NAWS

Not a good start to the day as the van would not start. However, maggie has gone off to Canada leaving behind a perfectly servicable car. So cages into it and dogs loaded up, flask and the other stuff transferred we set off 1/2 hour late. Then her racing tyres could not get me up the centre car park. However from there it was a good day.

Ben still way too bouncy, but no silly contacts again, so we are getting there. I think I might still not be running past the jumps enough and he pulled off a couple. I think I run him right in training, but not in shows. Also the level I have put him in at is too hard for him, we would have done better on G1/G2 courses. Min you we would probably win out quite quick 'cos he is fast. His wait was rubbish, and then he skipped round the first jump, and under it on the second run.

Spike was good, we did a good round but somehow got the last pole down, then got 2 down in the 2nd run. Agility with Spike was faulty, and he pinged his contacts, so we need to do more proofing. He even got faulted on a contact, BAD! Spike got 5th place with 5 faults for the jumping and none of the other rounds got anywhere. He had the 2nd fastest time (to the 4th place which was also 5f).

We had fun though, and at least we got out on a not too promising day. With the snow and reduced attendance the show was finished quickly and we got back in time to do our local walk, which is always nice.

Wilmslow

We went to the Wilmslow show at Myerscough last weekend.

Spike got a 12th in jumping, and we got 5 eliminations to go with it.

Ben is really trying his hardest, but too eager and needs better, more careful handling from me really. E.g, jumps one and two straight up the A-frame. I could have stopped him and got him over jump 3 instead just by calling his name. Of course with Spike I would have had a longer lead out and it would not have happened.

Ben is grade 3 and Spike grade 4. They only shared one class, and that got split due to numbers. So I have 6 different courses between the two of them. Spike blew his weaves twice which was unexpected, but in each case the weaves were set very close to the netting. I really thought he got them on the second failure and would have been a good run, but talking to someone who was watching it sounds like he came out of the wrong side (RHS), so must have gone wrong somewhere.

Ben did not do any silly flying contacts, and got them all, albeit some he ran just off the end of. He also had weavie trouble, but then he has not seen 12 weaves much in competition (or at all in fact). The others were only 6 and he ran down the side of them, schoolboy error due to the excitement I think.

The unsnuggleable, snuggling(ish)

Willow has become amazingly tolerant of Ben. Amazing for anyone who saw what she was like with Adam. She is pretty tolerant of Spike too, which is also great, but I think seeing Ben grow up has made her kinder towards him.

Ben's getting there

Ben is getting quite good.

Contacts are pretty solid now with very little running off the end (barely none). See saw is ok, but less good that the other two, will have to watch he does not fly this as its the most dangerous contact.

Weavies are good. Can do 12 now. Not the fastest, but that will come I think. I sent him into 6 and ran off perpendicular to the first pole, and he carried on so with a bit more proofing I think he will have independent weaves.

Jumping directions. A bit squiffy at times, not being picked up properly etc. front crossing OK, and working ahead and rear crossing on courses (but not in my training drills!). Pull through/ flick flack not quite great, but improving. He jumps the jumps ok now in most configurations, but goes under the odd one. If he goes wrong he bounces over a couple of random ones trying to make up for it. getting the hang of verbal directionals. has a very tight turn. the odd back jump though.

calm

I'm going to be calm at the next training. Any problems are my fault and not the dogs, either in lack of training, or bad handling. Ommmmmm!

frustration

I had a not so good show last weekend. Spike appeared to be trying quite hard, but failed to go clear in all but one round. Strange things happened like knocking one pole (we had a period of fivefaultalitis earlier, but thought it had cleared up), or not sending out (Spike not sending out!!!). but thinking about it maybe it was me. Further confirmation arrived last night at training, I am getting him too hyper and he is not thinking. Ben provided even more proof by behaving like a hooligan, not waiting, bounding over things that just happened to be there and charging up the dog walk only to run straight off the end. I think I need to go back to basics again, in fact I wonder if the best training for a handler and dogs at my level is all basics.

post holiday

We went to Canada over the last 2 weeks, very nice too. Met a nice collie called Pippin (rough collie).

The dogs were in kennels over that time, which I hate doing. However, they seem fine; certainly healthy, but maybe a bit clingy.

Spike has developed eye problems again, not to do with kennelling. Going off to the v e t later. May be an overreaction, but last time I didn't take him and it got worse quite quickly (overnight). He has to wear his collar until we go. So no agility tonight, might be able to take Benny though.

Spike now g4

Spike won an agility class at the weekend, putting him up to grade 4 in 25 days time.

They called to the end of the class when I though they had quite a while to go (their board said they were calling to 220 and I was 204, but with 240 in the class I thought they would change the board). They must have announced the calling to the end, but I didn't hear it.

Anyway rushed about and got him to the line having done his ablutions. The ring party did not seem quite sure if the class was closed, but there was a dog on the line when I got there, so I don't think it can have been. Anyway they let me run and we had a great round. Maybe because I didn't over analyse, or because we did not have to queue, no idea.

They told me straight away I had won, knocking one of the ring party down to third (oops).

We also got 8th in a 3-5 combined and a 14th in jumping. I got lost in a few classes, need to be more careful walking them I think. It was the relatively straightforward ones I got lost in which points towards overconfidence I reckon.

Ben's progress

I have been steadily training Ben.

Contacts

I have been training a 2o2o on my little trainer. Seems good except he either over runs and does a lovely 4o, he does not get rewarded for it, but he still keeps doing it. I'll just keep b*****ing on with that. the alternative is he creeps into the stop position, thus is very slow. I doubt this is the version I will see in shows, so not worried at the moment.

We saw our first seesaw last night, and it did not bother him, though his stops are not very good on it.

Weaves

good. trained by just keeping on trying and going in a big happy circle back to the start if it goes wrong. There are enough successes to keep it happy. thrown ball is the reward, and for Ben there is nothing better. We started with three poles and jump wings (and a hedge to start with) blocking the exits. He looks at me for confirmation a bit, but not too much. This faded with Spike, and hoping for same with Ben.

jumpies

Now able to cross a bit, front cross looks OK. still runs out/in and misses from time to time, but it's early days. He seems to understand the tyre jump now, though still goes under sometimes (50%). Have not got much space in the garden for this, but if I am careful about setup I can teach the basics of stuff, and a box or star is possible.

Wait

Getting much better. Quite hard for him as he is very keen. I can wait him three jumps back and hold up my hand most of the time. He only comes forward on his name. Hoping for a wait similar to Spike's which is very good.

Speed

Someone said last night that he looks faster than Spike, which is exciting and worrying in equal measure. He will turn much tighter for jump wraps I think, so I had better get the distance work sorted for him, or start sprint training (maybe both).

Ben excited

Ben gets very excited at agility with others. We had a different instructor last time, and she got us all to do a bit of obedience for control. Seemed quite good timing for Ben, as he is a bit scatty due to over-excitedness. I'm sure he will settle, but this will help transfer the KC GC calmness (relatively) over to the agility arena. He jumps what I direct him over now, though only one jump at a time. I hope he will work well at a distance, like Spike does.

Spike was running nicely, but knocking poles. I stopped when he knocked them, and his success rate has improved. I noticed he knocked one that was at small height, so it not physical, just a misunderstanding about the relative importance of speed and accuracy. He worked away nicely, doing a reasonably complex course of 10 jumps without me moving. He pinged a couple of contacts (running off them, not missing them). So I went back to basics for some good stops, which he did without complaint.

Springers

A fun show in a nice location. Interesting route there due to GPS being on scenic setting!

Willow got 1st in biddy agility and 2nd in buddy jumping. We got a nice glass photo frame for the 1st, so I got a nice photo from the photo people of her starting the jumping course.

Spike got a 3rd on an agility course I had not walked. I got in his way once which probably cost the win. Second run I didn't get in the way and found a faster handling route, but it didn't count 'cos he knocked the first pole. Probably due to me setting him up wrong, but maybe we will do some practice so that he is more tolerant to my rubbish handlerness. I also want to try giving him directions while he is jumping to get him used to it, since I am rubbish at eliminating my own bad habits.

training ben

I'e been training Ben a little each day this week. I thought it was time Sparky stopped making him look silly.

He has been doing well. He is obviously very keen, but has learnt nothing happen if he just launches off on his own, the foundation of a good wait if you ask me.

He will happily do two jump, tunnel, two jumps. OK so sometimes he goes in the wrong end, and sometimes he goes round the jumps, but much less as the week progressed.

He goes on the a-frame for his own entertainment, and stops cos he seems to get rewarded for that, he just doesn't stop at the right place. He will though, cos he's trying to work it out.

He goes through the first two weavies if you keep trying and have a big pile of jump wings and a hedge to stop him running round. He is getting the idea that the ball only appears if he goes through. Lots of time needs spending on this, but he looks up for it.

All in all the chap is doing well.

Rob.

Ben progressing

I've already forgotten about getting Ben to jump a single jump and we are doing bits of courses. I'm finding it hard to judge what he can and can't do, so we are progressing slowly with lots of me not realising that he will run round the back of me barking or whatever, and him having a whale of a time, but not really knowing what he should be doing. One or two really nice bits when he does it right, and gets lots of praise for it, and a few laughs as something fails to sink in and he tries various different things. We're behind Sparky, but that's not a problem to me.

Willow had a nice little plod round and will be in good shape for running vets at Springers and NAWS.

Spike's weavy problem seemed to have gone away yesterday, with him driving through them from both sides and making lots of nice weaves entries. long may it continue. He was also really nice when waiting his go and reasonably tolerant of all sort of shenanigans from others.

Spike gets a rest from obedience for a little bit now, as he got his silver GC last week. Ben is next to move up I think, also for his Silver test. Perhaps sometime in the early summer. And maybe Willow to try for Gold.

Looking forward to the clocks changing and evening walks and training.

training all three

I've been successfully training all three in weekend agility, and midweek obedience. I keep swapping about and leaving the non working dogs in various places (either in my vehicle or in a cage). Ben is taking to being in his cage quite well though he still makes a fuss if I am working Spike at agility.

Ben is starting to get quite interested in agility, and I can already see he will be very fast. He will also be highly manoeuvrable, he seems to be able to accelerate from nothing and come to a stop quicker almost than I can see. He can also "turn on a sixpence". Right now he does not wait very well, but if I can get Spike to have a good wait then I guess I will manage with Benny too.

Spike got his silver KC award earlier this week, which is great. It took 6 weeks to even get him into the room when I first took him. He even played with one of the collieish dogs there and was quite nice in the breaks where lots of dogs are gambolling randomly. Spike continues to be an agility star.

Willow is not taking retirement lying down. she had a couple of runs round at agility training and was running very nicely. I might investigate rally-o for her at some point, she could be quite good at it and she loves obedience.

Training

Took all three to training. Willow went round steady. Then she started barking at me as we waited for the next go, so I did a bit of obedience stuff with her. Anyway second go she went round like a demon, given that she is a run-along-side dog I had to really push myself when I saw what mood she was in and she had a lovely couple of training runs. So I put her in the van and got the sproglet out.

He was in a contrary mood, dancing away with his bally and pulling towards other dogs a lot. He did a good couple of things though including the tyre for the first time. He is getting a bit more confident with the tunnel. He has a bad habit of cutting across me on straight lines of jumps, so worked him on by throwing the bally. He had a good run about with the other dogs there after training.

Spike was good, hampered by me as usual. He now has a 11 weave problem on LH weaves. He was getting the message though, with lots of praise for staying in them. E&M wondered if I do something different of LH weaves, I said not, but knowing me I probably do. A bit of a disappointment because I like to think Spike's weaves are independent (at least to a large degree), but they can't be. I found a similar thing last week when he would not send on to the A-frame without swivelling right round to look at me. I'll have to work on this, I'm sure we used to be better.

Contact speed

Spike had a great training session last time. We went on to more of a free training session where we can each work on what we want to. We had a couple of short 7 jump courses, and the contacts out in a separate section. I noticed Spike is not super fast over contacts, I might have to look at speeding him up over them. On the other hand maybe at shows he goes a bit faster. His weavies were great though.

Benny and the crate

We went to obedience, just me and ben and a crate. He got rewarded for sitting when I opened the door. And for not barking when I did loopy things near the cage. Seems to have had quite a good effect so far.

NAWS January

I've never really understood it when people say they got faults, but they had a really good run. Well maybe I understand it a bit now. Spike did two really good runs in the agility, but got 5f in each. They were still really good runs though. He did even better in the jumping, and got 4th. I am still not sure that his agility runs might have been better, Oh well, welcome to the world of muddled thinking Rob.

We picked up the rosette for Spike's win last time, which was nice. We also picked up two for Willow as she had good clear rounds last time. We got a clear in agility and jumping this time, but no placings. We appear to be in the lead in the veteran league, though in this case it may be owing to my willingness to go to Harrogate in the snow last time! We'll see how well Willow goes in the next shows, she goes well over medium, and could certainly get placed again. Howard is one point behind us.

Sadly I made a mess of walking the agility course. I ran willow over the wrong course simply because on my first walk round I did not read the numbers and missed a couple of jumps. Willow fell into a trap DW (very rare for her) on our first run, so we were already eliminated when I made the error. It was only when I watching competitors from the queue whilst waiting with Spike that I noticed my error, and I ran the correct course from then. It was not the cause of him rolling poles though.

Spike has knocked a few poles recently, not huge numbers, but one or two. I will have to work out what causes it (me probably). Still can't complain he does so much else automatically that it is not too hard to run him (so long as you run fast that is). He was a bit distracted on the last jumping run, and popped out of the weaves at 10, did them fine on a repeat, but started boinging off over all the wrong jumps. Still you can't fault his enthusiasm.

Ben behaved reasonably. Not recalling every time, but OK off lead. Met lots of dogs, and was friendly with everyone. Everyone said how much he had grown. We could not spectate, which is a pity as that would be very good for him, but I suppose it can cause chaos for the show. We did sneak in for a bit (don't tell Brenda), and he was a little barky, but could be brought back to focus with his name. Just about right really, interested but under control.

I helped for about an hour despite my name not being on the list. It's probably the best way to spectate actually, and the pole picking seat was right next to an interesting section for the D class.

More calm Spike

Just a couple of barks in our obedience this time. Lots of good heel work, even with a dog barking and whining a little bit. He is 4 this year, maybe he is maturing. Ben also had a good 1/2 hour, but I am coming to expect that because he is a good boy (apart from when he isn't).

crate games

I got the crate games dvd yesterday, and watched it last night. Garrett's accent may have put paid to my vague ideas of moving to Canada, but I think on the whole the dvd is good. The principles seem simple, but probably hide a lot of thinking and work on creating a consistent system. Greg Derrett has a similarly simple seeming system for agility handling which I loosely follow, and I think there is definitely something to be said for this approach as it stops you over analysing and getting paralysed when you need to be acting.

It would be extremely useful to get Benny trained to chill out in his crate while I work Spike, it may even be possible to do it the other way round. Who knows. I will post on how it goes.

Spike reasonably calm in obedience

I took Spike to obedience last class, rather than taking the other two which is what I normally do. He had a few little grumbles at first, but after that I worked him through 4 15 minute classes off lead. OK he went up to the trainer a couple of times, but also worked very well. This was going past lots of dogs, most of whom looked at him. A couple barked during the classes, but he stayed focused. After the class I left him off lead and him milled and mixed with all the others really well. Great!