Most perfect agility holiday ever. Redcar is a fantastic venue; I’ve raved about it before, but it’s a huge rugby club/football club training ground, so perfectly flat mowed lawns, nice big exercise areas, and 400m away is the Stray, a beautiful and huge dog friendly beach. What could possibly be better?!

Hare’n'Hounds ran the first half of the week, Saturday to Tuesday. Due to some flyballing issues, I didn’t enter Saturday so we travelled up on Sunday morning with Dylan.

We had a so-so run in the first Grade 3 Agility, it wasn’t a very hard course but I held his Aframe contact and we were very wide and messy around the turns. And the dogwalk was slooooooow! Came a surprising 5th, and Julie’s Winnie won it.

I can’t even remember what happened in the two Grade 3 Jumping runs, so it can’t have been particularly good or bad. I have a vague recollection of one being fiendishly difficult, can’t remember where we went wrong but I know we did!

The other Grade 3 Agility was a nice smooth course, nothing really difficult about it and all I wanted from Dylan was a fast dogwalk. It was reasonably quick, but not quite what I wanted, but he flew around the rest and did a beautiful seesaw for me. I messed up at the end because I ran ahead of Dyl and then heard him crack a pole, but I wasn’t sure if it had fallen or not. I was so busy thinking about that I forgot about the pull to the last jump, and poor Dylan went very wide and then kind of scrambled over it. Eek, bad handler! We got another 5th anyway, good start!

Monday; Grade 3 Jumping was a smooth course, ideally needed a wait start which I don’t have anymore. Made completely the wrong handling choice for the start as a result, we were very messy around the first turn, but still finished 4th. Very pleasantly surprised by that one, I didn’t think we had much chance as it was a nice fast course.

Lovely Grade 3 Agility course, again needed a wait start to get the fast dogwalk from Dylan, and so again he was a little slow to start. A little wide to the weaves as well, but apart from that it was a really nice run, fast and smooth and we came 2nd, behind a cracking little Pointer. We’re getting closer though, so near to that 1st now!

Combined 3-4 Agility … I think we’ll pretend this didn’t happen. I missed the course walking and then tried to run it anyway, and just made a complete hash of it. Trained Dylan’s contacts and bless him, he tried really hard anyway!

The Combined 3-4 Jumping was another superfast course, there were loads of clears so I decided to gamble a bit and leave Dylan in the weaves. I do this at training all the time, but I’ve never dared just run off and leave him in competition. It paid off anyway, he stuck in them and I could get the front cross in and keep him tight to the finish. We finished 12th, not a bad result for my slow Grade 3 dog!

Tuesday … smallest classes of the week and I so wanted the win, I thought we could do it! Had a blitzing run in the Graded 1-4 Jumping, although I called it perfect on twitter and it wasn’t (we were really wide to the second tunnel, I didn’t give Dylan enough information and he wasn’t sure if he should be going on or not). We came 2nd, best ever placing in Jumping. Not really disappointed, Dylan ran like a true pro and was fast, sharp and extended in his jumping. Couldn’t have asked for better from him. (Fab course from Nigel Staines too, loved it!)

The Combined 1-3 Jumping was a basic box type course, all a little tight without much room to stretch. We ran a clear that bagged a 7th but Dylan never really had room to speed up and I didn’t find it all that inspiring. Can’t remember the Graded 1-4 Agility at all, apart from that it was quite hard and I sent Dylan the wrong way (nice contacts though!)

Bit of judge switching went on the afternoon, for various reasons, and so Dylan’s Combined 1-3 Agility was judged by Nigel Staines. He set a fab course with a really tricky pull-thru at the end; Dylan smoked the course, fast contacts and beautiful turns, and then we got scuppered on the pull. Arg! Heard everyone sigh in sympathy, so know the run was as good as I thought it was, and we finished up with a smile.

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!

Imagine a sea of mud, stretching as far as the eye can see …

Well, it started ok on Friday. A little cold, a little damp, but nice. The weekend didn’t start all that fortuitously when I ran the Combined 1-3 Jumping, Dyl popped the last 2 weave poles (setting a trend for the weekend there) and then I completely forgot where I was going. The only word to describe it was shambles, frankly. Dylan then ran with Cat in Junior Agility, and was a freaked out little puppy … well, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. He likes Cat, and got around the course, but really couldn’t understand why he was running with her when me and Katie and everyone were stood right there.

Happily, improvement was made! Doc’s Graded 1-4 Agility was lovely, and Dyl went clear but chose to creep his dogwalk. Still, stayed in the weaves and steadied for his wrap at the end nicely! We came 6th in a surprising turn of events, I didn’t think Dylan was particularly fast but it turned out there were fewer clears than expected – possibly due to the ground, which was (unknowingly) setting the theme for the next 3 days. Dylan also ran with Cat in Junior Jumping, and apart from being an airy fairy, he was much better.

Graded 1-4 Jumping was a nice course, but not really suited to Dylan; it would have been perfect for Kim! Some tight spacings and some slightly awkward turns for the longer striding dogs, but we scraped around and came 8th. We finished up with a good run in the final class of the day, the Combined 1-3, really lovely dogwalk but a little creepy on the Aframe and seesaw. The dogwalk obviously made up for it though, as we came 6th again! Very pleased, it was a good result in a big class.

We went to Tracy’s Quiz, and when we emerged some hours later, poorer and perhaps a little tipsy, the world had turned and the ground was increasingly resembling a swamp land. It didn’t get any better, and the show organisers wisely chose to cancel Saturday’s classes. A handful of people went home (Emma!) but I actually think most people stayed, which was nice. We had a relaxing Saturday, and may have danced when the sun came out at 5pm. In the short hours before sunset, the sun worked it’s magic and we were cautiously optimistic about Sunday.*

*Ok, Katie was very optimistic, and Cat and I were patiently sceptical. It balances out.

Cat went home Sunday morning, which we were sad about but it did mean I couldn’t traumatise Dyl with any more Junior classes. We ran the Combined 1-3 Agility and Dylan again freaked out at the dogwalk, but after watching 90% of the dogs in the class do the same, I was hopeful for the rest of the day. We spoke to the very lovely judge who said he could see the dogwalk was clearly a problem, but by the time the pattern had been established, it was too late to change things. It was solid, not bouncing or rocking, and the approach was straightforward. It wasn’t slippy or hot/cold underfoot, so we have no idea why all the dogs slammed on the brakes on the up-plank, but they did! Anyway, we were clear, but the dogwalk shenanigans cost us too much time and we finished 6th.

Lovely dogwalk in the Grade 3 Agility, which was the same equipment as the C1-3. The course was nice but I think we got E’d … for some reason this course is a complete blank, I’m pretty sure we got E’d but I haven’t a clue how, where or why! The Grade 3 Jumping was a lovely course, consisting just of jumps and tunnels but just the right amount of challenge vs. go. Dylan was running nicely but I fell over a jump wing and completely confused the poor lad, so we got another big E. I don’t think I did the course justice! Katie and Jet definitely did though, since they came 2nd.

Finally, Doc’s Combined 1-3 Jumping, a nice smooth course with a very fast line right around the outside of the ring. I figured we had no chance, much too fast a course, but we gave it a good shot and Dyl worked the wing wrap at the end really nicely. Surprisingly we finished up 3rd! We’ve never even placed higher than 6th in Jumping, so that was a lovely surprise.

Monday morning dawned bright and chirpy with a very chilly breeze! Graded 1-3 Agility up first, last chance to chase the win, and we blew it on the second obstacle by popping the last 2 weave poles! Bit gutted as Dyl did a lovely run, beautiful contacts including a lovely fast, confident dogwalk. Must work on the weave popping!

Graded 1-3 Jumping was a course I loved, really big open spaces and a flowing course, but with some unusual challenges which made the handlers really work from beginning to work. We stood and watched quite a lot of the class, which made for interesting viewing! I only saw 1 person flick their dog to the right of 6 and then bring them down the outside of the tunnel, which had been my plan from when we walked it originally. Sticking to the plan worked, because Dyl’s run was absolutely awesome. He was eating up the ground, lovely and extended and smooth in his jumping, nailed the weaves and turning tight when necessary. We had just one break in the flow, coming over 15 at the end, where he broke stride and stepped in towards the final jump. He came back onto line when I called, but then he broke stride again, checked in with me, and then committed to 16. He was moving forward constantly, and we probably wasted 0.5s at most through a lack of momentum, but it felt like a lifetime! We finished 3rd, but only fractions seperated us from 1st/2nd. It’s the only time that I have ever felt we were chasing 1st, I was absolutely buzzing after we’d run!

Combined 3-4 Agility was a wicked little course, including a brush fence and a wall (I love this stuff, please can we have more!) but it was the best agility run Dylan did all weekend … except for popping the last 2 weave poles again. Arg! I was in raptures over his dogwalk, I think I might be dreaming about it for the next month. Was a bit worried about the increasingly gale force winds, but he kept balanced throughout, never flinched at the “unusual” obstacles and he bounced the corner going into the dogwalk. Shame about the big E, but I’m still very proud of that run!

Combined 3-4 Jumping was a boring little jump/tunnel course, no weaves or much of a challenge, especially compared to the lovely G1-3 earlier. We toodled around it, clear but uninspired, and finished up 17th.

I didn’t think about it at the time, but I realise now that I never walked a course this weekend and worried about Dylan being able to handle it, I just trusted him. It was also nice being up North, because although a lot of the names in the results were familiar to me, I didn’t know anyone well enough to go out and compete specifically to beat them. It was all about getting Dylan to run as best he could, about me attacking the courses and both of us just relaxing and having a blast. Which we did!

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.