Training

We didn't manage to get to the obedience show today, Maisy and I have been focussing more on agility recently and Summer just isn't quite ready for a novice round so we took Summer and Ben to the park for a bit of training and a nice walk. Summer is going to be so good at obedience, her attitude and relationship with Amy is lovely to watch, she's just a little stunner, we could not have asked for more - I must add at this point her breeder helped Amy to chose the puppy which she thought would best suit her and WOW did she ever get it right. Thanks Sheila.

Planning Ahead

Only a few more shows left this year! Summer has her first obedience show next Sunday, I think Amy will use it as a training round, she has stunning heelwork and her recall is sound, but we are experiencing a little hiccup with the retrieve - she does everything well except she has started to be a little madam about the hold!! till now her training has been clicker based and she is indeed a willing student, however we are now seeing the odd tantrum! this is something Amy and her will need to work through in their own time, so giving her a couple of training rounds will do them both good before the onset of winter training.

Maisy and Summer are both entered at an indoor agility competition in November, it will be the first competition Maisy has been to were I have confident weaves, and it will be Summers first show, she isn't ready for proper competitions yet but it will be a good experience for the two of them.

We have the YKC training weekend the 1st & 2nd November at Newark, Amy and I will be there as trainers and more importantly the Brickyard babies will be trying to qualify for the Flyball Crufts Finals. we have a really strong team this year so fingers crossed we can pull it out of the bag.

New PB for the Bandits

Left to right Dylan, Maisy, Ronny, Keisha
Well, Portway has a great new venue at Becketts Farm, even though we had practiced we really were not as prepared as we'd have liked. the first race in the ring we went with the new line up, the dogs ran well and we ended up with a new time of 19.93. Unfortunately the greeness of the novice dogs came through, and we had no choice but to nurse them through each race, we tried lots of combinations and have now realised Keisha needs to run in the middle and Dylan needs to run last, this gives us 3 good crossovers, but we still have to give Keisha and Dylan plenty of space. We came away with 3rd place and were very pleased with our progress.

Left to right - Summer, Dylan, Maisy, Ben, Ronny, Kody, Pudsey!!!, & Keisha

Portway Flyball Training

The Bandits have acompetition tomorrow, AT LAST!! it seems ages since we last ran our dogs together so Jo brought the Mali's for a practice. First we had the babies out, Summer who is now 17 months old and has been clicker trained to run the flyball lane and Kody who is now 16 months old, and seems tobe turning into another Ronny. OMG lookout flyball world!!. they ran really nicely together and had so much fun, they haven't quite got the idea that the most important thing is getting the ball and not playing with each other, but that will come with practice. Then we got the others out. We normally run Ronny as start dog who is folowed by Maisy, then Keisha and lastly Dylan, but because both Dylan and Keisha are still only novice dogs and are both easily spooked we decided to try running them at seperate ends of the race hoping that the confidence from the steady dogs would provide a comfort zone. we started with the two boys, they are both strong characters but after a few runs seemed to get on with it, then we tried the girls again, even though Keisha is visibly steadying for the crossover as the runs went on she improved. at last we tried all 4, Keisha as first dog, Maisy 2nd, Ronny 3rd and Dylan bringing up the rear!! WOW this could be what we need for a new PB tomorrow - I'll keep you posted and try to capture it on video, I can't wait.

Weave evidence!

Agility training again last night, and again I've come home really pleased with our progress. Clare set a perticularly difficult course last night, we broke it down first and then had a go, we made a few mistakes but mostly I think it went well.

No Comps This Weekend

It's a fairly quiet weekend, it's got much colder now and we've been forecast rain later so I met Mum to go for a walk to the pond with Maisy. Before we set off we had a coffee and a slice of Mum's homemade fruit cake - Yum, then we squueezed willow and Mum into the front of the van and set off. there were lots of people around today but our girls had a great time romping in and out of the hedgrows searching for anything they could find. a quick swim in the pond and then a long walk back to the van. Maisy has spent the afternoon snoozing in between Summers demands for attention. Agility practice on Monday night again, i'm hoping to video our progress!.

Maisy Has 12 Weaves

Great news, Maisy has finally decided to be as neurotic at weaving as she is at everything else, she now has 12 consistant weaves!! PHEW - I must admit there were times when I never thought we would get there at all,, but patience has paid off. I feel my handling is getting better all the time although loads more training required, but Maisy is really starting to tune into my body language and not just take any draw she sees, the only problem with that is that if I am even slightly off line or give too much shoulder she's gone, which I'm sure is a good thing or it will be once i get it right. I only have one message for all you people who look at her and think "Mental head" watch out - she's coming.... lol. let's hope I'm with her - eh?.