Busy Busy

Posted on April 14, 2011 by Leanne

Seesaw work this week. Some improvement but I have a list of things still left to work on.

I’ve also been working on introducing tighter turns, ala Silvia Trkman. We’ve done lots of work at home (and on walks, etc etc) but Dyl actually had a lot of the basic skills already, it was just refining what was there, adding a command and changing my reward position. The difficult bit with Dyl has always been the jumping, I think because he has a tendency to jump from his front end and because he is over-cautious about poles. That means he generally doesn’t turn in the air, he turns before or after the jump (yes, also down to my training I’m sure!). We’re currently working on 25cm height and it looks good, but the challenge will really be when we get to 45cm+ I think, that seems to be when he begins to struggle.

I have also, hesitantly, decided to use just one command for turning tight both ways (kip). This is based on my weaknesses and not Dylan’s! I already have a tendency to confuse myself with lefts and rights (not my strongest point), particularly when I’m thinking on my feet, and I don’t want Dylan to get confused by what the command means because I’m inept. So I’m going to rely on body language for direction and the command for the action of turning tight to the wing. Silvia does mention this very briefly in her DVD and says it’s ok to do that, so we’ll see how it works.

Hare’n'Hounds Xmas Show

Posted on November 27, 2010 by Leanne

Ok, remind me never ever to try and run 3 dogs at one competition again! I have no idea how people do this on a regular basis, they must be completely bonkers. I don’t suppose it would be too bad if they were all in the same classes, but I had one G6 Medium, one G5 Large, and one G3 Large … which meant that none of them had overlapping classes, nightmare for me!

Having said all that, I was so proud of all the dogs for just getting on with it, what superstars!
Kim was up first in the very unusual G5-7 Agility, no dogwalk and no weaves?! Very weird, but it was quite a nice course, I was really just worried about the slightly nag-nag start that really needed a wait to make it smooth. I finally figured out a way of running it that I thought would work, and Kim had a really great run, I was so proud of her! She hasn’t competed at a KC show since she won out of G5 at Scunthorpe (and hasn’t competed at all since the end of August!). She was in her element though, she loved it and really just had a total blast. She nailed the course and won the G6, which means she’s got her first win towards G7, eek!

Because I spent so much time walking Kim’s 5-7, I slightly neglected walking Dylan’s Open Jumping (2 walkthroughs) and Jet’s G3-4 Agility (one walkthrough) … oops. I did walk Jet’s Open Jumping properly though! Jet was completely nutty in her first run, I had a feeling she might be due to the amount of barking we got when I picked her up. It was a very tight course and Jet bounced pretty much everything, and then popped the last few weaves at every attempt and got E’d. We then got E’d a few more times for good measure!

Dylan’s Open Jumping was a really nice course, but he kind of drifted around and took everything very cautiously. I’m not really sure what happened, but it feels like we took 20 steps back today. He finished 12th and was only 2s off the winner, but it wasn’t a good run.

Jet’s G3-4 Agility was really tough, really awkward dogwalk approach and an Aframe into nowhere. I had no idea how she would do, but we ran it pretty well. We picked up 5R at the tunnel and then had the pole after the weaves, both were totally down to my shoddy handling. We finished 11th anyway, which should indicate just how badly the course ran! Very pleased with Jet’s contacts though, she’s really getting more confident with driving into position.

Dylan’s G5-7 Agility was the same as Kim, but we had a really bad start and I thought we had a really obvious refusal, so I held all his contacts and we wasted ages at the “refusal” faffing around. I’ve no idea how or why, but we apparently went clear and came 4th in G5.

Kim’s Open Jumping was a nice course, but slightly frustrating. The judge and ring party were really trying to rush through the classes, as it was really cold and everyone did want to finish early. But the way they rushed people onto the line was totally unreasonable! I walked the course and fetched Kim straight away, but there was no queue and we were basically shouted onto the line. I was not happy about being unable to warm Kim up; it was absolutely freezing cold, and Kim is an old lady (!) and she didn’t run at her best. This was so disappointing, she worked the course really well and tried so hard, but she wasn’t stretching over the floor or extending into the jumps as she can do and she ended up clipping the last part of the long jump to get 5f. She finished 4th with that and was 2s faster than the winner. I know Kim and I weren’t the only ones who were shouted onto the line whilst trying to warm their dogs up.

Dylan ran his BC Agility and G4-7 Jumping all at once, and got E’d in all of them. The BC Agility wasn’t actually too bad a run, and Dylan tackled a brush fence and long jump on the way to the dogwalk whilst I layered a couple of jumps, which I didn’t think we’d be able to do. The Jumping was awful, very few redeeming features!

Jet had lots of runs all at once too; another fabtastic Aframe in the ABC, and came 5th on a supereasy blasty kind of course! We followed it up with a really messy run in the G3 Agility, which was a real shame as it was a course I thought would suit her. I just didn’t handle it in the best way for Jet, but she came 5th anyway, what a star! Kind of gutted about Jet’s Grade 3 Jumping, the course was great but I gave her no room on the 5th jump and she had the pole, and then I eased off for the ending. It does feel like Jet and I are working much better as a team though, and our placings are reflecting that, which is good!

Kim’s C4-7 Agility was a lovely course, just tricky enough, and she had a lovely clear and came 2nd. We won’t discuss the disaster that was the C5-7 Jumping, but suffice to say Kim ran happy and smooth, just handicapped by handler! So proud of my old lady today, she was really enjoying herself out there and I just love running her so much, the more I learn about agility, the more I appreciate how much natural talent she has. I don’t think one person today would have been able to tell she was 10 yrs old next month, she looked fit and fast and athletic out on the course.

Dylan’s G4-5 Agility was the very last run of the day, and it was just another slow, drifting run (with lovely fast contacts). He definitely wasn’t feeling himself as he tried to sit on Leah’s lap in the queue, so I’m just going to write off this weekend and hope that we come back to form next time.

Training with a Plan

Posted on November 25, 2010 by Leanne

I actually had a plan for training this week. I know that every trainer I admire advocates having a training plan in advance, and that going and messing around on the equipment doesn’t actually achieve anything. I know this, and yet a lot of the time, I like just messing about running silly courses. (I suspect this is one of the many reasons Dylan and I aren’t running in Championship classes).

I will admit that my plan was not terribly complex. It was called “AFRAME CONTACTS”, and had no further details.

Still, we worked our Aframe contacts! I even took the clicker, partially because Dylan is my demo dog for the new handlers next week when I talk about contact training, and I had a massive panic attack thinking that maybe everything had fallen out of Dylan’s head and he wouldn’t remember clicker contacts, since we haven’t done it in a while. I still can’t promise that won’t happen (it keeps me up at night, I swear), but he was excellent this week. He really does have a beautiful stop position, I’m very proud of him.

So, we worked on reinforcing contact position, and then proofing contact position. Dylan does have a tendency to release himself if I keep running waaay past him, but this is really a little niggley thing since I don’t think I’ve ever run a course which required me to run 50ft beyond the Aframe whilst Dylan stayed in position.

We then worked on release to obstacles, because we’ve had some tough releases recently where the next obstacle is not the most obvious one. This is obviously more about me than about Dylan; Dyl always looks for the next obstacle whilst in position – which is adorable, he goes all collie stare on things – but I’m not always as clear as I should be with my cues. I know I should be letting him know almost pre-Aframe where the line is going to go, but I have a habit of relying on his stop and then redirecting him from there, which is inefficient. I should know this from running Kim, where I don’t get that handler advantage on the contacts, and it does save us time. Because she will run at an angle to come off the side of the Aframe (providing I give her the correct information!), she’s taking the quickest line. I should really be giving Dyl the same information, but the stop makes me lazy.

My plan for next week will depend on what happens at Hare’n'Hounds this weekend, assuming we can get there through the snowdrifts!

Lune Valley

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Leanne

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.

Appreciation

Posted on July 9, 2010 by Leanne

I left the dogs at home for a long weekend in London, and I didn’t miss them at all. I had a fab time doing touristy things and catching up with friends, and appreciated the time away from the dogs. And then I came home, and was grateful for the joyous greeting I got from Kim and Dylan. Dylan definitely missed me. Mollie didn’t really care. Kim did care, but only because she goes back to priviledged status when I’m here.

Watching Dylan run agility that day was a little weird; because I hadn’t seen him or any other agility dogs for a while, I suddenly found myself appreciating his build and his athleticism. I suddenly realised that he would be the kind of dog I’d pick out when watching a class, which I’d never thought before. I love watching long striding, responsive, strong dogs, and Dylan is maturing into that kind of dog.

My appreciation for his skills went downhill when he decided that he wasn’t going to do his 2o2o on the Aframe for the whole evening. I got one beautiful, fast, controlled Aframe with a smooth and perfect 2o2o, and then Dylan decided he’d continue doing beautiful, fast, controlled Aframes … but without the 2o2o. He’d just stop with all four paws on the floor.

I struggle with what to do when this happens. I can’t afford to lose the 2o2o, but equally I can’t afford to lose the speed that we’ve got now. Something to think about, as always.