Some time to sit back and think

Well no show at the weekend so what do I write about??

The dogs have had a quiet week on the training front as well. We have been busy with SWAG and realised that we had the grand total of about 4 leads and 6 toys in our stock boxes for SWAT show where we have a trade stand this weekend. Cue Dan frantically cutting fleece, me now having repetitive strain injury and Cruze in a strop as he can’t see why he can’t have every single toy that is being made for himself!!

I have spent some of my time reading other blogs and websites and looking on YouTube at various things for inspiration.

I found several things that I thought I’d share with you:

I like this blog; and this post in particular:

Agility - The Chaos Theory - changing your perspective.

I like the tone and I like what the writer talks about and how she always seems motivated to do better and try harder and after reading this entry – I went away thinking she is so right! I want to be good, I want to show my dogs to their best potential – but am I doing enough to achieve this?

I then followed up reading this blog by watching this video:

And coming to the ground halting realisation of Hell no!! I am not doing enough to achieve this!!!!! 

Turns and turning is something all 3 of our dogs need to improve on but not half as much as Dan and I need to improve our ability to ask for these turns.

I know I know this already as this is all Phaze has done – learning to turn. I haven’t done straight lines, she doesn’t go through tunnels in a straight line time after time, I haven’t even begun to think about contacts, and I plan to do 2x2 weaves so we won’t even look at that until next year. However, her wing wraps are getting pretty good, we have worked on rear crosses and front crosses and angles of jumps. She will often train over the same obstacles as the grown ups – ok so the actual order the jumps are taken may not be the same – but they are put on angles, well spaced out, and not ‘obvious’ like you would expect for a baby. A friend of ours said a while ago that they can struggle to get out of Grade 3 as they train their dogs for Grade 7 from the outset as that is where they aim to be. You see time after time a dog that looks really fast over the lower grade classes – but as soon as you start asking for complicated sequences and turns you know that partnership has worked on drive in a straight line a lot more than turning ability (I’m not saying you don’t need a good ‘go on’, as of course you do, but it is not the be all and end all of training).

 I also know that a certain person who is doing extremely well at the moment concentrated on turning ability and understanding not speed in straight lines and this seems to be working out pretty darn well for her at the moment and even the critics are starting to have to sit up and watch this combination in action as they are fast becoming ‘the one to beat’.

I then spent a bit more time trawling the net looking for ideas and those few kind people that like to put up exercise plans!

CleanRun have an archive of exercises from their magazines, the added bonus of this is they aren’t UK courses and therefore force us to handle a little differently – I really enjoy European style courses and the USA seem to have a different style again – I think this is where the UK can seem to fall a little behind on imagination!

Agility Zone also have some fab articles and different exercise plans in their magazines and archives (if you subscribe to the magazine you get access to all the past magazines J ). I like this style of magazine over some of the other choices as it is a lot more about training, new ideas and how other people overcome common issues in agility. Rather than a place to advertise the same things over and over again sandwiched between some write ups of events which happened several months ago and can be seen elsewhere anyway.

So now not only do I now have an Agility Folder which comes to shows with us and houses our registration papers, KC books, R/Os and directions etc (still proud of the organisational skills here!) I now also have a Training Folder in the making with various exercises that we have found useful and to test our handling styles. I am hoping this will give us a clearer idea of the stages we teach things and the way we teach things when our next new Agility dog turns up (it’s not my turn next!! How unfair!!!)

SO I think we are getting there – we know what we want, we are starting to work out how to get there, and hopefully we will see some results – but if not then we will just have to try harder!! 

Just as I am thinking I should give up as it's just not fair on my clever dogs ;-)

I have continued to be slack with the blog as I can’t get my videos to upload properly on the computer and prefer to have some video to add in to each blog. This weekend we forgot the video camera entirely anyway!!

I was told off for my last blog entry as I missed one of Magic’s wins L Magic also won Combined 3/ 4 Jumping at Kernow J There were so many wins I knew I had forgotten something!

Last weekend we went to Blackdown Show, new venue, so a bit bigger and MUCH windier!! The classes seemed a little on the slow side, some of the callers seemed to have an odd idea about what they were calling up to and whether or not they were letting people join the queue – not letting in someone who was 90 something but letting in people that were 190 odd 2 seconds later (and no they weren’t helpers). As a result of this we ended up with 3 grade 3 classes and 2 grade 6 classes running at the same time so 7 runs had to be fitted in at the same time! So it wasn’t appreciated when I then got chastised by a ring party member for being late and not having run either of my dogs in a class that should have been open for around 45 minutes as there were 50 odd in it and had only been open for 20 minutes with no call out that I had heard, I rushed to get my dogs, messed up my runs as I was upset and then proceeded to watch the class be left open for a further 15+ minutes!

Meanwhile Dan was having a better time in the Agility ring and had a lovely clear which he eventually won J So another Grade 3 win under their belt. In fact it was a combined 3/ 4 class again. So that was 3 jumping wins and 2 agility wins for Magic at Grade 3 J and she has proved herself capable of winning Grade 4 twice over as well. Dan is planning on working on his timing and cueing with Magic before his first Grade 4 show at SWAT so here’s hoping they do well there too J

I enjoyed running both my Agility classes; Cruze was clear in the 5-7 Agility and somehow came 4^th – I have absolutely no idea how we managed that as he was a bit exuberant and I was completely lost and also got a fit of giggles half way round as he was just being so funny and I was shouting all sorts of commands at him! From one jump to another I managed to fit in ‘go, back, left, right, here’!!! Poor dog!!!! He does so well to put up with me!! So we wasted a few seconds there – mind you we wouldn’t of made up enough time to beat the winner; Stuart and Tess had a foot perfect, smooth round to win that class. Thai ran it absolutely beautifully, until I ran out of breath for the last turn and pull in and lost him over a jump instead of going up the A-frame. Another consequence of having to run a dog, run back get the next dog and there be no queue/or a queue of 1 or 2 dogs only. So lesson learnt there – I cannot run my dogs unless I follow the set up I am used to; therefore I will not be wasting my runs and running while upset/annoyed/rushed – too hot/too cold/ a bit tired/ a little grumpy ;-) hahahahaha!! I wonder how many runs I would manage over a whole season!

I then waited for several hours for my Grade 6 Agility – and messed up both!! By which point I was more than ready to go home!! Well done to Dani and Lily who very comfortably won that class J 6 and a ¼!!

I have struggled over the last few weekends with no run going how I had hoped, and it does get hard when agility means so much to you and you just can't get it right, but I just have to look at the boys' faces and realise that they were very happy with their runs and that is what really matters.

Dan had another really nice run in the Grade 3 Agility Magic is looking so confident at the moment and they look a good partnership – I wonder how far they will go this season?? Unfortunately Magic was a bit too fast over the seesaw and forgot that it was meant to hit the floor before she left it!

Yesterday was Carn Brae – and the special mention goes to Cruze – never one to let me down – if we both hit it right on the same day on the same course J Mr Cruze has his first grade 6 win J He ran beautifully, nice contacts (I was really pleased with his DW), good turns, a nice rear cross/flick round the outside of a wing into weaves which not long ago Cruze would have ended up outside the ring whilst conducting a turn like that!! So I think I have to officially stop calling him my baby – he is not my ‘tester dog’ for courses that I hope to do well in with Thai, he is my amazing Grade 6 boy with 1 win towards Grade 7 and I shall be treating him as such from now on.

No show next weekend L What will we do??!! I think we should probably use it as a welcome break as our next free weekend will be the 20^th August! 7 straight weekends of camping and competing at the larger shows starts with SWAT on Bank Holiday May weekend.

I am hoping I can use this fortnight to continue to work on my turns and handling style and you never know I may emerge as a calm and confident handler in 2 weeks time, who doesn’t lose the plot half way round a course, if not I will still have 2 of the best dogs in the world who love to spend their time with me playing their favourite game.

The rest of April in a nutshell

I have been a bit rubbish with my blog recently, there are several reasons for this:

q             SWAG has been very, very busy recently – there will be so many colour co-ordinated happy dogs out there J

q             My computer is useless at uploading video and I am not very good at editing video! And I have a short attention span for things like this.

q             My handling has in general been pretty Pants!

q             Did I mention I have a short attention span? I always enjoy things when it’s a novelty – after 5 or so Blog posts – I know see it as a chore! Lol

So we have been to several shows since my last Blog:

Wallingford – I was really pleased with parts of pretty much all courses run by the 3 merlies. Cruze had a clear in 2 classes with a broken toenail (so no agility classes for him) I did not push on any turns or anything as wanted to know that he was comfortable and stayed sound after which he did J  He also went clear with Dan in the Teams which was especially good as I was running Tigger in the same Team (I do so love that dog!) and his Girlfriend Wren was in the Team which I thought might just make the crazy merlie head explode!! Maybe I will have to break his toenails more often as he was clear all weekend!!

Thai had some really good bits and his times were up there with the top dogs when he just had a pole in several classes. Dan ran him in one Agility class – they looked very good together and Thai is rapidly becoming a bit of a Daddy’s boy! Which is nice as we now have 2 each. J Thai seemed much more confident and was motoring around courses – I think this might have had something to do with me trying really hard to handle well and only having him to concentrate on. Nothing still quite came off though.

Magic had some really nice contacts over that weekend but was a bit of a madam in her weaves, deciding she couldn’t do left hand weave entries and that right hand weave entries came up too fast – so she either came out early (left) or missed entry (right).

Then it was Easter.

As usual Dan had put lots of effort in during the week based on the problems he had encountered over the weekend before. This time it paid off!! Weaves all weekend were pretty much spot on J Magic won G3 Agility on the Saturday and is now Grade 4. Magic worked really well over the weekend, with just a pole here and there for most of her runs. She is looking on top form and I think Dan will enjoy Grade 4 classes.

I was useless the entire weekend!! Cruze had done no contacts at all for over 2 weeks whilst his nail was healing so didn’t expect much on Friday. However, he came 4^th in the G6 jumping and 9^th in the Combined 6/7 Agility. Then that was it – I have failed to achieve a clear round since!!!

I really enjoyed running my first 6/7 Olympia Qualifer. The atmosphere was really good, the others rings had finished, the sun was out, so pretty much everyone on the showground sat around and watched, whilst the Show Management handed out sweets and lollipops! How lovely J
The course itself was pretty tricky, I had no expectations of actually achieving anything but using my new found determination to try my hardest in every class (so at least when I don’t go clear I still have something to take away from it!) I attacked both runs.

The start was tricky and dog after dog did not get past the first 6 obstacles without fault. I had decided to handle the boys in two different ways and both worked so I was really, really pleased with that. This course again highlighted my need for work on turns and tighter control. My sheepdogs do tend to bring in a herd of sheep or two everynow and then on a course – which is really disheartening when I finally get a clear but have had 2 huge unnecessary turns and am out of the places. Both missed the weave entry – for 2 different reasons – the weaves were a fairly hard entry off a long jump but it was a right handside entry so I thought if I got where I needed to be I might be ok. Thai took the longjump very fast and REALLY tightly. I expected a leap and a wide turn which would make the weave entry easy enough for Thai, I got a tight wing wrap around the long jump marker pole and he entered at the 2^nd weave as he made it too tight for himself. Cruze I got there to help him turn – didn’t help as he rushed and missed the entry. A common theme for Cruze over the weekend which I thought we had overcome but obviously not.

We then had Cornwall and Dartmoor shows last weekend – not much to say really – the show seemed to have a slightly odd vibe about it and the classes seemed to run slowly we didn’t get home until about 7pm on Saturday and we only live ½ an hour away. We also didn’t get home until late on the Sunday – but that’s because we had to wait for Dan to get another trophy J Magic won her Grade 3 jumping J So Magic seems to be keeping up her theme of winning out of each grade several times over as this was her 3^rd jumping win.

Pat had joked that she didn’t want Dan to leave her behind in Grade 3 when he won out at Easter – so she made sure she wouldn’t be lonely and won Grade 3 Agility with Dooley on the Saturday and Chilli on the Sunday!! Absolutely amazing I have to say! Dooley’s run was one of those runs where you just knew no one would be beating it – it was so smooth and flowing and Dooley’s drive and motivation around the entire course was evident, I was almost clapping along with Pat in the weaves!

I’m not going to say anything about my runs as can’t really remember if I achieved anything – which probably means I didn’t! Oh no actually they both had lovely agility rounds on the Saturday – but Cruze took a dislike to the straight, narrow A Frame with slats in the way of his little paws and Thai did a lovely dogwalk at which I panicked and told him to wait, so he slowed across the top and beginning of the down, crept towards  the bottom and released himself – we got 5f – which didn’t matter anyway as I hadn’t completely ruined his round by slowing him on the dogwalk!

Blackdown this weekend. My main goal?  I really would like to see if I could manage to not be an idiot!!