Current Events

Well, it has been a while since I have posted. There has not been a lot going on apart from the normal work, eat and sleep with the usual daily dog walks in between.

Malcolm and I have spent most weekends clearing out the house which had got really cluttered. We have successfully cleared out the garage and two spare bedrooms. This weekend we started on our latest project - creating a room for the gym equipment! We cleared out the wardrobe in our fourth bedroom and put all of the caravan junk (duvets, pillows, throws, rugs, etc) into the empty wardrobe. This cleared out most of the bedroom just leaving the stuff from Malcolm's Auntie June's house. We are going to invite Malcolm's sisters round in a few weeks to see what they want to keep. We will then put the rest in the skip and we will be left with a clear room - yippee!!

We are then going to put Malcolm's exercise bike, currently in the sun lounge, on one side of the bed and, the about to be delivered, cross trainer on the other side. Our plan is to have a stereo and TV set up in the room to provide some entertainment while we exercise. My aim is to to do 3 x 20 minute sessions per week in an attempt to get fit for the agility season ahead. I don't think Malcolm would be too impressed if the cross trainer went unused so I better get on with it!

I have been going to Kenny for agility training fortnightly as usual and have really enjoyed the sessions. For Barney the main focus has been to get fast, consistant contacts, especially on the dog walk. To achieve this we have been getting him to run over the dog walk as fast as possible, without stopping at the end. This aim of this is to get him going over with speed.

Separately I have been working on a new command of 'flat' to get him to lie down flat with 2 front paws off the end of the contact. This has been done by rewarding him like mad in this position, moving away and going back to give more reward before releasing him to another reward on a tub situated away from the end of the contact.

This way he is still working on speed over the dog walk and not worrying about stopping. The 'flat' command has not been used with him going the full length of the dog walk yet so that will come later. I started developing this technique on the A Frame during the last session which went well. The key to this weekends competition is make sure he goes over the dog walk and A Frame quickly. The 'flat' and hitting the contact will come later for the start of the outdoor season.

For Pebbles the key has been to try and get her to work ahead of me going into and through the weave and over jumps. This has been to try and get her to go quicker and to try and get her to work independently of me. This should mean I can send her over jumps and cross behind.

It has been a long process and sometimes she gets it and others times it is like she can't remember from one session to the next! Still a long way to go yet although I have managed to do some rear crosses at the weave and at jumps. The main problem is that having used the ball to reward her for going over jumps ahead of me she is now looking for the ball all the time when we run a course. This means stopping, spinning and barking at me after every jump!! I am going to stick with it though because as Kenny says she has been working the other way with me for 2 years now and it will take a lot of work to change her way of thinking. I just hope she can show a little bit of what we have worked on this weekend. Then it will be back to more hard work with the ball.

This weekend is the last indoor competition of the year. I am just hoping I see a little something from all the training over the last few months. And of course we will go to have lots of fun if nothing else :-)

Better late then never!

At last, with my Dad's expert help, I have managed to download the video of Pebbles doing her Olympia Semi-Final agility round that she did in September last year.

If you know Pebbles and have seen her run you will see that although she does a lovely clear round she is not firing on all cylinders. She is hesitant going onto the A-Frame and not going as fast as she normally does over the course in general. You can see this by the fact that I am only jogging and still ahead of her.

I have thought about what the cause of this might be and have come up with the following:

1. In August she competed in the KC Agility Festival and half way up the A-Frame she fell backwards down to the bottom. For the rest of her rounds that day she refused to go up the A-Frame until the last attempt when it took 3 attempts to get her to go up very slowly. Since then she has been getting more confident but she still remembers the fall and hesitates.

2. Again at the KC Agility Festival Pebbles was doing an agility round in the main ring with a crowd and a man on a tannoy commentating on the round. During this round she jumped a spread jump and landed right on top of it rolling to the ground. This gave her a real scare and she went to the side of the ring and didn't want to continue. After trying to coax her to keep going I had to eventually carry her out of the ring. Again this shook her confidence - all in the same day! Afterwards in the car on the way home she just slept on my Mum's lap for about 4 hours - I think she was in shock as well as exhausted. But she had given her all. I think what happened at the Olympia Semis was that on hearing the man on the tannoy it reminded her of her fall and she immediately became hesitant about the whole thing. So despite trying her best and doing a lovely clear round she was just not fast enough on the day.

I am still so proud of her for even getting as far as the semi-finals and to go and do a clear round was brilliant. It is all good experience for the future if she should ever qualify again. She managed to finish 13th out of 30 dogs which is amazing for her first full year of agility. What a star!

The first 10 dogs qualified for Olympia in December. However, one woman had 2 dogs in the top 10 and she is only allowed to compete with one so this meant that 11th place qualified too. Then in November tragically the lovely, talented tri-colour Obay sheltie, Zen, who had qualified in the top 10 died from mushroom poisoning. And so this meant 12th place was called in to run. So all in all Pebbles was only 1 place away from running at Olympia!!!

So here is the video for viewing:

Last holiday walk!

Today Malcolm and I met up with my brother and two nieces for our last walk of the Xmas holidays. We took the chance of some good weather to go a bit further afield to a walk that has great scenery and very few people. I even remembered to take my camera to get some photos. Here are some good ones of the surrounding scenery. It was a lovely clear day so we could see for miles.

The dogs all had a great time running around chasing each other and the ball! We did manage to lose one ball in the heather tho!

Here is a good shot of everyone (except me of course since I am taking the photo!). Amazingly it only took 2 attempts to get everyone looking towards the camera, even all 3 dogs!

Mac has really grown over the last few months and has filled out. He has got a lot hairier too. He quite likes getting his photo taken and gives a good pose :-)

We were out walking for about and hour and half so the dogs had a good run. We did all manage to end up going home stinking of fox poo. One of Mac's favourite hobbies is rolling in it! Then Mhairi and Edie managed to get it on their gloves and Malcolm some on his jeans. My goodness did our car stink on the way home! I can only imagine what the other car with Mac in it smelt like!!

So that was the last day of our holidays and we are not glad to be going back to work tomorrow. It has been a great holiday with plenty of relaxation, tidying and seeing friends. I am not looking forward to the next spell at work which is 4 months long until our next holiday in April. Rubbish!

Then it is the start of the agility season and we can start going away in the 'van' - yippee :-)