Tailwaggers Nov

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Leanne

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.

Rocket Relay Seminar #2

Posted on October 24, 2011 by Leanne

Thoroughly enjoyed this second seminar. Team Fever (http://www.flyballfever.com/) did another awesome job organising, and Kelly and Aaron from Rocket Relay were as good as they were last time they visited the UK in March.

Lots of new things to work on, and a lot of new insights for me personally. I know a lot more about BAT training for behaviour than I did at the start of the summer, and it was interesting to see how much of this training is linked to that idea of considering thresholds, and teaching the dog a better behaviour rather than just managing the problem.

Having been at both seminars helping, it was interesting to see how many people had progressed and how many people hadn’t. Personally, I have worked really hard to get Dylan switched to a tug. He is now at the stage where he will switch 100% of the time and is actually spitting the ball on occasion now we’ve reached that point. A lot of other people have obviously worked on the same thing as there was much less ball obsession this time around. Progress!

It was also really satisfying to see Emma run Diva in her private lesson. I’ve been boxloading for Diva in training to keep things consistent for her and so I volunteered to boxload again at the seminar, and so I got a front row seat. Emma held off starting most of Diva’s training until after the first seminar, and has worked really hard with her. It paid off because she was fantastic in her lesson, just little tweaks for Emma. I can’t wait to see her debut next year, I think she’s going to surprise a lot of people. Watch this space!

Not so good for Dylan over at Drax though, due to a team member pulling out the night before (grr), Dyl ended up in an NFC team with 2 dogs from Rotherham, plus Roi and George from our own team. My mum was handling and made the very wise decision to pull him out completely after the first race as despite racing perfectly, he was getting uncomfortable and stressed about the situation. This is such a good example of how much inconsistency and change can upset a dog; our intention was to change one thing about Dylan’s normal flyball situation by running him with a new handler (bearing in mind the intended handler was my mum, who lives in the same house and runs him at training regularly, but has never done so in competition without unfortunate consequences). Instead he ended up with a new handler, a new boxloader, a new box, and 2 new dogs on the team (plus he doesn’t particularly like Drax as a venue anyway). It was far too much change for him and I am so glad mum spotted it and pulled him out.

Of course, on the other hand is Kim. She is way more experienced and it showed. She was totally unphased and so completely kicked ass despite running with a handler she had never met before, on a new box with a new boxloader. (Um, thanks Beth for stepping in and running a strange dog!)

Dinnington Flyball

Posted on August 2, 2010 by Leanne

I wasn’t expecting to enjoy Dinnington as much as I did, but it was a bit of a blast from the past; tiny one day tournament at a nice venue on good ground, just three divisions and a proper set of Starters, and the weather held all day. Done and dusted by 5:30pm.

We knew this was going to be our prep tournament for the Champs, and we also knew we were going to need the training as gypsies have taken over our training ground, leaving us without anywhere to train at the moment. Typical!

Dylan’s team was a bit of a mixed bag, we’ve been running together for 6 months but we just don’t seem to be gelling, I don’t know why. We are getting better, and we’re throwing out consistent times, but I don’t feel like this lineup is working.

Kim and Mollie’s team were … unexpected. We were seeded on 22.25, and I was pretty hopeful we would get under 22s and get the girls some points. I wasn’t expecting great things as the top seed was on 20.92, which we seemed unlikely to run. And then we ran 21.12 twice for the first race, with the slowest dog on the team in, a 6s dog.

And then, second race, we broke out. The girls ran a 19.82 … I actually thought Katie was joking, and then we ran 19.90, and broke out again, and just, what!? How can a team seeded on 22.25 run 19.82? Day, made. (Of course, this does put us in a bit of a bind for the Champs, where we are seeded on 22.25 and the slowest dog from this weekend is being replaced by a faster one. And the divisions will be closely seeded, meaning the break-out time is likely to be 21.00 at best).

Meanwhile, I told Katie I wanted some more Flybe pictures, since the blue puppy is 6months old and I haven’t seen her for a month. Fly wasn’t so much into the photos at first.

But she came around!

Dinnington Div1

Originally uploaded by kayanem

My trusty camera camera buddy Emma snapped a couple of random shots, and so did I. Click to view.

Diva – 18 Weeks

Posted on April 27, 2010 by Leanne

Still living up to her name.

For more Diva photos, look here.

Puppy Photoshoots

Posted on April 10, 2010 by Leanne

Beautiful day for photos, even if my dogs had all collapsed into small panting heaps in the shade. It’s a warm day for flyball training! Kim is at home, of course, having had 8 stitches in yesterday. More on that later, I think … ! In the meantime, has anyone noticed just how hard it is to photograph an 18week old Viszla puppy?

Emma has been struggling to get some good shots of puppy Diva, because she only has two hands and you need at least three just to control the puppy. Since I had my camera at flyball training this morning anyway, I volunteered at flyball to try my best … not sure if that was a good idea or not! Diva really lives up to her name, she’s demanding and intelligent and gorgeous. She also does not like to stay still!

Thankfully we did get some good shots in the end, although I think it was more fluke than skill.