Category Archives: Kim

Rocket Relay Seminar #2

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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!)

Indian Summer

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Swim The warm weather has been so lovely, we even managed to get some more swimming done before winter! As an aside, this was the only photo where Dylan’s expression wasn’t screaming “SHARKS! SHARKS EVERYWHERE! SHARKS BEHIND ME!”, which is why it’s the only one that got uploaded. He does actually love swimming, and was toodling around completely unprompted about 20ft from the banks, just because he can.

I was hoping the weather would last, but I hear it’s all downhill from now on. Ever the optimist, let’s all keep our fingers crossed it stays like this until Bonfire Night. It’s allowed to be cold after that.

Indian Summer No photos of Mol as she was off doing her own thing, as ever. She and Kim are quite the pair between them at the moment, as we are losing either one or the other on a sadly regular basis. They’re both very independent girls, off on their own on walks hunting down mice and birds and whatever else they fancy, but it does lead to the occasional panic stricken moment these days. Mollie’s sight hasn’t actually deteriorated that much this summer, but she still has moments where she can’t really see you. Kim’s hearing has deteriorated a lot over the past few months, although probably not noticably to anyone but us. However, she can’t always hear us now, or if she can, she finds it hard to tell where the shout/whistle is coming from, especially on windy days or when we’re between hills and there is an echo. Makes me sad, but there isn’t much we can do except keep a sharper eye out.

Let Go

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This post can pretty much be summed up into “I like this post by EmmaBC“.

I think this is going to be my mission for the winter. Dylan’s first G6 classes are at the end of October, and I would like to go and focus on pretending we’re back in G3, where it’s all about having a good time and maintaining criteria. I don’t know if this will work but we’ve achieved all our goals for the year and I’m not sure what else we can realistically aim for.

I am still hunting down Kim’s last win for G7 though, so she might not have quite as relaxing a day.

And yes, we did visit a litter of puppies this weekend, and yes, I’m going to leave you in suspense a little bit longer. This is partly because I am in suspense as well, it’s a small-ish litter and we don’t know absolutely if there is a puppy there for us. Yet.

Kim’s Ice Blue Moon

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The points have gone up from Kim’s last flyball competitions and she officially has her Ice Blue Moon award.

I always wanted her to get this, and now she has, I feel comfortable saying Kim is going to be retiring from competitive flyball this winter.

She is fit, she is happy, and she still loves to flyball. She’s also 11 in December and I can see how tired she is at the end of a day, how much it takes out of her. Tiny little things that I’m sure most other people couldn’t possibly have noticed; her hind muscles tremble when she’s tired. She slipped badly at training last week, turned on the box and faceplanted immediately as her legs went from under her. She drinks out of the water bowl that’s been dribbled in.

I won’t let her do flyball until she’s injured and is forced to retire. I won’t let her run on painkillers and I won’t let her run as the height dog, as she has done for the whole of her life. I won’t let her run for the sake of one more competition, or one more Champs, or the next award. I won’t let her be one of those dogs who are crippled and tripping over the jumps when they can’t see or hear but “oh, s/he still loves it!”. Kim does still love it, and I am going to miss running her more than anything, but this is the right decision.

Her Ice Blue Moon seems as good a point as any to say, this is it.

Kim will continue training, and to be honest, she will probably make a few guest appearances next summer, as emergency reserve on the team sheet. She’s actually running at Drax whilst I’m at the seminar, teaching our Junior handler the ropes in her first competition. I’ve been hinting for a while that this retirement was looming, and have mentioned it outright in a few conversations, but I thought I’d better make an official post on the reasons, just to stall some of the questions on why.

Dylan will still be competing, as will Mollie – her retirement isn’t my decision anyway! – and hopefully Future!Pup will be around next summer too.