Hare’n'Hounds Valentines

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Leanne

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!

Winter Agility Season

Posted on October 10, 2010 by Leanne

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.

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

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.

Newton Heath

Posted on February 22, 2010 by Leanne

Let’s gloss over Dylan’s first run, except to say that if you are queuing, have your damn dog with you, especially if the queue is only three people long and you are two of those people. Congrats to Julie and Winnie for winning it though, go the Beardie/Lurchers!

The Graded 1-3 Agility was a really nasty little course. It was the same for the 1-4 Small/Medium classes, and included two contact call-offs and a horrible box push-out and around. Not my kind of thing at all, but Dylan did a nice run, not really flat out at all but he did a really lovely dogwalk. He did get marked on the down contact and I genuinely don’t know whether he hit it or not; I tried to front cross at the bottom and pushed him sideways, and although he did his 2o2o stop, I’m not sure he had any paws in the yellow. Not his fault anyway, and it was almost-fast and was confident.

Lady Jane made an appearance too, because Myerscough is light, clean and airy, and she likes the crowds and the noise. The classes were 5-7 but the gamble partly paid off, and we had a cracking smooth Jumping course, just offset by the painfully difficult Agility. She was really happy to be there, so I still happy with the semi-retirement thing.

Kim and I watched everyone getting E’d or faulted on the Jumping, and Kim showed those whippersnappers what an old lady can do. Shame her handler is spacially challenged! We got a big 5R as I pulled her off a jump way too early, so we looped back around and then came 2nd, with a time that would have comfortably put us 2nd in the Grade 6, and with the second knocked off for the loop, we’d have been in the G7 placings too. This really makes me smile, because Kim runs at cruising speed these days, just chilling in middle gear and laughing at me the whole way around, and still clocks up faster times than dogs running flat out at half her age. For a long time it bothered me that I had failed her with regards to training, and that she never got the Grade 7 label I knew she deserved. I guess I’m just happy to take her line on things these days; she knows she’s more awesome than everyone, and I know she is too.

All the other three rings had packed up by the time came for Kim’s agility, but I guess we can’t be first to leave all the time! The agility involved a little bit of coaxing on the call-offs, but Kim raced through all the straights and made up more than enough time. I promptly forgot the ending, had to make it up and wasted what felt like hours improvising slowly and wildly. We got around though, clear and easy, and Kim came 2nd again. I’m more than happy with that! Staying in Grade 5 means I can stay away from 5-7 or 6-7 classes, and let her have a blast in 3-5s.

Kim also had an interesting end to her Agility run. The big white horse barriers (double bar, about 4-5ft high) were marking out the edge of the run. I’d seen a couple of dogs over the course of the day jump the last jump and then continue to jump through the center of the two bars to leave the ring, mainly when the walkway area was clear of dogs and people. Kim jumped the last jump, and then tried to jump the whole thing. She nearly made it, bailed at the last second and somehow pinged back through the centre hole as it was tipping. It landed on her head … she is such a drama queen, with the screaming and the hobbling and the “much sympathy required” signs.

Within two minutes she was being gobby and muscling in on Pippa’s snapshot moment – Kim was originally stood three foot to the left, until she saw the shutter going down …

Hare’n'Hounds

Posted on February 13, 2010 by Leanne

Lovely show, but South Durham always put on a good competition. No weaves in any of the classes though, but apparently they couldn’t peg them down. Some of the rings were a bit … oddly shaped, but I don’t really mind that. Anyone with a bit of imagination can put up an interesting course in any space, and I like interesting courses! Some judges were brilliant at this, others not so much.

Graded 1-3 Jumping, and I knew this was not going to be Dyl’s course. Very tight spacing for Dyl, and lots of boring pinwheels/boxes for me. We did a reasonable run, a bit hairy in places poles-wise but tidy turns. I was pleased to see that Dyl was clearly wanting to stretch out and have a blast around, but as soon as he picked up any speed he was braking again to get the strides in. I find it hard to handle when I’m just stood pointing too, so that probably didn’t help. We finished up 8th in the Grade 3, so not so bad in the end.

Walked both the agility courses at the same time, and would have loved to run the G1-3 first, but the Combined 1-4 was running much faster and with Dylan having a lower running order, we had to go for that first.

Five faults, oops! My fault, I early-released and he blew right over that contact. I should know better! I took my foot off the gas then and we made the pinwheel look a bit untidy, and I wasn’t clear enough with Dyl on the run to the last jump about where we were going, so he hesitated for a moment. Fractions of seconds, but if we’d gone clear we’d have placed 6th out of the 220+ dogs, so I’m quite pleased with that. Must practise pinwheels though (even if they are boring!), and look at that terrible jumping action … arg! This was his worst run in terms of fluidity of movement, by a noticable margin.

Graded 1-3 Agility was a superfast course, the only potential problem was a pull-thru at 9-10. Dyl shot off like a rocket, actually showed some of that lovely training speed! Carried that through for a nice Aframe and a really perfect seesaw, but I steadied him up a little bit too much for the pull-thru* and then made a right hash of the ending so we lost too much time there. Surprisingly came 5th regardless, which was a genuine shock!

Final run was Combined 1-7 Jumping (Part 1), and both splits had 157 dogs. I was very jealous of the Part 2 lot as they had a fab course, lots of long stretchy sections and a real flow. Part 1 was a bit more technical, lots of tight turns and those boxes and pinwheels again … Dyl actually ran this with the most enthusiasm and extension he’d had all day, but naturally I was all over the place! I was concentrating too much on remembering where I was going and not tripping over things, which meant I was late on almost all my cues. Poor Dylbert! We had a couple of late hesitations which put us waaaay out of the running, although we were never even in it to begin with as it was 1-7. We got a nice 22nd though, or so Vicki tells me (thanks!).

Congrats to all the usual gang; Julie & Charlie/Gertie/Winnie, Leah & Stan/Doris, Vicki & Diesel/Pippa, Candy & Freddie, Katie & Jet, Orienne & Woody/Murphy, Paul & Farley, all the Wakefield crew, and probably at least six people I’ve forgotten! This was a pretty sizable indoor show but I still couldn’t escape talking to at least 20 people I knew everytime I went for a stroll. Good stuff!

*Expect in-depth analysis of one small half-checked stride in the coming days. I’m becoming an obsessive …