Why We Compete

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Leanne

… if you train but never compete, it’s easy to convince yourself that what you’re doing is hard, or hard enough. It’s easy to ease up in training; easy to say “that’s good enough”.¹

I’m still not quite sure why I was reading The Fellrunner this afternoon. I’m almost certain it had something to do with not having a computer and having read everything else in the house, because I’m not a runner and I’m certainly not a fell runner. But I happened to read the above comment in an article, and immediately fell in love with it. Of course the author was referring to running, but for me it is equally applicable to agility.

I don’t train with a club or experienced trainer. I think most people who read this blog know that. I am extremely fortunate to train with a group of friends, who push me and discuss with me and, inevitably, stand and spend far too much training time chatting and eating buns. It’s a brilliant group and I love it! But it requires me to put the pressure on myself to do well, because I don’t have anyone to do that for me. I don’t have a trainer standing there each week telling me I’m not working hard enough, that I’m not getting the best out of my dog.

And I think that’s what it comes down to, because I always want to let my dogs reach their potential. If I don’t, I feel like I’ve let them down. I know I have these amazing, athletic, honest dogs, who love agility. How can I justify letting them drift around a course once a week and think they’ve done as much as they want to do, or can do? I can’t. And so I try to train them to the best of my ability, (which isn’t always to the best of theirs), and we work hard to have fast weaves, fast and reliable contacts, beautiful jumping and tight turns.

So we come back around to the quote. How do I know if I’m doing the best I can for them? How do I know I’m not just saying it’s good, when really it’s just good enough? Because we go and we come 2nd or 8th or 19th, and I know we we could have been tighter on that turn, or faster on that Aframe, or smoother on that line. I know my dogs can do that, because they’re awesome! So I get pushed to do better, to train better, and not let myself get complacent in either my training abilities or the training we do.

I’m not sure I’ve done anything with this post but write down a stream of very tangled consciousness, but I still love the quote, and maybe I’ve at least revealed I’m secretly a much more boring/interesting (delete as appropriate) person than you thought I was because I read fell running magazines. Very occasionally.

1. Mountain Running in the USA: A Singular Experience “Mr P”, The Fellrunner (Autumn 2010)

End of Season

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Leanne

The Promotion tables have gone up for the 2010/11 BAA season, and Dylan is happily into Graduate in both Jumping and Agility. This doesn’t bother me since he’s going to be doing Novice Plus classes all winter anyway. He finished 3rd in the Novice Maxi Dog of the Year, which I’m thrilled to bits about, I thought he had no chance! He only moved up to Novice from June, so got most of his points in Primary. Primary points are worth less than Novice, so it just shows how well and how consistently he’s done. Good boy! He was 10th in the Novice Agility League and 9th in the Novice Jumping League, so very respectable there too.

Kim has gone into Graduate Agility on wins, which I couldn’t avoid, but she’s fallen into the Voluntary Promotion section for Jumping – we haven’t got any Novice Jumping wins – and I’m not going to apply to move her up. It means she will get a few runs next year at Novice, thankfully! She finished 8th in the Novice Medium DOTY League, which was reasonably good considering she amassed all her points over the summer since I don’t do the winter BAA season with her. Despite getting her wins in Agility, she has generally done better in Jumping, and finished 13th in the Novice Jumping League, and 18th in the Novice Agility League.

I did hesitate about doing anymore BAA shows after this season – I’m not happy with various things, which I’ve gone on at length about before – but I’m at least going to do the winter season with Dyl and then see what happens. I like the four day summer show just because it’s a good training show, and if I think he’s in with a decent shot at qualifying for Finals or even the Dog of the Year, I’m not sure I’ll be able to resist. It’s kind of difficult because there aren’t many other Finals for us to go for; in KC terms, Olympia and Crufts aren’t suitable venues for Dylan to run at even if we could qualify, and I don’t fancy chasing the Adams or CSJ Qualifiers up and down the country.

Maybe I’m just lacking in ambition!

BAA Finals Weekend

Posted on September 3, 2010 by Leanne

Saturday was a little weird. Dylan wasn’t running at his best, stuttering a little through certain jump sequences and just generally floating around and distracted. We were E’d in the Jumping Qualifier, and then came 3rd in everything else. I’m still not quite sure what was going on! Kim finished out of the placings in her two jumping runs, but she was the top Medium in the Steeplechase and was less than a second of Dylan’s time, so her times are reflecting how much she’s cranked it up recently.

Had the most fun with both dogs in the Triple-A, this is Kim’s perfect game! She did a kickass run and finished 2nd in the Novice, and actually would have come 2nd in the Graduate too, beating Focus’ time. Anyone who knows Focus will appreciate how good that is! Dylan came 3rd, and I think that’s the only time Kim’s beaten him when they’ve both been clear. (Incidentally, the dog that beat them both to 1st is a Large KC Grade 6 dog, so I think they did pretty well!)

Sunday morning was a bit of a disappointment, still not jumping with extension or confidence. The Novice Plus Agility was a nasty little course, very challenging and filled with traps. Dyl got half-way around before shooting off into the wrong tunnel, but worked his contacts beautifully. The Jumping was better, but stuttering again, and he finished just out of the placings in 7th. Didn’t bode well for the Sunday afternoon Agility Final! I’d put Kim NFC in Introductory again and she loved it, despite getting E’d in everything anyway, so she was pretty much a write-off for Sunday.

The Novice Agility Final was actually quite a nice course, tricky sections but much easier than the Primary! Wasn’t really my kind of course, I didn’t feel very confident going in with how to handle the softer traps, and that’s where we lost it. I wasn’t clear enough with Dylan and he skipped the weave entry, and after we’d got 5f I kind of lost it and we got E’d. I wish I’d held it together and pushed on with 5f as we still would have been placed 7th barring any other mistakes.

Monday morning was even worse, if possible! Both really nice Novice Plus courses, really suited both me and the dogs. The Jumping was a super-lovely flowing course, but Kim had a pole (what the hell Kim?! Since when do you knock poles?!) and then (again) I sent Dylan into the wrong tunnel. He finished up measuring his jumps anyway, which left me in a total panic — not what you want with the Jumping Final in the afternoon! Novice Plus Agility was a big, open course, really nice, and Kim decided to do the dogwalk three times before actually thinking about listening to me, at which point she flew around and made it look so easy. Dylan also got E’d, but was jumping beautifully, very confident and very smooth, lovely fast contacts, another “what the hell” moment.

The Novice Jumping Final was a truly wicked course, all pull-thrus and call-offs and a really tough weave-exit. We wasted what felt like forever but was probably only a second or so whilst I tried to send Dylan through 5-6 (he wanted to jump, I wasn’t clear enough that I wanted the tunnel!), were a bit scrappy around to the weaves, but then nailed everything after the weaves, with lovely jumping and lots of drive and we did good. I’d watched a couple of the Mediums go clear, and our friend Moss did a cracking run just before we went in. I was guessing Moss for the win, with Dylan maybe in 5th, or 4th if we were lucky. If we were really lucky, I thought we might scrape 3rd. Somehow though, we came 2nd!

Mollie was the real superstar though. She got a 6th in Veteran Jumping, which is no mean feat at BAA – the Veteran classes are incredibly popular, there are usually around 50-60 ex-Graduate/Masters dogs in there, compared to our stumpy flyball dog who doesn’t actually ever train anymore and has never done any proper competitions. Anyway, with the points from that, she qualified for the Veterans Final! Which was hilarious, we got E’d. Mollie was wound up through the roof, ran like a complete lunatic and spent half the time barking at me. So much fun, love running my crazy old lady.