Category Archives: Dylan

Tired Bean

  By Leanne | March 31, 2012 - 10:15 pm | Bailey, Dylan, Flyball, Mollie, Rio, Training
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Very productive flyball training session today. Although we were working the dogs in each team together, we mainly worked on individual stuff. Dylan did some jump-box-6 jumps back. Which is exhausting for me but really gives him a workout! It also encourages him to chase me back; he has always come back off the box faster than he goes up, but it never hurts to drill his recalls more.

Rio did some recalls off the box with a stride regulator in, which was fun! I love seeing her do this, she’s only 7 months old but it’s a restrained recall with a few props and she does 5 recalls maximum. Her first two were with the stride regulator at 13ft, supposedly adjusted for her puppy stride, but she was having to shorten up a lot for that, so we dropped it at 15ft and that worked perfectly. I’m very happy with this method of training so far as Rio already understands her “ready set go”, pushes off the box and is starting to stride properly. That’s with maybe 15 recalls in total and no equipment other than the box to push from.

Mollie did some recalls and looked sound as a bell, I’m so pleased that she’s back on her feet. We can’t be 100% sure what the lump in her muscle is without going in (which we don’t want to do if we can help it!) but it is leaning towards being scar tissue with the way she’s recovered. It was good to see Bailey is back on form as well after last weekend!

7 Months

After we got home from flyball, Rio and I toodled up to Springers Spring Fling. This show is just up the road from me but I didn’t want to enter Dylan in anything before our big 3-day at Easter. It’s also a bit awkward as I didn’t leave this club amiably all those years ago, although I’m still friends with a lot of people who train there. But I wanted to support some of our training buddies, and it was a good opportunity to take Rio to a show and focus on her alone.

Our friends all did great, and Rio enjoyed her meet-and-greet! She did freak out at the tannoy a little bit, but as soon as it stopped she forgot about it and resumed her bouncy explorations. She also met the adorable Eddie Beagle, who is a month younger than Rio and can kick her ass in play-games already. What a star! Of course, nobody could believe Rio is an Aussie, but she doesn’t look like one at the moment so maybe I can forgive them. She was exhausted by the end of the afternoon, flyball and a show in one day is tiring stuff.

She’s going tent shopping and then to Pets at Home tomorrow with Kim, somehow my weekends off end up busier than the weekends I’m competing!

Drax & a Mollie Update

  By Leanne | March 26, 2012 - 4:47 pm | Bailey, Dylan, Flyball, Health, Kim, Mollie, Rio
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Mollie is much better. We still aren’t sure what is wrong but she’s has been to the vet, got herself some shots and some medication, and she’s improving dramatically. Still on lead walks due to the injury, but so much more herself.

Just Dylan and Rio went to Drax, and I took Bailey as well. We desperately needed a height dog for our bottom team and Bails would also bring some much needed speed, so despite Emma being away in London she still got to come and play. It was fun running a little dog again as well!

Dylan’s team got themselves a new seedtime but they ran like a scratch team, which is what they are. Each of the dogs ran well individually, but there was very little cohesiveness between the five. Our fastest time was 19.17 (seeded on 19.25) but we were often a second slower than that with the same lineup and we took a lot of races to five legs when we really shouldn’t have. Finished 2nd in the end by the skin of our teeth! I actually think these five dogs could make a pretty good lineup but I don’t think they’ll run together again, which is frustrating.

Bailey’s team had a good start to the day and some great racing in Division 8. Unfortunately Bails slipped off the box on the first race in the afternoon, so I pulled her and the team had to go NFC. It’s always disappointing when that happens but there was no way any of us were prepared to run Bailey again, even if she kept insisting she was fine. The team weren’t on for any placings or new seed times anyway, they were already missing Mollie from the lineup.

Rio had a lovely day, she’s feeling like Miss Confident at the moment which means the whole world must want to be her best friend. She was very social and outgoing all day, mugging people and dogs at every opportunity. Thankfully she isn’t being obnoxious about it, when dogs indicated they wanted her to go away she obliged. Her recall was much better too, probably partly because the exercise area at Drax is miniscule.

Kim - Ice Blue Moon

Kim wasn’t there to pick up her Ice Blue Moon award, but she finally got it. I may have welled up for a second on seeing her certificate and glass; I remember starting to compete with Kim and being so envious of those people collecting their fancy boxes. I knew Kim was an awesome flyballer but I didn’t ever think we’d compete enough to get that many points (20,000!). Turns out she was awesome enough to get that many points despite not competing very often anyway.

Remembering to Breathe

  By Leanne | March 23, 2012 - 7:41 pm | Dylan, Kim, Rio, Training, Walk
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Today’s walk did not start out well. I took Dylan, Kim and Rio and stocked up on 1000 treats to reward Rio’s recall. We walked for 20minutes and Rio was appalling, barely recalling 50% of the time and haring off waaay out of sight.

Cue stressed, tense owner. And then I realised what an idiot I was being. So I remembered to breathe, kept my head down, kept walking, and stopped calling her. I have learnt this lesson before, many times, but sometimes I have to be reminded. Rio and I were fighting and it was going downhill. I didn’t think she was checking in with me enough, and as I responded by asking her to check in all the time, she responded by never checking in at all.

As soon as I stopped calling her every 2 minutes, we all relaxed, and guess what? She started responding to her recall again. By the end of the walk she was checking in frequently and voluntarily, just as often as Kim. Dylan is permanently checked in.

I can’t believe she’s 7 months old now, I need some more photos this week. The fur is slowly starting to grow now!

Tailwaggers March 2012

  By Leanne | March 6, 2012 - 11:00 am | Agility, Courses, Dylan, Videos
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I only entered Dylan at this show, and I only entered it as a whole bunch of people said they were going and then they didn’t. I’m not bitter.

It was a good chance to see if Dylan really was ok though, since Novice+ courses tend to have a few more straight lines of obstacles and generally are faster courses. It’s usually filled with really good G6/7 dogs training but there were quite a few of the usual dogs missing, mainly because they’d all been at Ribble.

We got some lovely courses all day; the jumping classes were generally challenging but fair, and the Agility classes were big open easy runs. Dylan’s first class was Novice+ Up and Under, and my handling was appalling but he ran it so well, easy clean jumping and he was happy. We finished 2nd, first placing for months!

N+ Agility was a really really easy course, just one pull-through and the rest was up and down lines. I held all his contacts and we finished way down the line, but his jumping was so clean and he was driving through all the lines, I was thrilled to bits. I can’t believe what a difference his adjustment has made; compare the video below to the video from the beginning of February.

N+ Jumping was a tricky course but fun to run, Dylan backjumped as I wasn’t clear enough about where we were going. Oops. Need to set that particular sequence up in training I think as it is a weak point!

My video camera died otherwise I would be showing the video from N+ TFO Agility rather than the Agility classes as it was our best run for a year. I nearly cried when we were done, partly because I was dying of exhaustion but mainly because Dylan was amazing, drivey and fast and beautiful jumping the whole way around. TFO has never been our game, but this course was in a huge ring, really spread out and with big open spaces between the jumps, and a double Aframe as part of the course. Just Dyl’s kind of course! We set off so well and reached the dogwalk before we got called up as the timer hadn’t started. I figured we’d just start again straight away, so we went back to the start and set up again. I pushed his first two contacts a bit more the second time, since we’d already done them! He was absolutely flying and we got a course and a half done before we got whistled for time (on jump 5), and then we ended up taking the dogwalk and jump 7 to get to the end which was the long way around.

I watched the rest of the class done and saw three dogs hit the Aframe and then make their way to the end over the flat, so I wasn’t sure how we’d done as I thought we’d been whistled on the Aframe too. As it turned out we came 1st and our time was faster than almost all the other dogs who were whistled for time despite taking the long route. I am so pleased! It might have been just a little unaffiliated show but Dylan was so happy and so fast and confident, it was a better run than when he won out of Grade 5 and I’m so proud of him.

He got more and more comfortable and confident as the weekend went on, it was clear he was finding his feet again. We aren’t competing again until Easter but we do have Drax flyball in three weeks, so we’ll see how he gets on there. I hope I can keep him at this level of fitness and confidence, and with a little more work to brush up on his contacts and my handling, maybe we can get some G6 placings over the summer.

I am so unfit though, I am never going to make it around the 1-3 courses again with Rio.

Ribble March 2012

  By Leanne | March 5, 2012 - 8:06 pm | Agility, Courses, Dylan, Kim, Videos
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Resultswise, not such a good show. We didn’t bring home a single rosette. It also rained consistently.

Apart from that, it was awesome. I entered Kim and Dylan, and didn’t know if Kim would want to play or if Dylan would be able to. Saying I was pleasantly surprised is an understatement; we were all joyously happy to be there and rocking out and running fast and easy and loving every single second. I couldn’t have asked for a better day, even if we did just bring home a lot of Es and faults.

Ribble C4-7 Jumping (Medium) & C5-7 Jumping (Large)Kim was first up in her C1-7 Agility, in which we had no chance against the half a dozen Ag.Chs. (Really nice course from Hannah Grantham though, who was a super judge all day). In fact, neither Kim or Dylan would have been placed in anything even if we had gone clear, as all the good dogs and handlers had descended for the Small and Large KC Agility Stakes classes, and they all brought their Medium dogs too. Kim was bouncing on the line and I knew she was keen but my, she was keen and she flew around. We picked up 5f because I stood in front of the weaves and she thought I was an idiot, but she was so happy to be there and was just having the best time.

Likewise in her C4-7 Jumping (the same course as Dyl’s C5-7 Jp), she flew around and only held up to give me the sideeye at the weaves, because she thought I was wrong. She finished second out of the G6 dogs, some 8s off Jackie Tarn’s superfast collie bitch, but Kim is 11 and so we can cut her some slack.

Her G4-7 Agility was last and just had one too many awkward pull throughs for Kim, although she did a beautiful dogwalk and was still enjoying herself. Pausing to bark at the other ring probably wasn’t the most time-saving move either, and it was a tight course time, so we got 1 TF. She’s also not keen on the rubber-contact seesaws, so that was slow as well. I don’t care, she is amazing.

Dylan hasn’t trained since his chiro adjustment and that’s not normally good for him, but I was more worried with him just being ok. Our first class was the C6-7 Agility Stakes, challenging but I didn’t think it was impossible. We ran clear if cautious and I think finished somewhere around 25th place? His jumping was much better, wary but not stuttering and not uncomfortable, and on the video he looks like a dog who is surprised to find it’s not painful but daren’t quite stretch in case it is. Dogwalk was slow, not sure why, and he stuttered into the final jump because I am a useless handler who stopped giving him any kind of direction so I’m not surprised. I was pleased with his run though, and his finishing time was 38s to the winner’s 31s (Dawn Weaver’s Breezer), which is promising.

It got better from there really, his G6-7 Agility was a nice course and we got E’d because he was feeling good and bounced off every which way and did some extra jumps. Same in the C5-7 Jumping, it was all about the extra bits! His jumping was really great though, no stuttering or paddling, just smooth and stretchy and clean, and he was powering through his weaves in a way he hasn’t for a while (although I only noticed now he’s doing it again).

I couldn’t have asked for more from either dog, I’m so happy that they were happy! I did wonder about calling this Kim’s retirement show but she had such a good time I’ll try and find her some more nice classes to run somewhere in the summer.