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.

Started the weekend with a nice course for the Grade 3 Jumping, a little bit straightforward for my taste so I chose to take Dylan the long way around the pull thru, which gave me a chance to test his weave entry. He flicked out to it beautifully, nailed it, and then I steadied him up way too much for the turn at the end. Oops! That pushed us well out of the placings, unfortunately … or so I thought. We eventually came 16th, despite the super slow last corner!

The Alpha Agility (Combined 1-3) was a weird little course, lots of contacts into nowhere and slightly awkward approaches to the dogwalk and seesaw especially. I completely missed walking the Grade 3 Agility, but luckily it was a nice course, just one tricky bit which people really overhandled, for the most part. However, now would be a moment to mention that the showground is right next to RAF Scampton, where the Red Arrows practice. They practised all day Saturday, and that put paid to our agility runs!

The Red Arrows did not go down well with Dylan. He wasn’t frightened or panicking, otherwise I wouldn’t have attempted to run him, but he wasn’t anywhere near as focussed as he should have been, and was getting hyper-aware of unexpected noises. The Alpha was a complete shambles, we were both all over the place and I think we had 5 or maybe 10 faults? Not sure, but it wasn’t pretty! I could tell from the start of the Grade 3 Agility that Dylan was nowhere near as focussed or as fast as he’s been running recently. I held all his contacts as a result, and we handled the pull thrus without a problem, but it felt super slow. Think we came 21st in that?

Final Grade 3 Jumping was a massive course, huge wide spacings and a run along the top of jump-cloth tunnel-pipe tunnel that I knew was going to cause us problems! Because this class was at the end of the day, the planes had stopped flying just after lunch and we were in the quiet again. We set off comfortably, but I pulled him off the pipe tunnel and we dithered around for 3 hours before I got him back on track. Finished up easily anyway, really lovely extended jumping around the last section which was very nice to see! We came 17th, which was a bit of a surprise as I thought we’d had a very obvious refusal, but apparently the judge didn’t mark it (or the scribe didn’t write it down, because my couple of supporters both thought they’d seen him mark it!)

Sunday dawned … rainy. Lots and lots of rain. Bit of a contrast to Saturday when we all got sunburnt! It stopped raining but stayed overcast until lunchtime, by which time Dyl and I had done all our running. We seem to like running in the rain though, so that’s ok.

First class was the Combined 3-5 Vegas Qualifier, and not at all what I was expecting! It was easier than some of the Grade 3 classes I’ve run recently, and it was definitely easier than the Alpha Qualifier. Again, a very fast, very open course but one I thought Dylan would like, so we gave it our best shot. Our best shot is not very good apparently! Dyl veered off towards the dogwalk and so we made a real hash of the top flick around (6-7), so I held all his contacts again. Going back up to take 6 again, he veered off again for the dogwalk(!), so we lost loads of speed again. I would have marked that as 2 refusals, but apparently the judges were feeling really kind this weekend, because it was recorded as clear. I had a peek at the time anyway; Dyl was 34s-ish, and 20th was 28s-ish, so if we’d been clear (properly clear!) we’d have been top-20. However, how many other people can say that as well? Especially the dark blue merle dog with the most mindblowingly fast running contacts I have ever seen, who got 5f (think on the weaves?). I have no idea who this dog is, but wow, it did the dogwalk in 3 strides and nailed the contacts. Stunning!

Grade 3 Jumping was a perfectly pitched course, nice wide spaces but some areas to handle. I was bouncing after walking this! Dylan had a cracking run but I forgot my steady command at the start and he went very very wide around to 3, which cost us any chance of a placing. Oops!

The other Grade 3 Jumping was a strange little course. It looked really simple on paper, but once everyone walked it there were a few frowns! It was a course that had to be worked all the way through, and finished with a tricky weave entry. Dylan had a fantastic run, super smooth and fast, neat and tidy through all the corners and he nailed the weaves. Couldn’t have asked for better, and we came 6th, which was a pretty fab result in a class of 217!

Grade 3 Agility was another nice course, really straightforward and just a box to work at the top. Dylan set off nicely but we had a real regression and he slammed on at the dogwalk up-plank, I was so disappointed! Held his contacts for the rest of the run and tried to stay philosophical, but it’s so frustrating. Further work required.

Congrats to everyone for their results, but especially to Emma and Bailey for their 2x 2nd’s in Grade 5, and to Alice and Sammy for their 1st in the Grade 2 Jumping, about time!

I was really surprised that Dyl pulled off the placings he did; the classes were huge and placings were seperated by 0.01′s, so I thought we’d have to be running our absolute best even to get near the placings. As it turned out, we were in the top-20 or there abouts with pretty shoddy runs by my standards (especially compared to Hare’n'Hounds at Easter), and with our only good run we were in the top-10. In Jumping! I never thought I’d have a good jumping dog, when did that happen?!

Tough day for fatman Dylan today! Flyball training in the morning and then an agility training afternoon over in York. Ideally I would have skipped flyball, but we have Drax coming up and I really want him fit and ready. We’re making an effort to do more two lane training at the moment, and it’s making Dylan work really hard. He has a habit of lazing around in training when on a single lane, so running him against the faster dogs pulls him on and makes him put some effort in. He was stretching like mad against Jet; he was going 110% and she was cruising at 80%, and she still beat him by a nose. Poor lad, no wonder he has an inferiority complex, he’s constantly getting his ass kicked by girls.

So he had a hard flyball session, and then I whisked him off to agility! I’d booked onto a training day with Dawn and Katie Long, since loads of people have recommended Dawn to me recently and when the opportunity came up I was about ready to snap Julie’s hand off! I had a great time and it was well worth it, so I can safely say I’ll be furthering the recommendations.

We did a lot of work on contacts, which was great for me and Dylan. Particularly for me! I’ve always been fairly confident in Dylan’s understanding of the 2o2o position, but I’ve never dared to truly test it. Well, I got put on the spot, and Dylan was brilliant, so I’m very very pleased. He drove to the end regardless of where I was, and only looked around for me once he’d stopped. His Aframe was especially good; I raced him to the start of the Aframe, and then stopped completely before the up-ramp and let Dylan complete by himself. He nailed it every time, and only peered around once to check where I was (and he left a toe on the bottom … cheating slightly!) Spent plenty of time getting him to really drive over the dogwalk, and some new techniques for getting him more confident on the seesaw, so very positive.

We also spent some time working on weave entries and truly independent weaves, which again was great for me and Dylan, because he was awesome! More about my handling than anything, and Dylan was pretty exhausted by this part of the session, but he’s always willing to try.

I didn’t learn anything which is going to fundamentally change the way I handle or train. But I’m viewing that a positive thing. Means we’re doing something right!

It’s been a long while since I’ve looked at Dylan’s obstacle times. A whole year, in fact!

As always, brutally honest times taken from the moment of first contact with the obstacle to the moment the front paw(s) hit the ground. Averages in bold, all times taken from competition runs within the last three months only.

Dogwalk: 2.87 [3.39] (2.87, 3.00, 2.60, 2.46, 3.00, 2.96, 3.20)
Aframe: 1.53 [2.36] (1.60, 1.67, 1.60, 1.34mc, 1.46)
Seesaw: 1.73 [1.95] (1.80, 1.91, 1.54, 1.86, 1.53)

Averages from the last time I took them are in square brackets (that’s Jan 09, apart from the Aframe, which is from Sept 08), and the improvement is fairly noticable. The actual improvement though is in the consistency of the times; a year ago we had variations of up to 4s between times. That Aframe in particular is getting nailed, these days, although contact reliability has slipped from 100% to 90%, hence that little “mc” mark. Seesaw times are looking good, could be a little better but nothing I’m overly worried about right now.

That 2.46 in the Dogwalk times is making me very happy. I would estimate that Dyl runs 2.20 in training, and that 2.46 suggest we’re finally, slowly, making the transition to the ring. On the other hand, we still have plenty of 3s runs in there, so we have a lot of work to do yet! The average is better than it was, but still nowhere near where I would like it to be. We need consistent 2.4s to be anywhere like competitive enough for a G3 win.

No 12 weaves times because we haven’t done 12 weaves very often recently! Possibly because indoor shows sometimes can’t peg them, but judges just don’t seem to be including the weaves all that often anyway at the moment.

This is my traditional end-of-year show now, I think! We’ve done it since 2004, it was the first show that Kim properly behaved at and I felt relaxed and we just had fun. The year after, we came 4th in the Starters Agility Challenge, her best ever placing as a Large Dog. The year after that, 2006, she was re-measured Medium; a very very good day. 2007 we did one of the best runs we’ve ever done, but got E’d … oops! Nothing special happened last year, but that’s hardly a reason to break with tradition!

Kim

This was Kim’s first show since the BAA Finals in August, and was really just a test to see if she wanted to do any agility or not. She’s been really enjoying training, and I know she likes it at Myerscough, so I thought we’d give it a go and see how she got on.

Her first class was Combined 3-5 Jumping, a tricky course but nothing that should have been particularly challenging for Kim. The ring next door was the Large 4-5 Jumping, and they had a run of jump-jump-tunnel going next to the barrier fencing that seperated it from our ring. This is important later!

Kim did a beautiful wait start, negotiated the first three obstacles speedily and happily, and then turned around and raced alongside the dog in the next ring, barking her head off furiously. Cue complete shock from handler! I was mortified; she’s never done this in her life before, but thankfully it didn’t affect the other dog’s run and Kim came back once I’d called her, although she wasn’t at all apologetic. Maybe this makes her one of those out-of-control dogs that the Kennel Club want to get rid of?!

She then raced around the rest of the course but proceeded to go and say hi to the judge, look blankly at the weaves, argue with me about 8 or 9 weaves, and then race off to finish. She looked like a complete baby dog at her first show, not a 9-year-old Grade 5 dog. Result = 15 faults and 16 time faults. I’ll just go and hide my head in shame …

It was safe to say she was cheerful though. She got E’d in the 3-5 Agility, due to handler error, and then went clear in the Olympia Qualifier, which was too fast a course for us to get placed on (even Julie’s speed demon Charlie only came 10th, which should indicate just how fast it was!)

Dylan

Combined 3-5 Agility (Part 1) was a fairly straightforward course, a few angled jumps that caused a few problems, and a pull in on a 3-sided box that really threw a lot of people. I elected to take Dylan right and through the “empty” side of the box, which was the longer route but not as risky. It paid off because we came 11th, very pleased to say it was 3-5! His dogwalk wasn’t as good as it had been at Wilmslow, and I held the contact, so we lost time there. He was also very wide on what should have been the wrap-turn, my fault but something to work on.

Graded 3-5 Agility was over the same course as Kim had run, so I knew which mistakes not to make again! Dylan self-released his Aframe contact, and his dogwalk was a little creepy, but he had no problems with the weave entry, unlike almost every other dog I saw run. Anyway, we were clear, but I didn’t think we had any chance of being placed. There were 189 Grade 3 dogs, which made it one of the biggest Grade 3 classes I think we’ve ever run in, and on past form that was just too competitive for Dylan.

Scurried off to run the 1-3 Jumping at this point, it required a wait start which Dylan promptly broke and left me flailing behind him. Somehow scraped through anyway but I knew it just wasn’t going to go well from then on, and it didn’t! Dyl decided he’d never seen 9 weaves before in his life and we needed 3 attempts to get it right, very frustrating as we do 9 weaves in training fairly regularly, and he’s always flown through without a problem. We obviously need to work some more on that!

Dylan was done for the day at this point, and Kim had just run her last class, when there was a tannoy annoucement calling Dylan and I for a run-off in the Graded 3-5 Agility. Since I still had Kim, I sent my lovely mother to let the ring now I was on my way, switched dogs and ran back in, trying to remember the course! I lost the coin toss, but the other person elected to go 2nd which is what I would have chosen anyway. I pushed it, we knocked a second off our original time, but sadly that Aframe self-release came back to haunt us, and Dylan missed his contact. The other person then took it steady and went clear, and won the run off … for 2nd place.

Dylan came 3rd.