Home mades best

Even after 20 years of marriage my husband still amazes me! I had bought some wood to have a go at making jumps, however while I was training with Ellen . - Steve decided to have a go, he is not known for his DIY skills despite having every tool you could imagine however as you can see he has made the best ever jump I could have imagined, only another 15 wings to go!!

The Ultimate Pet Show

Last night at agility training a gentleman from the Dogs Trust paid us a visit, he had come to audition one of our members for The Ultimate Pet show at the NEC over the easter weekend. For some reason although I knew he was coming I had forgotten he was from the Dogs Trust which is where I found Maisy, As he was waiting for Ian to arrive I was talking to him and mentioned about Maisy, anyway she was having quite a good night, Clare has set up a challenging course and had us working on obstacle discrimination and front crosses, amongst other things, after I had finished my go the man asked me if Maisy and I would like to take part in the Ultimate Pet show as part of the Dogs trust Agility team, obviously I was delighted and agreed, so Maisy will be a star!! Also Ian and his lurcher Benji will be there so the Brickyard Dog training club will be represented by two members, although Ian is a little concerned that if Benji decides to do his usual lap of honor he might find dinner a bit early as there are all sorts of pets being demonstrated including rabbits!! lucky Benji!

Weekend

Amy had a great day on Saturday at the Midlands Border Collie Club handling day, Summer in the past has made it clear of her dislike for the show ring, but Amy took her anyway and called me several times during the day raving about how fabulous her baby was behaving and the attention she was getting from "Breed" people who all though she should be seen in the show ring - we of course have never doubted her looks, she really is a stunner. At the end of the day there was a competition and the two of them were placed 3rd, not bad at all, and it has given Amy the confidence to have another go at Breed, maybe at a few small shows to start with.

Maisy and I had a mixed day, she was a bit manic and I yet again made far too many mistakes ending up in rather a lot of faults, however as you will see from the video, she does have a beautiful dog walk contact, just ignore the terrible handling, it was the first course of the day!! Clare and Charlie had some nice rounds and he really is looking much faster now, he gained a 6th in his jumping class and came away with 2 further clears. Ellen and Hamish were also there and even though they had done hardly any training for a few weeks the break must have done him some good because he cam away not winning 1 but both jumping classes, one of which he won by over a second, Hamish was a star and Ellen handled him with much more conviction than usual - Keep it up, just need to work on those contacts now, get him to have a chat with Maisy!! and he will be winning out before you know it.

Show Tomorrow

Tomorrow Clare is picking me up at 7am as we are headed off to Northampton for an Agility show with Maisy and Charlie, even though we have managed limited training over the past few weeks what I have done has proved to me that Maisy and I are begining to work as a team now, and as I keep on reminding myself if I remain calm and give minimum verbal comands we should give a good account of ourselves. At least this year Maisy's weaves will look good, she is really beginning to motor through them and rarely misses one. We have 4 classes each - 2 jumping an agility and a power and speed class, I hope to come away with faults only and no eliminations!! if I get a clear it will be the icing ont the cake. More piccies to follow.....

Training

At last we managed to get to training last night, Maisy and I started off really well, Maisy is deffinitely listening much more and so long as i keep calm so does she. her weave entrances are great if they are early on in the course however if they are further on she becomes more and more excited and just tends to miss the first entrance and takes the 2nd, I think for this weekends comp I'll just use her name before giving the weave command to regain her full attention, I know it will lose time, but hopefully it will mean a clean entrance. Clare had also got us practicing front crosses, this is something I have been struggling with and have planned to spend much more time on, I can never get myself into the correct postion in time to give Maisy space to come over the jump! although it was frustrating, it was a valuable lesson and i will try to perfect it over the coming weeks.

Whilst we were away last weekend my eldest daughter Claire and her boyfriend Jamie decided to take Ben out for a walk in the snow, somehow they managed to end up at the training field and as you can see Ben couldn't believe his luck, he found the A Frame....

What a Weekend

My Van has finally been replaced with "Trev" the truck, Steve collected him on Friday evening, as you can see he is very sexy! We had the Flyball Judging and ring party day on Saturday which gave me a good opportunity to try Trev out on the motorway - he was brilliant-even the dogs like him.

The BFA put on a cracking training day, Jo Amy and I all learnt new skills and in the afternoon Jo and I had a go at judging, Jo made it all look very easy, and took control with calm efficiency, I was very nervous but we have both caught the bug and can't wait to support each other at our first judging appointments, hopefully later in the summer. our starters team were entered in the afternoon, and as usual ran very well, Smartie, Rags and Kody are getting better and better, Jess unfortunatley cut her paw pad deeply just before racing, we're not sure how, but Kathryn and Amy quickly had it bandaged but it did mean Kathryn had a wasted journey and that Summer would have to run, Summer was much better this time and happily ran down to get her ball but I still have to put it in her mouth, but then we haven't done any serious flyball training with her so we were pleased with her progress.

Yesterday Amy took Ronny to a handling training class with Ray MacDonald in Stevenage, when she first got there Ronny was being a bit overprotective, not something we have ever seen before but I think because his mum wasn't there he was just doing his job and making sure his new charge (Amy) was safe, he soon settled down and Amy reported back that he had exceeded all her expectations, and he had made a new girlfriend in the process - SSshhh don't tell Maisy!! Unfortunately my training was once again abandoned due to there still being a good 5" of snow on the field! all my dogs had a great time playing for over an hour and "Trev" found no problem driving in it..

Tonight we are finally back at agility training after a 5 week break, and with no chance of any practicing at home for the past 10 days it will be an interesting night, but we are at a competition on Saturday so it is much needed. I'll update more tomorrow .

And still the snow comes!

We woke up this morning to so much snow, so much so that our village has been cut off from the rest of the world.. I had a text last night to say the Agility show in Grantham tomorrow has been cancelled, it's a real pity but probably a good job. The dogs are having a ball, and just can't stop themselves racing around the garden messing up the perfect pituresque veiw. Summer had fun playing with her new friends Betty and Barley even though little Betty kept dissapearing under the snow.

Let it snow

lovely as snow is, it brings it's problems, today I couldn't get my van out of the village so I spent some unexpected quality time with the dogs. On the down side I got a text tonight telling me Dog Vegas in Grantham has now been cancelled, which although is a real shame is probably for the best as we dont want to be stranded with the dogs on the road for hours. hopefully the snow will clear in the next day or so to enable us to get on with a bit more training. I've decided to try a new method for my contacts, "running on" I think it will suit Maisy's style more than the 2 on 2 off and will if it works save valuable nano seconds, i'll try to get some video of my efforts once the snow clears.

ffffreezing..

Today was one of those days were you just enjoy having dogs. Unfortunatly Amy was unable to come training today (a little too much to drink last night!!) so I had asked Kathryn to help me taking my obedience classes. She did a brilliant job, and I think she really enjoyed it, she has bags of enthusiasm which rubs off on the handlers and their dogs, I shall deffinately ask for her help again.

Jo arrived just as the snow began to flutter, we managed to get some needed team training done, Paul and Kody are shaping up to be a great team, I can't wait for him to grow in confidence like Ronny, I can already feel the flyball world shaking in it's boots.... 2 Ronnies in the same team, we really owe it to them to keep up our training so we get the best out of them, Smartie, Maisy and Dylan raced their socks off too, Alice is very sharp for her age, and handles Smartie (and Maisy) with great sympathy which helps to get them running smoothly. Towards the end of the session the snow started to come down with purpose so we packed up allowing the dogs to run free.

Next weekend Amy and I are travelling to Grantham for an agility show, Summer is entered in Grade 0 as there are no weaves or see saws and she can choose the height to run at, as usual it's a confidence thing and hopefully Amy will have time during this week to dabble in our paddock. Maisy training at home is really starting to take shape, being able to practice in my own time has really helped, her weave entrances are looking great and I'm learning to keep quiet with minimal commands and am learning to keep still alllowing Maisy to make decisions based on my body language rather than just racing around like a headless chicken. Whether it will work in competition remains to be seen but I have a class lesson tomorrow night after a 2 week break so we'll see if we have improved. I think 2009 will be a good year for both agility and flyball.