Agility Nuts KC Show

I enjoyed this show. It seemed well run and friendly. I didn't see the computers in the score tents like you do at the other agiltiy nuts shows. I guess maybe they are incompatible with KC or people used to KC ways. The rest was pretty much as normal, with a few oddities thrown in by the venue. The venue was on the whole good, and easy to find.

Spike and I got a 3rd in jumping, which was the only result of the weekend for us. We just don't seem to be communicating as well as we were. I have also let his basics slip, distance weaves and good contact stops used to be the order of the day, but if I run past he releases, and sometimes he doesn't seem to understand which obstacle I want him to take. Also we often see things in competitions that we do not see in training.

Much of this is due to having limited time to train two dog either of which would really be enough for most people. I am hoping that over the winter I can put the training in place to emerge next year with two dogs running to their potential, which is huge. I am also hoping to have a job to fund lots of shows.

West Lakes show

Back at this great venue again. This year staying on for a few days of holiday (punctuated by job interviews).

Spike got a 3rd in jumping a 10th in the amazing clock face/ black hole course (agility), and 2nd in 3-4 combined agility. Just happened to have a tunnel in the same place (under the dogwalk) as I set for club training last week.

Instructing blog

http://robatfidos.blogspot.com/

Instructorship!

I am now instructing at FIDOS. I am mainly doing the beginners class which suits me as I am a stickler for getting contacts right, and foundation work. One or two of the class look like they will go far, as the dogs (and perhaps more importantly the owners) are interested. Everyone in the class is fine, and they should all enjoy it.

I was hoping to do some more short exercises off lead this week and get people doing front crosses (or at least understanding what the point is). However we have a KC outbreak in the beginners class with 2 going down with it. We don't think it came from FIDOS, but it is hard to know as it does not show up instantly. So we are having at least this week off, and will review the situation.

Dog Vegas 21-23rd May

Three days, no clear rounds at all. Spike was strange to run, going off over wrong courses and then not doing all 12 weaves. I need to do more with him. Also weave spacing might be different at home training and comps.

Ben was wayward on contacts, but settling into competitions. We got a 5f (A-frame contact) and a "bad luck" from the judge. So close. But dangerous, we could go G4 by mistake if he goes clear in agility. Universally acknowledged as being a very fast dog. Sadly on the first couple of days he got over excited and I even carried him out on Saturday. I have to grab him quick or he bounces all over the place and knocks stuff over. Hopefully we are past that now and can just concentrate on the job at hand. He absolutely loves it, just not totally clear on what he is supposed to do.

h&h Easter

A bit hit and miss. Spike popped his weaves 5 times (and then got them with me standing over him a bit more). Ben decided stopping for contacts was so boring he would just blast around. So I had to re-introduce the "touch" word. It worked, but I am trying to phase it out so this is a step backwards.

Spike got a 3rd in agility, and Ben would have been clear in a quite complicated jumping round, if I had not gone the wrong way (he was really flying and doing all his lefts and rights perfectly).

Scunthorpe

A good start to the outside KC season. Could have got some good places with Spike, but just had the odd pole here and there. He's running well though and much happier in the queues this year too. Just as excitingly Ben had a couple of very good rounds and will be challenging immediately that he starts going clear. He's only 2 so this year could be a good one for us.

DD 2nd April

Ben got another clear round this time in agility, and once again won the class. Ben now has a 100% record of 1st places where he has gone clear. Rosie the springer came quite a close second, nice to see a fast springer.

Spike also won his agility class, by about 5 seconds.

We got nowhere in the jumping, Ben's first I took a wrong course, but Ben worked really well, second one he had 2 poles. Spike's course just didn't seem to sink into my brain. Still it was a very interesting course and fun (thanks Jackie).

So a good day. Ben was also very sociable and amused us with his antics.

Rob.

instructing

At our club we don't exactly do instructing any more. We all understand the safety issues and get on very well so we just set courses and all make suggestions for each other. It works pretty well, although I suppose we might want experts in from outside from time to time.

I had the job of setting some courses last lesson, so in the age old tradition I nicked some ideas from the internet and the last competition I had been on.

The top diagram shows some exercises. The top part is nicked from NAWS on Sunday, and people got on well with it, finding it flowed nicely. I had particular problems with the weaves, but the dogs were just out of practice.

The bottom bit confused people a bit. It was supposed to teach positioning, and it did. It's just that there was a huge variety of ways people found to run it which worked in varying degrees.

The bottom diagram was a quick alteration to create a course. The a-frame part of it is much simplified, but they get onto it at speed from slightly off centre. Still the people that ran it found it OK.

Last NAWS

We managed a record breaking 8 Es in NAWS! Spectacular! Some understandable stuff, and some laziness on my part. However, I think we are set up for a good year, with Ben stopping on his contacts and really trying hard. Still goes into a spinning flap from time to time, but I just down him for a second to calm down and things pick up after that. Spike blew a contact or two, and nailed the rest with me running.

They both popped out at 10 weaves continually. I think we have failed to practice it and need a bit of repetition, we are normally fine on weaves. Judge suggested maybe I turned in and put them off, but last run I was perfect on shoulder direction and Spike still popped out. We just need a session or two with lots of weaves. I have been meaning to proof their weaves with me running diagonals and behind and in front, as well as teaching them 2x2 entries, but have not got round to it. There's a lot of work there and I don't want to flatten them too much.

Instructor training

Last weekend I went to an instructor training course. It was very well run and I learned loads from it. I would love to run an agility basics course because I have benefited from other people running them and I believe that Spike's good performance is due in the main to covering the foundation thoroughly before trying to run segments of courses. The course covered from basic foundation up to some simple straight line jump exercises, contacts and weaves.

A couple of issues came up, these are things that occurred to me, not from the course as such:

1/ People expect a lot from their first agility classes. They come in expecting to show how their dog has some intrinsic ability to do agility, and to get it doing everything on the first lesson. The trainer wants to leave it 4 months before they even go over the contacts. There is a tension here, and I think if I were running a solid basics class I would have to find answers for people as to why this is.

2/ Any instructor is going to have to stick to their own comfort zone as far as methods go. For example, I train a stop and back chain it to complete the contacts. The course got us teaching something similar but with a touch to a target and continuous touching until the release command. Neither uses a touch command, and there is an emphasis on not doing the whole piece of equipment too early. Very similar you would think, but even that difference caused me some difficulties as I could not answer much concerning the targeting part of it.

Similar with the weaves, we were taught to use channels (which I don't like) and always to use 12 weaves (I would start with 3). However the methods were less technical and this presented less problems than the contacts method.

I really liked all the basics, circle work, rear end awareness etc and would love to teach this as a semi-trick class, come agility foundation.

I'm still mulling over what we learned, and I expect I will put other stuff up here later.

Great training

Ben seems to understand contacts (A-frame and dog walk anyway, the seesaw did not come out last training). He is sticking them and tolerates a certain amount of movement from me. Great! I'm still pulling him inside jumps sometimes (my fault). The new surface at training is good, and the poles are not being dropped so much by either dog. We had a very hard weave entry, which I have been working on, but have only just started.

4th Height

I cannot believe the arguments on the agility forum about this. Two immovable objects banging heads like stags at rutting season. It is annoying because it obscures the debate. And a "global moderator" involved too, taking sides. Not right surely. However since the forum is only lightly moderated I suppose it is tolerable.

What do I think? Well, Willow would have benefited because although she was always very fit something about repeatedly jumping large was making her unhappy. She could jump much bigger things if they got in the way of her walkies, and smaller heights repeatedly. So the question is does that mean that competitions should be changed to accommodate her or that I needed to get a different dog? Lots of collies her size could jump large just fine, but we have many other breeds in agility. Even if springers were accommodated, there would be other breeds that were not (very little dogs for example). Is the sport meant to be totally inclusive or a showcase for well suited breeds?

Leaving aside the rights and wrongs and technicalities, what about the decision making process? I've never been to a KC meeting, and turning up just to argue the corner of one issue seems a bit disingenuous. However I have been involved with some of the forum discussions. The KC process has come out against the 4th height proposals and with some rather strange reasons. Reading between the lines my impression is that people can't be bothered because it's better than it was and there must be some cut off point for fitness (for agility) in dogs. The voters almost certainly do not represent the wider agility population. The "nasty" forum is just not a nice place to discuss this as both sides have people who fail to remember that the forum is populated by people and not hypothetical devils advocates, and some people cannot stop themselves being hurtful. I am not getting involved this time, although I do feel I could contribute. The "nice" forum is much nicer about it but still there is no consensus. I would be genuinely interested in an investigation about what people think on this issue (all attempts on the forum have been invalidate by arguments about the methodology). So all you vet and animal related students an interesting dissertation for you.

So what can be done? Well I have to admit I am waiting for the independents to develop. I hear that they had a big fight to gain acceptance in the early days because people who entered them were banned from entering KC events. Karma demands that the KC should be forced into second place for this :) Personally I will probably keep on with the KC shows, they have the biggest entries and are therefore the most meaningful in terms of competition. However I would switch if this changed. I will probably do some of the larger independents this year just for the experience, and who knows I might switch. I don't currently have any small larges competing, if I did I would switch straight away.

NAWS January

A nicer day today, no snow but still quite cold. Driving a courtesy car as my van is having £500 worth of work done. Ford Focus, might get one when I have a job.

Ben was too excitable again, we need to proof everything against this and do more jumping.

Spike was OK. Probably mishandled, but made some errors of his own. We are just a bit rusty with lack of practice I think. We got a 3rd in Agility in the end. Was a nice course except for the entry onto the dog walk which was bordering on unsafe (tunnel, offset 90 degree bend onto up plank with a need to run it for handling at the end). Ben nearly skidded off the wrong side first time, second time I shaped him onto it. Spike refused it first time, probably realising he might hurt himself as I had not set him up well for it. Spike is 2nd in the league for C which is nice.