winning video

Three Wishes

Above is a video of Gloria teaching Rupert how to play Boxer style! they had a brilliant weekend playing in the sunshine together.

Now for the results - Anne, Lucy and I had 3 wshes over the weekend, Lucy wanted a clear round in agility, and on her first run of the weekend Milly gave her what she wanted, just from watching it I could tell it was a great round and not only did she go clear but she won the grade 1 making her Grade 2 in her first season. My wish was obviously to get my final jumping win and after a slight shoe issue Maisy did me proud running an amazing combined jumping class and winning with over 2 secondes to spare. But I have to say the third wish was my favourite, Ann and Gloria had, had a brilliant day on Saturday, Gloria was running into her weaves every time and belting around the jumping sequences, at our Saturday night celebrations Ann declared she would love to get a trophy and Gloria didn't let her down, on Sunday morning in the combined 1-2 Agility she had an amazing clear round finishing in 3rd place and getting that trophy.

We had an amazing weekend, not only because we all took home a trophy but because we all had an absolute ball, thanks girls for such a lovely last show.

I am so pleased to be ending the season in grade 3 and can't wait now to start our winter training with Maisy and Rupert. I know Lucy managed to capture Maisy's clear round so I'll publish it as soon as I can.

Last Open Show of the year

Tomorrow Steve and I head off to Oswestry for Dashing dogs, this will be our last open show of the season, normally we head up north over the winter but I think this year we are just going to concentrate on winter training.
Maisy and I managed some training last night in the paddock, she really seems on form with her jumping sequences, and is back to fantastic contacts on our equipment, so the plan for this weekend is to try to get back some controll on the start and really mean my contact command in the ring, we only have one agility class on Saturday so at least I wont have contacts hanging over me all weekend.
I'm only taking Maisy & Rupert and I'm hoping to fine tune Ruperts Retrieve training as Amy has entered an obedience competition with him in November! I wouldn't say having to hold his dumbell without mouthing and come into a present is his favourite activity

Bromsgrove update

I nearly didn't go this weekend, but I'm glad to say it was worth the effort. I had decided to take Summer and run her in the combined classes on Saturday as she was already entered and it really made a difference running a dog with nice contacts! Maisy didn't have any clears but I was really pleased as she had some brilliant jumping sequences and a few times where my handling let her down! but on the bright side I have 5 out of 6 jumping classes at Dashing Dogs next weekend so hopefully I'll get my act together for that.

Summer was a little star all weekend, she managed a lovely clear in her combined 1-2 agility class finishing 7th and if I had trusted her to take her weave entry she would have been alot higher in the placings, then yesterday she had two lovely clears with Amy but most importantly she was super keen and is really getting to be a cheeky monkey.

And finally some congratulations - firstly to Ellen and Hamish who got their final jumping win taking them to grade 3, and nearly won the agility too so they look to be on great form for their grade 3 classes next year. And to Lucy and Millie, WOW what a brilliant weekend you had, you have gone from complete novice to a lovely partnership in such a short space of time, Millie's jumping is smooth and driven and you match her ability with your handling skills, this was all rewarded with some fantastic rounds and a brilliant 4th in Jumping which could have easily been a win on a different day.

All in all we had a lovely relaxing weekend with good agility and good company.

Le Hoop

Well over the past few shows Maisy's contacts have been getting worse and worse, last weekend I saw her leaping from the top section of the dogwalk in her eagerness to get to the next obstacle! so obviously this cannot continue, not only is it very embarrassing for me but it can't be good for her either... So having read over and over again sections in Dawn Weavers book I asked Steve to make me a device which we now call Le Hoop, it's actually a very smart piece of kit which we used in training last night, first of all we got all the dogs running through Le hoop on it's own getting them to run on independently either using a treat or a toy and then we tried it at the end of the see saw, the results were instant, we have one young dog who really hasn't gained her confidence on the see saw but after training with Le hoop suddenly seems to have found her mojo, so I can't wait to start Maisy training it, hopefully it will enable her to do running contacts so she doesn't find the hotspots too distracting. Rupert had a great training session last night too, there's more on his blog re this.

Weekend Update

Maisy had her back done last week, and what a difference it has made, she has always been a fast dog but watching her playing with Rupert and sprinting away effortlessly leaving him in her dust has been lovely to watch so would she now get her weaves? Well I had booked into Prestpury Park show for the weekend but decided only to go yesterday as we had pairs booked with Jo. We came away with 3 x E's!! 2 in agility because I put her back on the contacts and one in the jumping for taking the wrong jump, but I was really pleased with her as she was listening well and yes she flew into her weaves and seemed to be faster than ever through them. Summer and Amy had a good day too, they just had a pole in the agility and then a lovely clear jumping round in the rain to come 13th, she wasn't her usual speedy self but we have put that down to the wet ground, as Summer is a Princess after all.. then in the Pairs Maisy & Ronny had a ball, Maisy being eliminated for not taking the jump Ronny had already knocked down , and Summer and Zippy just getting 5 faults between them. we still have a few shows booked for this season but Maisy has now started jumping off contacts from near the top of the plank so I'm not sure if we will bother going to all of them, re-training is urgently needed before she really does herself an injury! but I have a few ideas and hopefully Steve will make me a couple of training aids so watch this space for more info.
On a different note Jo & Keisha have qualified for Olympia in the ABC finals in December, We are very pleased and can't wait to be on the support team on the day CONGRATULATIONS from Sadler-dogs XXXXX