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.

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 :-)

Christmas Day!

Christmas Day starts as it always starts with the present opening - yippee! This involves a pile of presents for everyone in our house - Malcolm, Emma and the dogs. It always makes us laugh when Barney runs straight over to their pile of presents and immediately starts sniffing away. He loves Christmas! As you can see from the photo below they both got the idea of opening their presents!

And to honour the occasion Pebbles always wears her Christmas outfit - so cute!

And then took some time to enjoy one of her treats!

Santa was good to both of us with lots of undies and socks to go round! Malcolm was also really happy with some great walking boots and a great new, no effort involved, coffee machine. I was lucky to get lots too - a CD, a ring, pyjamas and best of all a voucher for the sales! Yippee, shops here I come!

After a good long walk it is time for us to leave for my brothers for Christmas lunch. It is always great to have all the family together to celebrate Christmas and Graham (my brother) and Hazel (his partner) always do an amazing job with the food and entertainment (mostly provided by my 2 nieces!!!).

This years award for the most apt Christmas present goes to my Mum for giving my Dad this hat!

This year was also very special because the last few years have seen the 'Grannies' having a few serious health problems that they have battled hard to overcome. It was great to see them both looking so well.

This Christmas was Mac's first Christmas and he was very well behaved after the initial mad moment when everyone arrived. He soon settled down to enjoy his very, very large chew bone. This kept him amused for ages!


Like mother, like daughter!

Malcolm modelling the Santa hat!


After lunch we headed home where Malcolm slept off the Christmas lunch and we watched some rubbish Christmas TV. Another great Christmas.........until next year!