Tag Archives: agility shows

Hare’n'Hounds Valentines

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I seem to remember saying back in November that I wouldn’t run three dogs again. Well, I did, and it was better – either because I was prepared for the chaos, or because everything just ran more smoothly!

Kim ran her G4-7 Agility first, had a lovely run on an interesting course, and won it. I can’t believe I get to type this, but Kim is now halfway to Grade 7! She has both her agility wins, and she’s enjoying these occasional competitions so much.

Dylan’s G5-7 Agility was a really nice course, but we got called on the dogwalk contact. I’m not sure if he missed it or not, I can’t tell on the video, but he was running a little slow and steady and for some reason, very creepy on the seesaw. Hmm …

Jet ran a beautiful clear on the handler-challenging Redmills C1-7 Jumping, and finished 18th. Which … well, it was a fast course and she was only 2s off the winner, so that’s a good result. She was also the top Grade 3 dog by a long way! We went straight from that ring to the G1-4 Jumping and made a complete shambles of the course, which was a little bit frustrating! It was a very difficult course for 1-4, but nothing we couldn’t handle … or so I thought. The most annoying thing was that Jet popped the last 2 poles of the 12 weaves again. We must work on this!

Kim’s C1-7 Jumping was the same as Jet’s, and she ran a nice clear but we had a silly dithering moment where I was just a stride lazy and it nearly caught us out. Think Kim ended up 6th or 7th, out of the placings either way but she enjoyed the run, a nice stretchy course for her.

Jet’s 2nd in the Graded 1-3 Agility was extremely unexpected! It was a nice course, suitably challenging, but had two aframes and a seesaw rather than the traditional dogwalk-aframe-seesaw. Jet’s Aframe is not her strongest peice of equipment, and she did too acceptable but creepy Aframes and I thought that would keep us well out of the placings. Apparently not!

Dylan had three jumping classes in a row, starting with his half of the Redmills Jumping. It was a lovely big, open course, and Dylan actually opened up and ran it really well. We got E’d, but it was a good run. I was happy! We then went into the G5-7 Jumping. We got E’d multiple times, but I made personal progress by practising what I preach and pretending nothing had happened and that whatever we did was what I meant to do. It worked for Dylan, his confidence was visibly up! We went straight into the BC Jumping and ran clear, he finished 19th.

Kim’s C5-7 Agility was the same as Dylan’s earlier course, and we had a slightly on-the-edge run but managed to get around clear anyway, and finished 4th. Not too shabby! Her C5-7 Jumping was the same as Dylan’s again, and we made pretty much the same mistakes. Clearly I learn nothing from my mistakes.

Dylan’s G4-5 Agility was quite a tough course for 4/5, but ran much better than it walked. I got to watch most of this class run, and wow, the standard of 4/5 dogs was through the roof! Dylan had a decent clear and finished 5th, just out of the placings, but I intentionally took him the long way around the pull-thru so I’m quite pleased with that.

Long time off from agility now, not back until April! I did want to try and enter some in March but it all got a bit expensive with the seminar and Crufts!

Wyre Agility

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Mission accomplished!

I love Wyre. For whatever reason, this show just sings for me every year, and we have such a good time. I am fully prepared for next year to be a complete disappointment, but up until now, big thumbs up for Wyre.

In contrast to last week, Dylan and Jet were in the same two agility classes, with only seperate jumping classes to give me something to do. Jet ran first in the C3-5 Agility (P2), and had such a lovely run until I made a really stupid handler error at 15 and caused her to drop the pole.

Since Dylan wasn’t on for ages, Jet and I scootled off to her G1-3 Jumping. Bit of an odd course as it was just jumps, no weaves/tyres/long jumps! Since I had made myself paranoid about poles I handled it very safe, and to be honest I thought it was a fairly ‘meh’ clear. Jet was lovely and smooth but only working at maybe 70%, so it was a bit of a surprise when we came 4th!

Dylan then came out and ran in the C3-5 Agility (P2). I remembered all my notes from yesterday and really concentrated on making him happy, and the cheerleading seemed to help. He was a little cautious over the first half but picked up beautifully after the dogwalk and finished really well. I then had a minor panic and sat chewing my fingernails for two hours because there weren’t many clears and I really didn’t want to win, but Dylan judged it perfectly and came 2nd. I’ve told him he can do that again!

G4-5 Jumping was a lovely open course (I spent all morning watching this ring and thinking how much the Medium 6-7 would have suited Kim!), tricky for the handlers but not for the dogs. Again, I remembered all my notes from yesterday and Dylan really picked up from his first agility run. He had a drivey run with big smooth jumping, just a little wide on the turns but I wasn’t asking him to turn tight as I wanted to keep that ground speed and just let him roll a little. But he came 1st, which is his first Grade 5 win! I’ve told him he can do that again too.

Of course, I got a bit overexcited by that and totally hashed up the G3-5 Agility with both dogs, different mistakes but on the same section. Oops! Must keep concentrating next time!

Start Lines

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Waits Inspired by HippieDogs, of course, and somewhat by my previous musings on whether to get a collar for Kim’s starts.

I haven’t talked about my start lines in a long while. Kim has a running start, because she loves to race and run and waiting is boring and stressful for her. For some courses, having a running start doesn’t work, but there are always bits of every course that you don’t think will work but with a little imagination do. Sometimes, for us, that means setting up for the first jump at an unexpected angle, sometimes even facing the wrong way so I can get a fraction further in front to cross. This is highly confusing to most ring parties and judges, but Kim and I are creative and more often than not we pull it off.

Dylan has a naughty startline. He barks madly until I say “wait”, then he sits and crosses his ears at the back of his head and stares intently at the first obstacle. This is a pretence, because as soon as I move away he starts to slowly creep forward. Sometimes I tell him to down, for variety. It doesn’t make much of a difference. I always start worried, wondering how long I have until he goes. I know this is not a good way to start our runs. Maybe I should start doing running starts with Dylan too?

I have started trying to crack down in competition, but I admit I am too competitive and too anxious to keep Dylan happy to run the “move and lose” technique. We are practising, a lot. We play race-chase games with Mollie, where Dylan has to sit and wait with Mollie sitting and waiting around 15ft behind him. They both know as soon as they move that the chase is on! Mollie is very good at waiting, but Dylan is not. He shuffles and creeps and tries to get as much of a headstart as he can, because Mollie beats him up if he can’t run fast enough. I move him back. We are making headway. He is getting faster and better at waits.

Jet has the best startline. We go and we stand and I wrestle off her collar, because she has a martingale slip and it always gets stuck on her ears. I always apologise, and she always waits patiently for me to get going. I ruffle her ruff, because Jet has lots of spare skin and it’s fun to wriggle it about, and then I walk away confidently knowing Jet will be stood exactly where I left her. She always looks frozen on the spot when I stop and look at her. People think she is going to be slow and pottle around, because she looks so anxious, but we know the truth. I say ok-go, she launches into a madcap 30s of wild unpredictability and barking.

Jet and Mollie are a lot alike.

Winter Agility Season

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I know I’m lucky to have good, competitive shows at KC and BAA within travelling distance all year round. It’s got better and better every year, and this year I’m actually getting to pick and choose which shows we go to! We’re at Hare’n'Hounds next time because I love their shows, they always have a good mix of classes and such a friendly atmosphere. Dylan’s first Grade 5 classes! Really just wanting to see how he does against the competition, and hoping he keeps up the confident attitude.

All those shows mean no break though! I do think a break from competition and training is good for the dogs, although Kim doesn’t do much these days anyway. She does 10 minutes of training for agility a week, and I skip training with her the week before a competition as well. It seems to work for her, although she hasn’t got many competitions booked this winter. One thing about having single-day competitions seems to be the tendency for organisers to offer one or two Open classes only for Mediums and Smalls. I suppose I should be grateful that there are any classes at all, since lots of shows just skip the Mediums altogether! I’ve entered her in the Hare’n'Hounds Christmas show at the end of November, because they have a Graded class and good splits so she won’t get consistently nagging courses.

Dylan will probably get a month off in February-March, but that’s only sketched out for the moment. The summer diary is still very vague so I don’t know what I want to skip.

Snuggley Warm

Mollie feels a little bit left out, naturally, with all this agility talk. Perfect winter warmer photo though, don’t you want to sneak onto the sofa and snuggle down with fluffy Mol, maybe watch a few films?

Lune Valley

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I’m cautiously optimistic about saying that Dylan really likes working indoors. His runs at Lune were all smooth, fast and – at the end – slightly bonkers. I’m happy to roll with this! I’m normally at South Durham this weekend, but the classes weren’t as nice for Grade 4 dogs, and I’m not a huge fan of the Prissick Base venue. It was a lovely sunny day at Myerscough though, they opened the big arena doors and the whole place felt so light and airy and huge.

Combined 4-5 Jumping was a nice course with a nasty start, and we got E’d. Dylan broke his wait, panicked, and then decided to just take a bunch of jumps in the hope he’d be forgiven. He wasn’t, but we finished up the run and his jumping was lovely, very smooth and neat.

Graded 1-4 Agility was a very fast, very open course, no seesaw (!) and a little bit run-of-the-mill style course. Dylan’s Aframe was a little slower than he can do, but the rest of the course was beautiful, again with the smooth gorgeous jumping. Not as driven as his run at Ribble, but still clear and a good run. Since the placings were generous I thought we might scrape a top-10. Apparently I’m a rubbish judge of Grade 4 though, since we finished 2nd! Less than 0.4s seperate 1st and 3rd, so bit of a close finish! Incidentally, this also gives Dylan enough points for his Agility Warrant Silver, which I only realised when I got home.

Graded 1-4 Jumping was a bit of a killer course, which ran much better than it looked – if you got it right! Dylan worked the first 6 obstacles lovely, very tight on the wraps, but he and I weren’t quite on the same wavelength for the angled flick-flack. He intended to bounce it, I certainly didn’t think he would, and he ended up crashing a pole to avoid running into me. Oops! Finished up anyway with 5 faults – maybe 10 faults? – but Dylan ended running strongly, which was what I really wanted.

Last class was Combined 4-5 Agility. Probably Dylan’s best run of the day, in terms of confidence and speed, but not mine! I wasn’t expecting quite so much confidence and speed, got left behind and was way too late with my commands. I’m going to have to brush up on this because I’ve got Jet at the next show as well as Dylan, and if he carries on running like this I’m just going to spend the day flailing along behind them both. Anyway, we got E’d, but Dylan’s contacts were fantastic, and I was very happy.

Apologies for the crappy Adobe overlay on the video, but I’ve lost all my video editing stuff in the big computer reboot 2010. I will try and replace with a better version eventually!

I’d rather spend a day getting E’d in all my classes, but running with this fast, confident, and driven version of Dylan that I always believed was hidden in there. I talk a lot about wanting a certain win or t move up to a certain grade, but in the end, if I walk away knowing we both gave 100% and it was perfect, the placing is just irrelevant. But still nice to get, because the Lune trophies are really pretty frosted gold glass type things.