Yummy New Car!

Well today was a very exciting day with lots to report. First, we went to Edinburgh Airport to meet a couple from Weymouth who had flown up from Bournemouth to buy my Honda CRV that they had bought through EBay. The car had been advertised on Auto Trader for a week with no interest and within 2 hours of putting it on EBay we had 3 potential buyers!

Bye bye lovely Honda!

This couple were really nice and wanted the CRV to tow their new caravan. It was a great car and I absolutely loved driving it for the 3.5 years I owned it. I was sorry to see it go and will miss it :-(. It was a perfect car with great space for the dogs, caravan gear and was very reliable.

However, Malcolm and I decided that it was right on the boundaries for safe towing of our caravan. The kerb weight was really not high enough unless we really limited how much we put in the van when towing. And the actual towing limit of the CRV was 1,500kg which was the same as the MPTPLM of our caravan, so it was a close match. After much reading on the matter we decided we needed to upgrade our towing vehicle to make it safer. Considering all we do in the summer is tow a caravan to agility shows or on holiday, for now and the forseeable future we thought it was sensible.

So that began the days and weeks of research into the best towcar for us, weight wise, size wise, cost wise and running cost wise. In the end we kept coming back to the Freelander 2 which gets rave reviews as a car and a towcar.

We got a great deal on one from Taggerts in Motherwell and went to pick it up today after selling the CRV first thing. We have kitted it out with a boot liner and dog guard to keep those pesky mutts in the boot. All we need to organise now is the tow bar which I will do next week at the place near my work.

It was fantastic to drive home, quite a bit bigger than the CRV and much smoother. We love it!

Hello yummy Freelander!

Cross Trainer

This year I have decided to try and get fit for my general health and for agility this summer. Other previous attempts at exercise have failed - badminton due to injury, boxercise to due class being so far away, and running because I have done enough of that to last me a life time!!

I decided that the only way I would stick at something would be if it was exercise that was effective that I could do at home that would not require too much of a time committment. So the result is we have bought a cross trainer and put it in one of our spare bedrooms. After much indecision and a lot of research we bought a Tunturi machine (see below) which has a 19" stride length. Apparently the longer the stride length the better, especially for my long legs!!


It has a lovely colour monitor which lets you know your heart rate (through a heart rate belt that you wear), your power output and calories burned. There are also numerous programs that you can follow which I will try once I get a bit fitter!!

Anyway, we have now had it for about 3 weeks and it is absolutely brilliant. I do 3 sessions on it a week which only take me 20 minutes each. Malcolm also loves it since it a great form of exercise that he can do with his dodgy knee. In fact, it has even strengthened his knee considerably which is great.

So now all I have to do is keep my 3 session a week up and I should be in good shape for the summer :-)

Avon Indoor Agility Show

Well the show was mixed. Not great in terms of clear rounds (Barney only got 1 clear and Pebbles 2 out of 4) but was good in terms of seeing some of the training we have been doing come to fruition.

Firstly, Pebbles who as a velcro dog has been doing lots os work on trying to work away from me and in front of me more. Although not huge changes in her runs for those watching they were huge for me. On saying "Go tunnel" previously I would have had to go right up to the tunnel entrance with her, yesterday she shot off in front on her own. Fantastic! Also she did 2 rear crosses, 1 on each side. I worked hard on trying to stay behind her and let her go over the jump before I stopped. It worked in that she did the jump but each time she did a spin before turning the right way.

Her runs in summary were:
1. Clear in graded agility. This one I was very tentative and really trying to get her to work in front of me. As a result it was a bit slower than normal so not fast enough for a Grade 7 place.
2. Eliminated in combined 1-7 agility. She knocked the first pole down then preceded to go round the back of a jump instead of taking it from the front. However, fron then on the round was great. Again I was trying to get her to stay out in front and work away from me more. She did this really well and it was a lot faster than the first round.
3. Eliminated in Graded jumping. This was handler error in that I pulled her through between 2 jumps but must have pushed her back too soon and she went back through the jumps and back jumped. Again from this point on she was really starting to work well and really going forward on the gos.
4. Clear in combined 1-7 jumping. This was a nice open course, good for practising her working out on her own. She did this really well. 9th place - yippee!

In summary I was really pleased with her progress although there is still a lot of work to be done and more still to come. And we definitely need work on slaloms and pull/push throughs!!

For Barney it was his contacts. I didn't know what to expect here since we are only part of the way through the dog walk training and we only did a last minute session on the A frame last weekend. Here's how his runs went:

1. Eliminated graded agility. He went right over a jump instead of straight into the tunnel. I have to say this is one of Barney's biggest failures and he did a lot of this last year. Although this time it was pointed out by a friend that had my right arm out and sent him over the jump. As for the contacts he did both but they were very, very slow. I did my 2 "go" commands and treid to work him on the down plank but he was looking to stop.
2. Eliminated combined 1-7 agility by doing the same mistake as above (this part of the course was the same). This time I did not put my arm out! However, all was well with the world because he did something amazing in this round. His dog walk was much better than the first round, still got the contact but went faster on the down plank. And as for his A frame it was amazing. The first time ever he has done a 'proper' a frame. He went up quickly, down quickly and stopped dead at the bottom with 2 feet off and looked at me for the release command. He shot off once I said "go". I was so excited and thrilled. I think with more work and starting to blend the training elements together things will really turn around on the contacts next year :-)
3. 5 faults graded jumping. I pushed him round a jump instead of pushing him out then pulling him over the jump.
4. Clear in combined 1-7 jumping. He did a lovely round apart from my rubbish handling which slowed us down.

In summary, so pleased with his progress on the contacts but again more work to be done. Sames as Pebbles I need to do some work with him on slaloms and pull throughs. One of the most noticeable things was that he didn't really listen to me when the course involved tighter turns. He liked to carry on a do what he thought was the right thing. I think this has a lot to do with us working on getting him to run on more open courses and the concentrating on the dog walk and not much on jump combinations.

So that's it now until Dundee show at the beginning of April. I am really looking forward to the outdoor season and getting the caravan out again.