Category Archives: Agility

Hare’n'Hounds Xmas 2011

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Dylan had a complete meltdown in the first run, he didn’t start off very well but as we got to the seesaw he shut off entirely. I’ve never had that happen before and to be honest, I don’t know what I can do about it now; he was fine on the seesaw at training and at Tailwaggers, and in the other classes after his flyoff a month ago at HnH. I ignored it and carried on but I don’t know if that was the best thing to do.

First jumping was an ok course and we meandered round, Dylan still wasn’t going well and I think we went clear but in a very boring slow kind of way.

I missed walking G6-7 Agility and it was quite a tricky course, we had a very slow start (Aframe call-off, Dylan’s least favourite thing) but picked up. We got 5f for a missed dogwalk contact, which was a shame. Not a tear your hair out miss, just a no-stop miss, so I need to proof that more in competitions.

G5-7 Jumping was actually quite a hard course which I completely failed to walk, again, but I watched Tracy run Eric around and do a great job so I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do. We rocked the first part and then I forgot where I was going for a second, which meant we were very wide around to the weaves, not what I wanted! We finished 9th anyway, which is our first G6 placing, not too shabby. I know we have the training under our belt, we just need to lock into Dylan’s higher gears. We won’t win out of G6 but I’d like to hope we could get some placings.

His final run in the BC Jumping was his best run of the day, shame we got E’d! Much smoother, driven jumping, just a shame it took us five runs to get to that point. I thought I handled it ok but as Dylan sailed past me in the opposite direction to where I was going, maybe not. There is always something to work on!

I was not at all switched on, I missed walking all but 2 of his classes, much more concerned with making sure Rio was ok at her first show experience and chatting to Cat.

Breathe Easy

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So, doing the list of what Rio is doing at 12 weeks actually made me breathe a little easier. I’ve been worried I’m not doing enough with her, but when seeing it all written out I feel like we’re doing ok. She’s only been here 2.5weeks, we’re fitting everything in. Her 14-days waiting for the vaccinations to clear is going to take us just past Hare’n'Hounds November, so I’m dithering a bit over whether to take her. She’ll be 2 days away from her “official” 2 week mark, I don’t know how much of a difference 2 weeks is going to make. I don’t intend to take her indoors anyway, and she’ll be meeting minimal dogs and people (for a show) as I don’t want to overwhelm her (or for her to meet inappropriate dogs and people!)

Dylan worked really well at training this week, super jumping style and lots of confidence, even on the seesaw. After the flyoff at Hare’n'Hounds I decided to take a slightly different approach, on the idea that Dyl does actually know what he should do, and maybe if I carried on as normal it wouldn’t repeat. So we didn’t train it in between Hare’n'Hounds and Tailwaggers, and then we didn’t train it the week after Tailwaggers either. This week was the first time he’s seen it again, and he was fine.

His aframe is looking really kind of lovely right now, I have no idea why. Not complaining, but it’s nice.

Tailwaggers Nov

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Back over at Tailwaggers this winter, they’ve done unaffiliated and I don’t blame them as the BAA has completely gone off the rails with some truly ludicrous rule changes amongst other things. Shame as it had the potential to be a great organization, but I won’t be bothering with it anymore.

Dylan and I were there to train only, the Senior classes were pretty big for an unaffiliated (50-60 dogs) and most of them were really good. We had a clear in the Steeplechase and came 9th, 2s off the winner, and it was not a particularly good run. Dylan’s jumping however was really nice, and it proved that his times are better when running in third or fourth gear and having smooth jumping, than running flat out and having poor jumping.

I trained his Agility; he set off with the same super jumping, and I rewarded his seesaw after the flyoff at HnH the week before. His jumping then went downhill for the rest of the day, I’m not sure what that’s about. Anyway, really nice Aframe and he was literally the only dog in the class that I saw nail the weave entry and stay in them whilst I moved away to the dogwalk. Go Dyl!

We got nothing in the rest of the classes, a slow clear on the fairly simply Jumping course and a big E in Triple A.

I did get to run Emma’s Bailey in her Agility and Triple A, as Emma was concentrating on Diva. We had an unlucky pole in the Agility which was my fault, but we still finished 8th. We had a cracking clear in the Triple A but couldn’t be bothered to wait until prizegiving, but I love running Bails. She’s so well trained, so naughty and fun, and she’s such a fast little cannonball! I might try and borrow her for some proper shows next year. (Just looked up the result, we were 5th. Bailey is amazing.)

Had lots of fun supporting Emma and Diva at their first show, Diva is going to be seriously fast! Some of our other club dogs were there too so it was a worthwhile show just to support people.

Hare’n'Hounds October Halloween

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Kim had a great run first thing in the Combined 1-7 Jumping, a course with just jumps (no tunnels/weaves), so it was a pure speed kind of course. She finished 7th, I think 4/5s off the winners but she was the top Grade 6 by 8 seconds or something ridiculous. That was fun, but frustrating, as I ended up pulling her from the only Graded class of the day as I thought her jumping looked off mid-way through.

I’m not going to keep her going just for the sake of one more win, but it really would be nice for her to reach Grade 7 before she retires. She is skipping the next few months as I don’t trust the weather to stay nice enough for her, but Kim has always preferred running indoors so we’ll see if we can fit in a few more shows before the summer season starts up again.

Dylan had a hesitant run in his first class, an ok run in his second, and then was just beautiful in his last three. His jumping was super, really smooth and no silly stuttering around. We only got one clear, in the G5-7 Jumping, which was in the same ring as Kim’s earlier C1-7, so no tunnels/weaves and a fairly fast, open course. We were well out of the placings but it was a nice run with a moment where I got lost, and we were only 2s off the pace. I’m pretty pleased with that, Dylan and I are at our weakest on these kind of just-jumping fast courses, and this was our first Grade 6 show.

We had a horrible flyoff on the seesaw in the first run of the day, which I was really very surprised about – Dylan does not do flyoffs! I missed walking the course because I was too lazy to get out of the car, and we were running a really nice clear until the second to last obstacle (seesaw). Of course, Kim was in that ring later and she also flew it, so I’m tempted to blame the equipment. I did see a lot of other dogs do the same, clearly surprisingly themselves for the most part.

We had a super tough 6-7 Agility for our first proper G6 class too, a short spaced jump-seesaw line where you had to pull off the seesaw to hit a 120 degree weave entry to double back on yourself (I will try and get a course plan up). We avoided the seesaw and got the entry, but we messed up later on. It did remind me that running G6 with Dylan is actually going to be fun, he has all the training to do these harder courses and I love the handling challenges.

Training & Thoughts

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Fun training session this week. We’ve spent a lot of time this month trying to get everyone to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses so we have things to work on over the winter. So far everyone has something different to work on! This week was our “test week” on big spacey courses, getting the dogs to drive down a long line of jumps. Everyone did well, including Dylan. We’re just having fun at the moment.

Did some contact run throughs as well, I haven’t done any full equipment with him for three weeks, just working on end-position games. We did 2 full dogwalks at the end of the class which were beautiful, I’m excited to see if they hold up in competition!

We also got to chatting about what kind of requirements clubs and training classes should have for new people wanting to join. I think the final agreement was that a solid recall is absolutely necessary, but other than that the dog should have a willingness to work and the handler should have some way of reinforcing the correct behaviour. If you’ve got those three things, you can take any dog to agility or flyball (or whatever) and start work. If you don’t, you need to go away and make sure you have those three things under your belt first!

Also, dogs shouldn’t be fat.