I can say goodbye to any semblance of normality in my life!

Here's Ben

Am trying to decide whether to take on a puppy. A friend has a litter of kelpies. It would work out brilliantly right now, but in 9 months I will be looking for a job. That means leaving a springer, a wsd and a kelpie in the house for most of the day. Sometimes they would be accompanied by my OH, but not all the time.

I have to decide really soon, they are 6 weeks today!

We had a good time at agility nuts. Willow got 10 clear rounds out of 12, one other run was an E due to my incompetence(missed out an obstacle). The other one I missed the class altogether. The let us run on large and she went clear, bless her.

Spike and I were a more random combination, managing to get E'ed from most classes. We went clear in the helter skelter, and won it. We seem to be good at these.

Handling

Was impressed and slightly depressed when my trainer ran Spike a couple of times yesterday. He ran really well for her and it became clear what his big problems is - me!

To be slightly more upbeat we had some pretty good runs and bits of what we did were really nice. I think if we ever go wrong though, it is most likely my fault!

NAWS run

NAWS on Youtube

Doing clicker training in the pet obedience class. Wow! Getting very good attention, and walking by ODs, no problem.

Billy is back next week, so let's see how we cope!

Nomore clear rounds at Scunthorpe Show with Spike. He was a bit giddy. nice contacts, nice wait, missed tyre placed 2nd in line of 5 jumps, weaves poor (out at 11th and going in too fast), nice weave entries, bit lacking in control (straight off dw missing jump and in tunnel). He didn't really concentrate like he can. Good in the queues though relatively speaking.

Willow got 3 clears out of three rounds (spiffing!). She was just inside the course times, but was not exactly in overdrive today. I have not rested her leading up to comp and she loves running about in the woods.

NAWS

Spike got his forst clear rounds in the form of a second in jumping and fifth in agility. Cool! The second was quite close in time to the winner. The fifth was 3 seconds off, but I stopped him on all his contacts.

Willow got two good clear rounds, though she uncharacteristically knocked a couple of poles. She has not been training for about 3 months, so we might need to just do a bit of practice to keep her confident.

Worked a bit on getting tighter turns. Tried sending him over a jump and giving left or right command, then throwing the toy in the line of a tight turn. Seems to work.

Also took a weave pole off and got him to do them a couple of times. Didin't seem to have a problem with the odd weaves. as well as that I put the weaves at the edge and put just one jump ahead so he was speeding into them, he slowed himself down and got them right. There must be a difference with the ones at training. I'll take a tape measure next week! I might even be able to borrow them for a week.

I let Willow have a bit of a run about, still fine on full height, and weaving nicely. She stops on her contacts now too.

Roll on NAWS!

training

He's getting there, much calmer and needs many less treats to keep his attention.

Today's problems:
cutting in and missing last jump in a line.
9 weaves, missed the last one.
weave entry went in nicely then missed no 2. I may need to change my home weaves to give him more idea of what some weaves are like.
a little bit distracted, probably me needing to work him harder.
the usual big wide turns, but I have a plan re: this.

Today's positive:
good wait.
good contacts.
good weaves when he got them.
nice first run on the complex course (clear but withsome huge wide turns).
pulled in nicely when I didn;t get in place for fc.

Willow was glad to see me when I got home. I feel a bit mean not taking her to training, she misses it.

The during the week training was good, but not due to Spike's agility. He was well behaved and did a lot less lunging and barking while dogs were running.

The agility went OK, but Spike was a bit excitable, and I may have been a bit slow with the commands etc. I had to put him back over his contact a couple of times. His weaves were good (12). Once again I let him jump something I did not even think he would, because he works away so well. I must watch that and work him through each obstacle so we both know where he is meant to go.

Every now and then I sneak off from my usual training and drive miles to another class. It is very complementary with the more regular stuff and makes me think about other things in my performance. It helps to have as many pairs of eyes looking for areas for improvement as possible.

Spike seems to take it in his stride and works really nicely. As this is all done in an equestrian centre with lighting so I am really please about how he behaves.

So what did we learn?
1/ Pushing Spike over a jump can be done by standing quite close to it, and making the hand signal quite late. works better than standing off and "just pointing at the jump".
2/ I got him to sit and stay at the side of the arena, and he did it very well. Perhaps he behaves better when I am not right beside him!
3/ "steady" command, to slow them down for tight turns. We did this from in front of the dog with opposite hand, while moving back reasonably slowly.
4/I need to keep moving to commit spike to "go-on" sometimes I stop and wait for him to come back and it calls him off (which might be useful at some point).
5/ I should use left right not here all the time. Good point, otherwise why did I bother teaching them to him!
6/ I could use a close or heel and similar for rhs to call him in here is a bit too vague. (Does anyone know should it be close (static, sitting) or heel (moving), or is it a completely different behaviour really?).
7/ Spike is great! He can even be relatively quiet for a bit of last weeks pork roast!

Took the boy training again. Still a bit bonkers, but settling. I'm sure it must be doing him good, and I look forward to a bit more focus. He failed to do a couple of things I know he can do, but he also did lots right. So essentially we are in a position where we are training inside, under the bright lights. He was quite sociable outside the training rings too.

Towards the end we were right by the end of a course, and he was doing his "look at me" very well.

Just one moment which I was not happy with where I turned my back on him, and he ran off and herded another dog that was running. Just shows I will have to be careful about that. He didn't do much other than try to get the other dog to play, and he recalled straight back to me.

We had a good show at NAWS. Didn't win anything, but given that Willow was (very slightly) lame 4 days before and that Spike is as mad as a turnip, we did OK.

Willow got a clear in each jumping round and jumed nicely. She ran round the first jump in the first agility, I must have set her up wrong, she was clear after that (but it still does not count as clear). I'm not quite sure what happened in the second agility, maybe we missed the DW contact. I have a memory of missing one at some point, so that must be it.

Spike got 5F in the jumping, he knocked a pole. He did it in a very quick time and we might have got a good placing apart from that. The first clear in NAWS still evades us. The second jumping was amusing, jumped a couple then ran the full length of the course and went in the tunnel; he does love them! then a few other little errors. I gave up on that round.

He did OK in the agility. I know a couple of the things we got wrong, and will work on them. The good stuff was, Good waits, good contacts, good directional stuff and call offs, good focus and attitude. We got a special rosette (I think this is for good potential or best improver or such-like, it was like being back at school). He is, of course, special; I have always thought that might not be obvious to anyone other than his owner(and MIF of course).

Oh yes, and the courses were really nice in the B grade, and the show was run efficiently and cheerfully.

Willow seems to have damaged the bottom of her biggest pad. She is doubtful for the next competition sadly. Still Spike will have a go. I am going to learn how to scribe, basically writing down the judge's descisions.

Willow got a minor toe problems (looks like she injured one on something). So no training for her. So I took Spike. His behaviour was much better than it used to be and, of course, he did his agility very well. He is really shaping up. The contacts were really nice, he stopped nicely even with me running on a little. The only one that is not great yet is the seesaw, but he seems to be finding a method that suits him. We seem to be settling on 2o2o. I was told I am racing him a bit over the jumps, so I need to look at that, because I can't win!

Snow stops play

Training has been off for the last couple of weeks. Outdoors fields are covered in snow, and indoor venues are not safe due to ice and snow in the yard. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a session with someone north of Leeds. So although I could not train 3 miles up the road, I was OK 40 miles away! I took Spike and was one of 6 BC/WSD teams training for 3 hours. Did some relatively complex stuff for Spike and me, it went well. Some things to work on, but we did OK.

We had a nice time training. Spike was very well behaved, he had a play wih some other dogs and watched agility without finding it over exciting. He was focused during the training.

We did some weaves, he misses the entry sometimes especially when we arrive from an unusual angle, or at speed. I have to shape him into the entry, but that is not too bad because he really seems to respond to being steered. I time I want to be able to stand like a lemon and give a weave command, and for him to do them independently. He still does them fast!

We also did some work with a tunnel and he was a little slow to respond to commands when he popped out of the straight tunnel, he just went straight over the jump in front of him rather than going left and "down the line". Then he made something else up across some other jumps. We worked on earlier commands, talking to him to keep contact, and repeating commands. I found that if I run further in towards him and gave the left command he responded better (it may have just been the surprise of me not being where I was on the last run). I also made sure he did not enjoy his made up extra bit too much; I've seen enough of people with dogs that do that and find it hard to get control back.

We were in a competition recently and Spike did a couple of things that needed work:
1/ running round the outside of jumps. We will get better at this, but today there was an oportunity to train him a bit on this. He was also layering a set of 12 weaves today, which is good.
2/ Seesaw. He nadn't really seen one in training much. I told him steady on the first round and he was cautious, so I didn't bother on the second. He launched off the end of at speed, and we lucky not to get injured.
3/ Running off the end of contacts. Even though he stopped at the end he did it four off standing rather than 2o2o. He was better in training today. Partly it is judging the speed, and partly over excitement. I generally train on a "toy" a frame, so when we hit full size equipment in a spacious ring he can go much faster. Anyway he was solid in training, so I need to eforce it a bit in the competition ring.
4/ He was distracted by the sodium lights. Not much I can do about this except train where there are similar lights.

I obviously have not updated this for a while.

Adam died about a year ago, he was really struggling for a while, but was a lovely dog to the last.

We now have a new dog, Spike. The two get on much better than Willow and Adam did. Spike is cheeky enough not to get bullied by Willow, Willow tries to snap him, but can't and has decided it is a game. She also now chases tennis balls which she used to ignore completely. Willow has done well in agility, still not very fast. She was fast enough early last year to win an agility class, which means she is now grade 2. This means that Spike is also grade 2.

Spike is fast, and my handling is going to have to step up a gear! He is easily distracted and in competitions indoors gets distracted by the powerful lights. Outside he is better, and trains up at Delinquent Dogz.

More agility than you can shake a stick at!

We have persevered with the agility sometimes doing up to 4 sessions of club training a week and a bit of practice at home in the garden too. Willow does it very nicely, not the fastest, but we have a whole bunch of rosettes for her steady but accurate runs.

Her temprament has been fantastic, and we have settled into being a happy house.

Willow is going to be measured to classify her for height for KC shows soon. I don't really understand why since she is obviously in the large category and this is the largest and thus hardest category. You have to pay for measuring, and it has to be done twice!

We still go running fairly regularly and that is all fine. She is quite controllable when out and only really refused to do what is asked if it involves going near another dog.

She got bitten by an English Bull Terrier in April, 8 stitches needed and a bit of convalescence. She is OK now. You have to be careful of Bull breed owners, there are a few out there who do not train their dog to have a good "leave" command and then let the dog run about unmuzzled. Give the sensible ones a bad name. The owner of this one claimed his poor dog had been atttacked four times, I think he might have got it the wrong way round. Watch out if this happens to you, your insurance will go up.