Tailwaggers #3

Posted on March 8, 2010 by Leanne

What a weird experience – no rain, no snow, no ice! Just a cool but bright day, and standing outside in the sun was lovely. Please can all the future Tailwaggers shows be like this?

Power and Speed first, Dylan’s favourite class. The Jumping section was a little too Helter Skelter for me, and true to form, I made a right hash of it and pulled Dyl off a jump mid way around. Oops! Took lots of stick about that from … well, nearly everyone, but mainly Rob, Vicki and Lindsay! I was good and held all his contacts properly in the Power section; we took our time and Dyl looked fab.

Tunnel Teaser was … interesting? The course was the same for all the levels, and it was a pure killer, E’s all over the place! I wasn’t worried about the traps but I was very concerned about remembering where I was going! I felt a little bad for Dylan, he tried for me like he always does, but I was really unsure about what I was doing and my hesitation made him steady up. There also wasn’t anywhere to pick up speed, it was constant turning and call-offs. We went clear anyway, and then finished up 1st! So that’s our first Jumping win towards Novice, which is rather unexpected! To be honest, there were only 2 clears, but Dylan beat 2nd by 11s and his time would have put him 3rd in the Novice and 2nd in the Graduate Plus, so maybe he wasn’t so slow after all.

I made sure to tell everyone that I was going to hold Dyl’s contacts in Primary Agility, just so they could call me out on it if I didn’t. But I did! I had to, otherwise I would have died of oxygen deprivation, since it was the longest course in existence. The judge runs a very drivey Weimeraner, and it showed in the course design! Dylan ran it like a star, he was clearly enjoying himself out there and he did a beautiful sliding seesaw stop, just like training! We pulled off a flick around at the top of the course (13-15) and it was just a nice run. We finished up 4th, about a second behind Vicki’s Diesel who had a really beautiful run – I think he’d win it but apparently not!

Primary Jumping was a bit of a wicked course, but if it went well it would flow nicely. I really went for it with Dylan and we were having a flying round, really smooth, until I messed up off Jump 12, oops! I thought Dylan was most likely to take the far tunnel entry, but I pulled him with me for the nearside. I dithered, he dithered, we wasted 3 hours deciding whether to do the tunnel or not. Refusal! This is clearly a recurring theme. Must work on spatial awareness and remember that Dyl always clings tighter in the ring. We finally got it back together and finished up without getting E’d, but we’d lost the plot slightly by that point and I cued Dyl for a flick back at 16 which I hadn’t intended, which also wasted a lot of time. Anyway, despite the 5R, we came 7th (fastest 5 faults) and would have walked away with another 1st if I hadn’t been an idiot. How often do I say that!?

All these results put us up near the top of all the League Tables, which I’m thankful for. We are skipping a couple of the usual BAA shows either for flyball or closer BAA shows, so I knew we needed some good early results to keep us in contention for promotion next year. Having said that, Dyl just needs one more Agility and Jumping win now to go into Novice, which is both awesome and terrifying!

EMDAC Winter 01

Posted on January 10, 2010 by Leanne

EMDAC were the only people in the country yesterday not to cancel their show because of the snow. Which seemed like an excellent plan to me, until 7:30 in the morning when we were skidding wildly on the A1 in blizzard like conditions. The A1 was almost completely covered and the road to the venue was completely covered. We genuinely wondered if we had finally gone insane.

Apparently we must have done, because only half the entries turned up for the show. Quietest show I have ever been to. On the other hand, we were done and dusted by 2:30, the sun had melted all the road snow and we were home by 5pm.

I made a shambles of Primary Agility because I walked the wrong course. Dylan ran the course I was doing very well, nice contacts and pretty quick. Unfortunately it wasn’t the same course everyone else ran … oops! So we’ll gloss over that one and quickly move on.

Primary Jumping was straightforward course, no weaves and no major challenges so it was running really fast. Dylan and I went clear, felt reasonably fast but wasn’t sure if we were quick enough to go into the places. We came 5th in the end, just over half a second slower than Bob’s super speedy youngest Twig, so pretty chuffed with that.

Primary TFO was a tricky course that I actually really liked, but I was pretty sure we weren’t going to get the link back to the start again. The dogs had to come out of a tunnel and run between two very tempting jumps to take an awkwardly angled dogwalk, and Dylan took the start jump again. Which was a shame, as I wanted to do some more contacts with him! We finished 3rd anyway, just behind Mabel and Riise, and we still had over 20s on the clock so pretty chuffed with that.

We made a hash of Primary Steeplechase so we’ll gloss over that one too. Dylan knocked a pole (!) and then I thought since we’d already got 5f I’d try and handle the top bit differently, but just promptly confused my dog. Oops.

More later on Dylan’s jumping, because it’s niggling.

Still Grade 2 … EMDAC May and Waldridge Fell

Posted on May 19, 2008 by Leanne

EMDAC

Kim and Dylan at EMDAC this time, but just for one day. Both were entered for 4 runs each but I ended up pulling Dylan from both his agility classes, he’s still not confident on the seesaw. He made up for it by having a decent run in the Helter Skelter (got E’d!) and an absolutely cracking run in the Jumping, got E’d again but I was so pleased with him, he really attacked the course, got his weaves perfectly and really focussed on what he was doing. Progress has been made!

Kim appears to have found at least part of her crazy again, as she was enthused all weekends about her runs and even if she wasn’t running up in 4th or 5th, we had some good moments. Primary Jumping was a simple course with 12 weaves, and her weaves are too slow at the moment to get us any really high placings on a course like that. It was nice to run though, and we did go clear and placed 16th, top Medium dog so not too fussed! Helter Skelter was her best run of the weekend, we came a very surprising 5th out of 90+ dogs! Our agility runs … well, the less said the better I think!

Waldridge Fell

Just Kim at Waldridge, lovely showground and a lovely show! Just a shame about the scheduling, it was too much all at once for both Kim and I to keep our cool.

We started off with a clear on the Graded 1-2 Agility (bit rough but we got round and Kim was working her contacts nicely), and thought, oh-so-briefly, that we had it in the bag … and then Bailey stepped on course and put in one of the best runs I’ve ever seen her do, it was absolutely paw-perfect and she nailed everything. Emma and Bails won the class by just over 2 seconds, and into Grade 3! I’m so pleased for both of them, Bailey can be a little terror when she wants and Emma has had to work so hard with her! Kim came 2nd but as the class only placed to 1st she doesn’t get any agility warrant points for it.

Things went downhill from there … Waldridge Fell had changed the ring plans on the morning which meant the classes were not in the order we were expecting. Because the class entries were so small in the Medium classes, we were walking the courses and then running immediately — no time to watch anybody run or walk back to the car to collect dogs! That meant I had to have Kim out and ready whilst I walked the course, which doesn’t work for her as she gets bored and tired. Immediately after we ran the Graded 1-2 Agility, we had the Graded 1-2 Jumping, although Emma and I didn’t realise that! We missed the course walking and so I had to run it blind, having watched 2 dogs run before me! Kim hit her weave entry and then paused to sniff something and missed the next pole. She was working and focussed so it wasn’t stress-sniffing, so I’m not sure what caught her attention and I wouldn’t want to speculate! We finished up with 5 faults but won the class anyway by 14 seconds.

Immediately after that we had to walk the Combined 1-2 Agility class. The results from the first class still weren’t out so we didn’t know if Kim or Bailey had won it, and I couldn’t decide whether to push Kim for speed or be careful to get her contacts on the course. I wasn’t that keen on the course in the second class anyway — it was the same judge and the equipment stayed in the same place, only the numbers changed. Kim doesn’t like repetition but she actually ran it quite well, just a shame about the handler! I should have layered a jump in but I tried to go around it, and ended up pushing her past the jump she should have done. Refusal … and now we’re stuck in Grade 2 still!

Immediately after that (and I do mean immediately!) the Open Pairs class was calling for Mediums, so Emma and I walked that and then queued with Kim and Bailey whilst the judge took a quick coffee break. Whilst we were in the queue for Pairs, we suddenly realised the ring next to us was running the Combined 1-2 Medium Jumping, so we had to desert the Pairs queue and go and run that, despite not having walked that one either! Kim threw in a nice clear and came 1st again, by just over 3 seconds.

We then ran Pairs and Kim and Bailey both went clear in a decent time, but we had some seriously tired dogs on our hands. I think they finished 4th out of the Medium pairs. I’ve never asked Kim to run 5 full courses back to back in training, let alone competition, and she was exhausted. I’m so proud of her though, she gave me everything she had to compete under circumstances I know that she doesn’t like, and I let her down on the 2nd agility course.

I have to admit I’m really disappointed that we’re still Grade 2. I came home so pleased with Kim at EMDAC and so downhearted from Waldridge Fell. It reinforced all my reasons for not doing Kennel Club shows — Kim won 2 classes this weekend, but they weren’t difficult wins and there was no achievement for us. We may be 1 Jumping win closer to Grade 3 but it feels frustrating slow — Kim has already won 3 Jumping classes, beating dogs from higher grades to do it, but we won them as Grade 1′s so they don’t count. She came home from EMDAC with lower placings but I felt like we’d achieved something, we beat a lot of good dogs, have some more points towards the League Tables and the Dog of the Year awards, and hopefully are on our way to qualifying for the Finals in August.

Enough about that, I make enough arguments for BAA shows as it is! Kim was much better this weekend in herself, she was bouncy and tugging in the queue and running smoother on course. She got a handful of AW points too so we’re an inch closer to the 200 points. We aren’t competing again in agility for 6 weeks/2 months, so we can get some proper training done and come back refreshed for the middle of the summer season.

Agility Nuts

Posted on January 8, 2008 by Leanne

Finally back on form with Kim – EMDAC (Oct) and Wyre (Dec) were a bit down, just one 4th in the end despite a couple of good runs – but she decided to start 2008 with a bang. She came 2nd in both jumping classes, missing out on 1st in the Jumping by 0.3 seconds (my fault, naturally, I caused a bobble at the first tunnel). We’ve never done Primary Snakes before but I did think we’d at least manage to go clear; it’s essentially a jumping class where there are a series of tunnel traps to be avoided. Since Kim is not a big tunnel fanatic I never thought she would be tempted off-course and she ran a perfect clear, I don’t think there’s anywhere she could have gained any time. Having said that, I didn’t think she’d come quite as high as she did, there were some seriously quick Maxi dogs and it was a nice fast course, not usually the kind of thing we do ultra-well on.

We also got a 9th in the agility with a fairly appalling run by our standards; Kim didn’t set off with much enthusiasm and although we got around clear, it wasn’t very tidy and she got a very lucky call on the seesaw contact. Final run of the day was my favourite class; I love Time Fault & Out! However I take full responsibility for our “early” exit – refusal on obstacle 20 – Kim was just going way too fast for me and I couldn’t get into the right place to handle the flick flack. She came 12th (rosettes to 11th only, so just missed out!) but her time was fantastic, she had over 20 seconds left on the clock when we had to exit and she got both dogwalk contacts. Shame she doesn’t have a better handler!

All those places put her up to the top of the Primary Medium Dog of the Year tables! It’s a bit early in the year for talking about the final Dog of the Year results, especially as BAA have a lot more shows this year that I can’t get to, but it’s certainly nice to be at the top for a while anyway. Amazingly we’re also top of the Primary Jumping League (all heights!). I always think of Kim as better at agility rather than jumping, as usually she’s just not quite quick enough for high places in the jumping classes. She seems determined to prove me wrong at the moment.

Congrats to Katie and her hounds for their places, and especially to Sarah and her contingent of collies for their fab top-10 rosettes. Also, I just have to mention my favourite dog of the day, an amazing little Papillion who just stormed around the Introductory TFO and won it with an amazing obstacle tally – who says Micro dogs never win anything?!

BAA Finals and the Website

Posted on August 7, 2007 by Leanne

I have finally got around to upgrading my account at streamline, and therefore have also started up a blog on the main website. I will still have my account at LiveJournal (http://moderately-lea.livejournal.com) but it makes as much sense to have a blog here. I’m going to try and keep this blog related to the site – updates about the dogs and the occasional artwork – rather than a personal blog. The layout has changed slightly, and now has the lovely Mollie featured rather than Kim. Dylan will still have his own training blog at undermybed.co.uk/dylansblog

So, what updates do I have? Kim and I should have been competing at High Peak this weekend, but unfortunately it was cancelled. I’m really disappointed about it, actually, since this is a show I’ve been looking forward to since 2005, as it was also cancelled last year. Instead we raced with the Barney Owlers over at York Racecourse, which is an absolutely fantastic venue, I’m amazed no agility clubs have snapped it up for shows! There would be room for 5 or 6 rings, plus camping and all the other trappings.

The BAA have announced the dogs and handlers who have qualified automatically for the annual Finals in August (by being top of the League Tables), and Kim qualified for both, in 2nd and 3rd place respectively. She’s the only Medium dog in the Agility and is the only none-Maxi dog in the Jumping! She has also qualified for the CleverDogs Finals, as top seed in the MultiMix division.