Playdates

Brucie had his second playdate with his new girlfriend Islay, she's a lovely blue merle collie who's just 1 day older so an ideal play pal.  After a lovely play session they almost stood still long enough to get some pictures, here is our favourite one, he just looks so cute.

Rupert had his op on Tuesday and all went well, I keep checking and he doesn't seem to have any infection, however we have an appointment at the vets tonight for a check up and then again next week.  Apart from him being a bit peed off with me on Tuesday evening he seems to have forgiven me now :-) so he's getting a two week holiday from training, means he'll miss out on the next Laura training session, but i'm sure we'll catch up.

Training starting to pay off

Brucie is now 9 weeks old and everyone seems happy about his presence.  Summer and Rupert have decided he is quite a good little playmate, we just have to watch he doesn't get too bedraggled by them.  Above is him (centre) with his litter sister Jess (left) and Luna (right)  taken yesterday at Bitz and Bobz show.  He had a great day out having lots of cuddles and meeting lots of people and puppy friendly dogs.

We have done quite a lot of training recently, trying to concentrate on a more in front style of handling - which I like A LOT. seems to suit our partnership.  Amy had a 3 hour training session with Anthony Clarke on Saturday and I went along to watch, Now Anthony is a 21 year old young man, who quite frankly puts some of his peers to shame!, he is knowledgeable about his subject and gets the message across without patronising you or feeling the need to spend time describing how wonderful he or his dogs are, so well done Anthony, and also Amy and Summer who worked brilliantly all afternoon came away feeling very positive.

Yesterday we had decided to take Summer and Rupert to the Bitz and bobz show, the first agility course wasn't good for me so I decided to train my contacts and Rupert was very good, Summer was great apart from a couple of silly mistakes, in the jumping Summer was spooked by something, it did appear they had moved the horses but whatever it was she didn't like it, still trying for Amy her mind not on the job, however she certainly pulled it out the bag in a tricky 4-7 agility class going clear and coming 4th (clever girl) Rupert had a couple of poles in the jumping and although I gave him mixed messages in his agility he worked fantastically well on the difficult jumping sequence and I came out thrilled with him, he then went on to have a lovely clear in the steeplechase to end in 2nd place, just a couple of late commands by me took the win away, so we came home very happy.
Tomorrow Rupert is being castrated, although I still have mixed emotions about it, it IS the right decision, his temperament just isn't right and there are plenty of stud dogs in the world so I think he will be a  much happier dog in the long run, so he is now on a training holiday, I'm not sure how long for this will be determined by our vet. 

Motivation

There's nothing like a new puppy to get your training head motivated, Brucie is an absolute joy, he sleeps at night plays hard and his little puppy training is just easy peasy, so far he has learnt, sit, down, hand target and the ever useful Wave..... and on top of all that he's as cute as a button. He went to the vets for his first injection yesterday and got the all clear healthwise, the vet mentioned more than once that he had big paws!  she obviously never met Rupert as a puppy..
Ruperts training is still going very well, we were at Chippy again last night and once again he was very good on the course but a right handful waiting for his go, even snapping at an inocent labrador on his way out! not sure what that was all about but he has now been booked in for his castration in just over a week so that might help a bit - we shall see! but he is really listening to me and was executing some difficult parts of the course with apparant ease.  I just let him down on a couple of occasions but me I can work on.

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.