Pupdate

So Brucie arrived with us on Saturday morning at 7 weeks old.  He seemed to know us when we went to collect him and has just settled right in, he has slept well at night and is just so scrummy, some very exciting times ahead.

Rupert had a great training session again on Thursday, I'm really enjoying training at Chippy, everyone is so helpful and I'm really using it to push my boundaries, trying things I might not do normally, and Rupert is stepping up at each request.

Yesterday I judged the jumping at the Barn so was able to run Rupert in the agility and the steeplechase, I'm pleased to say we only had 1 pole in the agility  and although we had a couple more in the steeplechase I had wanted to try to turn rupert away from me before an offside in! probably sounds easy but at the speed he was aproaching the turn it would normally of meant me panicking and him taking the pole, however it was a great success not only did I que in time, he executed a fab tight wing wrap away from me without taking the pole so that was my goal complete. after that I judged 3 jumping classes, my courses seemed to go down well and appart from 1 man getting his little collie caught up in the weaves it was a pleasure to judge.

Later in the week i'll get some brucie pics, he is just the cutest thing i've ever seen.....

highs and lows

Rupert and I have done quite a lot over the past few weeks and I have really begun to feel his silly pole knocking was a thing of the past.  Again at Chippy training on Thursday we only had one pole all night, and that was on a tight turn where I over commanded, I wasn't at my best, making silly mistakes which sent him off in the wrong direction but overall I was looking forward to the Bitz show on Saturday.

Now although I love these indoor series I have not really been a fan of taking Rupert, mainly because of the close proximity of the dogs and lots of novice handlers that walk around with their dogs on long leads not even noticing what the're doing, and the tighness of the rings, however as our training has been going so well I thought I'd do some training in the ring.  His start lines are excellent, he is really calm which gives me the time to concentrate on the course rather than worrying about what he's doing, his contacts were fine, he even had a brilliant first time see saw which I was thrilled about, but poles and my handling was a bit pants!! Unfortunately as sometimes happens one of the judges really hadn't thought about the room she had in her ring and had a fast flowing jumping course with very mismatched distances, not ideal for a dog with pole knocking issues!! so I decided to work on a flick away from one tunnel to the next which I am very pleased to say worked beautifully :-))  Amy gave me a little pep talk before the last class as my handling had been a bitt off (for a few days really) and I still wasn't feeling quite right on the start line of the steeplechase. I can't quite put my finger on why?? but anyway we had a very nice run, I managed to get into the positions I had wanted and we only had 1 pole which I knew he would as he was approaching it, I was in the wrong place and spoke to him as he was taking off! so he didn't really have a choice. But we came away with lots of posotives.

Just a little rant!  In obedience you cannot take your judges exam untill you are in Novice (same as grade 3) why is this not the same in agility, just as an example - if you run only small dogs and you are in  grade 1 how can you judge a higher grade in large? yes the judging system is the same (a fault is a fault) but where does your course design experience come from? 

On a lighter note LOL  yesterday we had RAIN and lots of it, I stood in it for 3 hours and spent a lovely hour just me and Rupert, I back trained his dogwalk again, we looked at forward focus and we had a game with the target stick, what a happy dog I have to be so focussed in the freezing rain, he then rewarded me by rolling in somthing unmentionable!  one very smelly happy dog.

We are now on countdown till little Brucie comes home, Amy will be collecting him on Saturday morning while i'm training and then I hve puppysitting duties that evening so I can have him all to myself!..

Laura Chudleigh Training

So last night I took Rupert to my first training session with Laura Chudleigh at the dog training barn in Middleton Cheney.  There were 6 of us for an hour session which started at 9:15pm!  Firstly we waited outside for 20 minutes (not Laura's fault) but by the time we got in I for one was absolutley freezing cold, luckily Rupert has a nice big coat to keep him warm.  We started with a simple warm up sequence where Laura pointed out Rupert was releasing from my body movement! to be honest this is my fault for being lazy as he has a good solid wait and when given the correct signals from me will wait for any distance confidently, so it just goes to show the things we take for granted, we have been given some homework to practice which should help with improving the understanding.  We then looked at contacts, I've been fiddling with Ruperts trying to get a running, but he just won't release and I think I've confused him somewhat, so I'm going back to 2o2o and will back train it again from the floor to try ang get back some more speed, however I really like the running method and think its going to be the only way to get a win in grade 6/7 but thats a different story... and then we did some front crosses, which seemed to go well - so all in all I think I got plenty to take away and work on till the next session in 3 weeks time, only problem was it took me all night to get warm again!!
Im back at Chippy training tonight and then at the Bitz and Bobz show on Saturday then its only a week till Amy collect Brucie, we had a visit on Monday evening and he is turning into a really cheeky monkey! The whole litter is gorgeous and I wouldnt be dissapointed with any of them, really happy healthy confident puppies, for a first time granny Lou and her family have done a brilliant job.

Training

This winter has been a bit difficult on the training front, we've only managed to get to Jo's twice due to weather and other commitments so I decided to get back into the indoor training with Chippy Club.  Unfortunately due to the location of their school we have had to miss two weeks so I wasn't sure how Rupert would be, his first week although he ran brilliantly he was so hyped up waiting his turn it means I can only concentrate on him and nothing else, but last night was different, he was still hyper but no where near as bad and again he ran really nicely, we negotiated some tricky courses with apparent ease and had some lovely comments from our trainer Sarah.

Tomorrow I have a mamouth training session at our paddock with 2 classes and 3    1;1's  so I'll try to get Rupes out for a few minutes here and there, or we might just settle for a nice run accross the fields later on.

Amy and I are off to see Brucie again on Sunday, he'll be 5 weeks old so a lovely age to play and engage with.

Blogging

It seems that over the past 6 months or so I have neglected the blog! i'm not sure why but I'm going to do my best to get back into it.
We had had a nice relaxing break over Christmas and New Year, I have started my new job and am looking forward to the season ahead.  Amy has some exciting news of her own, she will be getting a puppy on 17th February, funnily enough it was born on Ruperts birthday so we're taking that as a good omen....
We have for a while been looking out for a puppy for Amy, her lifestyle will probably be changing over the next few years, she hopes to move out and take Summer and the new pup with her so she wants a dog to compliment Summer rather than be a finely tuned athelete (that will be a bonus) so we went in search of a lovely dog and we more than found that in Bo (Gunran Chasing Rainbows) Funnily enough we have known her mum Lou for quite a few years and it wasnt till we heard she was having a litter that we both thought what a nice dog she was. Luckily it didn't take much persuasion for Steve to come round and after visiting the litter Amy chose Brucie who's KC name will be Follyfleet Moonshine. I have to say a huge thank you to Lou and her family, they have been so accomodating and understanding of our needs and we really can't wait to go on this journey with them, Lou is keeping the red girl from the litter so it's going to be great fun times ahead.

Rupert has had a few weeks off training and competitions due mainly to the heavy snow and then the horrid wind and rain, but we are back at training again tomorrow night so i'll be able to gague how the time off has affected him - or not!  I have also enrolled on a training evening with Laura Chudleigh,  it starts next week and is then every 3 weeks.  At the end of each session you get homework so i'm hoping to get my teeth into that over the next month or so.

Amy has already enrolled Brucie in puppy training with Dave Munniungs once a month and will be taking him to weekly puppy classes with Laura Wylie in Daventry so i'm sure there will be plenty of puppy news to fill this blog over the coming months

Blenhiem

Amy and I left unusually late to travel up to Blenhiem show held at the Shrewsbury Showground, leaving at 5:50 on a Friday evening, but I'm very pleased to say we didin't hit any traffic and arrived safely at just after 7:30, luckily Jo had arrived much earlier and had saved us a brilliant space so we were happy and relaxed.
Saturday was Mine and Ruperts 1st grade 6 classes, my first round didn't go very well, I crumbled under the pressure and ended up leaving the ring after a few jumps, Rupert was great but I kept sending him over all the wrong fences!! after that I watched a few rounds and realised that actually some of these grade 6 handlers aren't really as good as I have thought which settled me a bit and we really enjoyed the remainder of our classes, Rupert was really working well and we did some great stuff.
Summer and Amy were really flying this weekend, and managed a brilliant 4th place in the combined 4-5 agility, we got a great video showing how tight and focused she is getting, still plenty to work on over the winter but great handling by Amy bringing home a great place against some great opposition.  GREAT lol.

We had a lovely celebratory meal with Jo and Sheila on Saturday night to celebrate Zippy winning into grade 7, Rupert into grade 6 and Summer into grade 4, this time it was Jo's turn to make the cake!! it was brilliant, I think we may need to get the experts in for the next one!

Annual Review

Well last year was a bit of a wash out, lots of shows cancelled due to the awful weather meaning we only managed to get to a handful of shows, however in hindsight we were quite pleased to have a more relaxing summer, I think sometimes we took it all a bit seriously, so we have decided to not do as many from now on.

My goal with Rupert was consistency, although I know Jo had other ideas and it seemed so did Rupert flying us into grade 6! so for 2013 I'm going to relax and work specifically on my handling and Ruperts jumping technique, so that hopefully we can get more clears.

Maisy hasn't done much and at 9 years old I have decided to put her in veterans and anysize, she isn't struggling at all with the height but I'd rather do it now than wait till she gets injured. she is still as mad as ever, so hopefully she may even get a few places.

Amy and Summer have had a great year, Summer still isn't the most driven dog but her tight turns gained her many top 5 places in grade 3 so we decided to put her into grade 4 at the end of the season and hope that the more tricky courses are more her thing.

2013 will hopefully see Amy with a new puppy, she has expressed an intrest in a couple of exciting litters so look out for some news on that front later in the year.