Wednesday 4 March 2009

Canine Massage, Flyball training, Agility league match

Well I had quite a busy weekend!

Saturday I went to a Canine Massage course for the sporting dog. I took Asher, think that was a mistake lol! We learnt about how to effectively warm up the muscles before competing to get peak performance and avoid injury. Also how to cool down the muscles to stop them tightening. Thought it would be a good idea to know this as Asher always goes in at 110% and I worry that he may hurt himself. Trying to practice on him during the course was somewhat tricky though as he did not want to go to sleep and refused to lie flat! It was an interesting day if a little frustrating!

Sunday morning we had flyball training. We now have our new box!! So it was the first session on it, each dog did a couple of turns on the old box before they tried the new box (no ball), it went really well. None of the dogs were fazed by it, they just did the same as they had done on the old box. Had some beautiful turns on it, in particular Perry, who I've mentioned on a previous post as struggling with the new training was amazing. He is a huge musterlander cross collie and was doing 4 footed turns. None of the dogs had a ball in the box yet as I wanted to reinforce the turn on the new box 1st. We will try to get some of the dogs triggering this Sunday if they are good enough! Asher was the exception to this rule as he has done alot more turn work than the other dogs. Did a couple with no ball then loaded the box, he was fantastic :-D, 4 footed turn, nice and high, looked the same as he does on the wall! Still panicking that everyone won't be ready by Easter but staying positive :-S! All the speed work were doing is still really paying off, we were racing them against each other on Sunday, they are all sooo up for it!

Sunday afternoon I went to a league match, Asher had 3 classes, got E'd in 2 and 15 in the other but he was actually really good. He got his weaves in jumping and agility, there were only 8 but he was going flat out to the entries and nailing them! Contacts were a bit slow but other than that we just had a few misunderstandings that resulted in the eliminations lol! I'm sure he is becoming addicted to tunnels! Wherever he is on a course he is always looking to work towards them which is becoming abit annoying! Hmmm i think it is just because he feels confident in working them so just need to work on increasing the importance of the jumps!

I'm off to Crufts tomorrow, going as moral support for Bobbie and Perry and maybe to do a bit of shopping! Can't wait, should be a great day :-)