of entering, but it’s mainly because they are way more flexible about volunteering. I go and volunteer at a ring when I know I do not have any upcoming classes, and I volunteer for as long as I can. Sometimes that’s only 30mins, sometimes it’s 2 or 3 hours. Sometimes it’s for 5mins so someone else can go and run their dog, or walk a course. Sometimes it’s just for the time it takes to change the course. I get to decide when I start helping and when I finish helping. And as long as I’ve helped in some capacity, the Ring Manager lets me sign off my name, I’ve fulfilled my obligation and I’ve usually had fun chatting with everyone else whilst I do it.

If I could do this at KC shows, I probably would*. As it happens, I usually lend a hand course changing and so on anyway, but I don’t feel I can commit to a certain length of time on a certain day.

I imagine there are a lot of other people who are in a similar position to me. I also know that there are some people who will not volunteer regardless of what you offer, how flexible you are, how wonderfully you treat them. I think that’s kind of rude, but they may have valid reasons that I simply don’t know. I am always prepared to give the benefit of the doubt.

I suspect that the people that are really being complained about are the ones who never help but expect the rest of us to drop everything to do so. They’re the ones who complain about the classes not running on time, the queue being too long, the results not being published fast enough, etc etc etc. And I hate to say it, but I think agility has to accept that these people will always be around and that there is nothing we can do about it.

So, appreciate the volunteers you do have, treat them well, and hope you never have to rely on the complainers to do it.

*Actually, I have to confess I probably wouldn’t. Because I do help at BAA, and it is an expectation of entry that flyball teams help to ring party, so I always help at every flyball tournament I attend as well. KC shows are my 1-in-3 show where I don’t help out, which I think is fair.

ETA: A point I just remembered, and probably should have added. I don’t seriously think that the volunteering situation in the UK is a problem. Remember, an average sized show here has 8-12 rings running simultaneously, all staffed with enough happy volunteers to keep shows running and expanding. Of course, we do other things differently too which probably have a big impact — our classes are bigger (200 dogs is average for a class), cheaper (£2.80 a run avg at the moment, that’s $4.50), and because shows are geographically closer together, there’s a lot of “I’ll help at your show if you help at mine”. I wonder how much of an impact that has on the amount of people volunteering? I think Daisy Peel actually looked at this cross-Atlantic problem really well, and made me appreciate the system we have here.