Category Archives: Courses

Agility Courses, exercises & sequences

Hare’n'Hounds

  By Leanne | February 13, 2010 - 10:13 pm | Agility, Courses, Dylan, Videos
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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

  By Leanne | January 4, 2010 - 8:35 pm | Agility, Courses, Dylan
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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!

pstpl030110Primary 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.

Wyre Agility

  By Leanne | December 7, 2009 - 2:19 pm | Agility, Courses, Dylan, Kim
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This is my traditional end-of-year show now, I think! We’ve done it since 2004, it was the first show that Kim properly behaved at and I felt relaxed and we just had fun. The year after, we came 4th in the Starters Agility Challenge, her best ever placing as a Large Dog. The year after that, 2006, she was re-measured Medium; a very very good day. 2007 we did one of the best runs we’ve ever done, but got E’d … oops! Nothing special happened last year, but that’s hardly a reason to break with tradition!

Kim

This was Kim’s first show since the BAA Finals in August, and was really just a test to see if she wanted to do any agility or not. She’s been really enjoying training, and I know she likes it at Myerscough, so I thought we’d give it a go and see how she got on.

Her first class was Combined 3-5 Jumping, a tricky course but nothing that should have been particularly challenging for Kim. The ring next door was the Large 4-5 Jumping, and they had a run of jump-jump-tunnel going next to the barrier fencing that seperated it from our ring. This is important later!

Kim did a beautiful wait start, negotiated the first three obstacles speedily and happily, and then turned around and raced alongside the dog in the next ring, barking her head off furiously. Cue complete shock from handler! I was mortified; she’s never done this in her life before, but thankfully it didn’t affect the other dog’s run and Kim came back once I’d called her, although she wasn’t at all apologetic. Maybe this makes her one of those out-of-control dogs that the Kennel Club want to get rid of?!

She then raced around the rest of the course but proceeded to go and say hi to the judge, look blankly at the weaves, argue with me about 8 or 9 weaves, and then race off to finish. She looked like a complete baby dog at her first show, not a 9-year-old Grade 5 dog. Result = 15 faults and 16 time faults. I’ll just go and hide my head in shame …

It was safe to say she was cheerful though. She got E’d in the 3-5 Agility, due to handler error, and then went clear in the Olympia Qualifier, which was too fast a course for us to get placed on (even Julie’s speed demon Charlie only came 10th, which should indicate just how fast it was!)
Wyre Combined 3-5 Agility Course Plan

Dylan

Combined 3-5 Agility (Part 1) was a fairly straightforward course, a few angled jumps that caused a few problems, and a pull in on a 3-sided box that really threw a lot of people. I elected to take Dylan right and through the “empty” side of the box, which was the longer route but not as risky. It paid off because we came 11th, very pleased to say it was 3-5! His dogwalk wasn’t as good as it had been at Wilmslow, and I held the contact, so we lost time there. He was also very wide on what should have been the wrap-turn, my fault but something to work on.

Graded 3-5 Agility was over the same course as Kim had run, so I knew which mistakes not to make again! Dylan self-released his Aframe contact, and his dogwalk was a little creepy, but he had no problems with the weave entry, unlike almost every other dog I saw run. Anyway, we were clear, but I didn’t think we had any chance of being placed. There were 189 Grade 3 dogs, which made it one of the biggest Grade 3 classes I think we’ve ever run in, and on past form that was just too competitive for Dylan.

Scurried off to run the 1-3 Jumping at this point, it required a wait start which Dylan promptly broke and left me flailing behind him. Somehow scraped through anyway but I knew it just wasn’t going to go well from then on, and it didn’t! Dyl decided he’d never seen 9 weaves before in his life and we needed 3 attempts to get it right, very frustrating as we do 9 weaves in training fairly regularly, and he’s always flown through without a problem. We obviously need to work some more on that!

Dylan was done for the day at this point, and Kim had just run her last class, when there was a tannoy annoucement calling Dylan and I for a run-off in the Graded 3-5 Agility. Since I still had Kim, I sent my lovely mother to let the ring now I was on my way, switched dogs and ran back in, trying to remember the course! I lost the coin toss, but the other person elected to go 2nd which is what I would have chosen anyway. I pushed it, we knocked a second off our original time, but sadly that Aframe self-release came back to haunt us, and Dylan missed his contact. The other person then took it steady and went clear, and won the run off … for 2nd place.

Dylan came 3rd.

Waldridge Fell (Indoor)

  By Leanne | February 8, 2009 - 1:58 pm | Agility, Courses, Dylan, Kim
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Waldridge Fell, Rings 1 and 2Such an early start! This is probably the furthest show I’m prepared to travel to for a day trip, and I wouldn’t want to do it very often. Kim did not want to get up.

Met up with Emma for our epic road trip at 6am. We set off in the ice and snow but the weather got better as we went further North (weirdly!). The venue was lovely, loads of room and very warm, which was especially useful when it started snowing! We met up with Cat and her gorgeous pair; I hope she won’t mind me saying how super-slim and sleek Gypsy was looking, she does not look 9 years old!

Kim’s first run was Combined 1-7 Jumping. All Kim’s runs were combined 1-7 (or Open) which was the only negative to the show really, but I’d decided to just go and see how she could do, and give Dylan the chance to have some nice classes for once. Kim’s course was not ideal for my leggy Medium, it was a nice straightforward kind of course but very tightly spaced, minimum distances all the way around. Big poleknocker course! Anyway, Kim had a lovely run, she hit her strides perfectly and did some tight turns around the corners, nice fast weaves (well, fast weaves for Kim!) and a clear in 22.223s which eventually put her 4th. I nearly died of shock! She was beaten by three Grade 7′s including the current Olympia Champion, so very, very, pleased.

The agility was a course I knew Kim was going to like. I’ve actually never run a bad course under that particular judge and he gives lots of room for the Mediums/Smalls to stretch their legs like the Large dogs. Shame it included our old nemesis, the dogwalk-jump end sequence. She blew the contact (oops) but we had a nice run and I think she was the fastest 5f so can’t complain too much!

Final run was jumping again and a better course, although it started with a pinwheel which I know isn’t Kim’s favourite sequence. She likes me to be running with her, and it’s hard to run with your dog on a pinwheel! So a pretty slow start but she picked up until we hit the weaves again, when she popped the last 2 and carried on to the next obstacle. It’s not like Kim to pop her weaves but it could have been my fault, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt and took her back. Same result, popped the last 2, so brought her back again and this time had a look at the weaves themselves. The crossbar was totally exposed and sticking up out of the dirt on the stride for the second to last pole, and she’d obviously spotted it and balked. Carried on and Kim finished happy, and the ring crew covered it up for the next dog.

Waldridge Fell Graded 3-4 Agility/Combined 1-7 AgilityDylan’s Graded 3-4 Agility was the same course as Kim’s Open Agility, very suited to Dylan, if only he had a good handler! It had a jump-Aframe-weaves opening sequence, and Dylan flew down into his FP on the Aframe. I moved off slightly and stuck my hand out to make sure he didn’t fly past the weave entry, and for whatever reason Dylan thought I was indicating something on the floor, which he duly went to look at. Brought him back and he nailed the weaves, flew around and didn’t freak out at the seesaw and then, even better, didn’t freak out at the dogwalk! Just a small checked stride rather than full extension but much better than he’s done for months, it totally made my day. He got loads of cuddles afterwards from Emma, Cat and I, which totally made his day too.

Graded 1-3 Jumping was on the same spacing as Kim’s first jumping class, which if it was unsuited to Kim was never going to be good for Dylan! He tried his hardest for me but couldn’t make the first turn in time and got a refusal, but we stayed cheerful and he finished in a very respectable time considering he was checking his stride the whole way around the course. (Without the refusal, he would have been comfortably in the placings).

Graded 3-4 Jumping was more Dylan’s thing, but he had to run cold as they announced the class was closing as Kim was running her second jumping class, and so after running up to the car and swapping dogs, Dylan had no time for a warm up as he was straight on the line. Again, he tried very hard for me and actually had a good first half, but I made a daft mistake and he got another refusal, and we lost it a bit after that.

One of those “personal victories” days rather than a major rosette haul, but we had a fab time and were home for 7pm despite the 2h 30m drive.