Blackdown

We had Blackdown on Sunday, it went ok, certainly alot better than training went last week, not that that would of been hard! We had 4 runs all of which are on the video so I'll try not to waffle on too much! 1st was agility, i'm not sure why he ran his dogwalk contact, maybe he didn't hear me tell him target? I was a bit annoyed at myself after for not putting him back on it but I thought he'd got it, judge thought otherwise! He worked the rest nicely, Aframe was quite good, no poles :-), but missed the weave entry, very unlike him as I struggle to get him to miss one at training but then that is the one entry we don't really practice i.e him at an angle one side of the weaves, me at an angle the other side. He pulled off the tunnel as I was shouting here, don't ask me why, think I'd got a bit too excited by that point and some irrational part of my brain thought he was going to go in the wrong end of the tunnel! Not a bad run though.

Next was 1-2 jumping. Had some nice parts, again missed the weaves, I don't think he saw them. Not sure why he came inside no. 12, if it hadn't been for that would of been quite a good run. Especially as he probably wouldn't of knocked those poles.

Next was 1-7 helterskelter. I thought we stood a good chance of getting round this course but then he knocked no. 2 (if anyone can spot any reasons for these knocked poles can they please let me know!) and I kinda gave up. He got E'd cuz his dozy handler was running towards that jump with her arm out, doh! Can't say he wasn't listening!

Finally was 1-3 jumping, again knocked no. 2, kept on extending his stride so knocked no. 4 and the angle was too tight for him to get in the tunnel as hard as he tried! This put me too far behind him to keep him going straight after the tunnel and he got E'd. Worked the rest of the course nicely apart from the 2 more poles. Although I have to say he doesn't look quite right in this run and I wonder if he hurt himself a bit trying to brake for the tunnel although he seemed perfectly sound afterwards.

So again good parts and bad parts. Really need to teach him some sort of steady command but not really sure how to go about it or what criteria it should meet, need to have a think. Also need to do lots more grid work to try and stop him knocking those pesky poles. It's funny how he doesn't knock poles in agility classes. Didn't have any in either of the classes at honiton or at the weekend. And thinking about it rarely has 1 in the 'agility section' at training. Maybe the stops on the contacts give him time to regain his composure and think about his striding better?

Anyways heres the video (Big Thanks to Tasha for filming and Sarah for making it :-)):

This week

For the 1st time in a while I've actually done quite alot with Asher this week. I did feel bad but wanted to give him a proper break from training but now the boy is back! I took him to flyball on Sunday, he was sooo excited. He did some speed training which went well, everyone got to chase him in the chase recalls which was really good for them. I then did some box work and he was brilliant, lovely rotation and foot placement. He really prepares for his box, you see his body curve out slightly as he approaches the box so that he is able to jump on, rotate and come off dead straight. I think due to the work I did on the wall he doesn't double hit and he doesn't come off wide. I'm hoping that if I continue to practice this over winter he will be able to maintain his turn in competition, his turn in competition is usually pretty good but he does have bad days when he doesn't quite get the rotation so can't drive back as well as he should. This usually happens on his supersonic days when his speed across the ground is fastest but his box slows his times down. I suppose it must be difficult trying to prepare himself at that speed though. When he has days where he's abit more controlled his box is usually really good which means his times are about the same. So the plan is to get his box really good on supersonic days aswell, which hopefully equals Superdog! Now that we have a 2nd box we were then able to try head to heads with just box and 1 jump. I decided just to use Asher to race all the others as the boxes were really quite close together and I trust him to stay on my side but as all the others had only trained on the 1 lane I was worried they might go across. He also gave them the most to aim for. He got a good work out bless him. So we basically released the 2 dogs at slightly different times to give one a head start so that the other had to catch up and vice versa, it worked quite well although it probably actually benefitted Asher the most as he is so competitive and it made him maintain his turn even though he was trying to beat the other dog. Although I think it also made Sonny and Lacy a little sharper off the box. I was very pleased with Jemma who was so focused (we have problems with her wanting to join the other lane), she didn't even look to come over or chase so hopefully this will continue as we build up the number of jumps.

The starters are coming on well, they are learning changeovers and they can now all do 4feet turns on the box with no ball, so it is just the hardest bit of adding the ball to go.

I then had agility on Wednesday. Asher can only be described as one word... an Arse! He was really being quite annoying, I know people say it's always our fault, something we were doing wrong and part of it probably was but he was being really awkward. I don't get angry at him, I find him quite funny really but I did get a bit frustrated when I was stood at the start and he went and made up his own course that yes did include the weaves, a wing wrap and a blast round the circuit of the arena taking any jumps that happened to be there. He was very pleased with himself. His weaves in general were ok, his entries are amazing but he still does have a tendency to pop out at 10-11 if he sees something exciting to do next or if I race him too much. We practised wing wraps which he's not actually too bad at providing I cue him early enough and can get in a reasonable position to bring him round the wing. We also practised waits which have got very twitchy recently as he thinks that when I stop ready to release him is the point at which he should go. A couple of reminders and they were dead solid again and he looked alot more relaxed on the start so this does need to be worked on a bit more to maintain it. We then did some contacts and he flew his seesaw, soon sorted that. He then nearly broke himself on the flat tunnel, did i mention he was being an arse?! Came at it at a funny angle, couldn't decide to go through it or not, at last minute decided he would and ended up nearly knocking himself out! So then i'm walking him around to check he's ok and he decides he didn't do it right the 1st time so had better go through it again, tries to trot through it and gets stuck, we have to lift it at the end so he can get out! He is totally unfazed by it all! So just as I am losing the will to live we get set the hardest course of the night and he goes straight round it 1st time perfectly, no poles, lovely wing wrap and the most beautiful Aframe contact! Funny dog! My trainer said that if he was a person he would be a obsessive, compulsive athlete, I think that sums him up!

We are off to Blackdown Agility Show on Sunday that I am kind of looking forward to as long as Asher brings his sensible head for atleast one of his runs so that he might look like he's had some form of agility training before! No really it should be fun!

Best news of this week is that Asher's blood test results for his passport came back and he passed!! Euro's here we come, so excited now!!