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.