Hare ‘n’ Hounds Easter Show

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Leanne

Imagine a sea of mud, stretching as far as the eye can see …

Well, it started ok on Friday. A little cold, a little damp, but nice. The weekend didn’t start all that fortuitously when I ran the Combined 1-3 Jumping, Dyl popped the last 2 weave poles (setting a trend for the weekend there) and then I completely forgot where I was going. The only word to describe it was shambles, frankly. Dylan then ran with Cat in Junior Agility, and was a freaked out little puppy … well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He likes Cat, and got around the course, but really couldn’t understand why he was running with her when me and Katie and everyone were stood right there.

Happily, improvement was made! Doc’s Graded 1-4 Agility was lovely, and Dyl went clear but chose to creep his dogwalk. Still, stayed in the weaves and steadied for his wrap at the end nicely! We came 6th in a surprising turn of events, I didn’t think Dylan was particularly fast but it turned out there were fewer clears than expected – possibly due to the ground, which was (unknowingly) setting the theme for the next 3 days. Dylan also ran with Cat in Junior Jumping, and apart from being an airy fairy, he was much better.

Graded 1-4 Jumping was a nice course, but not really suited to Dylan; it would have been perfect for Kim! Some tight spacings and some slightly awkward turns for the longer striding dogs, but we scraped around and came 8th. We finished up with a good run in the final class of the day, the Combined 1-3, really lovely dogwalk but a little creepy on the Aframe and seesaw. The dogwalk obviously made up for it though, as we came 6th again! Very pleased, it was a good result in a big class.

We went to Tracy’s Quiz, and when we emerged some hours later, poorer and perhaps a little tipsy, the world had turned and the ground was increasingly resembling a swamp land. It didn’t get any better, and the show organisers wisely chose to cancel Saturday’s classes. A handful of people went home (Emma!) but I actually think most people stayed, which was nice. We had a relaxing Saturday, and may have danced when the sun came out at 5pm. In the short hours before sunset, the sun worked it’s magic and we were cautiously optimistic about Sunday.*

*Ok, Katie was very optimistic, and Cat and I were patiently sceptical. It balances out.

Cat went home Sunday morning, which we were sad about but it did mean I couldn’t traumatise Dyl with any more Junior classes. We ran the Combined 1-3 Agility and Dylan again freaked out at the dogwalk, but after watching 90% of the dogs in the class do the same, I was hopeful for the rest of the day. We spoke to the very lovely judge who said he could see the dogwalk was clearly a problem, but by the time the pattern had been established, it was too late to change things. It was solid, not bouncing or rocking, and the approach was straightforward. It wasn’t slippy or hot/cold underfoot, so we have no idea why all the dogs slammed on the brakes on the up-plank, but they did! Anyway, we were clear, but the dogwalk shenanigans cost us too much time and we finished 6th.

Lovely dogwalk in the Grade 3 Agility, which was the same equipment as the C1-3. The course was nice but I think we got E’d … for some reason this course is a complete blank, I’m pretty sure we got E’d but I haven’t a clue how, where or why! The Grade 3 Jumping was a lovely course, consisting just of jumps and tunnels but just the right amount of challenge vs. go. Dylan was running nicely but I fell over a jump wing and completely confused the poor lad, so we got another big E. I don’t think I did the course justice! Katie and Jet definitely did though, since they came 2nd.

Finally, Doc’s Combined 1-3 Jumping, a nice smooth course with a very fast line right around the outside of the ring. I figured we had no chance, much too fast a course, but we gave it a good shot and Dyl worked the wing wrap at the end really nicely. Surprisingly we finished up 3rd! We’ve never even placed higher than 6th in Jumping, so that was a lovely surprise.

Monday morning dawned bright and chirpy with a very chilly breeze! Graded 1-3 Agility up first, last chance to chase the win, and we blew it on the second obstacle by popping the last 2 weave poles! Bit gutted as Dyl did a lovely run, beautiful contacts including a lovely fast, confident dogwalk. Must work on the weave popping!

Graded 1-3 Jumping was a course I loved, really big open spaces and a flowing course, but with some unusual challenges which made the handlers really work from beginning to work. We stood and watched quite a lot of the class, which made for interesting viewing! I only saw 1 person flick their dog to the right of 6 and then bring them down the outside of the tunnel, which had been my plan from when we walked it originally. Sticking to the plan worked, because Dyl’s run was absolutely awesome. He was eating up the ground, lovely and extended and smooth in his jumping, nailed the weaves and turning tight when necessary. We had just one break in the flow, coming over 15 at the end, where he broke stride and stepped in towards the final jump. He came back onto line when I called, but then he broke stride again, checked in with me, and then committed to 16. He was moving forward constantly, and we probably wasted 0.5s at most through a lack of momentum, but it felt like a lifetime! We finished 3rd, but only fractions seperated us from 1st/2nd. It’s the only time that I have ever felt we were chasing 1st, I was absolutely buzzing after we’d run!

Combined 3-4 Agility was a wicked little course, including a brush fence and a wall (I love this stuff, please can we have more!) but it was the best agility run Dylan did all weekend … except for popping the last 2 weave poles again. Arg! I was in raptures over his dogwalk, I think I might be dreaming about it for the next month. Was a bit worried about the increasingly gale force winds, but he kept balanced throughout, never flinched at the “unusual” obstacles and he bounced the corner going into the dogwalk. Shame about the big E, but I’m still very proud of that run!

Combined 3-4 Jumping was a boring little jump/tunnel course, no weaves or much of a challenge, especially compared to the lovely G1-3 earlier. We toodled around it, clear but uninspired, and finished up 17th.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but I realise now that I never walked a course this weekend and worried about Dylan being able to handle it, I just trusted him. It was also nice being up North, because although a lot of the names in the results were familiar to me, I didn’t know anyone well enough to go out and compete specifically to beat them. It was all about getting Dylan to run as best he could, about me attacking the courses and both of us just relaxing and having a blast. Which we did!

Agility at Crufts 2010

Posted on March 18, 2010 by Leanne

Lots and lots of agility, there was no way we could watch all of it and do everything else we planned, sadly! We chose to miss most of Thursday and Friday, but earmarked the International and the Championship on Saturday and Sunday as definites. We did manage to catch some of the other competitions, like the Mini/Mixi pairs and the Mini Circular Knockout, but it was a little bit hit-and-miss.

One of my favourite competitions is the International event on Saturday, so that had a very big tick next to the Must See box. I love seeing the different handling techniques, and the difference between the dogs. I have a particular soft spot for the Polish dog, it’s been for the last couple of years and is just absolutely stunning. But of course, we were rooting for Lucy and Ben! Videos below …

International Jumping

WALES: Mark Douglas and Ag.Ch. Cories Ruby Tuesday

ENGLAND: Lucy Osborne and Ben Bombastic Mr Fantastic

International Agility

POLAND: Magdelena Ziolkowska and Leck Bohemia Alke

NETHERLANDS: Roy Fonteijn and Flynn

FINLAND: Niina Liina Linna and Tending Chimera

International Agility Final

CZECH REPUBLIC: Radovan Liska and Amulet for Luck

Sadly the camera battery died at this stage, oops! Apologies for the quality too, the Olympus is pretty old now and the videos don’t handle compression well.

The Championships on Sunday were fantastic, thoroughly enjoyed all of it! Really chuffed for Nicola Garrett and Indiana (Ag.Ch. Obay Truly Driven), this is the 3rd time they’ve won the small Championship and I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever seen him move so fast. Toni Dawkins and Kite stormed home for the Medium (second year running!) and I was rooting for Kite in the Large, but she finished up with the Reserve to Mark Laker and Kodi. I really like watching Mark Laker run, he’s super quiet and understated and it works so well, very deserving winner.

I’ve included photos of the courses we watched, both with and without numbers. The numbered courses are a larger image size.

ABC Jumping (I think?!) (Natasha Wise)

International Agility (Natasha Wise)

Championship Agility (Round 2) (Andy Hudson)

Apologies if anything is wrong, I am working from memory!

Tailwaggers #3

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Leanne

What a weird experience – no rain, no snow, no ice! Just a cool but bright day, and standing outside in the sun was lovely. Please can all the future Tailwaggers shows be like this?

Power and Speed first, Dylan’s favourite class. The Jumping section was a little too Helter Skelter for me, and true to form, I made a right hash of it and pulled Dyl off a jump mid way around. Oops! Took lots of stick about that from … well, nearly everyone, but mainly Rob, Vicki and Lindsay! I was good and held all his contacts properly in the Power section; we took our time and Dyl looked fab.

Tunnel Teaser was … interesting? The course was the same for all the levels, and it was a pure killer, E’s all over the place! I wasn’t worried about the traps but I was very concerned about remembering where I was going! I felt a little bad for Dylan, he tried for me like he always does, but I was really unsure about what I was doing and my hesitation made him steady up. There also wasn’t anywhere to pick up speed, it was constant turning and call-offs. We went clear anyway, and then finished up 1st! So that’s our first Jumping win towards Novice, which is rather unexpected! To be honest, there were only 2 clears, but Dylan beat 2nd by 11s and his time would have put him 3rd in the Novice and 2nd in the Graduate Plus, so maybe he wasn’t so slow after all.

I made sure to tell everyone that I was going to hold Dyl’s contacts in Primary Agility, just so they could call me out on it if I didn’t. But I did! I had to, otherwise I would have died of oxygen deprivation, since it was the longest course in existence. The judge runs a very drivey Weimeraner, and it showed in the course design! Dylan ran it like a star, he was clearly enjoying himself out there and he did a beautiful sliding seesaw stop, just like training! We pulled off a flick around at the top of the course (13-15) and it was just a nice run. We finished up 4th, about a second behind Vicki’s Diesel who had a really beautiful run – I think he’d win it but apparently not!

Primary Jumping was a bit of a wicked course, but if it went well it would flow nicely. I really went for it with Dylan and we were having a flying round, really smooth, until I messed up off Jump 12, oops! I thought Dylan was most likely to take the far tunnel entry, but I pulled him with me for the nearside. I dithered, he dithered, we wasted 3 hours deciding whether to do the tunnel or not. Refusal! This is clearly a recurring theme. Must work on spatial awareness and remember that Dyl always clings tighter in the ring. We finally got it back together and finished up without getting E’d, but we’d lost the plot slightly by that point and I cued Dyl for a flick back at 16 which I hadn’t intended, which also wasted a lot of time. Anyway, despite the 5R, we came 7th (fastest 5 faults) and would have walked away with another 1st if I hadn’t been an idiot. How often do I say that!?

All these results put us up near the top of all the League Tables, which I’m thankful for. We are skipping a couple of the usual BAA shows either for flyball or closer BAA shows, so I knew we needed some good early results to keep us in contention for promotion next year. Having said that, Dyl just needs one more Agility and Jumping win now to go into Novice, which is both awesome and terrifying!

Hare’n'Hounds

Posted on February 13, 2010 by Leanne

Lovely show, but South Durham always put on a good competition. No weaves in any of the classes though, but apparently they couldn’t peg them down. Some of the rings were a bit … oddly shaped, but I don’t really mind that. Anyone with a bit of imagination can put up an interesting course in any space, and I like interesting courses! Some judges were brilliant at this, others not so much.

Graded 1-3 Jumping, and I knew this was not going to be Dyl’s course. Very tight spacing for Dyl, and lots of boring pinwheels/boxes for me. We did a reasonable run, a bit hairy in places poles-wise but tidy turns. I was pleased to see that Dyl was clearly wanting to stretch out and have a blast around, but as soon as he picked up any speed he was braking again to get the strides in. I find it hard to handle when I’m just stood pointing too, so that probably didn’t help. We finished up 8th in the Grade 3, so not so bad in the end.

Walked both the agility courses at the same time, and would have loved to run the G1-3 first, but the Combined 1-4 was running much faster and with Dylan having a lower running order, we had to go for that first.

Five faults, oops! My fault, I early-released and he blew right over that contact. I should know better! I took my foot off the gas then and we made the pinwheel look a bit untidy, and I wasn’t clear enough with Dyl on the run to the last jump about where we were going, so he hesitated for a moment. Fractions of seconds, but if we’d gone clear we’d have placed 6th out of the 220+ dogs, so I’m quite pleased with that. Must practise pinwheels though (even if they are boring!), and look at that terrible jumping action … arg! This was his worst run in terms of fluidity of movement, by a noticable margin.

Graded 1-3 Agility was a superfast course, the only potential problem was a pull-thru at 9-10. Dyl shot off like a rocket, actually showed some of that lovely training speed! Carried that through for a nice Aframe and a really perfect seesaw, but I steadied him up a little bit too much for the pull-thru* and then made a right hash of the ending so we lost too much time there. Surprisingly came 5th regardless, which was a genuine shock!

Final run was Combined 1-7 Jumping (Part 1), and both splits had 157 dogs. I was very jealous of the Part 2 lot as they had a fab course, lots of long stretchy sections and a real flow. Part 1 was a bit more technical, lots of tight turns and those boxes and pinwheels again … Dyl actually ran this with the most enthusiasm and extension he’d had all day, but naturally I was all over the place! I was concentrating too much on remembering where I was going and not tripping over things, which meant I was late on almost all my cues. Poor Dylbert! We had a couple of late hesitations which put us waaaay out of the running, although we were never even in it to begin with as it was 1-7. We got a nice 22nd though, or so Vicki tells me (thanks!).

Congrats to all the usual gang; Julie & Charlie/Gertie/Winnie, Leah & Stan/Doris, Vicki & Diesel/Pippa, Candy & Freddie, Katie & Jet, Orienne & Woody/Murphy, Paul & Farley, all the Wakefield crew, and probably at least six people I’ve forgotten! This was a pretty sizable indoor show but I still couldn’t escape talking to at least 20 people I knew everytime I went for a stroll. Good stuff!

*Expect in-depth analysis of one small half-checked stride in the coming days. I’m becoming an obsessive …

Tailwaggers #01

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Leanne

Very nearly the coldest I have ever been in my life. I have only been colder once, and that was at EMDAC’s 50th Show. I actually think the temperature was lower this time (suffice to say we didn’t get above freezing), but I had twice the layers on.

Dylan also thought it was bloody cold. He was not happy about getting out of his nice warm bed in the car, and he was much with the pitiful “neglected dog” expressions as we trundled in to warm up in the arena before the Primary Agility. This was Dyl’s first show at Primary, and I haven’t done any Primary classes for 18 months, so it was a bit of a mixup for both of us! Happily there were no nerves; I know Dylan can comfortably run these kind of courses as Primary is pretty much the equivilent of Grade 3, and I wasn’t out of my depth either. Our plan for a slow warm-up didn’t quite go as hoped, as we were called to run almost immediately and had to go in almost cold.

We cruised around clear; Dylan’s contacts were a little slow (seesaw in particular) but I wasn’t exactly on the ball either, so I can’t blame him. We came 2nd anyway, which was great – our first Primary class! – and we were beaten by a fair distance (nearly 3s) but I know we had plenty of ground to make up. I didn’t expect a placing at all!

Primary Steeplechase was another nice course, very blasty as a Steeplechase should be, but way too fast a course for Dyl. He ran much better though, and we were starting to hit our stride. We came 6th, less than 2s off the winner who is a cracking fast dog (she also won the Agility, and was 2nd in the Power and Speed).

We had a long break then waiting for our next class, so I sat and helped on Ring 1, had a chat with plenty of people I haven’t see for a while, and hopefully helped some new Introductory handlers figure out their ringcards and running orders. I thought it would be a good idea to run in the Pay on the Day class before our Power and Speed, so off we went. Here’s where you insert the flashing “wrong decision!” sign …

Dyl ran beautifully in the POTD, confident and working his contacts with a fair turn of speed (we have work to do, still). The last line was a neatly spaced set of 4 jumps, probably slightly over minimum distance. Dylan decided to try and bounce the middle 2 jumps, and you have never seen such a spectacular failure. It was painful. He had completely committed to the second jump, and from what I can see on the video, he just chickened out at the last second, or just completely failed to make it. Either way, he faceplanted into the dirt, skidded along on his nose for a foot or so, and then fell over the last jump. It was not pretty.

Confidence demolished (much like the previous course!) we went and ran the Power and Speed. Lovely contacts, but oh-so-hesitant jumping, super cautious and toooo slooooow. Came 4th anyway, but not good enough! He picked up slightly in the Primary Jumping, but I made a hash of the handling and we got a big E.

Anyway, Tailwaggers did an awesome job of their first show, lovely rosettes and lovely prizes. Fantastic venue as well with a brilliant surface, it’s just a shame all I’ll ever remember is freezing to death and negotiating the car-park ice sheet! I spent all day wishing I had Diesel‘s very warm-looking floofy coat (this coat is the reason Dylan doesn’t like Diesel, I think. Dylan’s not that bright, and D looks much bigger than him. He doesn’t know it’s all floof!) and cuddling him as much as possible, and making Bob Scott’s Twig wiggle as much as I could (although I was mauled by the world’s most enthusiastic Golden Retreiver, Jackson, at one point as well. Another dog with a ferocious wiggle). Dylan thinks Twig is a more respectable size and said hello quite nicely, although he wasn’t so keen on the poking. Julie’s Alfie has traumatized him for life on that front.