Nats dogs

Stockbridge - 2nd weekend

2011-09-25T06:41:00.001+01:00

Unfortunately due to recently starting a new job I didn't stay the whole week at Stockbridge. I returned on Wednesday evening in time for Curry night, yum! We then had entertainment Thursday night which was awesome!

We knew we had a hard time trying to match the previous weekends results. We had Piper and Bonnie back so were able to put in the 4 teams. Rockets (Diefer, Merlin, Bonnie, Loki) managed a best ever time of 17.79secs and came 3rd. Diefer ran well, katie had been pestering her mum to run him back to a 2nd ball which really made a difference and he ran quite a few 4.3s. Good old extraset who we expected to struggle without Jemma or Merlin came 2nd with a best time of 19.68secs. Missiles also managed 2nd with a best time of 24.64secs.

Ballistics (Piper, Asher, Shani, Lacy, Luna) had a tough day. Asher had been fine all week and had done some runs the day before to work on box and stuff but when it came to racing he seemed ok in the warm up and 1st leg but then dropped drastically down to 4.3. We did 16.71 despite this (honestly think the world is against us doing any superfast times!), he then sat out the next race and I tried him in the final race of the morning but he still didn't seem right so I pulled him out for the rest of the day. I wondered if maybe I had overworked him the day before and felt mega guilty especially with the Champs a week away. The rest of the team had a thrilling 5legger last race against Stars but they just had us by a nose so we ended up 2nd. On the plus side Piper hit his 1st sub 4s by doing 3.94 twice, a 3.96 and a 3.98 :)

Stockbridge - 1st weekend

2011-09-25T06:32:00.000+01:00

This was so long ago now, I remember very little. We were missing a few dogs so didn't have Rockets in. Merlin went in to Extraset and ran a PB of 4.35secs over 9" and then ran 4.38secs 3times in a row in the last race, clever spanner. Sonny also started to come in to his own and ran pretty consistent 4.4s. This contributed to Extraset coming 1st with a best ever of 18.74secs.

Diefer and Loki went in to Ballistics with Asher, Shani, Lacy and Luna. I couldn't get there until just after 9am due to being at work so missed the 1st race against Essex which we unfortunately lost. We got there in time for 2nd race where we got our act together and did 16.66. We won all our races after that including a very close last race against Stars to come 1st.

Missiles also had a great day winning all their races to come 1st so we had a clean sweep :)

Trying to Catch Up... Newlands Farm 23/24th July

2011-09-07T23:20:00.002+01:00

Oh dear, I've got really behind!

Well, at Newlands farm we only had 2 teams as we were missing the Missiles and most of the 1st team. Rockets were Saturday and Extraset were Sunday. I went Saturday to run Elliot with Diefer, Merlin and Loki. The dogs all ran really well together and despite the ground not looking like it would run fast we managed to better our seed time to 17.91secs. I don't really remember much else about the day, other than we won all our races and therefore won the division :).

I missed Extraset (Sonny, Perry, Smartie, Jamie) running Sunday but apparently the dogs raced well, they just found it a little tough without having Jemma and came 5th.

Wow that was pretty brief for me!

Kilnsea Event Field, Reading

2011-07-21T00:41:00.002+01:00

We had all 4 teams in again this weekend. Missiles were Saturday but me and Sarah just went for the day Sunday so didn't get to see them run. They did well to come 3rd.

On Sunday we had Ballistics 1st in as 3rd seed in division 1. The team was the usual of Piper, Asher, Shani, Lacy, Luna. Our 1st race was against Bassetts so we went without Lacy. Despite the weather and ground conditions not being good, Asher ran better than he did last weekend. We gelled quite well together but as Bassetts got lights we were holding back on last dog. On 1 of the runs the 1st three dogs did 12.17secs (pretty good, once asher is back up to speed we are hoping sub 12 ;)) but Carol had a little blonde moment and forgot to let go of Luna! Oopsy! Luna doing under 4.25 would of broken the British record and as you dedicated readers will know, she has done a 4.08 this year so this is all very exciting! We ended up having a best time of 17.13 in that race, ohhh dear! Asher sat out the other race of the morning and the team managed 16.94secs. In the afternoon, I just ran Asher against High Flyers (our other main competition). He again was much better and managed a 3.87secs in the 1st leg and consistent low 3.9s after that which is a definite improvement but still not really my boy. Must keep working on the leg! We sat Piper out of that race so it wasn't quite a full strength team, we ran well, I think the word of the day was 'slick' and won with a best time of 16.70secs. The rest of the team did the biz in the other 2 races which meant we won the division :)!

Next we had both Rockets (2nd seed) and Extraset (6th seed) in division 2. Rockets were Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie and Loki. They yet again seemed to gel really well and run consistent times including 2 times sub 18 (with different line ups) of 17.98 and 17.93secs. That is a new best ever time for Rockets! It was all going great until the last race when it all fell apart and they lost which meant they finished 2nd! Loki was fantastic and ran a best ever time of 4.06secs, clever boy! Extraset were Jemma, Perry, Sonny, Smartie and Jamie. We thought they were going to have it really tough but they raced consistently great and got a bit lucky in a couple of races. They ended up coming 3rd with a best time of 19.01secs. If Rockets had won their last race against Hampshire, Rockets would of been 1st and Extraset 2nd! Jemma had to do lots of racing due to lots of false starts but she also managed to do a best ever time of 4.38secs :).

Overall a successful day, and wow how glad am I that I was able to bring Asher back to racing when I did. With 2 more teams going sub 17 with times of 16.74 and 16.80 this weekend, 16.85 just wouldn't of cut it to get us div 1 at the Champs! It just seems crazy as we were bottom seed div 1 at the Champs last year on 17.38secs. Now there will be atleast 2 teams sub 17 in div 2 this year!

Barbury Castle AKA Birthday weekend!

2011-07-16T14:55:00.003+01:00

I went up to Barbury Castle on Friday night with Sarah and we took the caravan with us which was nice especially considering the weather forecast for Saturday was bad! It was a fun and eventful weekend, think I got a tad too drunk when celebrating my birthday Saturday night! Lol!

Saturday we just had Missiles running in division 7 and they managed to come 4th (seeded 5th)with a best time of 25.08secs, that time was with Ruby running so shows she is starting to influence the speed of that team!

Sunday (My Bithday) was a much busier day with the other 3 teams in 3 out of the 4 divisions. Subsequently we spent all of our time at the ring!

Extraset were first on in division 3 seeded 2nd on 18.91. The team was Jemma, Perry, Smartie, Jamie and Bonnie. We decided to swap Bonnie with Sonny as we didn't think Elliot would be able to run due to skinning his feet! We don't like to run Bonnie all day so we decided to put her on the 5 dog team as we don't like to run Perry all day either. Despite the ground running quite slow, the team ran really well together as always and we had some good, close racing. They managed to win all of their races to finish 1st with a best time of 19.09secs.

Rockets were next in as top seed (18.04) in division 2. The team was Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Sonny and Loki. Luckily by Sunday morning Elliot's feet looked much better so we decided to let him have a few runs to see how he got on and he was fine. We usually have big problems with consistency with this team but for once they actually ran quite consistent (albeit slightly slower)times! They won all their morning races and by the last race of the day were still unbeaten. Their final race against Barkshire Bandits was very close but they were just pipped in to 2nd place on the 5th and deciding leg by 0.08secs. Merlin is looking great at the moment, when he ran start he was fantastic, hitting 4.47, 4.48 and 4.50secs over his own height of 12". He runs much better start as he is still a little cautious running in to the changeover, i'm sure this will come with time. The team managed a best time of 18.33secs, they did 18.3-18.4 in every race apart from when Loki was out as he is the fastest dog so the team was a little slower.

Ballistics were 2nd seed in division 1 on 16.85secs. The team was Piper, Shani, Lacy, Luna and... Asher! I was told by Smart that I could run him in a couple of races to see how he got on. I ran him in our 1st race against dream team. I was annoyed with myself as my changeovers were so late, I think i was overthinking whether he'd be back to normal speed or whether I'd be releasing from the same spot as before. He ran ok, we managed to go 2-0 down as Piper fumbled the 1st leg and Asher fumbled the 2nd so we were all being cautious on changes (you literally could of got a bus through mine) for the rest of the race. The 3rd leg we ran clean and did 16.63 secs! The next leg we did 16.76 and were able to win the final leg too. Asher sat out the rest of the races until we brought him back in to face Bassetts in the last race of the day. We sat Piper out of the 1st leg so we could get an accurate time for Asher (thats all I can judge him on as he doesn't give me anything else!). My start was awful at 0.14 and the clock read 3.96 (so would of been 3.82) but Shani was a smidge early so it wasn't quite that fast. We brought Piper back in and the next leg Asher fumbled, I think he might be struggling to hold the ball now he is missing 2 of his front teeth, poor boy. He made sure he caught it properly after that which resulted in us gaining a leg back but he was less snappy on the box and on the final leg this resulted in less momentum on the return and Shani getting a light. So we came 2nd but the time was the most important thing as that *should* get us div 1 for the Champs so we can relax now! Asher was fine after racing and at Smart they said the racing had made him no worse which is good. He may now have the rest of July off, I haven't totally decided yet, just want him tip top by the Champs. Piper ran great and managed to run a best ever time of 4.00secs. The other 3 ran ok, maybe just slightly off their usual times but then as I mentioned earlier the ground seemed to be running slow.

And the best news of all, after a right kerfuffle, Luna got her 3rd and final 12" measurement which means we can now get her height card, yay :)

It was a lovely show with lots to watch and the camping area was beautiful. And we got really fit walking the 1m to the ring!

Farnham Park, the June one.

2011-07-04T02:56:00.002+01:00

Wow 2 posts in 1 day! Thought I'd better get back up to date! Asher was still out, I was hoping he might be allowed back to do some warm ups but he was still a long way off being ready. Although as I am writing this I feel like we're getting closer.

We ended up missing ALOT of dogs for this tournament so had to make the decision to pull out Rockets. With Mark not their to run Loki (he went to Glastonbury instead, poor show!) we decided not to run him either. This left us with just 4 dogs for Ballistics and 5 for Extraset.

Extraset ran Saturday with a team of Perry, Merlin, Sonny, Smartie and Jamie. Bless little merlie, he was so speedy over the 9", I saw him run a couple of 4.4s! I ran Smartie for the 1st time which after some initial teething problems went really well and I think she quite enjoyed running for crazy auntie Nat! The team had some really close racing but won all their races with a best time of 18.92secs to finish 1st.

The team for Ballistics on Sunday was Diefer, Shani, Lacy, Luna. This was the 1st time Dief had been on the 1st team in over a year and as he is currently clocking times around the 4.5 mark is on average about 0.4 slower then Piper therefore we were pleasantly stunned when in our 1st race of the day we did 16.94secs and beat High Flyers! It just seems insane that a month ago we were struggling to break 17 with our strongest combo and now it's happening even when our top 4 aren't running! I have to say the main difference is Luna closely followed by Shani. Luna ran another best ever time of 4.08secs which is a massive improvement on what she used to run and testament to how much work has been put in to her. I think she is also really enjoying running anchor. With Shani being so amazing I think we were forgetting that she is still such a baby and over the last couple of shows I think has gained alot of confidence in the ring. This means she is running in to changeovers better and holding her speed. She also did a best ever time of 3.89secs and most of her runs were sub 4. It was a very tight division with every team losing atleast 1 race. In the end we came 4th but had we won our last race against Bassetts we would have come 1st! It was great racing. Big congratulations to High Flyers on winning the div with a best ever time for them of 16.54secs and to Bassetts for getting their best ever time of 16.55secs.

I also got to see the grandkids. River and Steve are so big now with their long legs! I've had a soft spot for River since the time they were born and I still totally adore him. He is even more like Asher now (apart from Colour ;)) and has the same lollopy (is that a word?!) gait that Asher had at his age which made me think he was going to be slow! Turns out they don't find that extra gear until they're over a year! Steve is also stunning and has a very striking face but is a little more aloof in personality than his siblings. It was really nice to have the 3 of them together although we didn't get much time to let them play. Hopefully we will have more time at Stockbridge to get the family together!

War Memorial Park, Basingstoke

2011-07-04T02:35:00.002+01:00

I decided to just go for the day on Sunday as I had a friends birthday Friday night and I was supposed to be taking Elliot with me so would have had to have left ridiculously early Saturday. In the end Sarah was able to come too which was nice :).

Missiles and Extraset both ran Saturday. Missiles had a tough 7 team division and unfortunately came last but raced well. Extraset despite missing Jemma managed to come 3rd with 19.64secs.

On Sunday we had both Ballistics and Rockets in Division 1. With Asher still out we had Ballistics as Piper, Shani, Lacy, Luna. Rockets were Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki. Rockets threw their 1st race away on lights which was a real shame as they had been 2-0 up and were then a little outclassed by the higher seeds. They did manage to win 1 very close race against Power Paws and also achieved another fastest ever time of 18.04secs, very close to breaking that 18sec barrier now! Ballistics were fantastic, all the dogs raced really well. We were amazed when not only did they manage to go sub 17 several times but they equalled our best ever of 16.85secs. Luna is really starting to pick up some speed now and the fastest I saw her run was 4.15secs. They won all their races to finish 1st and Rockets came 5th.

It was a lovely venue on great ground, lots of teams ran personal bests so congrats to everyone who did well :).

Broken Asher and Padworth

2011-06-14T02:59:00.002+01:00

Well it turns out I wasn't being paranoid afterall. Took Asher to Smart on Wednesday and he has got a problem with his right hind leg (same leg he injured before). At some point (I think in hindsight it was when he slipped at training back in Feb) he has damaged his gracilis muscle (inner thigh) which has healed but because of the scar tissue and it not healing in the right way it has left this muscle very tight causing a lump and it is putting a lot of strain on the tendon. This is why he has been slower at flyball as he cannot push strongly off of this leg and is struggling to control his approach to the box. All makes sense now, feel REALLY guilty that I didn't get him looked at before and also massively relieved that I didn't leave it any longer. Apparently if I had waited until the end of the season he could of been looking at a very lengthly lay off. As it is we think it will be 2-3 weeks but I think it's unlikely he'll be back doing flyball until Barbury Castle on 9-10th July. We have lots of exercises to do and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he has made progress when we go back to Smart on Weds. His injury is very common in Whippets and Greyhounds, but our physio said they would have been hopping not walking in, just shows what a tough dog he is, Collies are their own health hazard!

So that leads me to Padworth, despite Asher not being able to run I decided to go anyway to support the team. We had all teams and all people there. Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday.

Extraset dogs (Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Perry and Jamie) were on fire and annihilated their seed time by running 18.91secs in the 1st race. They went on to win all their races and the division. Jemma was really focused and ran 4.4s in the 1st race and quite consistent 4.5s after that. Sonny's diet and fitness work seems to really be paying off as he ran so much more consistently and had a best time of 4.52secs. Smartie wasn't quite on her usual times but still ran well as did Perry. Jamie also looked really good even managing 5.02secs which is great for him.

Rockets (Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki) were up against some pretty tough competition in Div 2. Overall the team did really well and won 3 of their races to finish 3rd with a best time of 18.40secs. Diefer seems to be getting more confident over 12" and I think we are getting more confidence in him! Merlin was a little inconsistent and seemed quite unsettled. He didn't do anything wrong but his times were quite variable depending on how confident he was going out. Elliot had much better box turns but I think the extra distance and speed he was coming off the box with meant he thought he could run back on a single stride (we taught him to add another stride between box and 1st jump over winter) which wasn't working for him! This meant his run back was slower and he was jumping very high. We will have to put the guide in for him at the next competition. Bassetts were kind enough to let us borrow some soft balls to try Bonnie with which I think helped her but will be something we need to try a few more times to see how much difference it makes. Loki ran great hitting a few 4.2s. Unfortunately their was an incident in the afternoon that shook him up and resulted in him being reluctant to run in the last race of the day. We are hopeful that it was just a blip and he will be fine this weekend. We also hope that the owner of the other dog involved isn't too upset and will be back racing!

We had a great night Saturday. Me, Carol and Mark took advantage of the playground on site which was very fun but I am now covered in a ridiculous amount of bruises and I only remember how I got 1 of them! This meant I really wasn't with it Sunday (no change there!), probably a good job I wasn't running a dog!

After a beautiful day Saturday we were greeted by lots of rain on Sunday. Missiles and Ballistics were running. I wasn't up in time for missiles morning racing but I saw them in the afternoon and they looked good. Ruby continues to improve and I don't think it'll be too long before she's catching reliably. I think she could be a quick little height dog when she does. They won 2 of their races and finished 3rd.

Ballistics (Piper, Shani, Lacy, Luna) were 3rd seed in div 1. We weren't really too sure what to expect times wise without Asher. They gelled really well together, we decided to try lacy going 3rd as her box turns had been wide running last. Her turns did improve but I don't think she was significantly faster. Luna ran great last though so we will probably keep that order for the time being. They won both their morning races against Shooting Stars and Shooting Star Comets with a best time of 17.16secs which we were really pleased with. Unfortunately as the day went on the rain got harder and the ground more slippery so the decision was made to call off the racing before Ballistics raced again.

We're off to Basingstoke this weekend, another new venue so be interesting to see what its like. Again Asher's not running but I think I will be running Elliot!

Becketts Farm 16.85 :-D

2011-06-03T02:24:00.002+01:00

Well we had thee most amazing day at Becketts Farm on Sunday. We had Ballistics as 2nd seed in div 1. Rockets and Extraset were in div 2 as 1st and 5th seeds respectively. Having all the usual dogs for these teams was great as it meant we had 3 teams of 5 dogs and all teams were at full strength.

Rockets were Diefer, Merlin, Elliot, Bonnie, Loki running over 12" and Extraset were Jemma, Perry, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie running over 9". Div 2 was a very hectic division to say the least. I was running Perry in Extraset but also helping out Rockets so it felt like we were barely out the ring. Was quite fun though!

Rockets were typical rockets, moments of brilliance and moments of chaos! They managed to lose their 1st race on lights, 2nd race was against Extraset which was great! Rockets really got their act together and managed to pull out a fantastic time of 18.16secs with a line-up of Diefer, Merlin, Bonnie and Loki. This is another fastest ever time for Rockets. Needless to say they beat Extraset! They continued to win the rest of their races fairly comfortably although the range of times they ran was huge! They also managed 18.44secs twice in a row in the last race of the day, more amazingly they were with a different line up for each one! We recorded splits for all the dogs although I don't think they give a true representation for this team as changes were sooo variable! Fastest times were: Diefer 4.52, Merlin 4.61, Elliot 4.53, Bonnie 4.54, Loki 4.24. This doesn't include the race against each other where I suspect faster times were run as we were too short on people to do times for that one! Despite losing 1 race they still managed to win the division!

Extraset were more consistent apart from 1 nightmare race where Sonny started dropping his ball, luckily we managed to bring it back! Jemma was fine after her incident last weekend and ran very consistently all day. The rest of the team also gelled well together and managed to win all their races except for the 1 against Rockets with a new best ever time of 19.62secs. The line-up was Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie. We have to be quite careful now with the seed time as we don't always have Jemma due to Sarahs uni stuff and Jem is the fastest dog on the team! Dogs fastest times: Jemma 4.54, Perry 5.18, Sonny 4.65, Smartie 4.58, Jamie 5.19. This meant Extraset came 2nd!

Ballistics had a team of Piper, Asher, Shani, Luna, Lacy. Asher the total muppet stole some food not long before we were due to race. I never give him breakfast before racing as he always runs considerably slower. It was a bit gutting knowing that even before we entered the ring that he wasn't going to be himself. I decided I would only run him in the 1st race as we weren't sure exactly how much he'd eaten or how long ago. As suspected he was well off his pace but seemed fine other than that. 1st race we went for a time and left Lacy out. 1st leg flowed really well and we did 16.85secs :-). As planned I left Asher out for the rest of the morning. The other 4 did great winning the next 2 races with a best time of 17.32secs. In the afternoon Asher ran the 3 remaining races. He looked alot snappier in the 1st race of the afternoon and managed some sub 4s...just! Our last race was against Bassetts, we'd won all our races up to that point but they'd managed a 16.59secs earlier on. It was a fantastic race which went to 5 legs. They won the 1st on speed, we won the 2nd on speed with a 16.98secs, 3rd we both got lights on last dog but they were able to turn around quicker, 4th and 5th they got lights which meant we won! Dogs fastest times: Piper 4.05 (PB), Asher 3.97, Shani 4.12, Luna 4.29, Lacy 4.37 (Just because I'm a nerd... this technically means we could of done 16.43secs which is very encouraging ;-)!).

We had a fantastic day, couldn't of asked for anymore. We've got a weekend off now so we're going to train our new starters (and do tiny bits with Miss Laika!) and do some boxwork particularly with the babies that have come out this year to try and maintain their turns. Got to continue the fitness work with Asheroo. I'm also thinking of taking him back to Smart to be checked over to put my mind at rest that nothing else is going on to slow him down. He will be thrilled, my bank balance will not!

Farnham Park 16.96 :-D

2011-05-27T01:21:00.002+01:00

Urmmm do I really need to write anything else?! ;-)

Ok, we had 4 teams in. Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday. Extraset were on 1st in division 7 with a team of Jemma, Perry, Smartie and Jamie. Things all started well, Jem was really focused and all the dogs were running consistently. We won the 1st race with a best time of 19.90 (0.05 off our seed time). Unfortunately Jemma got injured in the last leg of the 2nd race which meant we were down to 3 dogs for the rest of the day. Amazingly those 2 wins managed to get us 3rd place as we were in a 3 way tie and had the fastest time!

Rockets were in division 6 with a team greatly strengthened by the return of thee Diefer (and everyones fingers, toes and just about everything else crossed that he would do 12")! Team was Dief, Merlin, Elliot, Sonny and Loki. As Sarah was there to run Mr E I was in charge of the team. It was a real pleasure, all the dogs ran so well. So happy for Claire that Dief ran over the 12, and he looked really good running 4.4s. He's not at race fitness yet either so hopefully there is more to come from him. Merlin was flying, he ran consistently at 4.6s all day which is about 0.2 faster than he was running when he came out. Elliot ran around 4.6s and box turn seemed better than at Anstey Park but again improved through the day. Sonny was good in the early races running around 4.7s but tired towards the end of the day. Loki was awesome, he is just so strong coming back and really proved himself in our race against fantastic 4 when he was going out just behind their last (v quick) dog and managed to run a new PB of 4.17secs to win us the race. I hope he keeps this up, then he might be shifted up a team! The team managed to win 4 out of 5 of their races just losing 1 race on silly lights to come 1st with a best time (and fastest ever for Rockets) of 18.30secs! Yay! There was definitely still some room on the changeovers too!

Ballistics and Missiles ran Sunday. Unfortunately they were both on at the same time (in different rings) which meant I didn't get to see much of the Missiles racing. I think they managed to win 2 of their races and came 4th. Ballistics were 5th seed in division 1. We had a team of Asher, Shani, Luna and Lacy in that order. 1st race against Shooting Stars we finally managed to get our act together to run a new fastest ever time of 16.96secs and enter the 16s club, woohooo! And I was late on my start with a 0.13, terrible! We lost very narrowly to Shooting Stars, they hit a 16.92 in the same race. We continued to have close racing for the rest of the day and we were fairly conistent with our times running low 17s. We also did a 16.88 with a very small light on Shani due to Asher slightly fumbling the ball. We managed to win our races against Jets, Bassetts and Lightning. We lost very narrowly to High Flyers on a light on the 2-2 deciding leg! Jolly Jumpers beat us pretty convincingly but annoyingly that was the race where our changes were the furthest out and we weren't that far behind! So we finished 4th. Although I couldn't really of cared less, the time was enough for me :-). Asher ran 3.8s in the 1st race of the morning and afternoon but got really tired as the racing went on. I'm now thinking it might just be fitness as maybe I've wrapped him in cottonwool and haven't pushed him as much as I should out on walks. I've rectified this now and I don't think he quite knows whats hit him! Shani ran sooo much better in the pack and went back to running 4-4.1s. Luna was flying, running quite consistent (so I'm told) 4.3s. Lacy was a touch inconsistent as it was her 1st time running anchor and she was relishing the opportunity to race the other team. This meant for the 1st couple of races she was coming quite wide off the box. She was alot better in the afternoon so hopefully the wide turns won't continue or she won't be able to go last either! Other than the turns her foot speed was really good and I understand she hit a few 4.2s which is excellent for her.

I'm so thrilled to join the 16s club and I'm so proud of my team and how far we have come over the last couple of years, lets hope we keep on progressing and getting faster. Thanks to everyone who has sent messages of congratulations, it really means alot!

Laika 6 1/2months

2011-05-20T02:23:00.003+01:00

Just a quick post with a new pic of Laika from today. I think she's really pretty but then maybe I'm a bit biased :o). She's really enjoying coming to competitions as she gets loads of attention and sometimes I actually let her watch the flyball which sends her completely loopy. She decided after watching for about 5 mins that she could do it better and since then goes crazy to get in the ring. Even at prizegiving she is constantly trying to head towards the ring although isn't too sure what to do when she gets in there! Crazy puppy :-D!

Oooh and whilst I remember, just because I've been asked a few times, he name is pronounced Layka (basically sound the 'a' not the 'i')!

Alton

2011-05-18T01:33:00.002+01:00

We had a bit of a depleted team for Alton but still managed to put out 3 teams. Rockets and Missiles raced Saturday.

Missiles did really well in division 6. Ruby was the most focused I've seen her and is getting speedier. We have starting working on the catching and she is progressing well. Unfortunately we have a conflict of interest as obviously her owner wants to continue racing her but that means she can't transfer what we are training her over to racing as she hasn't done enough reps yet. Just one of those things I suppose, and if it doesn't improve over the Summer it'll just be something for Winter training. The rest of the dogs also did really well, they just lost 1 race and finished 2nd.

Rockets were 3rd seed in division 2. We had a team of Jemma, Merlin, Elliot, Smartie and Bonnie. All the dogs were great, the judging however was not. I wouldn't usually say anything as it takes balls to go in and judge but I was getting more and more frustrated as the lights were playing up and decisions kept wrongly going against us resulting in unnecessary reruns and losing legs. It was Jemma's (and Sarahs) 1st competition this year, Jem was off her rocker in the 1st race especially as we didn't have time to warm up properly so we left her out of that one but she was great after that and didn't look like running across at all. She tired a little bit towards the end of the day but then it was also her 1st time over 12" so we'll let her off! Sarah also did well on her starts (and her ankle held out... phew!). Merlin's box deteriorated a little from last weekend which I think was partly to do with the ground (dip infront of box) so we're going to do some reps on Friday before Farnham to remind him, other than that he was focused and consistent as ever. I ran Elliot who was great, I find it difficult to judge how fast he's running as I'm trying to run away with such enthusiasm! The interesting thing was that at training last weekend he spit his ball nearly everytime for the tuggy but I had real trouble getting him to spit his ball from the start this weekend which kinda dispels our theory that he won't spit when he's tired. Looks like a competition issue! Hmm now how to fix that...! Mark ran Smartie and she found it very exciting watching her owner Carol run Merlin before her which meant she was flying! Bonnie was awesome as anchor dog and ran fantastically. I think the 12" really suited her as it helped her striding and slowed her down a touch which made her box turn significantly better. So we were really pleased with the dogs and only lost 1 race to come 2nd. We had a best time of 19.16secs and that was in the last race of the day so pretty good going!

Ballistics were 2nd seed in Division 1. The team was Piper, Asher, Luna, Loki. We had a successful but slightly frustrating day. Our 2 main races were against Dream Team Supreme and Bassetts as the other teams were in the 18-19s. I tried getting my team to push it in the early races but as we were comfortably winning this proved difficult! We managed a best time of 17.33 but it could of been so much better, every changeover had room. Infact we didn't manage 1 leg all day where everyone was bob on. We did do a 17.04 with a tiny light (from moi) in the 1st race and Luna and Loki still had room so we know the speed is there, just gotta coax it out! After Asher we were on 8.04 and after Luna 12.53. So we won all our races up until our last against Bassetts. They got a light on the 1st leg but we were quite a bit up on them going in to last dogs so I think if Loki hadn't fumbled (blooming red lane with the dip infront the box lol) we would have had them on speed anyway. They got a leg back after that but then managed to get 2 lights handing the win to us! Thanks Bassetts! Asher ran ok, his box was a little better than it has been. He still doesn't seem as quick as he was last year. I keep getting super paranoid that it's his leg but I know I would be able to tell if he was even slightly lame as I spent the majority of my time staring at it when he was actually injured. He is completely sound and happy so I think I just need to chill!

Looking forward to Farnham now, going to be a very tight div 1 and I'm a little bit nervous! We only have 4dogs aswell (no Piper) which is a shame. Lets hope we are on it!

Babies Video from Acremead

2011-05-10T03:03:00.002+01:00

Dogs are in order: Shani (WSD), Merlin (Collie/Cocker cross), Loki (WSD) and Ruby (Terrier)

Acremead take 2

2011-05-05T01:20:00.002+01:00

Due to the babies having successfully come in to open we were able to put out 4 teams for Acremead this time. Missiles and Rockets ran Saturday.

Ruby managed to gain her 1st flyball points on Missiles which was very exciting for everyone, it's taken a long time to get her this far. Big congratulations to Joy. Now if she could just catch the ball she'd be dangerous! We do have a plan of action so I think it's just a matter of time! Unfortunately despite winning 2 of their races Missiles finished 5th.

Rockets were 5th seed in Div 2 on a declared of 19.30secs. We had a major reshuffle of the teams after finding out we didn't have Diefer and after how well Loki and Merlin ran last weekend. So the team ended up being Merlin, Sonny, Elliot and Loki. Sarah was stuck at home revising so I had stolen Elliot to run. He was such a good boy for me bless him. The team ran really well, it took a couple of races for us to get it together seeing as it was the 1st time this combo had raced together. Merlin was well cute running start and was very consistent throughout the day, again his box held up. Sonny also coped well with suddenly going up to 12" and I think with a bit more race fitness will be really strong. Elliot's box turn got better as the day went on and he seemed to be running speedy. Loki was awesome, he is just getting faster and more driven. He ran quite a few 4.3s and is cracking as anchor dog as he is so strong on his return. We ended up winning 2 races and coming 4th with a best time of 19.11secs but there were a couple of races that really could of gone either way and I feel there is a lot more in this team.

Ballistics and Extraset ran Sunday. Extraset were top seed Div 4 on a declared time of 19.75secs. The team was Bonnie, Perry, Smartie and Jamie. The team seemed to gel really easily and ran smoothly and consistently all day. I had the pleasure of running Perry which was lovely. Bonnie seems to have come back from her injury really well and was flying running start. Smartie was happy to be back running for her mum and Jamie looked alot better than he did last weekend at Fairview. We had a couple of close races but managed to win them all to come 1st with a best time of 19.85secs.

Ballistics were 2nd seed in Div 1. The team was Piper, Asher, Luna, Lacy, Shani. I would say at the moment this is what we would call our full strength team so I had high hopes. We decided to put Asher up to 2nd to see if that would help his speed and try Shani Anchor. Putting Asher 2nd (and start when Piper was out) defo helped him and he ran quite a few 3.8s, he's still not fully flying but I think that'll come in the next couple of weeks. However Shani anchor did not work, she was running nowhere near the times she ran last weekend. Luckily her box turn stayed lovely but I'm afraid she will have to go back in the pack as she wasn't driving back. Looks like it's going to be Luna or Lacy that will be anchor. It's a shame in the sense that in terms of speed they are slightly weaker than the others but it's overall speed that counts. Hopefully it will make other teams get lights as they will be down on us going in to last dogs! Anyway Piper was cracking and ran a few 4.1s and Luna and Lacy were consistent as ever. Our changes were all over the place and we kept messing up potentially good times. We finished 2nd, just losing to Bassetts with a best time of 17.14secs.

We've now got a weekend off before Alton. Hopefully we'll get some training in this weekend and can try some combinations to see what works best!

Fairview Farm - Div 1 winners :-D

2011-04-28T00:38:00.003+01:00

I wasn't able to go to Stockbridge until Saturday so missed Missiles running on Friday. Rockets and Ballistics both ran Sunday.

Rockets were Diefer, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie and our debutee Merlin. They were 6th seed in Division 3. The team really struggled to gel and had lights and lates everywhere. Also because the ground was so dry and hard we had trouble anchoring the box securely which was causing Sonny to fumble. Merlin did really well, he had one baby mistake when we ran in blue lane and he ran up the side of the jumps but other than that was fabby. His box turn held up really well, he was coming off a touch wide but his back feet stayed nice and high which was good. The team managed a best time of 19.31secs and came 5th.

Ballistics were Luna, Lacy, Asher along with debutees Shani and Loki. We decided at the last minute to put Loki up instead of Diefer as we thought he might be stronger over the 12" and because it would be easier to share the racing out. It would of been a shame if Diefer hadn't got much racing as he usually runs all the time on Rockets seeing as he is their fastest dog. Anyway we were 4th seed in Division 1 on a declared time of 17.50secs. Shani was great, we ran her start although I'm not sure this is the best position for her as Lisa really struggled to hold her still enough to get a good start! We did 17.13secs in the 1st race with a start of 0.2something, that was Shani, Luna, Lacy, Asher. In the 2nd race we did 17.14secs again with a big start, that was Shani, Luna, Asher, Loki. When we switched to red lane against Bassetts, Shani had a bit of trouble getting her bearings. She really wasn't trying to be naughty, she just really thought she should be in blue lane. Unfortunately this resulted in her running across on the 1st leg... Sorry Bassetts! After doing a start close to the gate she was fine and ran perfectly after that. Her box turn was stunning, Doggie portraits got an awesome pic of it that i'll post when they go up. She ran consistently around the 4sec mark. Loki also did amazingly, his box turn also held up really well. He ran around 4.4secs, he only dropped his ball twice (on one he was able to re-run and still win us the leg :)) and he did great in the charged atmosphere of Div 1. We only lost one race and that was against Bassetts but they lost 2 races which meant we won the division :-D. Also after my concerns about Asher last weekend he was the same this weekend... hanging on the box, didn't seem right, running slow... until he went in the pack and bang 3.8s then he went start for one race and ran 3.7something. So it would appear our problem is running anchor. I think he overthinks it and is so desperate to win that he forgets how to actually run and turn. Sooo we are going to have to majorly rethink our running order. I feel bad because Luna and Lacy have gelled so well in the middle but it seems such a waste of Asher if he is going to be running quarter of a sec slower. I guess now is the time to do it though!

Only downsides were that Merlin got measured at 12", he really freaked at the measurer and went right up on his toes, maybe if we practice we will get him lower, I really thought he would get 11". And Katie cracked her ankle bone which means we don't have Diefer for this weekend and we have had to have a big shuffle of Rockets and Extraset, could be interesting!

Laika also got to meet up with her mummy and brothers. It was really lovely having the whole family together. Asher adores Gemma and seemed really pleased to see her! River is literally a black and white version of his dad, he has some of the same mannerisms like wanting to have his head next to your head (anyone who has met Asher will understand!). Steve has the same colouring and coat type as Asher but in body shape and character is alot like his Mum. I'd say Laika is quite an even mixture of them both. She has Asher's Head, feet and legs but body shape, coat and tail is much like Gemma's (god knows where the ears come from!!). I'd also say her character is quite even between the 2. I'm just really annoyed I forgot to take photos!

Here we go again :)... Acremead

2011-04-21T01:01:00.002+01:00

Yay, season has finally started and with such beautiful weather!

Saturday we had Missiles and Babies. Missiles were Tyne, Sky, Chelsey, Fraggle, Guiness and Molly. They won 2 races and came 4th. Babies were awesome :-D. Team was Shani, Merlin, Loki and Ruby. We kept the prop infront of the box for all the morning races and then in the afternoon I was taking it out for 1 or 2 legs per race to see if they would hold their turns. Shani was stunning, she ran consistently at 3.9-4.0secs all day and box turn held up lovely. Merlin was also really focused and ran at around 4.8secs, box turn dropped a bit the 1st couple of times I took the prop out but they got better and were lovely by the end. I was so impressed with Loki, he has gone from the herdy, starey dog that struggled to focus to a dog with all his focus on flyball. He only dropped his ball twice going third which is a great improvement and his box turn was beautiful. He was running 4.3-4.4secs. Ruby also did great, she is still struggling to catch the ball but she was bringing the ball back everytime and her speed improved throughout the day. So our fabby little team ran consistently brilliantly all day and won their division :-D so proud!

Sunday we had Rockets and Ballistics. Rockets were Diefer, Smartie, Sonny, Bonnie and Jamie. Unfortunately there was a mistake with the paperwork which meant we had to go NFC. Nightmare. Not the end of the world as most of the dogs were way off their times from last year so would of struggled in the div anyway. It was Bonnie's 1st show back after her injury and she did really well, we are running her from close to the gate, firstly because of her kamikaze box, she does lovely turns up close but add a bit of speed and lets just say they go a bit out of the window! And secondly to get her running in the pack properly. I think it worked well for her. Rather than waste the opportunity we ran with the prop in for Diefer, Sonny and Jamie. Hopefully this will help their turns to hold up in competitions, although I'm not too confident. Jamie dropped a bit everytime I tried taking prop out and Sonny was good on the 1st leg of each race but lazy after that, I think it's a case of fitness with him. Diefer's were great but I was stood in on him so again don't expect it to hold!

Ballistics were Piper, Luna, Lacy, Asher with Perry as emergency reserve. We'd been chatting the night before, and I'd said that I'd be happy with anything under 17.50secs for the beginning of the season and with Acremead not being the fastest ground (well so we thought!!). To be fair though, all the dogs were looking fantastic, much leaner and fitter than they were this time last year so we set out to see what we could do. Our 3 races in the morning were against the lower seeds in the division but we just went for it and managed a best time of 17.17secs with a 0.15 start. I was getting a bit frustrated though because Asher didn't run well at all. I don't know if it was the fact he wasn't really racing anyone, he was out before the other teams last dogs and he tends to run better if he is trying to beat something. His boxturn was also all over the place, I *think* he was trying not to double hit but because he was hitting too low it meant he was just hanging on the box for ages and then coming off wide :-S. Of course it could just be fitness or he might not of been feeling 100% so we will see this weekend. In the afternoon we had the 3 higher seeds, our changes were a bit out against Bassetts, I got 2 lights trying to push it to catch up. We also got lights against Extreme, think it would of been close if we hadn't. Last race against Northants was well close. Poor Piper was knackered after doing like a gazillion false starts over the day. We managed to get a light on the 1st leg then we were all really late and lost 2nd leg. Luckily we managed to pull it back to win it 3-2. We ended up 3rd. Overall I thought it was a very successful 1st outing for Ballistics and well chuffed with the time. Luna and Lacy were fantastic. We don't have Piper this weekend but we do have Shani debuting with us which is exciting.

Hopefully Rockets will do better this weekend with Merlin and Loki joining them. Really looking forward to it.

Finally congrats to Extreme Racers on their record breaking run of 16.46secs. I am a little bit in love with Spirit, what a stunning dog!

Countdown to the Flyball Season

2011-04-05T04:41:00.002+01:00

It's less than 2 weeks until our season starts. Our 1st show is Acremead and I am so excited. All the problems from last year are gone and I'm really hoping I can enjoy my racing! Teams are going to be a bit of a juggling act with availability and the volume of height dogs but it'll be fine!

Training has been going well. We have been mainly doing team training for the last few weeks as in the last couple of years we have found we have come out a little off the pace so we wanted to get the dogs a bit more race fit this year. Most of the dogs are holding their turn in the racing environment (with props in), just got to hope they do in proper competition. Our intermediates are ready to race, they run against another lane with no netting and are doing great. The only problem we have is with Loki spitting his ball if he's in the pack. We are working on it and it's improving but he may have to run last for a while. Shani, loki, merlin and ruby are going in as a Starter team at Acremead then all being well they are going on Open teams at Easter. We also have 3 new Starters, they are amazing. Nice, drivey Collies, makes my life easier. Would like to get them out sometime this year too.

After the RR seminar I didn't do full runs with Asher for a few weeks. I worked on box, getting him higher and having more respect for the prop. He did really well and was doing lovely turns but I realised it was going to need more repetitions than I had time for before he was racing again. So I raced him normally on Sunday and the 1st leg he did his box turn was AMAZING, after that they went down hill a bit but were still mostly better than before. The plan is to try to still work on it when I can but to really make a big effort to retrain at the end of this season.

Our big aim for this year is to qualify for Div 1 at the Champs again. I think that is going to be a big ask, we'll certainly need to be sub 17 and maybe by a fair amount. I was very pleased with 17.05 last year although I hoped we might just sneak under 17 as the max out time for those dogs is around 16.8-16.9. One of our new dogs should certainly make a dent in that, we'll just have to see if we can get it together particularly in the 3 qualifying shows before the Champs.

Really interested to see how all the teams come out this year, particularly ones that went to the RR seminar. Wonder how many will bring props for warm ups or suddenly are now armed with tuggies! Also if there will be any surprises, all it takes is for a team to have a couple of good dogs come through over Winter and bang they end up in Div 1!

Also new website address is www.bristolballistics.dyndns.org

Laika 5 1/2months

2011-04-05T03:42:00.003+01:00

Laika is now nearly 5 1/2 months, she is totally crazy, completely mad as a box of frogs... And I am very happy about this! She's a bit more foody now, and turns in to a bouncy, excited puppy when I get her treat pot out. This has made training alot easier and alot more fun for both of us. She can concentrate for longer now and has learnt quite alot since I last posted. Her wait is coming along well, I just need to add more distractions.

She is now so mad about her tuggy that I almost need to wear a body suit when it's out! We have started small amounts of 'flyball' training. Her being the only current team puppy has been both a hinderence and a help as no time is set aside for her but it does mean I can work her by herself and do exactly what I want to do. She comes in to training and does 3-5 recalls (obv no jumps) to her tuggy. We've also recently started doing a couple of short distance retrieves of a tennis ball and she is doing really well, learning to hold it until I say 'yes'. The only time she doesn't bring it is if she doesn't pick it up cleanly which I don't mind because atleast she's showing she wants to get back to me. I'm in 2 minds with her box work at the moment, I had in my head that I wouldn't start any box work until she was a few months older as I didn't want to damage her. But then at the RR seminar they said they had pups on the target board by her age (only very close up) and over many years had seen no ill effect. So I have target trained her to my hand and to a target (which she is now transferring to everything, very funny!) ready to start her on the target board at probs around 7months. A few weeks a go I tried her on the sofa to see what she would do if I got her to follow her tuggy and she almost immediately did 4 feet turns on the edge. Since then she likes to offer this behaviour alot! The problem that is bugging me at the moment (and probs one reason why I haven't transferred her target to the wall) is that I still can't decide which way she is going to turn. If anyone looked at her she would scream 'righty', whenever she chases a ball/toy or you call her she turns right 90% of the time. But if you go and place a toy down, take her back and send her to it she turns left 80% of the time. I probably wouldn't be so paranoid if it wasn't for Asher being so similar and I had to completely retrain his turn so I want to get it right! Need to make a decision soon though :-/. Help!

I'm not sure how big she is going to get, she's about 17.5ins at the moment and weighs around 11kg. She still looks very 'puppyish' if you know what I mean so I think has a couple of inches of growth left. I see more and more of Asher in her now which is lovely, so exciting watching her grow up :o). Will get more pictures soon.

Rocket Relay Seminar

2011-03-11T01:43:00.002Z

On Sunday Sarah and I attended the Rocket Relay Seminar in Newark hosted by the Flyball Fever team. Aaron and Kelly from Rocket Relay came all the way from Canada to share their training techniques with us. I found it a very interesting and informative day. I don't think I have ever listened and concentrated so hard in lectures in my life! I feel like some gaps in my knowledge have been filled in. Before I think I had a good enough 'eye' to indentify problems but not always know how to fix them but I learnt things that I can definitely see working with Asher and other dogs in the team. It also came at the right time for making sure I train the puppy right and I now have a clear path of how to progress her training.

I worked both Asher and Elliot in the working slots due to Sarah still recovering from the broken ankle. Elliot was very funny with his ball obsession being sooo strong and also his love of doing the box! We took him due to the problems Sarah has had with getting him tuggy motivated when he has ball which results in him having a slower return. I felt we took an awful lot out of his session as Aaron was able to demonstrate how to move the reward from the ball to the tuggy and how to get him focused on us before he is able to do the box so that he is already thinking about getting back to us before he is released rather than just thinking about getting to the box. He made progress in just that 1 session and spit the ball for the tuggy so we are hopeful that we can now continue this and improve his overall speed. Also from watching videos at training and listening to what Kelly was saying about 1 of her whippets we have decided that we need to make him triple stride from the box to 1st jump back. At the moment he double strides (i used to call it single striding, they are affecting me already lol!), but takes off very early for the 1st jump back. Due to his conformation his power is upwards so he jumps very high and loses a lot of his power which affects his speed all the way back. If we make him put in another stride hopefully he can use his power more forwards and generate more speed.

Asher was a good boy and happily demonstrated our problems lol! Aaron was a little bemused by our special second ball catch method! He thinks that we should just use tuggy but I find Asher is quite inconsistent when we do this. I know that he could be a bit more tug motivated but it is already pretty strong and he spits the ball for the tug. Its just in competition sometimes he will tank it back for it and other times he coasts but always seems to grab tuggy with same enthusiasm! Maybe it is something I am doing different? Anyway we will work on it but I have seen a significant improvement in Ashers speed since we started using our funny technique so whether it beats it or not remains to be seen! The main thing I wanted to work on was his box turn because of the double hitting. It was really REALLY bad when we were demonstating our problems (he was hitting very very low), but then I only put a 5" jump infront of the box (usually use 6-7") so only to be expected. We put the jump infront of the box up to 9" and did some turns, he did a couple of nice ones. We then did some toshy runs where although he knocked the jump quite alot Aaron said he didn't double hit at all. I now have some exercises to work on that I think will help and I have to be more picky about what I do and don't reward. I feel more optimistic because Aaron said that although he was hitting low, his body position and striding was good so I should be able to get rid of the double hitting providing that I am consistent and use the prop all the time.

Really enjoyed the day and it was a privilege meeting Kelly and Aaron who I have admired for years! Thanks to the Flyball Fever team, especially Katie and Kristian for making it all happen.

Flyball Nerd!

2011-02-18T02:55:00.002Z

My team take the piss out of me pretty much constantly due to the amount of time I spend talking about/researching/watching flyball. It's not often we have the time/people to take videos of our training but as I wanted to get some of the babies, we decided to take some of Ballistics (+Diefer) too.

Sorry about the quality of the video, it was taken on my phone and it's a bit rough around the edges, couldn't be arsed spending ages putting it together. I did however spend ages watching it over and over, timing it, watching it slow motion and freeze frame. Oh dear, if you're not interested in technicalities, stop reading now!

Over the summer I noticed Piper seemed to be hanging on the box a bit, I couldn't really see properly as I was always running Asher at the same time. After seeing a pic of him on the box from the champs it confirmed what I suspected, he was double hitting. In the vid, the 1st couple of box turns when he is in the pack he is still hanging, not quite double hitting because I think the jump in front is just about stopping him hitting too low. However i think the last 2 box turns are alot better, in these runs he has someone letting go and someone racing him up to the line. I think this is making him extend more over the jumps so his take off point for the box is closer than it was in the other runs. On a freeze frame his front feet appear higher and closer to ball hole so he is getting a better push off. So I think we need to work a bit on striding so that he doesn't take off too far from the box, as racing him to the line seems to be helping we will continue to use this aswell. I timed him around 4.2secs, I'm reasonably happy with this but I think with a bit more box and toshy work he should be able to hit consistent 4.1s.

Lacy's turn is very consistent, she does hit slightly too far to the left which is why she is a little wide. I'm going to try having the wing on the left side a bit tighter to encourage her to hit closer to the ball hole. But it's not something i'm too concerned about. To be honest I think even if she came off dead straight she would still have to double stride back to the 1st jump as I don't think with her build she has the power to do 12" from the 1 stride. I only got 1 proper time for Lacy which was 4.46, a little slower than normal but she is the sort of dog that needs a few comps to hit race fitness so again quite happy.

Asher's double hitting is quite apparent in this video, the slightly disheartening thing is that he seems to think that this is they way he should do it as the turn is very consistent, he just has to use that front leg again to get his rotation and push off. I can get him to turn without double hitting and it is very fast (I have to stand in a specific position and do crazy things with hands and tuggy!), but as yet I have been unable to transfer this to a full run. I think I'd have to retrain him to target an area on the box with his front feet as he hits far too low, don't know if it would hold though. Other than that I'm pleased with the way he's looking, drive back is good and striding is nice. Fastest I got him at was 3.82.

Luna I think is looking fabby :). Box is nice and quick (can't believe the improvement from how it used to be!), I hope she holds it in competition! Her drive back is also 100% better than what it was, she is another 1 who double strides from box to 1st jump back but again because 12 is her own height I think she would struggle to single stride. In the 2 runs I have of her I get her at 4.36 and 4.39, very, very happy with that!

Then theres Diefer, firstly, I wouldn't train box turns like this unless you're desperate! I really, really don't like teaching dogs to "go round"! I find him frustrating to train, we orginally taught him "on/off" like the rest of our dogs but this gradually regressed until he refused to jump on/off when the ball was in. We then tried standing in on him as a bit of a quick fix. It worked to get him turning and we gradually back away from the box until we are no longer standing in. Then maybe the next training session or a couple of sessions later he will completely go back to refusing to turn properly and so it starts again! I know this turn won't hold up but I think if we persevere with it in training we are limiting the amount of times he turns badly, and I think it does make his turn slightly better in competition.

The babies are still improving and I'm really pleased with how they are doing, we have a few little things still to work on. I haven't got around to putting the video of them together yet but will post when it's done.

Laika update

2011-02-15T03:11:00.004Z

Well Laika will be 16weeks on Thursday. The above picture was taken at 14.5weeks. I think she's going to be quite a big girly! I'm pleased with how she's progressing, she is really good out on walks and has a nice recall, at the moment I only call her if i'm fairly confident she is going to come (she stays fairly close to me or follows Asher so I hardly ever NEED to call her) although this is generalising to more and more situations quickly, sometimes she actually quite surprises me! She is interested in people and other dogs, she desperately wants them to talk to her but if they ignore her she is quite happy to walk on past without jumping up or following them. Of course jumping up is a big problem if people do talk to her because they speak to her in cute baby talk and most of them then wait for her to jump up before they stroke her, very annoying! But then i figure thats there problem and i'll work on her not jumping up when people stop seeing her as a cute puppy!

Her drive for a tuggy is pretty awesome and it improves all the time, she really picks up her pace when she sees it and she tugs VERY enthusiasticly. We've now got to the point where she will keep tugging whilst Asher is doing crazy exciting things around her which I didn't think would happen for a good while as she is quite focused on him. She's seen and picked up a tennis ball on a couple of occasions, none of them really planned and I didn't really make a big deal about it. I'm still deciding how much interest I want in a ball so i'm going to wait til after the RR seminar before I progress any further with that. I have done a couple of very short retrieves of her squeaky latex ball back to her tuggy where she has exchanged really well.

I'm still finding her drive for food a bit of a problem, although I have seen improvement in this in the last few days. However tbh I don't think she is that much more interested in the food she just wants to interact more. I had a particularly frustrating few days where on most training sessions she got bored after a couple of minutes and wandered off, I was horrified! So I gave her a couple of days off and started back with high value treats, since then she has been a lot better and is now working with her kibble mixed in with a few tastier bits. She knows quite a few things now but I really must start teaching her a wait, I find it such a boring thing to teach though!

I'm finding keeping her activity level down very very hard. Her stamina for such a young pup is ridiculous and when she goes on walks with Asher she just runs and runs. At home she is constantly on the go, she loves to climb and will clamber up on everything, she terrorises Asher (who bless him is normally so chilled at home!) and has crazy times where she runs at literally 100mph around the house and does box turns off the sofa. The only upside of this is that she does seem to have very good coordination and balance for one so young. I was very excited last week as for a couple of days in a row she fell asleep outside her cage TWICE (both times only for like 45mins but its a start) lol. I do just about manage to stop her doing too too much but I will be very glad when she is old enough to do full length walks!

Despite her craziness she is very sweet and very funny! Oh and she has now lost 2 teeth bless her :-)

Flyball Training

2011-01-25T03:28:00.002Z

I was really pleased with how training went on Sunday. 1 of our starters (a Corgi called Sinead!)had the ball in the box for the 1st time and showed great improvement over the session. Her enthusiasm makes up for her shape bless her! Logan another starter, was the most focused he's been and is really picking up some pace over the jumps. Still big problems with the box as he's not really ball motivated but again showed improvement and I've set homework so we shall see!

Intermediates were fabby. Shani and Loki did full runs for the 1st time 2 weeks ago and did really well. This weekend we also had Merlin and Ruby so the 4 of them did full runs and looked fantastic, soo proud! Loki showed massive improvements in speed even from the last session to this 1. He's always been quick going back as he is so tuggy motivated but was really starting to power to the box aswell so hopefully this will continue. Shani was great as always, really would have no problem putting her straight in to open. Merlin did great on his 1st full runs, box turn was lovely, we've been working on getting him to hit a little higher and push off more strongly with front feet to get a tighter turn (not that it was very wide, he was just not getting the distance off the box that he was capable of), and it seems to be paying off. All of their boxes held up really well with the extra speed and they were doing loose changeovers with no problems. Ruby is slightly different because of her catching problem and confidence issues. Her owners only concern is getting her to go up and back so as much as it pains me I have let the box turn go. She is now going up and back more confidently and I'm hoping speed will come with it eventually. She is triggering the box and catching the ball maybe 1/3 of the time so I think we are getting there!

With the team dogs we did lots of speed exercises which included variations on "the toshy thing", 1 jump, box and back over all 4 jumps which made all the dogs turns really snappy, handler starting off just in front of the dog and racing dog up to 1st/2nd jump, then stopping and running the other way. We tried to tailor it for each dogs needs, so that if a dog was slower coming back we'd do more toshy thing with them and if they were slower going up we did more racing them up. The dogs seem to love this sort of thing and it's a really good workout for the handlers too! Poor Carol ran 3 dogs lol!

Laika came with me again but it's really hard to find time to get her out as I'm hands on involved in literally every dogs training apart from when I'm running Asher. Our training is a real team effort and there is rarely anyone stood around doing nothing as we need people to hold dogs, boxload, watch changeovers etc. Near the end I did manage to get her out and gave her to our 6yr old box loader in training to look after whilst I helped some of the dogs. She was really good and was more looking at me and what I was doing rather than watching or trying to chase the other dogs.

It must be nearly April now surely??! I'm really missing it now and feel like we've got a lot to look forward to and aim for this year, just need to get back out there!

Laika at 12 weeks

2011-01-22T02:15:00.008Z

Well in the last couple of weeks she has grown lots, played lots, learnt lots and got in lots of trouble! She's finished her vaccinations and is out and about in the World. She's been to flyball training to meet everyone in her new family! We went to Pets At Home on a Sunday afternoon which is never a good idea with a puppy, I was stuck in there for 45mins because everyone wanted a cuddle. She's also been to Blaise Castle which is probably the busiest park/woods near us where she met all manner of rolling things (bikes, scooters, rollerskates, weird plastic cars etc), loads of dogs, kids, screaming kids, people who wanted to cuddle her, people who were totally oblivious to her. All in all, pretty good socialisation and nothing seemed to phase her. The only things that worry her are dogs barking that she can't see and traffic going past whilst were walking along the pavement. Both are improving and i'm not pushing her, she is a very strong character and I think she will get past it quite quickly.

Training wise we have done bits and pieces but not loads. There seems to be lots of puppies around at the moment who seem to be able to do sooo much. Fair play but that's not really my style! I'm a pretty relaxed owner/trainer, my main aim is to build drive and determination. I think that sometimes training too many things can make the dog a bit careful and not really want to let go, not really something I want for flyball! So yeh at the moment she knows some basics and a couple of little tricks like paw and hand touch. The main things she is learning at the moment are recall and walking on a loose lead. Both are currently ok but need more patience from me (not 1 of my strengths) to build them up gradually rather than expecting too much too soon.

I'm also working on wiring an 'off switch' in as I don't think she came with one! She rarely sleeps and seems to be able to go on and on. I'm just trying to reward anytime she lies down quietly. She has to go in to her cage for periods of the day otherwise i think she would be doing far too much on her young bones, she does not appreciate this! We have a small wall that comes down from our garden to the back door, I am constantly trying to stop her jumping off it, I may have to fence it off and only leave access up the steps. It's not even like she carefully steps down, she thinks she's Rambo and jumps off it like she's dock diving (its only about 14ins high)!

As you can see from the picture, her and Asher are getting on really well. They play all the time now, and I'm happy that he's happy with her. That really would of been my worst nightmare if he had been upset, he's my special boy :0).

She seems to want to please more than she did which is making training easier. She now really wants to be told how clever she is whereas before she would rather have gone off and done something else. The mouthing has also pretty much stopped. She is very naughty, cheeky and totally exhausting but I wouldn't have her any other way (can you tell I'm writing this whilst she is asleep lol).

Introducing Laika...

2011-01-10T17:15:00.006Z

1 day old

2 weeks

4 weeks

4 weeks with her brothers River and Steve

8weeks

8.5weeks

9 weeks

9 weeks at Sarahs

10 weeks

I'd like to introduce you all to the newest member of our household; Laika. She was born on the 28th October which makes her currently 10.5wks old. She is a blue merle WSD with bright blue eyes. Her mother is Gemma who runs for Aces high and herself is from flyball and ISDS lines, and her father is my Asher.

I've kinda kept everything quite quiet about her due to the constant issues I have with bringing new dogs in to my house as my family aren't really doggy people (I had to wait several years to get Tess, and then literally begged for atleast 3yrs before I could get Asher). I wasn't sure right up to the last minute whether I would get her home at all so didn't want to jinx it by telling everyone about her. Also as I'm sure you can imagine we have recieved criticism for "breeding for the wrong reasons" yet it didn't stop us having loads and loads of enquiries about the litter despite their only being 3 puppies. All in all the last few weeks have been an emotional rollercoaster and only now do I feel things have settled and I feel strong enough to introduce her with the enthusiasm she deserves!

Well she is bright, determined, strong willed and tugs like a demon :). She already has her cute and quirky mannerisms. She's very attached to me but also likes to do her own thing which can make her frustrating at times! She does crazy zoomies round the house and garden, Asher is totally bemused by her and wondered what the hell I had done to him when I 1st brought her home. He now thinks she is quite good fun. I think he missed having the company of another dog when we lost Tess. She's generally very confident and no objects/noises bother her at all. She does play the sweet and innocent card when she first meets new people and dogs but it doesn't take her long to show her true colours! She picks up things very quickly but can only concentrate for short periods especially as at the moment she is not particularly foody. Housetraining is still a bit of a headache but we are getting there. She was also quite nippy when she 1st came home but this is decreasing even quicker than I expected.

I have been asked if I feel under pressure with her because of already having Asher and him being so quick and also her dad. Well basically; No, I didn't get her because I want another superfast dog, I wanted another dog to train and work. I will of course put my everything in to her to make her the best that I can but I don't really mind how fast she is. If she did end up sub4 I probably wouldn't be able to run her anyway because she'd be on the same team as Asher! My main aim is for her to have a fantabulous boxturn as obviously this is a major interest of mine. Related to this I want her to show equal drive to the box and back from the box. I have a rough training plan sorted already, not that the actual flyball parts of that can begin for several months yet! She will not be 1 of those pups doing full runs at 9months ;)! I'd also like to do a bit more agility with her so will try to do more foundation work to hopefully eliminate the problems I have encountered with Asher.

Anyway for now she can just enjoy being a puppy, terrorising the house and generally causing chaos! I hope to keep her training updated on here and will try to add photos and videos when I can.

On a roll...

2010-12-04T22:48:00.003Z

Whilst I was blogging I thought I might aswell catch up on recent events and training.

Winter training has once again commensed in earnest. The main objective is making our fabulous babies future flyball stars and so far it's going to plan. Our group that we call the intermediates consists of Loki, Shani, Merlin and Ruby. No other word can describe Shani other than amazing... box turn, speed, focus, it's all there. I say this but she hasn't actually done a full run yet, actually none of them have, we are playing the slow game! Loki gets quicker and more focused every week, his box turn is great. He has a very strong eye and desperately wants to herd, he doesn't really chase, he just stares, but it can be difficult to break him away, as I say he is getting there! Merlin is our collie/cocker cross, he will probably be an 11" (10"if were really lucky) height dog and is looking like becoming a cracking little dog who always puts his all in to it. His box turn is nice but still needs refining, it's a touch wide at the moment and front feet hit is a bit low but it'll get there. Then there is Ruby who this time last year wouldn't touch a ball. She's now retrieving a ball and triggering the box. Box training with her is hard because she does lovely on/offs the box with no ball, but she cannot catch the ball when it is in the hole when she turns this way. So when the ball is in we are letting her do her own thing to encourage her to catch the ball (she won't catch anything if you throw it to her, she lets it fall on the floor 1st!). This is working and she is now catching the ball out of the box, when this is more reliable, i'll start encouraging her to turn properly and still catch the ball. Other main thing with her is confidence, she doesn't like changeovers at the moment and her speed is greatly affected if she feels nervous about anything around her.

With the team dogs, I'm aiming to get as many box reps as I can manage with the props in and head to head racing to encourage them to hold their turns. We are also working on various speed exercises to get the best out of them and also give them a bit of variety in what they do at flyball training. My plans with Asher are really just more box reps with prop and work a little bit on foot position to try and get rid of his double hitting, not sure if that will be possible now that he's been racing so long though (maybe a certain Mr Robbins can help with that in march!). The main thing really is making him hold his turn when he's going anchor and out behind the other dog. Ideally we want him back running anchor on ballistics next year so that would make a big difference to him.

We also have our new group of starters who are the hardest bunch I've ever had, I think I'm going to have to adapt our box training technique for most as building the confidence and drive to jump on and off the box is taking a while. Fingers crossed something will click in the next couple of weeks, would make my job a bit easier!

We are also in the process of redoing the Ballistic website as the way it was before wasn't really in the style we wanted it so noone ever really used it, i'll post a link when it's finished then you 3 people who read this will be able to see who these dogs are that I babble on about all the time!
I've kinda lost all enthusiasm for agility in the last few months. I think the problem is that I feel we really haven't made any progress at all in the last year and in some ways have gone backwards. The frustrating thing is that I know the sort of things that I want to work on and how I want to go about it but would be very difficult in a class environment and its just not long enough to work with him. Asher is the sort of dog that will just keep on working, he doesn't really tire and sometimes he needs a long session to really get what you are trying to teach him in to his head. I've thought about private lessons but the trainers that I would want to go to are either too far away or not taking on new people. I do still have a lesson with Anthony Clarke to take that Sarah bought me for my birthday so maybe that will give me some motivation and i'll be prepared to drive that bit further every week for a lesson! Actually if someone could just buy me a field and a set of agility equipment that would be great, thanks very much.

So thats about it, Ashers well, his bad leg seems fine, he went lame the other week on it, checked him over and turned out he had the most massive bruise and lump ever on it where he must of bashed it on a walk, he's such a nutter! It's all gone now so that was a relief!

Acremead and Becketts

2010-12-04T22:13:00.002Z

Just wanted to finish off the write ups for the last couple of shows. I don't really remember alot of what happened so I'll try keep it short.

Acremead is a lovely show that I enjoy going to, however the ground isn't really great for times so we just went to race. We had Piper back, racing in div 1 was great, we totally messed up against Molten and lost on lights, we held it together for the other races resulting in a very close last race against Bassetts. They just had us by a smidgen but it was great racing. We ended up finishing 3rd with a best time of 17.43secs. Asher struggled with the ground and was a bit inconsistent, he still didn't seem quite on form. I was still pleased with him, he always gives me 110% :). I don't remember the results for our other teams so i'll leave it at that.

Becketts Farm was our last show of the season and we had 3 teams. Missiles ran Saturday and raced brilliantly to win their division, good for them to end on a high. Rockets ran Sunday in a very strong 7 team div 2. Team was Diefer, Sonny, Smartie, Jamie and Perry. In the morning they raced the higher seeds of the division so unfortunately lost all 3. Changes were also a bit out. However in the afternoon they came out fighting and fought hard to win all their afternoon races and set a new best seed time of the year of 18.59secs. They finished 4th.

Ballistics were in div 1 with a team of Piper, Lacy, Asher and Luna. We had incredible racing. 1st race was against Bassetts, thrilling 5 legger, we managed to do our fastest ever time of 17.05secs (just 0.05secs off joing the special 16s club, nearly did it with a 16.95 but we had a slightly early change) and win the race :). Our race against Live Wires was also very tight, we managed to win the 1st leg but when they swapped dogs they just had us by a little bit so we lost 3-1. Extreme were unlucky against us getting ball fumbles and early changeovers in the wrong places, had they been clean runs we would have been very close but as it was we won that race too. So our hopes of winning the division rested on Bassetts beating Live Wires, we watched intently but Live Wires just managed to hold their nerve and win the race resulting in them winning the division and us coming 2nd which was still a great result in such a strong div 1. Really pleased with the way all the dogs ran, Luna was absolutely faultless, she looked confident and controlled and noone would ever have known that we ever had a problem with her. Asher was back on top form, absolutely flying running 3.7-3.9 all day, it amazes me that he can do that over 12". So a great way to end the season although in some ways I feel the end came too soon and had we had an extra 1 or 2 comps on good ground we would have broken the 17s barrier. Nevermind, next year.

Shackerstone

2010-10-15T23:53:00.003+01:00

I went to Shackerstone for the 1st time last year and totally loved it so was really looking forward to it.

We had 4 teams in. Missiles and Extraset were Saturday. It all started well with me arriving back at camp ballistics at approx 8.15am after a night of drinking Shaka Khan style, i made it to the ring and managed to run Chelsey in the Missiles at 8.30am, pretty good going i would say! I haven't got a clue what happened but I do know we finished 4th with a time of 24.49secs which is good for that team.

Extraset were next in division 5. Luckily Jemma was better so we had the usual extraset team of Jemma, Perry, Sonny and Jamie. This was a fab division to race in with every race being really close. Our last race of the day was so exciting with it going down to a 5th leg decider against Hinckley Hounds which we just managed to nick by a tiny amount. This resulted in us winning the division :-) we had a best time of 20.02secs (again!).

Sunday we had Rockets in division 3 who had a team of Diefer, Elliot, Smartie and Bunty. The team managed to pull out some cracking times in the morning and were under 19 most of the time with a best time of 18.74secs. We had a couple of races of it going fairly smoothly before problems set in, I won't go in to it but the people who were there will know! Diefer was fab, he's really hit his stride again now and was consistently running 4.2s, Elliot ran really well, his box turn was lovely, and Smartie was also great, she gets faster and faster as the season goes on! The team finished 3rd.

Next we had Ballistics in div 1, I was gutted that Piper had unfortunately gone lame (due to his dad standing on his foot when practising his agility, bad dad lol!) so we had Lacy, Asher, Rosie and Luna. After Champs I thought we were sure to go faster on the ground at Shackerstone but without Piper it was impossible! We had been working on Luna in the gap since champs, we didn't much like the idea of pet correctors and such like so Carol had put lots of effort in to getting her to come back for a 2nd ball. We'd also tried various positions for Carol to stand so that she could fully get Luna's attention and get her to come back straight. We found that most effective was someone else running Luna and Carol standing near the gate as she was coming back so that was our back up plan if she started messing around again! To be honest I don't think we ran that well, Asher certainly wasn't on it and i could tell he wasn't driving back like he has been (I felt pretty bad when I realised he was stiff on his bad leg the next day), Luna made massive improvements, she ran across on 1 leg against Northants but this was quickly rectified.(I must stress if you haven't seen her doing it, it is in no way aggressive and she doesn't run in to/attack the other team dogs, she literally comes through the finish line and veers off in to the other teams runback area level with the opposing dog and then comes back, obviously not ideal and interference in the sense that if the other team had a light they wouldn't be able to rerun but i feel it was a problem we had to work on in the ring because it was the atmosphere causing her to do it) And then she was fine until the last race against High Flyers where she ran across on 1 leg so we swapped to mark realising her and carol by the gate, this worked and after a couple of legs Carol was able to go back to running her and she was great. We lost to Molten and High Flyers, we did a best time of 17.52secs and came 3rd. I've heard some comments on the grapevine about how we've pushed Luna too much and she shouldn't be racing etc but i think people should know the full story before judging on something they know nothing about, I think we've handled the situation pretty well considering the problem started a month prior to this and at Shackerstone it was well on it's way to being fixed! Also people complaining about the amount of people we had in the ring, well I'm sorry but that is down to the judge or the teams we were racing to challenge, I've had just about enough of the bitchiness this year, it does my head in! Sorry about the little rant!

So another eventful show, had great fun on the evenings, Shackerstone really is the best show for the social aspect!

Very Late... British Championships 2010

2010-10-12T22:36:00.003+01:00

I know I'm horrendously behind but I thought Champs still deserved its own post.

If I'm being completely honest in the lead up to the champs due to several different factors I really wasn't feeling it and didn't really want to go. I won't go in to reasons but I hated feeling like that and hopefully next year will be a different story!

We had a dog go sick on Extraset which meant a shift around of the other teams leaving us with just 4 dogs on the top 3 teams and 6 on the 4th team (they have to be run with these dogs as there is a bit of a gulf between them and the other teams and not all of them can run all day).

Missiles ran Saturday in division 36 but were pretty outclassed for time as they were seeded on a fluke time that we knew they wouldn't hit again. They did have some close racing and the dogs ran well but unfortunately they came 6th.

Extraset ran Saturday as Sonny, Perry, Elliot and Jamie in division 18. I had the pleasure of running Jamie again which I thoroughly enjoyed even if I did have to do alot of running! Every single race went to the wire and it was really exciting. We came 3rd with 20.02secs.

Sunday started with a bit of a nightmare when Bobbie fell out the caravan and hurt her wrist (later found out to be broken) and couldn't run Diefer (who we had stole as his owners were on holiday). So Rockets had an eventful start! The team was Diefer, Smartie, Rosie and Bunty. This again was a very tight division and we possibly could of won it if it weren't for a few unnecessary lights and a certain height dog running out on her way up despite changing on a dog that she's used to changing with! Anyway, the team managed 3rd with a time of 18.83secs and I got to run Diefer for a bit aswell which was great!

Ballistics were moved up to division 1 at very late notice and whilst I was very very excited I was also very nervous. We had a team of Piper, Luna, Lacy and Asher. After Luna's lane crossing at Stockbridge we thought putting her in the pack would keep her attention on her own team and as a team we decided if it all went t**s up we would just put her anchor and hold back so as to not put off any of the other teams dogs. Our 1st race was in blue lane (our good lane) against top seeds Live Wires, who to be honest just underestimated us. On the 1st leg they got a light, next leg I think they were a bit cautious on changes and we were going for it! Asher decided he wasn't going to be beaten! Last leg they swapped dogs but Asher was high on the atmosphere and pulled it out of the bag to catch up a couple of jumps deficit to get us the win 3-0 with our fastest ever time of 17.30secs. Next race in red against bassetts our fears were confirmed, 1st leg Luna went flying in to their runback area, tried it once more with a slightly different approach from the catch team but to no avail so we went to plan b and put her last and held her back. Gutting but we felt ok knowing we were doing the right thing, we did the same for next race against High Flyers. In the afternoon our 1st race was against Shooting Stars back in blue. We wanted to win this 1 as we thought it would be the only other race we stood a chance in. It followed pretty much the same pattern as Live Wires. Asher was thriving on running anchor in that environment and his foot speed was awesome (shame about him blowing his boxturn lol), no idea what times he was running but he felt amazing. 1st leg they got a light, 2nd 2 legs Asher just kept bringing it back! We did another fastest ever time of 17.18secs! Last race against Extreme we were in red so we held back 1st 2 legs but we could hear the whole crowd shouting for us to go for it so with now even more nerves we did! And Luna did it, she didn't run across, we won the 3rd leg to take it to 2-1 but on the last leg we weren't together enough to bring it back and lost 3-1. Overall we came 5th which all things considered was bloody amazing! The atmosphere was fantastic and we are so grateful for the support we received both in and out of the ring. Belated huge congratulations to Bassetts who raced brilliantly to win all their races and hold on to their title. There are some great photos of the team and some of the other div 1 teams on:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kayanem/sets/72157624736312730/

and

www.photoboxgallery.com/flyballfever on the experimental div 1 photos bit :-) inc my favourite ever photo which I really hope David Flood doesn't mind me posting...

So that was Champs 2010, ups and downs and just about every emotion inbetween. Would love to be a part of div 1 again next year but we'll have to keep getting better as I think the competition will be even tougher.

Stockbridge Week

2010-08-23T20:42:00.005+01:00

Ok I'm going to try and be fairly brief as it was a very busy week and to be quite honest I can't remember everything!

First Weekend

Missiles and ballistics ran Saturday. Missiles were missing Sky due to injury so struggled a bit within their division but still managed to come 4th. Ballistics were missing Piper so had a 1st team of Lacy, Asher, Rosie and Luna. Without Piper our times suffered and our best was 17.63secs. We lost to Shooting Stars and Lightening Strikes and came 3rd. With having the Shooting Star lights we were able to see individual dog times. We've got these all recorded, Sarah has them somewhere *edit to say* Sarah has now sent me all the times but my computer is too damn old to open the file, i'll do a separate post on it!! From memory I think Lacy's fastest was 4.31 with an average of i think 4.42, she's very consistent. Ashers fastest was 3.76 and average 3.91. Rosie had a fastest of 4.49 and average of i think 4.7something. Luna had a fastest of 4.52 and again an average of 4.7ish.

Sunday we had Rockets and Extraset running. Rockets were Diefer, Elliot, Smartie and Bunty. Same old problem with rockets which was consistency, they seem to be able to hit the odd sub 19 time and then can't keep it up for the rest of the day and are comfortable around low to mid 19s. Diefer seemed to be back on form and was running 4.2s. Elliot ran probably the best I've seen him, he had a best time of 4.5something and averaged around 4.7. Smartie had a best time of around 4.6 and averaged i think 4.82. Bunty had a best time 0f 5.1something but averaged around 5.5. They did a best time of 18.88 and came 5th.

Extraset were Jemma, Sonny, Perry and Jamie. This is our lovely little consistent team apart from Katie running Sonny and still in the process of learning changeovers. They were just a bit unlucky that some of the races didn't go their way but as always they hit low 20s all day and had a best time of 20.05secs. They came 5th. Jemma was hitting some fab times, I believe her best was 4.43 and she averaged 4.5-4.6. Sonny had a best of around 4.7 and averaged i think 4.89secs. Perry was consistent as ever at 5.3-5.4secs and Jamie had a best time of 5.2 and averaged about 5.4. Excuse the video skills lol:

The Inbetweeny Bit

During our week between competitions we did some pretty fun stuff. Midweek we had fancy dress pairs which was hilarious. You had to run the dogs as a pair then the humans had to go 1 at a time up the flyball lane, down a glass of wine, shout "I love flyball" and come back. It was very funny. Me and Sarah dressed as ladybirds and managed to win our division with Asher and Elliot. The boys must have found it very exciting as they ran extra well, I had 2 people come up and tell me they saw Asher run a 3.6, I wish I'd seen it! The rest of our team were also quite successful with Mark and June with Smartie and Rosie coming 2nd in another division and Carol and Mark with Luna and Fraggle!! won the other division!

We also took part in a bit of fun agility where I tried running Jemma and Elliot, E wasn't too bothered but Jemma wasn't impressed although I was surprised she did it at all as she is such a mummy's girl!

Our plan for the week was to also push on a bit with the puppies training as they are all now over a year old (time flys!). I'm really pleased with how they are all coming on, Shani and Loki have had lots of work put in to their boxwork at home and it really showed. It was Shani's 1st time on our box (Nick had made a dummy 1 to practice at home) and she was doing 4 feet turns with ball within about 15mins. Carol has also been working on Merlin but as he is her mums dog hasn't had as much time as she would like, with just a few minutes each day by the end of the week he was also doing 4feet turns with ball. Loki's turn is looking brilliant, here is a vid of Merlin and Loki. I will try get 1 of Shani plus Moss and Ruby (who are also making good progress) soon.

The rest of the week consisted of walking the dogs, partying, lots of alcohol, lots of food and 2 trips to A+E!

Second Weekend

It was just the Missiles on Saturday. Fraggle decided after his amazing performance in pairs that he was done for the week and couldn't really be arsed! This resulted in a very comical performance which greatly entertained the crowd but not so much his owner! They still won 1 race and came 4th!

We were supposed to have the other 3 teams Sunday but unfortunately Jemma became ill and wasn't able to race, this meant we didn't have enough dogs and had to withdraw the Extraset. Sarah kindly also withdrew Elliot so that the remaining 6 dogs could run as the rockets. With having 6 dogs the Rockets never really gelled and were never going to be fast enough for division 2 so we just rotated the racing so it was fair for all the dogs. I got to run Jamie which was great fun as I haven't ran a little dog for years, I might have to get myself a handbag dog, I think they suit me! Unfortunately the team came last and managed a best time of 19.40secs.

Ballistics were the same team although we did have Elliot join us for some warmups. We've been on at Carol for a while now about how exciting she needs to be for Luna so that she comes back quicker and so after various discussions through the week Carol put everything in to running her. This made such a difference and Luna managed to clock a few late 4.3s and 4.4s, she also seemed to be starting to race the other lane. We were thinking how great this was, especially when we managed 17.43secs until disaster struck. We came out in the afternoon and in red lane Luna was coming back though the finish line and continuing to race the other dog in to their runback area. It wasn't agressive and she had the ball in her mouth the whole time but she was running at high speed. We were stumped, didn't see that 1 coming! So our last race in red was against an NFC Jets, they kindly let us run our team 1st so that Luna would do it right and she was fine. Unfortunately as many of you would of seen this problem carried over to haunt us at the Champs but I just wanted to show how recently it started. Despite this we came 2nd and were really pleased with the time as I wouldn't expect that time without Piper.

Hmmm so that wasn't exactly brief but nevermind, I guess I remembered more than I thought! Coming next... Champs!

Agility Videos

2010-08-23T20:06:00.002+01:00

Just thought I'd post a couple of videos kindly taken by Lel and posted by Sarah. First one is of Thames so you can see what I mean by how bad he was! Second one is of him being speedy and relatively controlled around the collie sprint at Caerphilly, just a shame about the poles!

Caerphilly Agility

2010-07-28T19:22:00.002+01:00

Well it went better than Thames, not that that would be difficult!

Saturday 1st agility went jump-weave to start, he got the entry but missed a pole and then just kept going over the next jump so got E'd. I brought him back and he was fine but I was too far behind to bring him round a wing properly so he went on to the dogwalk at a funny angle and fell off it. Redid the dogwalk and he completed the rest of the course really nicely.

Jumping was a fairly challenging course that I knew wouldn't lend itself well to ashers pole knocking however it was probably the smoothest he's worked a jumping course. He listened and was pretty tight on the turns but had 3 poles. He also messed up weaves again, got entry but missed a pole so I got him e'd by putting him back over the jump again and in to the weaves and then they were soo good, how annoying!

Last agility was really frustrating as it was made for Asher, all spread out and contacts breaking up jumps so less chance of pole knocking. Start again went jump-weave and again got entry but going too fast to do anymore, brought him back and fantastic weaves followed by a cracking run with just a messy bit after the weaves where I didn't work it from being annoyed about said weaves! His contacts were fab and he flew round so pleased about the rest of it especially as apparently I actually handled lol!

Sunday I took out a different dog, the crazy, insane side made an appearance. Agility was pretty disasterous, he didn't stop on the dog walk as there was a tunnel after it and he got marked on his up contact for dogwalk and aframe, he did however get his weaves! He screamed the whole way round and was generally a bit of an arse.

Next was 1-4 collie sprint which really was a sprint. He was a really good boy in this and flew round it but had 3 poles :(. Had to check the time as there were lots of fast clears. Winners time was 16.525secs, Asher did it in 16.358secs so was really pleased about that. There will hopefully be a video of this coming on in the next few days.

Should really have stopped there but took him in the 1-2jumping. Ahh he was so bad! Broke his wait, why I didn't put him back is beyond me! And then the rest of it was all over the place, got e'd for going back in a tunnel, got his weaves and then wouldn't go on down a long straight to the finish. This is something we really need to work on as it affected us a couple of times over the weekend. And it seems completely silly that he will power on ahead when you start a course but not when were driving to the finish.

So weaves were a bit better but I still find it very very frustrating as yet again at training last week I physically could not get him to miss them no matter what I was doing. And I really don't want to start going backwards by stopping him before the weaves in competition. Overall though he was much better, Saturday particularly I enjoyed running him as he looked like he might actually know what he was doing despite the silly mistakes. Ooh and I think this week at training we might be proofing waits, I DO NOT approve of him breaking his wait!

Chilterns

2010-07-19T21:35:00.002+01:00

Missiles and extraset ran Saturday, I unfortunately couldn't be there to see them but apparently they both ran well and had close racing which resulted in them both finishing fourth. The only change to the teams being Sonny swapping with Elliot in the Extraset.

Rockets were 4th seed in division 2 and had a team of Diefer, Elliot, Smartie and Bunty. The 1st race we lost on lights but did a best time of 19.00secs. After that we narrowly lost races on speed and another 1 on lights. They did however manage to win the last race which somehow resulted in them finishing 4th!

Ballistics were 5th seed in division 1 (still on the 18.12 seed time). Unfortunately Lacy wasn't able to run so we had a team of Piper, Asher, Rosie and Luna. Again we were great in the morning, won the 1st 2 races against Jet Stream and High Flyers with a best time of 17.42secs. In the afternoon we had similar problems as at Frimley and struggled to hit the times which resulted in a few lights but less than last week which I think is mainly due to the order we ran in. Lots more stamina work required! We won against Bandits and Dream team but by the time we raced Jets we just didn't have the speed left in the tank although 1 of the legs did result in a tie so you can tell how close it was! Still we were all thrilled to finish 2nd after some great racing.

Asher was a good boy but didn't feel like he was quite 'on it' and his box turn was a bit all over the place. I think I need to get back in to his fitness routine as I have been a bit laxxed since getting back from Euro's. Less than 4 weeks until Champs, better start getting him ready!

Frimley - Birthday weekend

2010-07-16T00:06:00.002+01:00

Thought I'd better quickly update this as we're at Chilterns this weekend and don't want to get behind again!

So 4 teams and no Louise, scary times! Missiles ran Saturday in division 6 which was 1 above where they should of been as they were on a seed time with Jive in the team. They actually did really well and managed a best time of 24.09secs, they won 2 races but unfortunately only came 5th.

Ballistics were 1st on in Div 1 on Sunday. I was really looking forward to it as we had the full 1st team and a fairly new combination of Piper, Luna, Lacy and Asher. We won the 1st race and did a time of 17.43secs. 2nd race was against Bassetts, it was very very close, Asher just couldn't quite catch up lizzy but they had a best time of 17.36secs and we had a best time of 17.38secs so very exciting racing! In the afternoon things went a bit to pot with more lights than a rave. All 3 races went to 5 legs and we should have won them all comfortably but managed to lose them all! A couple of the dogs seemed to tire alot, I suppose this was due to a number of factors as it was hot, they had ran a lot of legs and they hadn't run over 12" in a while but it was a bit disappointing to have been so good in the morning and so different in the afternoon so we will have to work on fitness and consistency. Hopefully that will come as the team gels. So we had the 2nd fastest time of the day and came last lol! Well chuffed with the time though!

Rockets were in div 2. The team was Diefer, Smartie, Sonny, Rosie and Bunty. Again we had problems with consistency, lots of lights and lates. On the plus side Diefer did blue lane and looked really good. The team won 2 races and did a best time of I think 19.26secs, they came 5th.

Extraset were in div 3. They were Jemma, Elliot, Perry, Jamie and Jive. This team ran brilliantly. Really consistent and.... Jemma did red lane :-) :-D all day and looked super speedy, what a clever girl! The others also ran well, they had a best time of 20.24secs, they only lost 1 race and managed to win the division!

So overall a fun weekend at Frimley, with good points and things to work on. Had fun Saturday night for my birthday celebrations even if my team did try to get me to drink a disgusting concoction of all the alcohol they could find, it even had curdled pina colada on the top... nice!

European Flyball Championships 2010

2010-07-12T22:04:00.002+01:00

Hmmmm well where to start...

Firstly we nearly never made it at all. The short story is that I had major problems with my car the day before we were due to leave which meant I had no car to drive! We ended up having to hire a car and change the time of the ferry so that we had time to pick up and pack said hire car. It was a huge relief when we finally made it to the venue in Belgium late Wednesday evening.

Racing started on Friday with the lower divisions in temperatures of around I think 36 degrees, I literally felt like I was melting! Saturday was slightly cooler and we spent most of the day supporting the other british teams entered (as we did on friday). Friday and Saturday evening were good fun with everyone in good spirits and lots of Belgian beer.

Sunday soon came around with Asher racing with High Flyers in Division 1. The rest of the team were Maizie, Floss, Millie, Tanner and Badger although it was a great shame that Badger wasn't able to compete due to him still recuperating from his injury. I thought the team gelled well together and I really enjoyed doing changeovers on Maizie although I don't think my starts were so good! In speed trials we managed a fantastic best time of 16.62secs which put us as 2nd seed for the double elimination. We won our 1st two double elimination races putting us in to the semi-finals but unfortunately lost to Jolly Jumpers (who had broken the European record with 16.12secs earlier in the day). Our last race was against K-otic Flyers who we had beaten in the previous race. By this point in the day they were just a little too much for us and we lost but still came a fantastic 3rd in the division which meant we got on to the podium. Jolly Jumpers won with K-otics coming 2nd. I thought all the dogs ran well. I was really proud of Asher he tried so hard in every one of the 8 races and I have never seen him so tired as he was afterwards!

I thought the racing format was brilliant, racing was so exciting! The support between all the british teams was great. I also really enjoyed watching all the other european teams and how they did things, it was all very interesting. Overall a fantastic experience.

Big thanks to High Flyers for letting Asher run with them and making me part of the team. Thanks to Katie for putting up with my panic on the tuesday, keeping me company for the looong journey, bringing our good mate Tim and generally being a fab holiday buddy. Thanks to Jeanette for having Asher on the Saturday so that he could relax in the van rather than stressing himself out being tied up and to Nat for lending us the tent! Finally thanx to all the british teams who were around the ring supporting us.

Ooh and congratulations Jolly Jumpers :-)

Here is a vid of some teams competing, we are in the 1st clip, Asher is 2nd dog:

Ahh I'm soooo behind!

2010-07-12T21:35:00.003+01:00

Very sorry for those few people who read the blog that I have got so far behind! So here's a quick update.

Thames agility was a bit of a disaster. Asher decided that he couldn't possibly weave and I think missed every entry. Gutted is not the word, weaves are usually something I feel pretty confident with, lets hope it was just a bad weekend. Contacts were pretty good but none of his runs felt all that good. He had 1 ok run each day, both in agility. On the Saturday he missed the weaves and then fell off the dog walk but he worked the course well. On Sunday he missed the weaves and came inside a jump but that was because I wasn't in the right place due to him missing the weaves!! The rest he worked nicely. The other runs aren't even worth talking about lol!

On 20th June we were back at hearing dogs but this time for a show held by bandits instead of mutts. We just had ballistics in div 2 consisting of Piper, Asher, Lacy and Bunty. We had to swap the order a few times to try and get it to work. We found the best order to be as above but then Bunty started running out on her way up. We somehow managed a best time of 18.12secs, won 2 races and came 4th.

On 26th June I went up to Stevenage to practise with High Flyers before the Euro's, training went well and Asher seemed to gel with the team which was good. I was a bit worried about him changing box but he coped well only fumbling a couple of times.

I'll write a separate post for the other stuff!

Hearing Dogs

2010-06-08T21:24:00.003+01:00

We had both teams running Sunday so I decided to just go for the day (hungover of course!). Extraset were 1st on in Division 3 and were 2nd seed (20.16) with a team of Jemma, Sonny, Elliot, Perry and Jamie. The dogs raced well, maybe not as quick as they were at Acremead but they were really consistent and managed to win every race with a best time of I think 20.16 and ended up 1st!

Ballistics were 5th (out of 7) seed in division 1 (18.30) with a team of Diefer, Lacy, Asher, Rosie and Bunty. 1st race in against Dolphins we had problems with the lights, the fault light was coming on for early changes when they were visibly late, very frustrating. They had been fine all weekend until we raced lol! Asher got the blame for it for thundering through the gate too quickly and vibrating them out of line! Although they did continue to do it sporadically so it can't have been just him lol! We did manage to win the races against Dolphins, Racing herts and the 2nd Molten team. Diefer has become a red lane wonder and will only run in red so he sat out of all in the blue lane. Lacy was consistent as ever running 4.4s. Asher was mental and doing better boxes than at Frimley but not sure if he was quite as fast although he may of been I was just too hungover to bother working out his times! We did a best time of 18.22secs but I don't know which race that was so which 4 dogs were running, I was generally just a bit rubbish! We came 4th which was ok I suppose.

We've got agility at Thames this weekend then 1 more flyball before Euros! How exciting!

Frimley - the Belgians came to visit!

2010-06-01T00:17:00.002+01:00

I went down Saturday afternoon so missed the Rockets racing. They were top seed in division 2. The team was Diefer, Sonny, Smartie, Perry and Jamie. Apparently they raced really well, they won 4 out of 5 races and ended up in a 3 way tie for 1st place which they won as they had the fastest time of 18.96secs.

Ballistics were 5th seed in division 1 on Sunday. The team was supposed to be Lacy, Asher, Rosie, Bunty and Luna. But Luna randomly managed to pull a muscle in her back leg on the Saturday night so wasn't able to run. Lacy ran start and was running consitently at 4.4secs, Asher went 2nd, he ran well but box was a bit inconsistent, still for the 1st two dogs we were consistently doing 8.2-8.4 (inc start time) and yet the best time we managed was 18.30secs (again!!). We think Bunty is not running as fast as she was last year. Unfortunately we didn't actually record her and Jamies times to see who would be our best bet in the 1st team and we don't have Luna for the next 2 shows so can't run over 12". We won 1 race against Hampshire which was really close and I think they got a couple of lights. Was really good to watch Jolly Jumpers run and race against them. They are obviously very well practised and the dogs have very good box turns. I was ecstatic that Asher managed to cause a stir amongst them and they said what an amazing dog he is. One of their team came to watch him everytime he raced :).

The last race between Jolly Jumpers and Bassetts was fantastic! I like to think my words of wisdom to Dave with Lizzy contributed to them winning it ;). As I told him he had to keep running away as when he faced her she was checking her stride and slowing down over the last jump. They did 16.79 on the next leg!

Can't wait to race the Jolly Jumpers again in Belgium!

Daventry

2010-05-24T22:39:00.002+01:00

Can't believe it was our last ever time at Daventry :-(, been going since I was 12! I got drunk for the 1st time at Daventry way back then lol!

Anyway, we had Ballistics as 3rd seed in div 2 on Saturday. Team was Diefer, Asher, Lacy, Rosie and Bunty (Luna was in season). 1st couple of races Diefer was a git in the warm ups and was running out so we took the ball out everytime he went wrong and left him out of racing completely. In the 1st leg of the 1st race we hit our fastest time of the day of 18.30secs. Asher was start on this and ran 3.75secs!! (it was 3.82 with 0.07start) What a dog! Won that race. 2nd race, Rosie decides to play up aswell and do the same as Diefer and run up the side, she did this for 2 legs so we kept her late on the changeover and she then started doing it right again. Somehow we won that race aswell! In the afternoon, something seemed to click with Diefer and he didn't look like running out at all. Still didn't run him for the 3rd race and managed to win that one. 4th race Rosie ran out again so we took her out and went with Diefer, he ran fine, only let him go from about 15ft though, won that one! Last race we thought would be really tight, we rested Lacy and again Diefer ran properly! And amazingly we won that aswell, winning the division. How we did it, I will never know! Times were disappointingly slow but then it was very hot, poor Bunty was knackered. Asher was fantastic, he did tire a little bit with the heat but still hit 3.75 twice, 3.76 and 3.79 from what I saw and I didn't see that many times. Although I also saw a 3.98 and a 4.02 later on in races so maybe he's not quite at full fitness yet!

Missiles were helped by a bit of extra speed from Jive this weekend as we didn't have Molly. This made a hell of a difference to them although the others also seemed to run well despite the heat. They did a best time of 23.58secs which bettered their seed time by about 2.5secs. Although to be honest this just made them competitive rather than them often being annihilated. They had some really close racing and came 2nd.

Rockets were top seed in div 5. The team was Jemma, Sonny, Smartie, Elliot, Perry and Jamie. The team seemed to gel quite well despite the changing around of dogs and they all ran well. Jemma seems to have got the hang of this racing malarky although we haven't yet tried her in the red lane, maybe next time! Elliot did totally lovely box turns once we remembered to tell him "on the box" on his way down! Sonny's box was also better but still not as good as it is in training, still more reps needed! Big lesson to everyone, NEVER retrain, always get it right from the start! Smartie, Perry and Jamie were consistent as ever although still need to work on Jamies box aswell. The team managed a best time of 19.71secs. They just lost 1 race and it was very tight so they came 2nd.

Great weekend, sooo hot, dogs coped well though and us humans had a water fight which greatly helped! Frimley next weekend and we get to race Jolly Jumpers!

Worcester Agility

2010-05-15T21:47:00.002+01:00

I went with high hopes that his pole knocking had improved, he soon knocked me down to earth so to speak!

Here's the video of his, Jemma's and Elliot's runs:

1st run was C1-2 Agility. At the start he really wanted to go right so when I released him I think he was a bit off balance and had the 1st pole. Was pleased with his seesaw, dogwalk was a bit slow. He then had the pole after the dog walk, I think I changed my arm too late and again put him off balance as he pretty much ploughed through this 1! Was really pleased with the rest of the course, turns were a bit wide but his Aframe and weaves were lovely. So 10faults and a time of 36.something. Winner was 31.something I think (and I know this dog is really speedy :)) so not too bad considering he turned the wrong way a couple of times and I held his contacts.

Next was C1-2 jumping, he worked this quite nicely. Again 2 poles but he listened well and again nice weaves from quite a fast entry. Just not sure why he ran past the last jump.

Lastly there was G1-2 jumping. Started with fast blast around the outside, 1st 3 jumps were a bit angled though so he knocked 3rd and 4th jump, just don't think he could shorten his stride enough. He also had the pole at the jump before turning back for weaves. Again great weaves as he flew at the entry. We got e'd when he took the jump after the tunnel. Was pleased with the way he worked the box apart from another pole! (you can see the course abit better if you watch jemma's round on the same course).

So 8 poles in 3 classes, not a great average really! Nevermind, he actually worked the handling of the courses alot better then he has before so definitely improvements. And to be honest I'm just pleased that he is able to run again :-)

A bit of Agility

2010-05-14T19:53:00.003+01:00

Asher's now back to jumping full height, he looks absolutely fine and is possibly jumping better than he was before which is good.

We went through a couple of bad weeks with his weaves, he just wasn't confident about what I was asking and kept coming out at No. 10. To the point where he was just stopping dead at 10 and looking forward, very odd. So took it right back and did it as just a single obstacle, went mad with praise when he did them and after a couple of go's he seemed to realise. He's been fine since.

Contacts have also had ups and downs, I'm quite happy with Aframe. Some dogwalks he does amazingly and others are a bit slow, maybe I'm being too picky!

I've been pleased with his responsiveness around courses recently, he seems alot smoother to run. He appears to be thinking more and preparing for jumps and turns better. Maybe I am improving slightly, I really do hope so!!

We've had some tricky exercises at training in the last couple of weeks and he has done really well. We are at Worcester Agility show tomorrow, very much looking forward to it. Lets hope his improvements translate to the ring!

Acremead, the May version

2010-05-06T19:58:00.004+01:00

So 4 teams this weekend, great fun, I love having lots of teams in! Missiles, Extraset and Rockets ran Saturday.

Missiles were the usual team and ran well improving their seed time by over a second but only managed 5th place.

Extraset were Jemma, Perry, Elliot, Jamie and Jive. This team ran fabulously. At the last Acremead with Piper and Smartie in the team they managed 20secs so when submitting a time for them we thought 21secs would be reasonable as Perry and Jamie were running just over 5.5 and Jemma and Elliot just under 5. Well this lot decided they didn't think much of our estimation and in the 1st race did 20.16secs... oops! We then had to be really careful not to breakout again so held back lots on our changeovers and ran late 20s for the rest of the day. Needless to say they won the division! As much as I'm not a fan of winning by such a margin, it was an honest mistake and we genuinely didn't expect to run that fast so we were all ecstatic at how well the team ran. Sarah's housemate Tasha took some videos so I thought I would time and see what the dogs were running. The reason for breaking out soon became clear! Perry was doing 5.1ish, Jamie 5.3, Elliot 4.6 and Super Jem had sped up to 4.4secs!! I think Jem had suddenly realised that it might be fun to race the other dog rather than just stare at it on the way to the box so was flying. Elliot was also coming back better and his box looked really good. Still some work to be done on his return drive but luckily Sarah is a good pupil and I'm sure will get that sorted!

Rockets were ran as Diefer, Sonny, Smartie and Bunty (with Rosie as reserve as she is coming back from injury). We were hoping Diefer would be fine running over the lower jumps especially as he had run faultlessly over 12" at training last weekend. Well he was fine in the red lane but was still being really naughty in the blue lane. There was really no excuse for this as he ran fine for most of last year over this height. Back to the drawing board i'm afraid and he needs more boxwork as it didn't look good! To be honest the rest of the team were also a bit all over the place and never really gelled. Sonny ran well in the morning and did nice boxes but looked sluggish in the afternoon. Smartie was great but had an odd moment where she suddenly went lame and then 5mins later she was fine again. Bunty was another one who was great in the morning but dropped her ball a couple of times in the afternoon which she hasn't done for years! So overall a bit of a kerfuffle! We submitted 19secs and they managed 19.44secs I think. We came 3rd but should really have won it as we beat the top seeds and eventual winners and only lost the other races on lights, it just wouldn't come together!

Ballistics ran Sunday. The team was Piper, Luna, Lacy and Asher. Again we had a submitted time, although not very well planned, we were asked at the last acremead if we just wanted to submit the same time as we ran at that show which we thought was 18.58secs, we just went with it not knowing which dogs were going to run. Some how our fastest time was recorded as 18.69 and we ended up in div 2 on that declared time. Well with these dogs we knew we would be quite a bit faster than this so again had to be careful on changeovers. Piper looked fantastic, lovely box and running 4.1-4.2 over the 12", his handler was also more confident and was doing excellent starts. Luna looked faster than the last show although not sure what times as changes were so far out! Lacy was great as always and looked more comfortable over the 12" than last show. Asher had a whale of a time running anchor, he point blank refused to be beaten back and won a couple of legs by just a couple of 100ths of a second despite going out 2/3 jumps behind! The only problem with him when he plays catch up is that he blows his box turn, they weren't terrible but certainly not as good as when he runs start. And he proved my point in 1 race when he was actually out before the other teams last dog and did beautiful box turns so that is something for us to work on. We won every race and I thoroughly enjoyed the racing. Our best time was 18.28secs but I think we could of knocked pretty much a second off that with tight changeovers. It was good in a way that we couldn't go much faster as we now don't have Piper for the next 3 shows so atleast we are on a realistic seed time for the dogs that will run in that team although right now don't ask me who they will be!

The Ballistics win on Sunday was dedicated to Tess who would of been 13 on that day. I miss her so so much so I'm glad we were able to mark the day with a win for her.

It was also Asher's 4th birthday on Saturday and his present was of course being allowed to run all day on Sunday, I don't think he would of asked for anything better!

Below are a couple of videos of the Extraset

Acremead and Best Laid Plans!

2010-04-21T01:57:00.002+01:00

Wow what gorgeous weather, I have a sun tan... in april, brilliant!

Rockets ran Saturday in Div 2 (Jemma, Elliot, Smartie, Piper, Perry and Jamie). We were really pleased with the way all the dogs ran. We let Jemma just run blue lane and she was really focused, she did warm ups in red and didn't seem to look across then either but we didn't want to risk running her as we wanted her to get in the habit of doing it right. Elliot was excellent, box turn was so much better than at Becketts farm so winter training (and Smart visits!) clearly paid off! Smartie was consistent as ever but as expected her box turn regressed, she is very stuck in her ways and wasn't totally independent on the new turn anyway. Not too bothered as she has a nice fast turn anyway. I was however bothered that Jamie's turn deteriorated alot, the new box turn had made him quite a bit quicker so it's very annoying that it didn't hold. Part of the problem was that because of the heat and Jamie tiring we couldn't warm him up between races so couldn't remind him of the turn with the props in. We will see if we can fix it over this summer. Perry was good following him being out for the last couple of months injured but has slowed a little hopefully this will come back with fitness. Piper was amazing! I love that dog! He ran start and in the pack and didn't bat an eyelid. He ran out once when the other lane caught his eye and he came off the box really wide but other than that he was perfect. His box looked really good, a couple of dodgy ones but he was trying really hard to do what he had been taught and had some stunning ones aswell. Taking off his start times (which were understandably quite large as it was his handler's 1st time running in competition) he was running 4.1s-4.2s and I'm pretty sure he has alot more to give. The team only managed a best time of 20.00secs (Piper, Smartie, Elliot and Jamie I think) but the ground seemed to be running quite slow and Jamie really tired with the heat (and 6races) so overall pretty good and they came 4th.

Ballistics were in Div 1 on Sunday. I described the planned team in my previous post but unfortunately Angie and June broke down on the way and couldn't make it, which meant we had no Bunty and we would have to run over 12". So Asher went on the sheet as 5th dog just in case we needed him and we thought he could do a few legs anyway if there were any races we thought we could win. Well Diefer had other ideas. Diefer decided he couldn't possibly jump 12" and was running up to the line and swerving out around the jumps up to the box, once he got the ball he would turn and come back down over the jumps. What a git! Couldn't believe it as we've done power jumping and full runs over 12" this winter with no problems. The only way he would do it was to run him right from the start gate which obviously made us considerably slower. So super sub got to make a lot more of an appearance than we originally planned. We got to go start which he loves anyway and 1st leg he does 3.95secs. The boy was back! Overall he probably did 3 full races split over 4 races. We rested him totally against Bassetts and Molten as we knew we couldn't beat them anyway. He went on to run 3.83secs as a best time with quite a few other 3.8s and low 3.9s. I couldn't believe it, considering how unfit I think he is and over 12" aswell! So proud of him :). We won 2 races against Dream team and Lightning Strikes. Our fastest time was 18.58secs. Luna, Lacy and Sonny ran well. Was really pleased with all there box turns. Luna ran 4.6-4.7 (she ran 4.8 over 12" at Becketts), Lacy and Sonny both started off well but flagged quite alot as the day went on so are clearly lacking race fitness.

We are a bit stumped as to where to go from here. I expected Luna to be a bit quicker (but as I said lots of teams were saying there dogs were off there normal times) and I didn't expect Diefer to act as he did. At Acremead in 2 weeks we have 4 teams (2 of 4dogs, 1 of 5 and 1 of 6) and need to decide who goes where. At the moment we are thinking of putting Piper in at the deep end and putting him straight up 2 the 1sts but were not sure if this is fair on his handler who was sooo nervous this weekend. Then Diefer and Sonny would come down to Rockets. This would mean a 1st team of Piper, Luna, Lacy and Asher. Rockets as Diefer, Sonny, Smartie and Bunty. Extraset as Jemma, Elliot, Perry, Jive and Jamie. We will have to train Piper over 12" to see how he does and see if we can persuade his handler that the 1st team isn't that scary a place! Any thoughts on Diefer greatly appreciated please!

Asher was back at Smart on Monday and his leg has been given the all clear, I just have to continue with the exercises to bring it up to full strength. They couldn't believe the muscle he had developed in the 3 weeks since I last went! 1 more appointment in a months time as a final check and then he will be discharged.

Flyball and Asher got to do it properly :)

2010-04-14T02:23:00.002+01:00

Yay Asher got to do full runs. His favourite part was of course that he got to do box work and he did lovely box turns. With the full runs, started out releasing him from the gate and worked him back to 30ft. Wasn't really winding him up as I wanted him to take it steady but he was accelerating well. Not at full speed but then I wouldn't expect him to be especially not running from that distance (he does need a good run up, he's like a jet taking off!). Was good to see him doing really good box turns and then trying to accelerate on the way back. He tends when he is racing to carry the speed he generates on the outrun to bring him back as well so doesn't really drive back that much so I was happy that he was picking up speed on the return as he didn't have the usual speed from his outrun to rely on.

The rest of training went well. I got to run the lovely Elliot who is an angel in the flyball lane and so easy to run. We trained the teams for acremead (minus piper who will be in Rockets) . So ran Rockets as Jemma, Perry, Smartie, Elliot and Jamie. The plan is to run Jemma in blue lane (this is her good lane) and Perry in red lane. Piper, Smartie and Elliot can swap the middle 2 positions and Jamie on the end. We've submitted 18.9 which on paper should be about right but you never know! Ballistics are going to be Diefer, Luna, Sonny, Lacy and Bunty (unfortunately Rosie has gone lame). They all looked good at training, was happy with boxes except Diefer who seemed to regress quite alot, very annoying as up close he does lovely turns. We've submitted 18.4 which again should be very achievable but the fastest time they did without Asher last year was 18.76 so we will see! Planning to do a race or 2 over 12" aswell to see what difference that makes.

Had some real breakthroughs with the starters this week aswell. Finally got Moss doing some nice 4feet turns with a ball. This has taken a looong time but I'm hoping something has clicked now. The problem we have is that he has no motivation to drive off the box, he is not interested in a 2nd ball or tuggy once he gets the ball in the box and at the moment is only interested in coming to me. This is something that we will have to work on and I am going to have to distance myself a bit from him so that he will work for his mum. He should be doing full runs within the next couple of training sessions so we will see the full extent of his drive problems then. I'm hoping because his eye is so strong that he will be a racer and that will be his motivation to drive back but I'd much prefer he was concentrating on us as he still has a tendency to chase! Ruby is now picking up the ball, she is only holding it for a second but still progress. We've also seen improvements in Charlies box and he is driving better to the box, he is certainly now ready for atleast starter competition but his handler still requires some training! Chez and Abby have stopped training, quite annoying when you put so much time in to them! But we have 2 newbies to fill the spaces. Dylan a lovely Staffie cross who is loving every minute and doing really well. And Freya a Large Munsterlander who has an amazing natural box turn.

Pups are about 8months now. They get faster and more focused every week. The beginnings of box work will start soon, but we will take it slowly and I will be setting homework as this lot have absolutely no excuse not to be brilliant lol!

So so looking forward to this weekend, really need a good flyballing weekend, it's been too long!

Back to Agility

2010-04-08T23:37:00.002+01:00

Well 1st time at agility class since before Christmas. I was expecting him to be a raving lunatic. He was actually very focused and easy to handle. He only did medium height which of course wasn't a problem for him although I don't think he was too sure what to do with his striding. His weaves were quite rusty, he missed one entry and on another course just ran past them. He also came out at number 10 the next time so got him to do them right and didn't do anymore for the night, didn't want him to get in to a habit.

Contacts were fab, had the target at the end of all of them (no food) and he was really driving and stopping perfectly. He is really good at still stopping if I run past but need to work on crossing behind him on contacts as this does tend to slow him up.

I was actually most pleased with his jumping and responsiveness. I think I went in to the class with the attitude that I didn't care if he did every course wrong I just wanted to try out my handling and commands as I've been working on his wing wraps and directionals out on walks. It worked well, I felt like I was clearer and less naggy and he was much quieter. He barks most when he's frustrated with what you're asking him but because I was commanding him earlier he was able to prepare himself more.

So overall very pleased with him after 4months of no agility. He will definitely do medium again next week and then we'll be back at smart so they can let me know if he can move up to full height.

This and That

2010-04-05T01:26:00.002+01:00

Just a general update really.

We were supposed to be competing at Stockbridge this weekend. I was planning to go Saturday morning to help out with the teams and watch div 1 but I phoned just before I was due to leave and was told of the horrific conditions, we weren't sure how long racing would continue for so it seemed a bit silly to go all the way down when I wasn't even running my dog. Luckily I didn't as Sunday and Monday of the show were cancelled.

Piper did get to run a few races in starters on Friday with the Bassetts and apparently did really well running as start dog so he'll now come straight out in to open at Acremead in 2 weeks time.

Missiles also got to run. From what I've been told the star of the day was Fraggle who ran faultlessly all day and was single striding :-). I'm not sure where they came though!

Both are other teams were supposed to run Sunday and although I think everyone was a bit disappointed they were also a bit relieved about not having to run in the mud! Lets hope for better weather at Acremead!

Asher continues to improve. I rarely see him favouring the leg now and his exercise is increasing more and more. I've been taking him out for about 1hr 20mins with him doing 25mins free running, 15 mins lead walking, 25 mins run and finish with 15mins walk. He is certainly quite unfit by his standards (but not by most dogs standards lol!) and his leg seems tired after but he's not lame on it which suggests to me he is using it properly so hopefully it will build up quickly. He went back to flyball for the 1st time on Sunday and just did runbacks, he was very happy, he didn't look all that fast but then he was running on his own and not being wound up. He was desperate to get back on the box (he looovessss boxwork!) but we'll save that for next Sunday. The important thing is that he was fine afterwards. And I don't think I've ever seen him so contented when we got home, bless him! We're hopefully back at agility on Wednesday to do a few bits over medium height and some weaves.

His physio exercises have increased again, he now has a wobble cushion and has to do all his weight shifting and balance exercises blindfolded to really get him to use his muscles correctly. I'm lucky I have such a amiable dog!

Think thats it for now so I'll just leave you with the boy.

Flyball AGM

2010-03-25T02:42:00.002Z

It was good to be back at the AGM, missed it last year as we were desperately trying to get the teams prepared for Easter and were running out of time!

I won't go through all the proposals as i'm sure the minutes will be up soon. But basically most of the things I agreed with went through and most that I didn't didn't! The biggest change to racing is that their is now a divisional breakout which means if you're seeded in a division you cannot go more than 1 second faster than the top seed in the divisions seed time. This is to stop teams running faster dogs on a slower seed time and annihilating a division which unfortunately you do see from time to time. I'm not sure how much difference it will make as to be honest if you're running 0.5secs faster than the top seed in a division you're probably still going to comfortably win it. But hopefully it will atleast make teams think a bit more about the dogs they are running.

The thing I was most disappointed with was the reaction to the idea of making the dogs in the winning team of div 1 at the Champs a flyball champion and having FbCh proceed it's name. I couldn't believe how negative and to be honest rude people were about this proposal. I personally think that winning div 1 at the Champs is the ultimate achievement and that the dogs that do it should be honoured.

People argued that it was pompus and vain to want this title, even though the people arguing are very happy to accept awards for points gained. Which to me tell you nothing about the ability of the dog, only about how many competitions you've been to. The other argument was that why should a 4sec dog be able to achieve something that a 6sec dog can't when they both put the same amount of effort in to racing. My simple answer, because flyball is a race, faster teams win so faster dogs should get a bigger reward. And I know what you're thinking, it's ok for me to say that because I have a fast dog. But I ran a 5sec dog for 10years and I still had the same opinion then which is what motivated me to train Asher to the standard he is at. Also we already have a lot of equality in flyball. All dogs get to run in a competitive division and have a good chance of winning. And dogs running in a 20/21sec team get the opportunity to earn the same (and usually more) points as dogs in a 16/17sec team. So why shouldn't the elite get a little extra reward?

My other problem is that you can look on the BFA website and find all the dogs that have reached a certain points award but you can't find anywhere which dogs were running on the Championship winning team for a given year. I find something very wrong with that!

Now the only argument I see sticking is the fact that the KC might have something to say as people may try and use it in conjunction with KC names which I agree would be wrong. So maybe you don't use it to proceed the name, and to make it individual you could include the dogs BFA number so it could be e.g 0734b Asher FbCH. And it's not like you would use it much, it would only be on future award certificates and on the dogs stat page on the website. I personally don't see the problem and I think it would be a nice touch.

If people are really very against it then I think at the very least a section should be added to the BFA website for the Champs and it should detail the teams that have won it each year and a link to the dogs that ran in that team with maybe a picture. That way winning the Champs gives you more of something to look back on and a way of people seeing what you have achieved.

Asher and Smart

2010-03-21T03:03:00.002Z

Thought it was about time I updated about the special. He is doing ok. I took him to the Smart clinic in Wales which is a referral clinic. They have been absolutely fantastic. They identified his injury as damage to the hip abductor muscles. They could tell this because the muscle wastage in surrounding areas was so specific. So he had ultrasound to kick start the healing process and also had accupuncture to reduce inflammation. Along with his injury they identified other areas of muscle tightness, some possibly caused by trying to compensate for the injury. He also had analysis on the water treadmill, which he has done really well on!

So we were set tons of physio exercises including stretching out his neck and back as some of the muscles in his back are over developed, he runs and jumps with a high head carriage which causes him to pull from the front legs rather than push from behind and they believe this could be part of the reason for him knocking poles in agility. So he started off on 3 x 15min slow lead walks a day (so that he had to distribute weight properly) and after 3 weeks is now up to 3 x 30min lead walks a day plus 2 x 10min off lead. It would be longer than this but he is such a nutter we didn't want him to do too much too soon.

Smart are really pleased with his progress, the inflammation around the injury has gone, as has the tightness in his diaphragm caused by overcompensating and trying to transfer his weight to his front end. I can tell that the leg still isn't 100%, he's still not weight bearing fully but it is much better than it was and it's only occasionally or very slightly that I see him favouring now. It clicks quite a bit at the moment but I read somewhere that this is a sign of healing.

Because of this progress he had to start a little bit of jumping this week, but I had to encourage him to jump properly with the right take off point and with his head lower. He coped with this well and has showed no adverse effects after so I'm feeling hopeful that he will be better soon.

We're back at Smart on Monday and providing he has continued to progress will be allowed to go back to flyball training. They said he could do full runs but I think I will just let him do runbacks because lets face it, Asher is not your ordinary dog! All being well we will continue to build him up from that and he will be back competing at Acremead at the start of May.

I've been very impressed with Asher through this time, he has been an angel at the Smart clinic with everything they have done to him. Everyone there loves him! They were also amazed by the amount of muscle and muscle tone he has especially considering the amount of time he had off exercise, apparently he must have good genes! So, feeling a bit more optimistic although still haven't entered any competitions for fear of jinxing it! Fingers crossed please, and i'll update on him again soon.

Flyball Training 07/03/10

2010-03-10T23:12:00.004Z

We ran the dogs as proper teams for the 1st time since October, I think they all looked really good and seemed really up for it.

We ran missiles as Tyne, Sky, Chelsey, Molly, Guiness and Fraggle. They all seemed to be running quicker than last year. Chelsey, Molly and Guiness' boxes looked really good. Fraggle did the best run I have ever seen him do, proves he is capable, just got to get him more consistent now!

Rockets we ran as Lacy, Sonny, Elliot and Jamie (Bonnie and Smartie weren't at training). This team looked amazing, all the box turns were stunning. Jamie's still needs speeding up a bit but is much better than it was. The others were pretty near perfect, I just hope the turns hold up in competition, I've included a short video of these dogs.

Ballistics were ran as Diefer, Luna, Rosie and Bunty. Diefer looks fast, his box is much improved, he still needs me to stand in slightly, it doesn't aid his turn it just makes him curve out the touch that he needs to get the right approach on the box, I think it is gradually sinking in though! Luna is so much better with a left turn, she is more consistent and only fumbled the ball once at training. Rosie and Bunty also looked good. Just a shame Asher can't run with the team at the moment.

Jemma ran in a lane on her own against the ballistics. She got a hell of a shock when on the 1st leg she tried to run across but happened to run straight past me. I grabbed her, picked her up and put her back in her lane to make her complete the run. She didn't mess up again! She's still trying to look at the other lane but hopefully a few more sessions like that and she will realise she can't go across. What was also good is that she was maintaining her box turn which shows an improvement in her focus.

Moss was the most focused I have seen him, he was very well behaved. Still struggling with the box turn but we did get 1 half decent turn with a ball so i guess that is progress! Ruby the terrier also looked more focused and is now doing a nice turn with no ball and getting used to the sound of the trigger. She will now follow a ball and nose touch it but we're still struggling to get her to pick it up although she is now apparently doing so at home so we just need to transfer it. Her confidence is definitely improving and she is starting to single stride on the runbacks.

A very good session, I am a very proud trainer watching the video below :-) Just 2 more sessions before Easter.

More Flyball

2010-02-25T15:01:00.002Z

We had to train outside on Sunday, long story! But it actually turned out to be quite good, luckily the weather held out. We set up 2 full lanes for the 1st time since October. Kept the props in by the box but all in all the dogs maintained there turns and everyone looked really speedy. Had a couple of duff turns from some of them as they adjusted to the increase of speed on approach to the box but they sorted themselves out.

Still having some problems with Bonnie, she just doesn't check her stride on approach to the box and seems to fumble quite alot. She does have a bit of an overshot jaw so I wonder if that is part of the reason? The cone seems to be helping her approach and her position is better on the box but it still not as fluid or consistent as I would like. We have tried the 'toshy thing' which does make her come off the box quicker but she tends to run out and just chase her handler so i think we will have to try it in a netted lane.

Luna is looking really good over her 12" jump height, really nice left turn, looking like it was the right decision to retrain her turn. Diefer is also looking fast and comfortable over 12" and his turn is looking faster aswell.

Piper did full runs for the 1st time and was fantastic, he makes me smile. Turn looks excellent, he is hanging very slightly (me being super picky) but I think this will resolve when he gets a bit more confidence. Running literally from the start gate he was at 4.5-4.6s which I'm VERY pleased with, so once we get him back running from 40ft he should do some very good times :-).

Charlie also did full runs and was good, still needs some boxwork as he missed a few weeks training due to an injury but he improved over the session so it should be ok!

Moss is starting to look more focused but still needs alot of work. Box is excellent with no ball but having real problems transitioning to a turn with a ball. As soon as it is loaded he just tries to do 2-foot turns, i think part of the problem is that as soon as he has the ball he is not interested in his tuggy or anything else. We'll just have to take it really slowly and see how we get on.

Asher is still lame :-(, it's really getting me down now. Were going to the SMART clinic on Monday so hopefully they can tell me whats wrong and fix him! Fingers crossed!

Things keep going...

2010-02-04T17:16:00.002Z

Well it's been a pretty tough start to 2010 for obvious reasons but Asher is lame aswell so that has added extra stress. Looks like it'll be xrays next week and if they don't show anything then he'll be off to a physio.

As far as training goes, flyball is going well. Sunday was really good. With the team dogs were now doing box and 2 jumps racing against another dog. It's really interesting to see how the extra speed and competition affects the box turn and it's very easy to see how quickly the turn deteriorates in a competition. What is good is that although we've had some dogs regress slightly during this time they are all adjusting and getting the turns back up to level we expect whilst learning to race at the same time. I'm hoping this will stand them in good stead once the competition season starts. I'm not expecting perfection when we start competing as most of these dogs have been retrained and were not taught this method right from the start therefore you would expect some level of regression. What I'm hoping for is a noticeable improvement in the experienced dogs and as close to perfection as we can get from the new starters! I am really pleased with how Luna is progressing, she is now doing 4feet left turns with ball and is looking alot more natural, she is also really driving of the box so I have high hopes for our 12" height dog! Diefer gets better every week, I would love him to maintain his turn in competition because when he does it right it is sooo fast! Bonnie has got me a bit stumped at the moment, she is sooo inconsistent. She can do the most beautiful 4 feet turns and then the next one she literally crashes the box. I've started standing in on her to encourage her to curve out which does help but she fumbles the ball alot and as soon as I'm not there she goes straight again. The annoying thing is that she totally understands the jump and that she must get 4feet over it but her movement tends to be more vertical than lateral. The plan now is to teach her to run round a cone and put it infront of the box so that she can still see the box properly and prepare herself but stop her from going straight, we will see if it works!

Starters are doing really well. Piper is doing 4feet turns with ball and has a really good natural rotation which means he is coming off straight :-) and he has tons of drive, high hopes! Charlie and Chez haven't been for a couple of weeks so we are still introducing the ball in to the box but they won't be long. We also have a new Collie called Abby who has been for 3wks now, she is very enthusiastic and is already doing 4feet turns with no ball so we are hoping all 4 will be ready for starters at Easter. Moss is now working with the other dogs, he still gets very distracted but is chasing less and less and is starting to learn changeovers. His box looks really good, we still haven't added a ball but his position is brilliant! Then their is Ruby a little terrier who is not interested in balls, she is also quite dog focused so we are teaching her runbacks and boxwork with food and tuggy which is working well to get her focused and trying to work on the ball drive separately.

Finally we now have a whole team of ballistic puppies :-) and they are all the same age literally within about 2 weeks of each other! Along with Loki and Shani we now have Carol's mums pup Merlin who is a Collie cross Cocker and Helen's pup Olly who is a Whippet :-) I am very excited about training a Whippet! They are 6months old and have just started some pretraining. They are doing some runbacks through a netted lane (no jumps) to a ball or a tuggy just to get them to focus on their owners and their rewards whilst other dogs are around and to encourage speed and drive at a young age without putting pressure on their joints. I am totally in love with Shani, she is fab, so focused and fast, can't wait to see how she turns out!

Tess 02/05/97 - 13/01/10

2010-01-24T04:22:00.003Z

It was with great sadness... actually sadness doesn't quite cover it... with my heart actually breaking in two that I had to say goodbye to my Tess. She hadn't been well just before Christmas but had seemed to bounce back even though she somehow didn't seem the same as before. Unfortunately she suddenly became very ill again and on the vets advice I had to make the hardest decision of my life to let her go. She was a very tough little girly, she refused to show anything was wrong until she just couldn't hide it. She left in my arms, rest in peace my beautiful.

When I think of her I just feel so grateful to have had her as a part of my life and I can't believe she's gone. She taught me so much. I got her for my 10th birthday, she went through everything with me, I don't know what I would of done without her and now I have to somehow manage. I've spent the last week or so going through old photos, they have brought back so many memories. We did so much together, she went everwhere with me, no wonder nothing ever fazed her! I thought I might write a blog post 'the life of Tess' as there are so many funny stories surrounding the two of us but I have a feeling it would turn in to more of a book! Those stories are keeping me going right now with the downside being the realisation that this incredible dog is no longer with me. I've got so much to thank her for. Putting up with me, pushing me to become a better trainer... probably a better person, always knowing when I was upset (she hated it when I cried), always making me feel better, getting me in to flyball, taking Asher under her wing after being an only dog for 9yrs and the list goes on... I just hope she knew how much I appreciated her and loved her.

Now she's at rainbow bridge waiting for me. Playing with the love of her life Jack, chasing shadows, probably doing a bit of flyball which she always loved but more likely doing her favourite favourite thing in the whole world... running in huge circles doing her comebye and away at full speed. Love you forever my girl xxxxxxxxxx

Blackdown

2009-12-11T01:48:00.003Z

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

2009-12-05T01:13:00.003Z

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!!

Winter Training begins

2009-11-11T00:32:00.002Z

Well we have now had 3 weeks back at winter training and I am so pleased with how it's going. We hire an indoor riding school to train in which is fantastic as we can train whatever the weather and we have plenty of space (even if it is bloomin' expensive!).

Each dog has individual things that we need to work on and then we are doing general box/power/speed training. I am basically in charge of boxwork and give ideas for the speed exercises which Louise actually makes happen as I am not very organised! I think our combination works well! We haven't done any full runs yet and won't until after Christmas. We've been working on power jumping over 6 jumps although they are still at a low height as we want to get the dogs going really fast over them before we increase the height (it also means we can train all the dogs together and don't have to worry about changing the height for the littlies). We also tried chase runbacks for the 1st time this week. This is where the 1st dog is released then the next dog is released as the 1st dog goes over the 2nd jump so that it is chasing the 1st dog down, then the next dog is released 2 jumps later etc. We started this with 3 dogs but managed to get 6 dogs in a chain by the end. I wasn't sure how much difference to speed it would make but was amazed by the effort the dogs were putting in. You could see their extension and drive improve and they looked faster. Dogs that jump high over the jumps such as Elliot and Jamie were noticeably flatter and driving forwards more.

I am really enjoying box training. Everyone is happy to try whatever I ask them and we are already getting some great results. The way I teach the turn is by having a jump infront of the box and asking the dog to jump over the jump and back. The jump is then inched back towards the box until the dogs are jumping on and off the box. Once the dog is confident with this I then introduce the ball. We reward the good turns, ignore the bad ones and if at any point the dog stops jumping on and off and tries to do a two footed turn we go back to turns with no ball. Last year all the dogs learnt to jump on and off with no ball, but we didn't have enough time to introduce the ball properly which I think is the main reason why the turns deteriorated in competition. What is really good is that most of the dogs remembered all the work jumping on and off which means with most of them we have been able to progress straight to doing work with the box loaded. I think with box training you have to be very open to trying new things and doing what works for each dog. Although each of our dogs began with the same method, each one now has various different props in different places and with me in different places to get the best turn. Obviously I know that you can't have props in competition and these will eventually have to be removed but for the time being they will remain to build muscle memory and hopefully make the turn second nature. I'd like to list all the dogs and the stages they are at/what we are going to do next but that could go on for a while (if you would really like to know please leave a comment and I may find the time!). At the moment I am really pleased with Sonny, Lacy, Jem and Elliot. They are doing the box totally independently with just the props. With them we are working on foot placement and drive off the box. Perry, Smartie and Jamie are making the most progress. With all of them we had the issue of the two-footed turn but they are now doing 4 feet turns with me and the props in place. We have retaught them to go round rather than jump on and off. I don't really like teaching this way as I think it is slower and can teach them to go wide but as I've already said you have to do what works for the dog. I am already backing away from the box and they are maintaining the turn so I don't think it will be long until i am completely out of the way and can start making the turn tighter and faster. Seeing Perry do a 4foot turn with the ball is a beautiful thing. He is a 26" Munsterlander cross and has been racing for 6yrs with a two foot turn, who said you can't teach an old dog new tricks!! Whether he will maintain it in competition is different but we will give it our best shot! We have a couple who are proving a little more tricky. Diefer is just a bit nutty so doesn't think about what he's doing, we are getting there and now he's realised what we want is catching up with the others, no rush though, we've got plenty of time and he had a decent 3foot turn anyway. Then their is Luna who after alot of analysis we have decided to retrain to turn left. This will be a slow process as she spent alot of time being taught her right turn so she thinks this is what we want from her. But everything about her movement suggests she should be a lefty, we've just got to convince her that it's ok! Finally Bunty who has got a beautiful fast turn anyway but she only uses 3 feet and pivots on the 4th so is not getting as much drive as she could. I think we found out this week what is going to work but it will be a very slow process!

Then we have our starters. Our 2 'in team' babies are looking very promising. They are both Collies. Piper is just fantastic, he is so fast over the jumps and is picking the box turn up very quickly. He is also 1 of the most handsome Collies I've seen. His father is Littlethorn Continental so he is the nephew of Darwin and half brother (I think?!) of Bentley, both of Molten Magnets so we have high hopes. I'd love a pup by Tally and I know Nat has a litter by him so I can't look at her website at the moment lol!! Next is Moss who is still a baby at coming up to 12months. He is from Waggerland lines and again is gorgeous. He has a very high chase drive and likes to herd the other dogs so is proving a bit of a challenge. He is also showing lots of promise and his box turn is looking good. I have taken over handling him for a while as I am currently a bit more exciting than his mum. Won't be long until his recall is sorted though and then I'll have to give him back! It's fun training a baby again even if he does knacker me out lol! Then we have the new people. We have a Collie cross who is picking things up really well, a Cocker who really reminds me of William if anyone remembers him?! Would be happy if Chez ends up as fast! At the moment he is a bit nervy and won't follow a 'dead' ball which is making box work a bit of a pain but we are making progress and a Border Terrier who is due to start next week who I've met and she is mental!!

Finally we've got the ballistic puppies who come along to training for a bit of socialisation and 'puppy races' lol! We've got Loki and Shani who are both 13ish weeks old. Loki is out of Piper from Hinckley Hooligans and Bray from Coventry Racers. He is such a good puppy, very focused and very cute. Shani is gorgeous and reminds me so much of Asher as a puppy it is actually spooky, I think everyone is praying she ends up like him! These 2 won't see any equipment until the summer when we will probably start a little bit of boxwork in the evenings at competitions. They will be over a year old when they start formal training. I don't see any need to start before this, all the foundations can be laid without drilling them up and down jumps!

I am now really looking forward to taking Asher back to training (hopefully 2wks time), I think he's missing it! I will try get someone to take some pics/video of training but it is difficult as everyone is either helping or running a dog!

Flyball 2009

2009-11-04T00:45:00.002Z

I thought before I started talking about our winter training I had better round up our year of racing. The up's and down's and what we need to work on.

Well to be honest we had a slightly disappointing start to the year with regards to times and also to boxwork. We put in an awful lot of work over last winter and unfortunately partly due to us not having the new box until the beginning of March and partly due to me not pushing the dogs on quick enough, the last few weeks of training before competition were very rushed. This resulted in the dogs not doing enough repetitions with the props in so when we went in to competition alot of the dogs reverted back to their old turns in varying degrees. This wasn't exactly disasterous as none of the dogs had slammers turns anyway but it was disappointing. Times wise we hit 18.00secs at our 1st show at Easter which we were pleased with especially as Asher was barely hitting sub 4 back then, which I was gutted about (as he had been at 3.8-3.9 in 2008). But then we didn't beat this time for nearly 3months until Frimley when we finally went sub 18 with a 17.84secs.

The positives of the start of the season were bringing out all of our starters. We've had some real crackers come out this year. We had 6 dogs in starters at Easter and 5 of them debuted in May with them barely putting a foot wrong. Bonnie is cracking running 4.2s but I know there is more in her. The only disappointment we had with her is that she had to go start dog as she tried to nip the returning dog on her outrun although we are hoping to cure that this winter. Lacy is just a total star, she will run anywhere, she has a beautiful box turn and she runs consistent 4.3s after starting out around 4.6s. Jamie our little height dog looks like he has been running for years, there is definitely lots of room for improvement in his box which we are working on and will hopefully bring his times down from 5.3-5.4ish to closer to 5secs. Chelsey has also been so good, she has a lovely box and when we get some weight off of her I'm sure will be quicker next year. Then their is Fraggle, our crowd puller, he really is great to watch and he has improved so much over the year.

So after Easter the ballistics didn't have a full 1st team for a while due to various dogs being unavailable, we managed some good low/mid 18s times anyway but I think we all got a bit frustrated. I think Frimley was the turning point for us, running the 17.84 gave us a bit more belief and we won division 2, a win always lifts you up. After that we continued to get faster with 17.72 at Becketts and 17.71 at Chilterns, both without the full 1st team. It was at this point we changed the order, putting Asher 2nd. This gave me more space in the runback area to work him back properly and I was finally able to sort out his return drive. This is when Asher really kicked up a gear (although he did run fantastically at Cornbury Park in June). The real high came at Stockbridge in August when everything came together and we won division 1 with a fantastic time of 17.37secs. In some ways I was happier about this than winning our div at the champs. Just because we ran a faster time and also because we beat shooting stars and maple leafs in the process. Saying that, winning at the champs was fantastic, don't think you can beat that feeling of going up infront of anyone to get your plaque (apart from going up to get that gorgeous trophy ;-), thats the next target lol). The disappointing thing for me at champs was that Asher wasn't as fast, it was a shame because it was the only time alot of the people there would have got to see him run and it was probably one of the slowest he ran all year and I don't want people to think I lie about his times!!

After Champs we only had 4 competitions and although we didn't win anything I really enjoyed them as I felt Asher was at his best and was just a joy to run. Ending on a high at Becketts when he "officially" hit a 3.77secs running start dog. I say official as we don't record all of the dogs times particularly if we have to work them out from splits so I'd say it was very likely he had run under 3.8 before, we just hadn't recorded it.

At Shackerstone we had Luna debut dead on 18months. Unfortunately she had had little training over the summer months so her box requires a lot of work. However she was running 4.3-4.4secs which we were pleased with and also ecstatic about the fact she was measured as a 12" height dog. Alot of hope for her for next year.

Finally at Becketts in October we had our last debutee Elliot who was fab and will hopefully get faster with confidence and more work on return drive. We also tried Luna on the 1st team and will be working hard on this combination over winter.

Overall I think it has been a successful year beating our fastest ever time by 0.7secs (would be thrilled if we could do that again next year lol!). We got 3 1st places despite never being top seed. I had at the back of my mind that the target for this year was to qualify for division 1 at the champs (as i'm sure it was for alot of teams) and based on the seedings for last year we would of done but the quality this year just seems to have improved alot so to win division 2 was the next best thing.

Things to work on over winter are mainly boxwork and return speed although it does vary for each dog. We probably won't do any full runs until after christmas although as we are now planning to do Wimbledon we may do 1wk of team training before that! We have our new group of starters and only 2 full collies, how novel! I've got high hopes for them! Although a couple of them are looking like they are going to be hard work! So thats it, Asher is currently having a break, he's had 2 weeks of complete rest to give his muscles and soft tissue time to recover and he's now back to gentle (for Asher!) exercise. He'll probably start flyball again in a few wks and just work on power jumping and box work. The aim is to have him at the absolute peak of fitness for the European Champs.

Photos from Becketts Farm

2009-10-28T01:12:00.003Z

Katie from our team was practising her photography at Becketts Farm and managed to get some nice pics of the Ballistic dogs...

Rosie

Luna

Bunty

Asher

Choose a dog...

2009-10-23T00:58:00.002+01:00

I stole this from undermybed.co.uk but I liked the idea so thought I'd have a go aswell.

"If you had to choose a dog from each KC group, what would you choose and why?"

The only problem I had was choosing 1 so I have chosen 2 from each group!

Pastoral:

Obviously 1st choice is Border Collie. I love the willingness to work, the ease with which they learn things, their total drive in just doing something.

2nd choice is a Malinois. I've really admired the breed since meeting Ronnie (Bonvivant Kronik) a few years ago. He is an awesome flyball dog and just has so much power and drive. They also seem to be clowns and a really fun breed to work with.

Working:

This was quite a difficult group for me as none of them really stood out but my 1st choice is Great Dane. I don't know what it is about them but they are my favourite of the giant breeds. They seem to be more bouncy and have more personality than the others and although I can't see myself owning one I think they are magnificent!

2nd choice is Boxer, they just have a love for life and sense of humour that is infectious. I have a 'type' that I like.. tall, slim, well muscled (sounds like my perfect man actually lol!). We had 1 that did flyball with us when I 1st starting training and he was just hilarious!

Hound:

1st choice is a bit random but it's a Pharoah Hound. I just love them and have done for years. They are so unique and elegant looking. I'm determined to have 1 eventually although I think I'll be letting myself in for trouble as apparently they are difficult to train and have a wicked personality!

2nd choice is easy... a Whippet. Again determined to own 1, hopefully from racing lines as i like the slightly taller dogs with lots of drive. I think they are possibly the perfect family dog (obviously generalising lol), good natured, like to play but not too hyper, easy to look after and have around. I just think they're lovely.

Gundog:

Again 1st choice is random... Irish Setter. I think they are beautiful. The ones I have met have had the most lovely temperaments. A neighbour of ours had 1 when I was growing up and she was lush.

2nd choice is a Working Cocker Spaniel. I know a few and love their happy attitude and working ability. I can definitely see myself owning one eventually.

Terrier:

My favourite are Staffordshire Bull Terriers. Most have got lovely natures and are the sweetest dogs but they also have so much power and working drive.

2nd is Parson Russell Terriers. They are so fiesty and have so much attitude. Mainly I like them for their working ability as they do so well in dog sports.

Toy:

1st is defintely Papillon. Such pretty little dogs that are usually so confident and wanting to work. Loads of energy and loads of personality!

I also have a soft spot for Chinese Crested although I will admit I do prefer the powderpuff. Sweet nature and very cute.

Utility:

1st I had to have Poodle somewhere! My favourite is the Miniature. Very intelligent dogs that have great personalities.

2nd is a German Spitz. I've liked them since seeing a couple at flyball. They seem to be very alert, bright and lively little dogs.

Becketts Farm

2009-10-07T01:47:00.005+01:00

Last show of the year for us, I hate getting to the end of the season, what am I going to do with myself now? Was really annoyed that the silly students gave me Freshers Flu (even though Im not a student anymore!) so I spent the whole weekend looking and feeling like a zombie, rubbish!

On Saturday we had the Extraset as 4th seed (I think:-S) in division 9. The team was Jemma, Perry, Elliot, Jive, Molly and Fraggle. The plan was to run mainly Perry, Elliot, Jive and Molly with Jemma and Fraggle doing warm ups and if they were good, Jemma getting a few runs in the blue lane and Fraggle a few runs in the red lane to give Jive a rest. What I'm forgetting to mention here is that it was Elliot's 1st open and 1st time doing flyball since doing starters in May... you wouldn't of known, he was fantastic, didn't put a foot wrong all day! Unfortunately on the last leg of the 1st race disaster struck when Jive suddenly went very lame. We won that race but it meant either Jemma or Fraggle would have to run in her place. Jemma did well, running some nice legs in the blue lane but was naughty in the red. We won another race with Fraggle who was really up for it and ran really well. Despite winning 2 races we came 5th with a best time of 22.57secs. Well done to Sarah who had to do proper changeovers for the 1st time and did really well under my instruction lol ;-)

Sunday we had Rockets bottom seed in division 3. The team was Bonnie, Lacy, Sonny, Smartie and Jamie. To be honest we weren't expecting much as our seed time was still on 18.89 which was the fastest this year and they hadn't been sub 19 since. However the dogs were really up for it and despite losing the 1st race hit another 18.89secs. In the 2nd race everything came together, Bonnie had a perfect start and ran a brilliant 4.18 and the team went on to run 18.48secs! (I did say Rockets could go faster!) The team won 3 races and were abit unlucky on the last race getting lights to finish a very credible 3rd.

Ballistics were bottom seed in division 1 and I was expecting an absolute hammering but actually really looking forward to it as we were hoping for some more records and we knew their would probably be quite a few people watching. We also had a new edition to the team. The team was Diefer, Asher, Rosie, Bunty and Luna! 1st race was against High Flyers, we went with the normal 4 and ran 17.57secs which we were thrilled with as our times seemed to have been dropping off the last couple of shows so that was a definite improvement. 2nd race against Bassetts we had Luna instead of Diefer so I went start. Asher ran a 3.77 :-D (3.82 with a 0.05 start). Luna was really good but our changes were a little off but we were pleased to still run sub 18 times. 3rd race was the big test, we decided to run without Bunty over Luna's height of 12". We hadn't trained it, it was more just a tester race to see what happened. Thankfully all the dogs accepted the height change very easily and it didn't seem to make a lot of difference time wise to Dief, Ash, or Rosie however it did affect Luna's times quite a bit. That combined with our changeovers being a bit rubbish (allowing for them to have slowed up over the higher jumps when they hadn't really) meant we only managed 17.80. It was still a good close race against Live wires though. We lost all the morning races but the dogs were brill and we got to see Bassetts break the British record again... twice! 1st running a 16.65 then a 16.60, well done Bassetts! In the afternoon we had a fantastic race against Molten where we were 2-0 down then they got a light and the next leg was a dead heat! We lost but you can't beat that for closeness! Last race we held it together and ran really smoothly against Cheshire to win the race and finish 5th. Asher was a good boy, 1st race in the morning he looked quite sluggish, wasn't rotating properly on the box so wasn't getting the drive off, but then I had no voice so that didn't help. Luckily half way through the 2nd race when he ran start he woke up, ran the fab time and started turning beautifully. He was amazing after that, i think every box was 4 foot and he was driving back really well. I know Carol (with Luna) was a bit gutted that we weren't any quicker running over 12" but I still think that will be the way to go next year. As I mentioned in the previous post Luna's box is pretty awful at the moment so she is not getting the drive back, she is also very inexperienced and needs to get a bit more focus. Over the winter we will work on her box and see if she would in fact like to be a lefty like her boyfriend! We will also work on her speed on the return. Even as she is at the moment she is 4.3-4.4 over low jumps so with lots of work she should easily do that over 12". And with the other 3 currently averaging 12.5secs (12.3 on a good day) we could end up very quick! Time will tell, atleast it gives us something to aim towards!

Asher started the Pet Passport process so that we can go to the Euro's next year, very excited! So thats it for the year, back to training! I'll write a year review soon!

Devon Dogs and Honiton Agility - 1st KC show

2009-10-02T15:18:00.002+01:00

I was a bit nervous about this day finally dawning, so much so that I couldn't sleep the night before and then managed to oversleep... oops! This meant I got to Honiton just in time to run my 1st 2 courses without walking them!

1st run was 1-2 combined jumping. It was a nice course and had I been more prepared we probably would of done better. He nailed his weave entry which I wasn't sure he would as it was close to the jump before and he was going full speed. Unfortunately he came out the last pole. I then didn't go far enough with him to a jump and he came inside it. He worked the rest of the course really well and I was quite pleased with it as a 1st run! (15 faults)

Next was 1-7 steeplechase. Again hadn't walked it! He was actually fab in this. There was 1 part where I wasn't sure whether to front or back cross. I decided to front cross after seeing lots of people do it that way and thinking it would keep him tighter. Unfortunately to get there I had to pull away from him quite early and he came with me coming inside the jump. I put him back round and worked it as a rear cross and he did it beautifully, should of done it that way from the start! He had 2 poles in the course, 1 of them I know was defintely my fault! (15faults)

Last run of the day was 1-3combined agility. Really liked the course, actually got to walk it :-D, muppet handler! He was going brilliantly clear, fab seesaw, fab Aframe. 5 obstacles from the end was weaves. Which were right angle turn from a straight line of jumps. Of course Asher was going like a million miles per hour. I didn't slow him or cue him for the turn so he jumped really long. Told him weave, he tried really hard to get the entry but just couldn't steady himself to get it. I then forgot what I was doing and sent him over the wrong jump. Dog walk was then a bit creepy but I don't think I worked it like I do in training. But no poles :-) (E)

Sunday started with graded 1-2 jumping. The course didn't really suit him with quite a tight bit at the start. He didn't turn tight enough for the 3rd jump and ran round it. Brought him back and he did the rest of the course well. Had 1 pole. Got his weave entry but then was really odd, got to the 4th weave and then came out turned around started barking at me, don't know why, never done that before. Put him back in and he was fine. Think it might be because I hung back a little bit so he could get the entry which I don't normally do. Note to self, run him in competitions like you do at training! (15faults)

Then 1-7 collie jumping. Liked the course for the fact I could test him a bit more but wasn't sure we'd get round it. It started with a snake, he listened really well to his directionals but had a pole. We then got E'd on the simplest bit up a curved line of jumps where he ran round one, I have had this problem before where he doesn't pick up a line very well but I thought he was much better. Then another pole. The rest of it was fab, I managed a lovely front cross, he stayed out of the tunnel when I told him, so yeh not too bad! (E)

Last run was graded 1-2 agility. I think this course definitely suited a slightly slower dog, not because it was tight or twisty but because you needed to either be with your dog to avoid the traps or have excellent obstacle discrimination. I decided I was going to stop him after the flat tunnel as coming out of there the dog had a choice of tunnel, jump or dog walk and had to do jump. I knew mine would choose tunnel so I didn't want him self rewarding by having the tunnel as an easy option. Unfortunately prior to this he knocked the long jump. This being due to the fact he jumped very long from the jump before and deciding he was going to bounce the long jump when every other dog I saw put in a stride. He only just tapped it lol! My strategy worked well after the flat tunnel, was able to send him over the correct jump in to the weaves. It was then 2 jumps and turn back for the dog walk. He went on to the dog walk at a funny angle and despite managing to hold on most of the way along fell off half way down the down plank! I asked if I could put him back over, he was fine then left the ring. (E)

At the time I'd be lying if I were to say I wasn't a bit disappointed about not having any clears because at the end of the day you compete to win. But the more I think about it the happier I feel with the weekend. He only missed one weave entry (my fault), he didn't actually have as many poles as it felt like at the time (the most was 2!), he was nowhere near as manic as at Agilitynuts shows, he really listened and really tried and thats all I can ask of him, the rest is faults in my handling and training. Things to work on are mainly my handling, apparently I have flicky hands that distract him and wide him up. I need to work contacts and weaves the same as I do at training. I need to teach him to collect for turns and tight bits. We need to work on jumping grids and exercises to teach him to be more careful with his feet. We did some of this at training on wednesday, he worked really well on a bounce exercise with the jumps really close together. After that he didn't have any poles for the rest of the session so it looks like that may help him. Afterall all he wants to do is get it right so I don't think it will be too long before it comes together!

Acremead Kennels

2009-10-02T14:35:00.002+01:00

Just realised i haven't written up Acremead so here is what I can remember...

Saturday we had Ballistics and Rockets running. Rockets were up 1st as 2nd seed in division 2. The team was Bonnie, Lacy, Sonny, Smartie and Jamie so it was full strength. The team ran really well and only lost one race against Molten Magic who were running low-mid 18s. They came 2nd with a best time of 19.21secs. I'm sure this team can go faster so we'll work on them over the winter!

Ballistics were 3rd seed in Division 1. This team was also full strength with Diefer, Asher, Rosie and Bunty. We had a great start to the day beating Molten Magnets with them getting lights. We were a bit inconsistent, getting lots of lights and managed to lose against Racing Herts as Bunty decided their Lab was rather interesting. She is very funny, I guess she is so used to running with Collies that she gets fascinated by any other breed. She was the same when she raced against Whisper (lurcher) from Bassetts and shes done it a couple of other times with non-collies but can't remember who they were! We also lost against Bassetts, but won our other races. Our placing was decided by the last race between Bassetts and Molten which went to a thrilling 5 legger with them both getting lights on the last leg but Molten turning their dog around quicker. This left us in 3rd place. Our best time was 17.77secs, we seem to be getting slower now :-(! Asher was fab as always, our last race was against an empty lane so our judge was able to see the dogs times when running. He didn't seem to be familiar with Asher as he was quite astounded when he did a 3.84 including the change over!

Sunday we had Extraset in division 6. The team was Perry, Luna, Jive, Chelsey, Guiness and Molly. With the combination of dogs we had our times varied quite a bit depending which dogs were running, this made us a bit inconsistent. We won 1 race but really should of won 3, we got lights at the wrong times! They came 6th. Luna was really good, her box wasn't so much though, she looked to me like she wanted to turn left rather than her current right turn. This indecision resulted in her hitting the box straight on on quite a few runs which isn't what we want. She also fumbled the ball a few times and she ran out twice. The positive of this is that the next run after she ran out she made really sure she did a good run which shows she understands her job. I always worry with a dog that has just come out of starters that they don't realise they can run out until the ball goes wide and they don't stay in so then they know it is their decision whether to run over the jumps or not. This is when a lot of dogs decide they're going to consistently run out.

Me and Katie also helped out on the line for Demonz which was good fun although Nat should of sacked her handlers lol ;-) Only joking, they weren't that bad especially considering they had a break out time they were trying to avoid!

Off to Becketts Farm tomorrow, last one :-(. Should be good though, really looking forward to being annihilated in division 1 haha, we are trying something new though so we'll see how that goes!

Asher at Shackerstone

2009-09-20T22:45:00.002+01:00

Just got sent these 2 pics from Shackerstone of Asher waiting to race. Fully kitted out in his Rogz stuff, I think I should get sponsorship lol!

Fab Four!

2009-09-17T00:35:00.002+01:00

As Sarah (author of campbellsdogs.blogspot.com) is currently doing work experience she has bravely entrusted me with the walking of her 2 dogs. Walks are definitely never boring and so far i haven't lost anybody so all is going well!

I was very impressed I got them to stay still for this photo so thought I'd post it here. Left to right we have: Asher, Jemma, Elliot and Tess.

Agility Update

2009-09-10T00:54:00.002+01:00

I realised I haven't posted anything about Agility in ages so...

I have entered our 1st KC show. We are going to Honiton on the 26th-27th September. I am camping Saturday night so if anyone reading this is going please let me know as I will hardly know anyone!

Well Asher is getting better. His weaves are cracking now, always gets entries and hasn't popped out of them for ages. Hopefully this will repeat in competition as at the Agilitynuts shows he just got too excited and hit them too fast. Contacts are ok, I think he is understanding a little bit more now. His position is alot better although he is not driving quite as much as I would like. I just need an hour alone with Asher, a dog walk and an Aframe and I reckon I could sort it but at training you only get a couple of reps of each at each session. As far as jumping work/sequences go, we have good days and bad days. He has more poles than I would like, its most common when I ask him to jump towards me or when he's trying to turn after building up speed along a straight but to be honest sometimes I don't see the reason for it! He's quite good at snakes and can do pull throughs. Lefts and rights are now pretty good but we still go wrong a fair bit. The main problem is that if I'm not clear enough in my handling he gets very frustrated, starts barking and switches off. Thats when he turns in to the tunnel demon and heads for the nearest tunnel. Tunnel obsession is still a bit of a problem but it is getting better as he is getting more confident in other areas. I'm quite happy that he's ready to start competing as I don't think there is alot more I can do until I find out how he reacts to the competition environment. He should certainly be capable of grade 1-3 courses. So we'll go with an open mind and see what happens!

ShakaKhan!

2009-09-09T02:28:00.002+01:00

Wow what a fantastic show! I went Friday night in order to get the full party experience, beer tents are so much fun! Saturday I had a free day so just watched racing and pottered round the show. I also got to go visit some very cute puppies, Carol and Mark chose their pup (Piper-Brae litter) so we will be welcoming little Loki in to the mad world of the Ballistics in a couple of weeks :-). Saturday night we danced like crazy people and got very drunk. The Cutlery Crew was born and we tamed the Chair Police! I think we are all off our rockers!

Sunday we had 2 teams in. Extraset were in division 5. The team was Sonny, Perry, Jamie, Guiness and our lovely baby Luna making her debut. Luna was fab, she ran really well and was very quick. She only had one little wobble the 1st time we changed lanes when she really thought she should be on the other side but we soon sorted that and she was paw perfect after. Although I think Carol found it a little difficult adjusting to running a dog that goes out like a rocket (especially with a hangover!!). We only lost one race and ended up in a 3-way tie for 1st place, we had the fastest time of 21.63secs so won the division :-), not a bad way to start a flyball career. Oh and the best news is that Luna got measured at 12".

Ballistics were 3rd seed in div 1, we had Diefer, Asher, Rosie, Smartie and Bunty. 1st race against Molten Magnetics didn't quite go to plan, we went 2-0 up then got a light and the next 2 legs they beat us very slightly on speed. Against Northants we got lights on the 1st 2 legs then the last leg everyone was late so we lost that. We were trying to be quite fair about the amount of racing everyone got so 3rd race against High Voltage we rested Diefer which meant I got to go start. I never go start and the last time Asher did it was his 1st starters! I really enjoyed it and Asher was really racing the other dog, his times were soo fast! We won that race. In the afternoon we had Bassetts and Flyers who we lost to. Last race was against Mutts, Asher again got to go start and we won that one. Our fastest time of the day was 17.64secs. I was hoping for a bit quicker than that as the ground seemed to be running quite fast but a couple of the dogs were a bit off their usual times. Asher was just awesome though, he was driving back so well. Box wasn't so good, if I can ever get him doing the perfect box when his speed is like it was on Sunday then he will hit consistent 3.7s. As it was, last leg of the day I had a 0.05 start and he ran 3.88secs. I don't think he had a single run all day that wasn't sub 4. Sorry for the massive brag and I will shut up now but I'm just so proud of him! So anyway we won 2 races and finished 5th. Mega huge congratulations to High Flyers who ran 16.66secs which should be the new British record but doesn't stand due to the rule that states all record breaking runs must be filmed. The record will just have to wait til next time!

Big thanks to Mutts and Flyers for the use of their boxes again and to the Nunnies for a fantastic show. Just 2 more for us this year.

Stoneleigh

2009-09-03T01:44:00.002+01:00

We had 2 teams in at Stoneleigh, they were both very mixed and we weren't sure what times we would do. We entered the Extraset who we thought would be seeded on 23.15 but the seed time dropped to 23.62 by the time the running order was out. Either way it wouldn't of affected the division we were in. We had Sonny, Perry, Jive, Chelsey and Guiness, so 2 rocket dogs, 2 missiles + Jive who kinda floats between. We didn't expect to go under 23secs but managed a time of 22.36secs. We lost 2 races, one on speed and one lights but still came 2nd :-).

Sunday we had Ballistics 3rd seed in div 1. We didn't have Rosie or Bunty so decided to try Jamie the usual Rockets height dog along with Diefer, Asher and Smartie. To be honest I wasn't expecting too much but the dogs did well, we won all our races in the morning, then it rained and everyones times really slowed, we lost all our races in the afternoon but that was to Bassetts, high flyers and moltens so can't really complain and we finished 4th with a best time of 18.11secs. Asher ran well, box wasn't great but is was a bit slippery and he was driving back better than he was at Champs.

Thanks to Flyers for lending us a box as ours is still broke and also letting me stay with them to save me driving up both days! The show was good, we had a nice look round, I went on the Waltzers, very scary experience!

Really looking forward to Shackerstone this weekend, we have a full 1st team and Little Luna will be making her open debut dead on 18months, fingers crossed that it all goes well. Oh and that the rain stops so the show can actually go ahead this year!

British Flyball Championships 2009

2009-08-20T01:12:00.002+01:00

I headed up to Southam on Thursday very very excited about the weekend, set up camp before having a few quiet drinks with Mad Mutts and Hotshots.

Friday morning came and we were 1st in at 8.30am in division 32 with the Missiles. The team was Tyne, Sky, Chelsey, Fraggle, Molly and Guiness. With alot of our members including captain Lou not arriving until Saturday we were a little thin on the ground but we managed ok. The dogs had to run on a boomerang as our canam had packed up at Stockbridge, they all coped fine and Chelsey maintained her lovely turn. We were bottom seed so the aim was not to come bottom of the entire show! All the dogs ran really well and despite not having Jive managed to better their seed time by over half a second with quite a late start. We won 2 of our races and the others were close aswell. This put us 3rd overall so we were pleased with that result.

Friday night was neon night, so out came the leg warmers and glowsticks! I had a brilliant night raving in the marquee and then getting drunk with Katie, Kristian and Faye. I then went on for a few more drinks with Livvy and Craig and ended up going to bed around 5am!! Woo hardcore!

Saturday was a quiet day for us with no teams racing. I just milled around and watched racing, tried to keep my dogs occupied by taking them for little walks around by the ring. Bless Tess she was still going mental to get in and show the youngsters how its done! Saturday night was dress up night, I was brave and wore my little dress and partied hard! Katie deserted Owler camp to join us (me, Katie and Sam in he middle of the dance floor bouncing to BEPs was really something to be seen!), the music was fantastic and I loved every minute, still smile when one of the songs played that night comes on the radio! A few of my team then went to play the much talked of Sociables with Cheshire, my god that game is lethal! A certain member of my team got absolutely wasted! We had a wicked time and a slightly earlier night of 4am!

Sunday we had 2 teams racing. Rockets were 1st on in division 8. We knew we were going to be a bit up against it as the seed time we were on was the fastest we'd done all year and we were missing Bonnie the quickest dog on that team. The team was Lacy, Sonny, Smartie, Perry and Jamie. We lost the 1st 2 races in the morning as things didn't really gel and we were unlucky on 1 race where a ball rolled infront of Jamie just before he was released resulting in him getting that ball instead. The afternoon was alot better, we ran much better times (very low 19s) and won the 1st 2 races. The last race was against High Voltage who had managed a fantastic 18.20secs earlier on so we just went for it and weren't far behind even taking a leg off them. Despite winning 2 races we came 5th which gives you an idea of how close that division was with High Voltage being very worthy winners.

Ballistics were in Division 2 which I was very excited about. We were bottom seed on paper but as the seedings list had changed quite considerably since the running order had been done I knew that we had a chance (not that I told anyone else for fear of putting the pressure on lol!). First race was against Shooting Star Comets, we raced well and beat them 3-0 with a time of 17.8something. Next up was Cheshire Set, I knew this would be close and it was, it went to a 2-2 decider when fortunately for us they got a light although I think Bunty was back just ahead anyway. We ran 17.65secs. Next up was Wire Flash who again we beat quite well. In the afternoon, 1st up we had Mutts who again it was very close with, they beat us on the 1st leg then I got a light on the 2nd, luckily we pulled it back to 2-2 and they got lights on the last leg! Final race was against Rotherham who came out and beat us 3-0, I think they had a dog running who is taking a while to be reliable (Scooby?) and so they couldn't run him in every race and I think it was lucky for us that they couldn't! With Rotherham having lost 2 races previously that made us the division winners! I was so thrilled that after the disaster we had last year that we were able to make up for it and more, really was a very proud moment! Don't really want to think about negatives but I wasn't overly pleased with the way Asher ran, his box wasn't great and he wasn't really driving back the way i know he can. His box was probably due to it being a different box (we borrowed 1 from the bandits which I am very grateful for but probably did affect him a little bit). The only thing I can think of over his speed is that he wasn't feeling quite right, he did seem to have a bit of a dodgy tummy and the last couple of days he has been very quiet which is not like him. Luckily he seems brighter today. But anyway we won :-) :-) and I really am so so happy, going up and getting our plaque infront of the crowd was a great moment.

Division 1 was amazing to watch, Bassetts deserved the win, they really just looked like they were coasting for much of it and I'm sure they'll break the british record again in the near future. What really seems to set them apart is the amazing boxwork, it really does shave so much time off each dog and of course that cracking little dog that goes by the name of Lizzie who is pretty much unbeatable so huge congratulations to Bassetts. Also big well done to High Flyers who pushed them more than anyone else and stepped up their game from last year. They were gracious in defeat and I'm sure will be back fighting again next year.

I had the most fantastic weekend, I'm actually really sad it's all over. The atmosphere was brilliant, everyone was so friendly and the racing was all so close. Roll on next year.

Fairview Farm

2009-08-12T02:08:00.002+01:00

Ok so this is over a week late, but as they say... better late than never! We had 3 teams in. Rockets ran Saturday.

Rockets were in Division 3. We had Bonnie, Lacy, Sonny, Perry and Jamie. Weather was a bit rubbish on the Saturday so it was a bit slippery. Bonnie was alot better on the box although still fumbling a bit, she was running around 4.2secs when her box was ok. Lacy was fab as usual, then I was running Perry and Carol was running Sonny as Louise was on holiday. We just swapped Perry and Sonny so as to keep the team fairly consistent with Jamie on the end. They ran really well and ended up winning all their races and therefore the division with a best time of 19.43secs.

Had a brilliant night Saturday, playing games with my team then after most of them went to bed we invaded the Mutts and then the few of us left standing invaded Lightning and somehow stayed up til gone 4.30am. Don't know where the time went! Was up again by half 8 and I swear I was still drunk! Had to go run a dog though!

Ballistics and Missiles raced Sunday. Missiles were on 1st and bottom seed by quite a margin. We decided to put Jive in this team to give them a little bit of speed. They still ended up coming last but did take a couple of races to 5 legs and raced quite consistently.

Ballistics were 5th seed in Division 1, we had Rosie back from her holidays so had a team of Diefer, Asher, Rosie, Smartie and Bunty. 1st race was against Barkshire Bandits, we went without Smartie, and proceeded to break our seed time 3 times in a row by doing 2 times in the 17.50s and then a 17.46secs! We won that 3-0 and it gave us a lot of confidence to go and face our next competitors... Shooting Stars. Ordinarily we would rest one of our faster dogs as we wouldn't think we had a chance of beating them on time but now we decided to were gonna go for it! We rested Smartie again, went in and did a 17.42, then a faster time than I could of dreamt of for this year 17.37secs!!! Stars got lights on both of these legs so we were 2-0 up. 3rd leg was sooo close, no lights, they did 17.55, we did 17.52... Omg we'd just beaten Shooting Stars! That was it for the morning, in the afternoon, 1st race was against Maples which is nearly always eventful! We went 2-0 up, the 1st one they got a light then the next we beat them on speed. 3rd leg, Diefer came really wide off the box and ran out so 2-1, then we were late on our changes so 2-2. Last leg there was a lot of pressure but we held it together and won it! Then we also beat Shooting Star Comets. Last race all went a bit pear shaped against Hampshire but we'd won 4 out of 5 and won Division 1!!

I can't remember the last time we won Div 1, it was literally years ago. I had a goal for this year which I set back in January that was for ballistics to go sub 17.50secs, i thought after the way some of the comps had gone this year and after it taking so long to come together that this aim was a bit unrealistic so I am so thrilled that we beat it by over a 10th of a sec and hopefully we can go a little bit quicker! It's funny how everything happens for a reason, and how an unplanned chain of events can lead you to success. E.g. If it hadn't been for June (with Rosie) and Lou and Bobbie being on hols at Becketts Farm then Smartie never would of been in the 1st team. Smartie can't change to Diefer cuz she loves him so much she nips him on her outrun so Asher had to go 2nd. If it hadn't been for this we wouldn't of realised how much better Angie with Buntys changeovers would be to a slightly slower dog. We also wouldn't have known how much better Diefer would be with Asher running to him. He was back hitting 4.1s at Stockbridge which he hasn't really done all year and we believe it is because although Asher is fast he is also very inoffensive and non-confrontational unlike the other bossy bitches in the team! So from Frimley to Stockbridge just swapping Rosie and Asher round improved the time by half a second! Obviously some of this has got to be improved racing fitness but it really makes you think!

So yeh bring on the Champs! Can. Not. Wait.

Video from Chilterns

2009-07-25T02:10:00.002+01:00

Well I was browsing You Tube and came across this video of the Barkshire Bandits from Chilterns and we just happen to be racing them in the 2nd and 3rd clips! We are in blue lane, Asher is 2nd dog. I think this was our 5th race of the day.

Chilterns Show

2009-07-23T02:49:00.004+01:00

We had 3 teams in at the Chilterns show. Ballistics were 6th seed (out of 7) on the Saturday. The team was Diefer, Asher, Smartie and Bunty. Seedings were all really close apart from top seeds High Flyers being about half a sec quicker than everyone else so we expected some close racing and it didn't disappoint! First race was against Maples who had a whole new line up, they did beat us 3-0 but it was closer than the score suggests and we did another 17.72secs! Next race against High Flyers we did a 17.71secs so another fastest ever time!! We lost but again it was close and we took a leg! Next we were against Molten Magnetics, another really close race and had our changes been bang on we could of won it! So not a very successful morning in terms of wins but we ran really well. In the afternoon things picked up and we won all 3 of our races against the Bandits, Mutts and newly formed Lightning Strikes. This put us a respectable 4th. Asher ran really well, was so pleased with his box as it looked really consistent and he was running on to it rather than sliding. I think the pic shows it pretty well :-), hopefully it will stay like this now! Still a little bit of work to do but I think we're nearly there!

Rockets ran Sunday in Division 2, the team was Bonnie, Lacy, Sonny and Jamie. We went in to racing with the intention of bettering our seed time to ensure that this team ran on the Sunday at Champs, this is very important as Lou and Bobbie will only be at the Champs from Saturday night and there dogs make up atleast half the team! The team ran really well apart from we had some problems with Bonnie fumbling the ball, she needs constant reminding of her box turn as she is so nutty, she did gradually improve over the day though. I've included a couple of photos of Lacy on the box as she is my star pupil from box training over winter! As you can see from the two pics that she is consistent in her position, I like the 2nd pic as she is turning at the same time as her older lilac brother Logan :-)! Her turn is exceptionally quick and consistent (despite her foot placement not been technically perfect) which makes her like the easiest dog to change on ever! The team won 4 out of the 6 races. They lost 1 on speed against the division winners maple leaf raggers and 1 by getting 3 lights against a team they didn't really need to. They still managed to finish 2nd with a new best time of 18.89secs! We are now praying that that time will get us Sunday at Champs.

Missiles also ran Sunday, unfortunately one of our team pulled out who owns 3 of the usual missile dogs so we were left with 4 dogs in a very mixed team! The team was Jive, Perry, Fraggle and Molly. Fraggle has been getting better and better recently but for some reason in the 1st couple of races he didn't really want to play (he must have sensed we only had 4 dogs!). Luckily by the 3rd race he got a lot better and we actually managed to complete! In the afternoon, we had quite an audience around the ring and Fraggle decided to show off resulting in us winning a couple of legs and a race going to 2-2 only for Fraggle to go and make friends with a retriever right by the fence next to the box on the last leg, how annoying lol! We came last but I don't think I've ever heard such big cheers for a dog as there were for Fraggle, he certainly held everyones attention!

Becketts Farm = 17.72 :-) :-)

2009-07-15T01:17:00.003+01:00

Well we very nervously went up to Beckett's Farm as we had been left to fly solo without our team captain! We had 2 teams in, the Ballistics and Missiles as without Bobbie and Louise basically the whole Rockets team was missing!

Missiles ran Saturday and were Tyne, Sky, Chelsey, Fraggle and Guiness. Had a bit of a nightmare start to the day when the lights decided they weren't going to work and we had to go with hand timing! The weather was pretty rubbish but this helped a couple of our dogs who suffer with the heat. I ran Chelsey the Lab, god she's a very strong dog! The four big dogs ran a lot better than they had been previously but we had to be a bit careful on changes with it being judged by eye and Guiness really wasn't up for running, she was on a bit of a go slow. They managed a best time of 27.something and finished last but they had some closer racing than they've had recently and noone messed about or ran out so atleast that was an improvement :-s!

Saturday evening we had a few drinks to celebrate my birthday, I got horrendously drunk and was just chatting nonsense but apparently I was quite entertaining so atleast I was useful! Luckily I'm still just about young enough not to suffer from bad hangovers so although I didn't quite make it to ring party 1st thing in the morning I was fine by the time Div 1 was due to start!

Ballistics were 4th seed in Division 1, we were missing Rosie but still had a strong team of Diefer, Lacy, Asher, Smartie and Bunty. We knew it was going to be an exciting division with Bassetts, Flyers and Moltens all pushing for times. 1st race was against molten meteors, we went with what we thought would be our fastest combo of Diefer, Lacy, Asher and Bunty. We got a light on the 1st leg and then 2nd leg we won with 17.84secs! We then lost a leg as they did an 18.02 and we were very slightly behind, next leg we won with another sub 18 but unfortunately on the last leg we got a light! Next race was against Flyers, we went with Smartie instead of Lacy. We were really winding our dogs up as we have a friendly rivalry with the Flyers and although they were much faster than us they got 3 lights in a row so we won with a best time of 17.81secs!! We then watched as Flyers went in and broke the 17sec barrier by doing 16.91secs!! Go Flyers! Our next race was against Bassetts who we knew we couldn't beat on speed so we rested Asher, we did take a leg off them when they got a light so all in all we were pleased with the morning racing. 1st race in the afternoon was against northants falcons who had done a 17.88secs in the morning so we knew it would be very close. 1st leg we both got lights, luckily i have an instant rerun on Asher so we won that 1, the next 2 legs we were very slightly behind so swapped Lacy for Smartie and managed to win the race! Last race was against molten magnets, we didn't think we could beat them on speed so decided to rest Diefer however we were only just behind them so after 2 legs we swapped diefer back in and raced a 17.72secs winning the leg and getting our fastest EVER time! Last leg we couldn't quite repeat that speed but it was still really close and we only just lost. Came out of the ring and got ourselves in position ready to watch the British Record broken, go Bassetts... 16.70secs and I'm sure they've still got more to give, it was amazing to watch! We managed to come 3rd with some of the best racing I've taken part in for ages!

Think we've learnt from the weekend that Asher should really go 2nd, he used to be a bit scared of changeovers with big dogs but he's fine now and it does help him giving us that lead early on. Angie with Bunty also struggles to change with him as she literally has to let go of Bunty as he's coming off the box so she found it much easier changing to Smartie resulting in Bunty running much better times. And well Smartie, she was on fire, must of known she was up in the big league so her promotion has remained for Chilterns this weekend. Will be interesting to see what we can do!

One Whole Year!

2009-07-10T19:12:00.003+01:00

Just a super quick post as it is exactly a yr since I started this blog! It is also my birthday :-)! Ahhh 22, so old! Anyways I'm off to Becketts Farm now so I shall update properly when I get back!

Frimley = 17.84 :-)

2009-07-01T01:33:00.002+01:00

Just had a scorcher of a weekend in Frimley, I have a lovely tan! We had 3 teams in, Ballistics and Rockets Saturday and Missiles Sunday.

1st up Rockets were in Division 3, the team was Lacy, Smartie, Perry, Jamie and Jive. In the morning we won 1 and lost 1. We lost against racing herts who did there fastest ever time, Lacy was racing against her mother and sister in that team (she is an elthea)! In the afternoon we went out hoping to win 1 out of the 3 races as the other 2 teams were running under 19secs, fortunately our luck had changed this weekend and we managed to win all 3 races due to them getting lights so we finished 2nd. Our best time was 19.46secs. We had the lights with the timer that shows for each dog which I think is fantastic as it gives you an accurate picture of a dogs times throughout the day. We recorded all of these, I don't have them but from memory... Lacy was running consistent low 4.3secs all day, its so good to see how shes come on as at her 1st show she was running 4.6s. Her box was also fab, 4 feet consistently, I take responsibility haha! Also think she loved running start, although she can forget that as we already have enough start dogs lol! Smartie was also on form running 4.4-4.5secs and again very consistent. Perry suffered with the heat (he is a massive black, hairy dog!) and was running around 5.1-5.2 (he is usually 4.9-5s). Jamie also suffered as he really gives it his all and was around 5.2-5.4s. Jive ran a few legs to give Perry a rest and did really well running around the 5sec mark and that is only going from 20ft.

Ballistics were next on in Div 2, makes a change to be in div 2 and we were only 3rd seed on 18.14secs!! We decided to really go for it on the 1st race and see what we could do, we had arguably our strongest team lineup of Diefer, Rosie, Asher, Bunty (Sonny as 5th dog). 1st leg we did 18.05secs with slightly late changes, 2nd leg we held back a bit as the other team got a light, 3rd leg really seemed to flow and felt so good, waited for the time to come up... 17.84secs!!! Ahhh we were sooo happy and Bunty still had a bit on her change! Next race we had Sonny in instead of Rosie, we won that 3-0 with a best time of 18.32secs. In the afternoon things didn't go so well. Rosie had not been well the previous night after stealing and eating liquorice allsorts! By the afternoon that combined with the heat caught up with her and she was exhausted, this resulted in me getting lights in the 1st 1 legs of the 1st race, we brought it back to 2-2 but the re-running of Asher had caused Bunty to spook and she ran out on the last leg. June decided to rest Rosie after that as she could tell she wasn't right, i'm sure she'll be fine by the weekend. We won the next race without too much drama but it wasn't as smooth as the morning. The last race we couldn't lose (nfc) but did our best to when our box literally fell apart (well the whole ball mechanism came out of Asher's hole) and we had to run the last leg of the day on a boomerang! Luckily for us the team we lost against had only won 3 races so we won the division! I was so pleased with Asher he was consistently under 4 all day and not just by a little bit, many of his runs were 3.8secs, quite a few 3.9s and a couple of 4-4.1 when i was significantly late on my changes. Diefer ran 4.3secs, Rosie 4.3-4.4, Sonny around 4.6 (bit of room on changes) and Bunty around 5-5.2secs.

Missiles were in Div 8 on Sunday and all of these dogs really suffered in the heat. It was a difficult day for them, on a positive Fraggle was fab and ran really well. And yeh thats all I'm gonna say!

Unfortunately I'm missing Millets Farm next weekend :-( as I'm going to see Take That Saturday night :-D, my next one will be Becketts Farm when it will be my Birthday celebrations!!

Videos from Stockbridge at Easter!

2009-06-25T02:25:00.004+01:00

I've managed to get hold of a couple of videos very kindly taken by Nick (Lacy's owner) at Stockbridge this Easter. This was our 1st competition this year so you'll remember me saying that I wasn't too happy with the boxwork or with Asher's speed, thankfully both have improved since then :-)

Bristol Babies are Bonnie, Lacy, Chelsey, Fraggle.

Bristol Ballistics are Diefer, Rosie, Asher, Bunty then in the last clip they are Sonny, Smartie, Asher, Bunty.

Middlesex Show

2009-06-24T02:16:00.002+01:00

I really like this show, it is a lovely venue and always seems to be a good atmosphere, which is something you don't always get at country shows. I arrived Saturday morning in Dan the hire van as my car was brakeless, loved having the van, think i'm going to have to get one lol!

Saturday we had Ball-istics running in Division 1, we were bottom seed. The team was Diefer, Sonny, Lacy, Asher and Bunty. Sonny and Lacy were up as Rosie was on holiday, it was Lacy's 1st time in the top team and she did really well (as did her handler Lisa!), it is abit daunting being told you're running in Div 1! Since Acremead, Diefer had been playing up so we had a bit of a shaky start but he soon sorted himself out and by the end of the day he looked his normal self. We raced well but weren't very fast, we managed a best time of 18.43secs, again in the last race of the day! If only we could get ourselves sorted earlier on! We won 1 race against Fourpaws and finished 5th so I guess we can't really be too disappointed with that seeing as we were bottom seed!

Sunday we had Rockets running in Division 2. The team was Bonnie, Smartie, Perry and Jamie. Bonnie is a cracking dog but she is an absolute fruit loop and a bit kamikaze, this results in quite an inconsistent box! I think if we continue to work on this she could become a consistent 4.1/4.2sec dog which would be fab! At the mo she is 4.2/4.3secs. Smartie ran brilliantly and was very easy for me to change to with Perry. Jamie was also a good boy but seemed to be putting in an extra stride before the box, we checked him after and he had a bit of a sore toe bless him! We had some really close racing and finished 4th with a best time of 19.93secs.

Asher got to meet his future girlfriend for the 1st time, he decided he quite liked her :-). She ran brilliantly in starters and is going to be a superstar!

I had a lovely weekend with perfect weather, really looking forward to Frimley this weekend where we are in Div 2 so for once don't have to get annihilated by the likes of bassetts and stars lol!!!

Baby Asher

2009-06-16T07:11:00.004+01:00

Finally got around to moving some photos off my old phone on to here so thought I'd post some pics of Asher as a pupster. The 3rd picture is the 1st ever one I took of him the day after he came home so he was dead on 8wks then. In the other 3 he is about 12wks. He was gorgeous :-) (And still is!)

This Week

2009-06-13T02:37:00.003+01:00

I finally made it to agility this week after having to miss a couple of weeks due to having to work. Arrived to be told I had moved up a class, was really pleased as I had spent the last couple of months in a class with dogs I feel were not as advanced as Asher so he wasn't being tested. I completely understood why, as firstly we are not competing properly as yet and secondly I am an inexperienced handler in agility. Was really good to be in a class with competition dogs although I was a bit scared, I don't think he looked out of place at all.

I was really pleased with his weaves, he seems to be able to pick up any entry and fingers crossed the problem I had of him popping out of the weaves on the 9th/10th pole seems to have gone away. His jumping work was ok, we practised some pull throughs, he did it really well going in one direction but when we tried to do it the other way he was being a total muppet and ignoring me, got there eventually though. His contacts were really fast but I'm not too sure how to progress from where he is now. At the moment he still has food or a target at the bottom, he drives to these equally well, however when you remove these he will still go to his position if I am close by but if he can't see me he tends to slow up until I am at the end of the contact or he will go in to his position but trying to face me which resulted in him nearly coming off the side of the Aframe! I guess it is a matter of practice and confidence, should I maybe send him to a target and stand well back then get someone else to feed him so that he is more independent of me? Hmm, we'll see. I really want to enter some shows but he still needs to be measured and I don't want to go to a show risking missing a morning class because he can't be measured until lunchtime, it would be a long way to go for 1 run. Flyball has also taken up pretty much all of our weekends this summer. I have 1 free at the end of July, then 1 the weekend before the Champs when I really want to completely rest him. Then I am busy until October!

Had some free time on my hands this week so decided to teach doglets a new trick. They now both know how to cross their paws :-). Asher's repoirtoire is getting quite big now, wasn't sure it would ever be as big as Tess' but I think he knows more now. It's funny how they learn so differently, Tess is so full on, throws herself about trying to get it right and it takes a while for her to calm down and learn but she will usually get the fundamentals in one session. Then when you go back to it you almost have to start from scratch cuz she will of forgotten, this happens for a couple of sessions until it sinks in. Asher on the other hand is a thinker, he'll try a few things then he'll get frustrated and start being silly, you show him how to do it and he just doesn't seem to get it. You stop, then when you go back to it after he's had time to think he suddenly seems to understand what you are asking and perfecting the behaviour is easy, once he gets it, it's stuck and he doesn't forget!

No flyball this weekend, gave ourselves this one off as we then have 5 in a row :-).

Cornbury Park Game and Country Fair, Charlbury

2009-06-10T03:34:00.002+01:00

Decided to only go for the day as both our teams were running Sunday and the weather wasn't exactly looking promising. If I'm being honest I was dreading it Saturday night as it was tipping it down with rain and I always worry about running Asher if the ground is going to be slippery. When I arrived at the venue Sunday morning it was grey and miserable but it had stopped raining. They put off racing until 10am to give the ground some time to drain.

Rockets were up 1st in Division 2, we were a bit short on dogs this weekend so we had old girly Jive up with us as our start dog and then the usuals Perry, Smartie and Jamie. Jive did really well considering Louise insisted on getting like a gazillion false starts, it wasn't entirely Lou's fault as she is now running Jive from around 25ft so that she doesn't hit the box so hard and can get a better turn as she finds accelerating back off the box a little harder now (she'll be 11 in Sept), this worked really well and I found her really consistent to change to with Perry. Perry was an angel as always, I feel sorry for his owner Bobbie who doesn't get to race him at the moment due to running Jamie! We were top seed but weren't sure how we'd do as we expected to be considerably slower with no Bonnie, Lacy or Sonny on this team but we were really pleased to just lose one race and finish 2nd with a best time of 20.09secs.

Ballistics were 2nd seed in Div 1, we were quite hopeful for a good placing as there was around half a second difference in seeding between us and the next seed. We didn't have Diefer this weekend so the team was Sonny, Rosie, Asher and Bunty. The 1st race was a total disaster, we got 3 lights in 3 legs and that was that! The 2nd race was alot better, we got our act together and managed a best time of 18.14secs, the next race we managed 18.16secs and we won both of those. We were really pleased with those times as we would expect to be slightly slower without Diefer and we had a little bit of room on our changeovers. I must say though, I felt Asher was on fire, he looked amazing and he had some awesome boxes. I think he even shocked himself with some of them as he was over rotating slightly, certainly no chance of him going wide that day lol! We have discovered that we must anchor the box down at the sides aswell as Asher hits it so high he lifts it up which puts him off balance, with it firmly anchored he seemed to have more confidence in putting his 4 feet up higher which I hope will continue to improve and become more consistent. This also helped Jive and Sonny. Sonny was fumbling alot less, he is gradually getting better. We've had problems with the fact that his box has got so much better that he has less time to catch the ball so he has been mis-timing it quite regularly and fumbling. With the box anchored I suppose the box fire was more consistent and easier to judge, makes perfect sense now but only when you think about these things! Anyway in the afternoon we managed to lose another race on lights, won the next one. Then had the Bandits as the last race, we finally managed to put in 3 perfect runs but they were just that little bit quicker. So we finished with won 3, lost 3 and somehow ended up 5th! A bit disappointing but I'm sure were just saving up all our good luck for the Champs!

Had a couple of lovely comments on how fantastic Asher is, makes me smile, god I love my dog :-)! And the weather was mostly lovely, hot and sunny!

Acremead Kennels

2009-05-30T03:02:00.002+01:00

I think I've just about recovered enough to post a blog!! I decided after a lot of persuasion (ok one comment on facebook!!) to go up to Oxford on the Sunday night instead of going for the day on Monday. Their was a party going on so I couldn't really miss out even if it was my 3rd night in a row after going out Saturday night as a Ladybird (thats a whole other story!). Set up camp in the lovely venue then it was partytime for Katie's birthday Mad Mutt stylee! Had a wicked night which resulted in me eventually heading to bed at 4am, unfortunately I think their may be photos of Me, Sam, Faye and Katie doing the dance routine to Call On Me... Oh dear!

Monday we had Rockets in Div 2 and Ballistics in Div 1. Rockets were Sonny, Lacy, Perry, Smartie and Jamie. All the dogs ran brilliantly even though it was very hot (not that i'm complaining.. it makes a change!), they lost 2 races but one was to the division winners who were running under 19 and one was due to us getting lights. I got to run the lovely perry again :-) and we managed to better our seed time by almost half a second to 19.24secs. Was again very impressed by Lacy, she was quick, reliable, lovely fast box and very consistent all day. We ended up 2nd :-).

Ballistics were Diefer, Asher, Bonnie, Bunty and Jive as reserve. We took a bit of a gamble with this team as we didn't have Rosie, we could of played sensible and put Sonny up but Bonnie is quicker than him so we decided it was worth a go. Unfortunately it didn't work out for us this time. Bonnie has only done 2 starters and 1 open and with her being so fast and focused we had always ran her start dog at competitions. At training we have done loads of changeover work and really didn't think it would be a problem as she had to go 2nd to Diefer as he has to go start. Unfortunately maybe the change of environment or over excitement of competition caused her to nip at Diefer on her outrun, this completely freaked him and he wouldn't come back over the jumps if he could see her lining up. We then changed her to anchor so that we could keep her completely out of the way until Diefer had run but this caused Bunty to start dropping the ball. Eventually we were able to run her 3rd from close to the gate and a very late changeover on Asher as we didn't want him to be spooked aswell. By the end of the day she had settled a lot and wasn't looking at Asher so I think it will be easily solved, it's just a shame it didn't go right on the day! Somehow we managed a best time of 18.80secs! We finished 5th. Better luck next time!

Big thankyou to the Mutts, firstly for changing venues so that we could go :-P (and it was a lovely venue), the fab party on Sunday and the great, relaxed day of racing on Monday!

Oh and this weekend Asher decided that he was infact a lefty again apart from one random right turn in the middle of the days racing.

Arbury Hall and my Ambidextrous Dog!

2009-05-20T01:50:00.002+01:00

We were at Arbury Hall over the weekend, it rained... alot! However the rain could not dampen our spirits!! We had 3 teams in, missiles ran Saturday. They were Tyne, Sky, Jive, Chelsey, Guinness and Fraggle. There was a big improvement in this team from Stockbridge, they all ran really well. Guinness was hitting the box alot better, and i think the cooler weather suited Tyne, Sky and Fraggle who looked alot more focused. Chelsey was a little star, you wouldn't think it was her 2nd competition, she can run anywhere and has a cracking box. Fraggle had a new audience to impress as none of the teams there had seen him race before! Unfortunately they found themselves in division 5 rather than 6 so were a little outclassed and ended up coming 5th but the main thing was that they raced well.

Sunday we had the rockets in division 3. They were Sonny, Perry, Smartie and Jamie. This was such a close division!! I think all the teams were running low 20s or v late 19s so every race really could have gone either way. I had the pleasure of running Perry as Bobbie was running Jamie. Most of the races went to 5 legs and we were just abit unlucky in a couple, we ended up coming 4th with a best time of 19.97secs which we were really pleased with considering the ground had deteriorated quite alot by Sunday.

Ball-istics were 2nd seed in Division 1. They were Diefer, Rosie, Asher and Bunty. Was lovely to have our height dog back and be running over 10" again! First race against Kiddy Monsters didn't really go to plan, we just didn't gel and weren't very fast so we lost that one although Asher's box actually looked really good despite the slippery ground! In the next 2 races in the morning things came together and we started running well, not super fast but we won. Don't think I was working Asher back aswell as I could cuz I was too scared i was going to fall over lol! Not sure what time's he was running but Mark said he had got him at 3.8s on his phone. In the afternoon, we had 2 races and you get to find out what my post title is about!

Now I may have mentioned before that Asher was trained to turn right on the box as a young dog as from about 7months he looked like a definite righty. At 18months just before his 1st comp he decided he didn't like turning right and refused to turn that way so we swapped sides and it took me ages to get his left turn as good as his right turn was. Towards the end of last yr and a couple of times this yr he accidently had the ball loaded on the wrong side and went up and adjusted himself and turned right which I thought was very clever of him but didn't think anything of it! Now in the 1st race in the afternoon he went up, hit the box and basically did a somersault, I think people thought that it was a dip infront of the box that had caused it but I watched him and it was because he'd tried to turn right even though the ball was loaded left ( everyone still with me??!), so the judge kindly arranged for this dip to be filled and we ran again and he turned right again. So next leg we loaded it right and he went up and did a 4-foot turn to the right. We won that race. Last race was against High Flyers, decided to give him a warm up with the ball on the left again just to double check that he wasn't just trying to turn so that he could see the other lane (as we were now in red lane and had been in the blue lane in the race previous) but he insisted on turning right so we decided to load it right and just let him sort himself out. We had a really fun last race against the Flyers, we took a leg off them (light) and had a really close last leg as we managed to get Bunty a bit of a lead but Chuckle was just a bit too quick for her! If anyone can shed any light on Asher's turn, answers on a postcard please :-)! So we finished 3rd with a best time of 18.41secs (last leg of the day!).

Was really nice to catch up with people we haven't seen for aaages and race against teams we don't usually see. I still don't think I have managed to get rid of all the mud, and haven't even looked at Asher's harness since, don't think you can tell it is blue anymore! And just for the record I was tucked up in bed by 9pm Saturday and had nothing to do with signs being moved to the flyball ring!!

Stockbridge

2009-05-08T01:40:00.002+01:00

Saturday was Starters day. We had two teams, Bristol Babies and Bristol Bouncers. Babies were on 1st with Bonnie, Elliot, Chelsey and Jamie. It was Elliot's 1st competition, not that you would of known it, he was fab. Infact they were all brilliant, although still some work to be done on turns. They won every race up until the last 1 which was against a very good bassetts team, it was close but by the end of the day Chelsey in particular tired alot which put us just slightly behind. So they finished a very credible 2nd with a time of 20.46secs.

Bouncers were Jemma, Lacey, Luna, Fraggle and Keri. I was priviledged to run Keri as her mum couldn't come, it was so lush to have a nice, obedient dog that doesn't pull and doesn't bark, she was a little star :-)! We were abit worried as to how Jem would run as she does like the other lane!! However she was a good girly and although she had a look, she didn't stop and bark or attempt to run across on her way up to the line so I think we are making progress. Lacey was brilliant as usual! Fraggle suffered a bit with the heat, especially as it was best of 5 legs, he was a good boy and did some nice runs but it was lucky that we had super-sub Keri there to give him a rest, I think she had fun aswell! Luna is still getting faster, hope this continues (and she doesn't grow anymore!!). They won every race so finished 1st with 20.10secs!

Sunday we had all 3 teams running. Extraset were up 1st, they were Tyne, Sky, Jive, Molly, Guinness and Fraggle. Racing didn't really go to plan with Tyne running out, then Sky was on a go slow and Guinness was having trouble triggering the box. On a postive, Fraggle got his 1st points, granted not many of them, but it is a start. He did keep pausing to have his picture taken but was a good boy and didn't go say hello to anyone! Needless to say they finished last, and I think we'll just move on from that one!

Ballistics and Rockets were in the same division... what a kerfuffle!!! We've done it before and managed fine but that was with all experienced dogs and handlers. Well the rockets had 4 new dogs and 2 new handlers! The team consisted of Bonnie, Lacey, Smartie (Miss Experienced), Chelsey and Jamie. The 1st race went a bit pear shaped due to Bonnie deciding that she was now racing for real and speeding up. This resulted in a faster outrun and a wider box turn, so she ran out a couple of times (well she had speeded up to around 4.1secs so we might let her off!). It was all just a bit hectic to be honest but in the 2nd race they managed to settle down and things started to come together. We ran Bonnie closer to the startline and did a warm up with the jump in to remind her of her box turn, this seemed to sort her out and she was fine after that! Lacey and her owners were just fantastic all day, you never would of known they were new, they are gonna be such an important part of the team. Chelsey and Jamie were also brilliant, another very valuable height dog! And Smartie did a great job of holding all the youngsters together. They only managed to win 1 race but there were a couple of others that were very close and they took the ballistics to 5legs so all in all a good day for the debutees! There best time was 19.67secs.

Due to having no Bunty we submitted a time of 19secs for the ballistics, we had Diefer, Sonny, Rosie, Perry and Asher. Diefer has been the bain of our lives with regard to full height jumps, he just wouldn't do them. Well we finally thought we had cracked it with him through loads of power jumping over winter and a trip to the chiropractor a couple of weeks previously. First couple of races he was fab, we managed a best time of 18.78secs which we were really pleased with. However in the 3rd race he started running out and we had to bring in Perry, the 3rd race also happened to be against the rockets! That was a stressful race with Perry trying to get back to Bobby who was racing Jamie and Smartie being pretty damn sure that she should be in our lane as she ran with our dogs all last year! We only just won it in the end with Asher having to catch up Jamie! In the 1st afternoon race Diefer was still running out and then Sonny started aswell, little git! It was so disappointing as we were fast enough to win but you can never predict flyball! Luckily in the last race we got Sonny running again and we won so finished 2nd overall. Was really pleased with Asher particularly in the afternoon, he seemed to be driving back alot more. His box was better than the last comp although still not perfect. He was running between 4-4.1 over the full height jumps.

So we had a great weekend, lovely weather (I've got sunburnt lips!) and good racing. Also played rounders on the Saturday night which was fun. I do think flyballers these days need to get a bit more hardcore though, by 1am we were the only party in the field still going, whats with that?? Although I am assured that there will be a party at Arbury and another certain Mad team will be keeping us up all night through the summer!!

Happy 3rd Birthday Asher and Happy 12th Birthday Tess!

2009-05-02T00:30:00.002+01:00

Happy Birthday to both my beautiful babies! Asher's birthday is 1st May and Tess' is 2nd May (same as David Beckham :-D).

Gave them both a bath the other day, so that they would look pretty for their birthdays and so I could take some nice photos to put on here, unfortunately my phone is playing up and won't let me send them at the moment so you'll have to wait for those!

Were off to flyball in the morning at Stockbridge, really looking forward to it as training went so well last weekend! Taking both my dogs as decided that it's warm enough for Tess now and I couldn't really leave her at home on her birthday! I'm sure she'll be very excited!

Recent training and Tess update

2009-04-24T03:00:00.006+01:00

So we were back at flyball training on Monday. Quite a small group as not everyone can do Monday nights but it was nice as each dog could have a bit longer. Worked alot on the box. Was pleased with how consistent Lacy and Jemma's turns have become, Jemma's particularly is perfect, just a shame we can't sort the rest of her out lol! Elliot is getting faster, he is gonna be one speedy doggy, he had a few dodgy turns as he is readjusting to his change in speed but his turn will end up fab! With diefer, sonny, smartie and asher we worked on box as diefer's had gone down hill recently, went back to basics and just had him jumping on and off the box which seemed to help. Sonny has always been a challenge on the box as he is so ball obsessed he doesn't think about what he's doing when the ball is in the box. So we worked with a 9" jump infront of the box instead of 6" which really made him think and he was doing lovely full runs with the ball in and a 4footed turn :-). With Asher I really wanted to reinforce his turn as it had been perfect at training but in the excitement of competition he had been messing it up. Did lots of full runs, really winding him up to get him to go the speed of a competition and left the jump in. He was a bit lazy the first couple and was knocking the jump but after that he was fab. We ran them as a team but only from about 10-20ft so they weren't quite at full speed. My project is now Luna as she has so much potential and I want to get her doing perfect turns. She will do a nice 4-foot turn with no ball but when the ball is there she is just doing 2-foot so we just need to build it up.

Went to agility training last night, hadn't been for a couple of weeks as I was so focused on flyball. He was really good but we did only do pretty easy stuff. Did some more stuff today, lots of 1 jump exercises to help him understand my body language and stop him jumping so long all the time. Found that he doesn't value jumps enough, sort of explains his tunnel obsession and that he doesn't pay enough attention to my body movement when I am behind him. He's good at changing direction when I change my arm but only when i'm level or infront of him. This needs to improve so that we can do rear crosses successfully which at the moment usually results in a twizzle. Also worked on getting him to wrap the jump wing which although destroyed his jumping to start with did get better and by the end he was really curving his body.

Finally, my little girly Tess is doing really well. She's still a bit wobbly on her back legs and has the odd fall over but generally she can still run around and play and do her circles which makes her happy :-)! She comes on all the walks again now and can manage about an hr and a half as long as she trots most of the way rather than trying to run or bounce the whole time! She's not on any medication at the moment as it just seems to make her worse but just starting her on joint aid so hopefully that will help. She will be 12 next week. This photo is of her and Asher out on a walk the other day.

Finally!!

2009-04-23T02:22:00.002+01:00

Ok so I've been a really bad blogger and I thought it was time for an update, wanted to do this a week ago but my internet was down.

Quite alot has gone on in the last month. Went to the 2nd of our agilitynuts shows. It went ok, best round being the elementary jumping where we had 10faults. He had 2 refusals where he was going to fast, i was late with his commands and he ran past the jump. Asher was his usual nutter self and was really looking forward to the up and under class as it was so straight forward and blasty. Unfortunately he had a pole and then the next time round ran past it as he didn't see it as a jump so got E'd which was a shame as he did it very quickly! Was naughty in the agility and gamblers, his contacts were shit and he just kept heading for tunnels. It's annoying cuz he doesn't really do this at training and his contacts are usually fab. Had a lesson with Char the day before which was great. Exposed a weekness in his contacts that he doesn't have a strong enough understanding of the position and his nose touch when there isn't food there as a 'target'. Was pleased with his weaves at Chars, she did post a video of them although he did catch himself a couple of times, he is so clumsy! I've decided that he still needs more work before I enter him in KC shows, I don't want to ruin him by pushing him too soon so I will work on him over the summer and hopefully debut in the Autumn as i don't really have a free weekend over summer anyway!

Flyball training has gone well the last few weeks although I have been disappointed in some of the boxwork. We've had to rush the last few weeks as we had to have the dogs ready to compete at Easter and it shows! If I'd of had my way we would of done all the team training, full runs etc with the jump still infront of the box as it is still not fully ingrained in the dogs that they must jump on and off of the box. A couple of the starters who have only been trained using the new training looked great, there turns are fab and although they are not as high on the box as I would like they are doing really good turns. Most of the other dogs reverted to there old turns in varying degrees. It was quite disappointing after all the work we put in but we really just ran out of time. Ashers turn looked fantastic in training, even when training as a team he was still going and putting 4feet on and driving off everytime. The most positive thing about the winter training seems to be the work we have put in to power training and giving the dogs confidence in changeovers as all of the dogs including the starters I feel would be happy to run in any postion and always drive back rather than slowing on there return. I will continue to persevere with the turns even though I sometimes get the impression that people are getting a bit fed up of it and just want there dog to be able to go up and back. I can see the potential for fantastic turns in most of the dogs it will just require alot of patience and reinforcement!

So Easter FINALLY arrived and I was able to go to a flyball competition for the 1st time in 6months, Yay :-D! To say I was excited is an understatement! Friday was starters and we had our team of Bonnie, Lacy, Chelsey, Jamie, Luna and Fraggle. For all of them it was there 1st competition and a 1st for some of the people aswell. Bonnie was an absolute star running consistent 4.2secs all day with a great turn and powering back despite the slippery ground. Lacy was also super quick and didn't bat an eye lid at the changeovers or the other lane which we were really happy with as she likes to have a little look and those lilacs are renowned for being a bit crazy lol ;-). Chelsey (little choc lab) and Jamie (terrier) ran like pros, when we proof Chelsey's turn a bit more it is going to be fantastic, she really understands the jump but when you take it away she gets a bit confused so just needs more reinforcement. Jamie is going to be a quick little dog and will hopefully get us 8" jump height. Luna is just 13months and hadn't had much training due to her being in season a couple of weeks before. She had also been being quite naughty on her recall and doing little laps of honour so Carol worked on that non-stop for the week before the show and she was fab. Perfectly behaved all day, I think she was getting faster as he confidence grew aswell so hopefully this will continue and then she can be our superfast height dog as she is tiny for a collie! Then we had Fraggle our Leonberger who had quite an audience, we were a bit worried as he generally likes to say hello to everyone but he behaved himself and ran really well. Only problem is that he is really light on the box, crazy to think as he weighs nearly as much as I do! So sometimes he wasn't triggering it, not a problem in starters but won't be good in open, we'll just have to make the box really sensitive and work on him hitting the box harder. They came 2nd in the end, just losing out to Power Paws, with a best time of 21.8?secs i think. We were thrilled with how they ran so they will all run again in starters on the 2nd May and hopefully make there open debut that weekend (apart from Luna who won't be old enough).

Extraset ran in Div 8 on the Saturday, had problems with the box in the 1st couple of races, firstly it wouldn't trigger then it was too sensitive and wouldn't load. Was a bit annoying as we should of won one of those races. The afternoon went more smoothly, we managed to win 1 of our races. The ground was still quite slippery and the dogs seemed a little off there pace but I think that was mainly just fitness. They ended up 5th.

Ballistics were in Div 1 on Sunday. Was so looking forward to it. 1st race was against Maples, went to 5legs and we won! Mainly due to them having lights but we did manage a best time of 18.00secs. We were really pleased with that seeing as we hadn't raced for so long. I'm sure Angie won't mind me saying that our height dog Bunty was a bit off the speed she usually runs. She's usually 4.7-4.8secs but was doing more 5-5.3secs. We don't really know why but suspect it was the ground. Asher was sliding alot and his box was rubbish, I was gutted, he was so slow lol! When I say slow most of his runs were 4.0-4.1. It was difficult as we had 6dogs on the team so involved alot of swapping around. We lost against Stars and Bassetts but we expected to so that was fine. We thought we had a chance against hampshire and fourpaws. Both of them were really close and they both did there fastest times against us! Hampshire did 17.78 and really consistent against us and beat us. Fourpaws did 17.95 which is there fastest ever time! We would of had them in the 3rd leg but I got a light! I want Scrumpy from there team, she is lush! So we ended up last but we raced well. Sonny ran 4.4-4.5s which is an improvement from last yr where he was around 4.6. Rosie ran 4.3-4.4, she loved having low jumps as she has never really raced over them before. Asher's box improved slightly over the day and his times got better, he did a few 3.9s but still lots of room for him to get faster.

So lots of positives and a few negatives. But it's all constructive so we will get better! Can't wait til the 2nd May now where we have TWO starter teams and 3 open!

I'll post another blog about recent training!

Canine Massage, Flyball training, Agility league match

2009-03-04T20:17:00.002Z

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 :-)

My Blue Asheroo

2009-02-26T01:38:00.002Z

Asher's Kennel Club registration came back today, got my 1st choice name and he is now officially 'My Blue Asheroo'

Chose it because Tess is Mobella My Tess so thought it would be nice to start with 'my'. Blue for obvious reasons and Asheroo because it is his nickname, as i think he is part kangaroo! He also likes to talk to you and makes a very odd noise that sounds like rrrrrooooo ooo oooo lol :-D.

So this now means we can enter KC shows, don't know if I'm happy or scared :-s!

Agility Nuts -1st ever agility show

2009-02-25T18:27:00.003Z

So I headed all the way up to Nottingham for our 1st agility competition. Stayed with Sarah, Jemma and Elliot which was nice :-).

First was elementary helter skelter, was quite a nice course apart from one quite big gap between jump 14&15 which made Asher stop and bark at me (he does that if he doesn't know where he is going next). Also the last straight as you'll see from the video was tunnel, long jump, spread. He has only done the long jump once (don't seem to do it at training for some reason?) and that was ages ago and he has never done a spread. I think with it being his 1st run he was quite unsure of what was going on and wanted to stay close to me so was quite steady (for him!!) and wasn't confident going on. He was really good and just had a pole where I think I dropped my arm as i tried to get him to turn tight and then on the last straight he pulled off the spread and I had to bring him back to put him over it so we ended up with 10faults which I was really pleased with as his 1st run.

Next was elementary agility. By this time he realised what was going on and had gone in to flyball mode. He was naughty at the start (got over his go on issues lol), did 2 jumps then shot past the weaves in to a tunnel, brought him back and he completed weaves on 2nd go despite the draw of the tunnel, he flew up the next line of jumps but then just stopped when I told him right, i think he was just over-excited. The rest of the course he completed really well, flew over the aframe and stopped but just came off the end so I put him back on. It was then jump, tunnel, dogwalk. The angle from tunnel to dogwalk was ok but at Asher speed it was a bit tricky and he nearly fell off the side on the way up which slowed him down considerably but he still went to his 2on 2off. So good points and bad points to this run and will have to work on maintaining his composure!

The elementary snooker was quite funny. I don't think I handled the start very well, should of handled it the same as Sarah with Jemma. He ran past the Aframe as I didn't give him a very good angle to work with, the next time up the aframe I crossed behind him and he thought i was pulling him off so he tried to turn around, i managed to keep him going but had a sketchy couple of secs which resulted in a v slow descent to FP, 3rd aframe I think he had lost his confidence a bit so waited for me before going in to FP so need to work on his independence in this. Yellow was a tunnel, green was 3 jumps that could be completed in any order. Asher decided to do them the flashy way, don't know how we managed it, you'll see what I mean in the video! I was laughing alot by this point, brown was another tunnel with another horrible angle to dog walk which was blue. So I stopped him to send him up it but again he nearly fell off (stupid dog!) which resulted in it being slow again. He then just missed his weave entry so we finished on 38points out of 51maximum and he came 10th. Rosettes went to 9th!

Last was elementary jumping. This was right at the end of the day. I had decided between this to try get some energy out of him so he wouldn't be such a lunatic however I think I overdid it abit and made him too tired. I also didn't get chance to walk the course as we didn't realise that the same course was being used for several classes and that walking had taken place prior to them which we missed. I thought it was a tricky course as the 1st part was quite tight with all the jumps on angles even though it was worked on 1 side, I think a slightly more experienced dog/handler would of found it fine though. Well he ran past the 3rd jump and after that I think I kinda gave up. I worked him round the rest of the course but he barked the whole time and missed a few turns, he looked tired and it wasn't a good run. He did the spread out section well, which was a simple go on around the outside of the ring, up 3 jumps, right turn, jump, longjump, tunnel.

Overall I think I learnt alot from the day. I learnt where he is at with regards to his contacts. As in we need more work on going to his position regardless of where I am and alternating as to whether there is food there or not. Need to do lots more handling exercises to get him to follow me particularly on tight courses and with slightly offset jumps. And we need to work on weave entries perhaps towards the end of courses when he is most excited to simulate the competition environment as at training even if he comes out further down he nearly always gets the entry. His waits were fantastic, didn't move so much as a paw all day. But then I expected that and would of been gutted had it been any different.

I guess most of this doesn't make much sense without the videos, I only have the Helter Skelter at the mo as I have to transfer the rest of them from my phone!

One step forward...

2009-02-12T01:07:00.002Z

And I think it was only one step back rather than two, could of been worse. Agility tonight had its ups and downs.

His contacts were amazing, best i've seen them, really really driving the dog walk and his final position was good too, he slid off the end once but was stretching his legs back to find the contact cuz he knew where he was supposed to be, was quite funny actually! Seesaw and aframe were excellent too, had a toy about 6 foot from the bottom of the aframe so that he was focusing ahead which worked well. Was pleased with his go ons as they have been a bit hesistant recently with him keeping glancing at me. He very much aims to please so needs reassurance all the time but tonight he seemed more confident. We worked some stars tightly and widely spaced and included front crosses which went really well but I was told I have to stop babying him as I was causing him to knock poles. I have to learn to trust that he will go on and turn when I tell him rather than calling him or bending over!

Now you know whats coming... weaves were crap! You think you might be getting there then it all goes pete tong again! He missed a couple of entries then he was coming out anywhere from the 6th pole onwards but only when he was on my right. I wouldn't mind if I hadn't practised but we spent time today working on his weaves from all angles and with him mainly on the right. Maybe it's because I don't have 12 weaves and he is getting used to doing 8? Doesn't explain the entries though. Going to have to practice more!

Oh and Asher is getting measured Sunday, my wonderful friend Sarah is taking him for me as I have to work. I have a sneaky suspicion that he may be large ;-)

16 days...

2009-02-05T01:30:00.002Z

Until Asher makes his agility debut!! We are going to the agility nuts winter league on feb 22nd. I'm a little bit scared cuz not sure if he's ready but I think he'll cope fine even if we make a few mistakes! I'm fairly confident in his contacts and his weaves are improving all the time, handling still needs work (for both of us) but as long as the courses aren't too hard we should be ok. Hoping for a little bit of extra help beforehand aswell :-D!

If all goes ok we are then going to the next agility nuts show in march. Hopefully he will make his KC debut at Wallingford in April.

Made a bit of a breakthrough on his weaves last week at training. After all the work I put in on his entries they were cracking, he only missed one, was so pleased. Problem I've had recently is him coming out on 9th-10th weave, realised that I am drifting away from him and slightly turning my shoulder at this point drawing him out as he tries to follow my body language so closely. After I learnt to run in a straight line he did them perfectly :-)

His contacts felt alot more solid this week, seesaw was really good and I feel like he's looking forward more now from the contact position. So a much more positive week, hopefully if i keep the work level up things will keep on getting better.

I knew this was going to happen!

2009-02-05T01:17:00.003Z

I've been tagged!

The instructions were:
Open a document or file folder
Click on the fifth folder and then the fifth photo
Post the photo and describe it
Then tag 5 other bloggers.

Well everyone else ended up with lovely pics of there dogs or someone elses dogs and i suspected that wouldn't be the case in my situation! This is me and my friend Kim in Oceana Bristol, atleast we don't look too drunk in this pic although it was taken by some random guy who I believe wanted to be referred to as "sexy shane". It didn't exactly fit.

I think pretty much everyone I know has already been tagged, so don't know what I'm supposed to do!

Flyball Training 18th Jan

2009-01-20T21:22:00.002Z

I finally got to go training, yay :-D! We had a fab session, with all the dogs performing really well and Asher actually getting a proper work out now that everyone knows what they're doing with the box training. Box training was really good we put the netting in like we planned and had the dogs turning off the box and chasing the ball over the 1st jump back (after I learnt to throw properly!).

The video shows 3 of our dogs turning on the box. The 1st is Elliot who is still only a baby and won't be a yr old for a few more days. He is a rescue and is doing brilliantly well, definitely a star of the future! The 2nd is Bunty who is a patterdale/bedlington cross we think, she is a total nutter but also a very valuable height dog. The 3rd dog is Sonny, otherwise known as Bryning Falcon. The difference in his turn is incredible! Again sorry for the bad quality!

More Agility Training

2009-01-19T18:51:00.005Z

If I'm honest I was a little bit disappointed with training on Wednesday. It was our first week back after a months break but I guess I just expect alot from him. It all started really well with a couple of jumping courses, they were fairly straight forward but did have front crosses which we haven't done before (I really had to run to get there lol) and he was really good. Then we did weaves and it was not good. He took the entry on the wrong side and then he was coming out around the 9th pole. I think it was because we had crappy plastic poles in and on the last ones were the thicker channel poles as some of his class have the guides on. Well he didn't like them rattling so he wouldn't do them. He is an odd dog sometimes. Was abit annoyed that they then wouldn't take them off so that he could finish on doing them right. Next was agility and his contacts were a bit rubbish for the 1st time in ages. He wasn't holding his 2o2o as well as usual and was spinning round to look for me although he was driving the down planks quicker than I've seen him before so I guess that is a positive. He flew his seesaw and would of been fine after that if it wasn't for our trainer insisting on standing at the end of the seesaw with a treat so that as the seesaw tipped he was just walking off the end to get the treat off of him so there was no 2o2o and no release which is NOT what I want!

The good thing about bad sessions is that they kick you in to doing something about it. So I spent sunday afternoon on his weaves and shadow handling. I focused on his entrys and got him wrapping the 1st pole from the left and going in between 1 and 2 from the right. I was surprised at how quickly he picked this up and the difficulty of entries he managed by the end. I took a couple of videos but they are really bad quality, you kinda have to squint to see them but you get the idea. Still need to work on his forward focus after the weaves and me in different positions and running past him etc.

R.I.P Jack

2009-01-15T19:24:00.002Z

It was with great sadness that we had to say goodbye to Jack last week aged 14yrs. He was probably the nicest, friendliest dog I've ever known. He was also the greatest flyball dog I have ever seen.

I started flyball with Tess not long after Jack achieved his amazing times of 3.85secs making him at that time the fastest dog in Europe. I just remember being totally gobsmacked that a dog could complete a run in that time. I felt honoured to train with him and couldn't believe it when I got to run Tess in a team with him. He was so easy to change to as he was so consistent and unflappable. A few years later I was also priviledged to run Jack in competition whilst June went through her many injuries (she is so accident prone!), he would never stop barking from the time you put his harness on until the time you took it off. I really felt like I was handling a superstar. He would run in any position over any height and was totally reliable. Jack raced until he was 12, he achieved his Jade award.

Jack had a special relationship with Tess, they were so in love! Neither of them had really taken much notice of other dogs until they met each other. I'd never seen Tess try to play with another dog before but her and Jack would play all the time. We used to have to ask for ground floor rooms when we stayed at travel lodges cuz all they would do the whole time would be bounce around the room together, it was very sweet.

Jack was such a softy, he didn't have a bad bone is his body and he was very cuddly. He was everyones friend but he was so loyal to June and would howl when left in the car at flyball.

He really was a very special dog and he has left a big gap in the lives of those who knew him. I loved him like he was my own and I'm sure alot of others felt the same. He will be greatly missed.

R.I.P Jack

xxxxxx

The Last 3 Weeks

2009-01-13T19:11:00.003Z

Well Christmas has come and gone and we are now in the brand new year. Christmas wasn't a great time as Tess hasn't been well to the point where I thought I might lose her. She lost coordination in her legs so couldn't walk properly and was falling over. The vet suspected a neurological problem but before we proceded with any further treatment he wanted to check that a lump on her back wasn't cancerous so she went in for a biopsy christmas eve. She was only supposed to be in there a few hours but she reacted quite badly to the anaestetic and took ages to come round which meant she had to stay in overnight, the vet was quite worried about her. I picked her up Christmas day and luckily she was ok and the lump isn't cancerous. Next had to decide whether to put her through mri scan but as this would also require a lengthly anaestetic I've decided against it as it would only (maybe) show the problem and the vet doesn't think that whatever is wrong with her would be easily fixed. So I had her on steriod tablets for a week to see if this would reverse some of her coordination problems and to be quite honest I'm not sure if it has worked or not. They made her very sick and she was very ill over the weekend so I took her off of them. She is fine again now and oddly her front legs seem alot better, she is not knuckling over like she was and seems less wobbly on them. I'm guessing this is an effect of the tablets but I didn't see any improvement whilst she was actually on them?!?! Maybe she is just being more careful. So I think I need another chat with my lovely vet. I'm happy that she hasn't deteriorated any further and she is perfectly happy in herself, I just hope we can keep her that way. I'm not ready to lose my princess, she isn't even 12 yet :-(.

Asher has kinda suffered abit over this time too, It has all felt a bit wrong walking him without Tess so he hasn't had as much exercise as usual and then just as I was getting to grips with the whole walking 1 dog thing he took a chunk out of the top of his paw, he is totally kamikaze when he's out and runs full pelt in to everything so he's always cutting himself but this was quite deep and kept opening when he ran so i had to rest him for a week meaning we missed agility training last week. We've started getting back in to a regime in the last few days and I finally did some weave and wall training with him this afternoon. He was really good but totally manic and i had to move the weave poles like everytime he went through them as he was moving them so much. His wall work was great, he was taking off from further away and pushing further off the wall, he was also achieving the height I wanted without my hand with the ragger in position and then he was driving off the wall to get his ragger on the ground about 10ft away.

Ball-istics started training again on Sunday but i couldn't go as I had to work, I was gutted but apparently they all did really well. I'll be there this Sunday to push the training forward another step. I'm planning on putting the first jump in in front of the box but still not loading a ball as i don't want to start loading until we actually have our new box. Were going to put netting in a tear drop shape around the box area to the 1st jump so that the dogs have plenty of space (and it allows for errors in my ball throwing!) but do actually have to straighten up as the plan is that when they jump on to the box I will throw the ball over the 1st jump so that they really spring off the box and drive over the jump going back. Then we can start to shape the turn by altering the position and height of the prop. Hopefully won't be too long til we get the new box, feels like we could be pushing on alot quicker but that is holding us back. Although I'm sure taking it slow will pay off in the end.

Agility training tomorrow aswell, really looking forward to it :-)

Dizzy!

2008-12-23T02:31:00.006Z

I'll update properly another time but for now just a little video of my nutty dogs that I found on my phone! I used this park to teach Tess to do comebye and away when she was younger and when I got Asher he just sorta copied her but in the opposite direction. They'll both go on like this for ages if i'm stood in the middle! I'm surprised they don't get dizzy, I do if I watch them too long!

Asher is Advanced and rule changes

2008-12-07T00:13:00.002Z

Points have gone up from our last flyball of the season which was Brinkworth and Asher is now Flyball Dog Advanced, yay! To be honest i'm not really bothered about points and I'd much rather go to a competition and get a faster time and know that I've pushed every single change even if that means lots of lights than get loads of points. I'd certainly never re-run my dog if I got a light unless the other team got a light aswell but saying that it is lovely to get the certificates as a record of your dogs achievement and your own dedication! You don't really get any record of a fast time unless you print out the seedings list! Tess retired on 19,313points, she was very annoyed that i didn't let her train today!

The jump height proposal went through which I am pleased about so dogs now jump 5" less than there shoulder height. Will mean that our 1st team will now jump 13" so hopefully that will make a bit of a difference to us. We will have to see how that affects our height dog Bunty who will now get 10", she currently runs about 4.8 over 11" but with all the box and power training if we could get her down to consistent 4.6secs she would be a contender for the 1st team. Asher would love to run over 10", he goes in to super speed, his box is also better over low jumps!

Flyball training!

2008-12-06T23:06:00.006Z

If you read this regularly or know our team you'll know that we are currently in the process of changing boxes from the boomerang to the flat front style. We still do not have our new box or a chute as apparently men aren't as handy as they used to be :-P (hopefully this will be sorted by the new yr!)!

But I am pushing on with the training nonetheless. I have been getting the dogs to jump over and back over a 6inch jump. The handler releases their dog from about 10ft, I stand the other side of the jump with a ball and when all four feet are over the jump i throw the ball back towards the handler. When the dog is comfortable with this and is anticipating the turn and throw of the ball I am putting our old box about 5ft back from the jump so that they learn that the box is not necessarily the target but they must just again perform the turn over the jump. As we don't have a chute yet I am using our boomerangs as a make shift one just for the dogs to turn on without it being loaded. I am gradually moving the box forward so that the dog is eventually making contact with the box as it turns. Today was the 4th session of this box work and all the dogs were brilliant. Today we had i think 16 dogs at training and i managed to get all but 2 of them turning on the box with all 4 feet. Some of the turns were just stunning, especially Sonny who we've always had problems with as he is so ball obsessed that he doesn't think about the turn just getting the ball but the change is incredible. The good thing about me having the ball is that they always get correctly rewarded for the behaviour I want and because i'm throwing the ball they are really snapping back off straight to chase it. I originally wanted them to be able to go and turn off the box independently with no ball and with me not standing there on command so that the transition between boomerang - chute - flat front is easier. But now I actually think that shaping the turn whilst they are focusing on the ball may make the transition easier as during a full run the ball is what the dogs are looking at and is what also messes up the turn when the dog has practised for so long with no ball. Therefore if i can create a turn where the dog is focusing on a ball at the same time then when it actually has to trigger a box with the ball loaded the difference is minimal. Thats the theory anyway but we will see how it progresses!

The two dogs that didn't manage to get 4 feet on are actually brother and sister and seemed to have a problem with putting there back feet on the box like they didn't trust it. They are both cautious on our boomerang anyway despite being 7yrs old and doing flyball all there lives. I am getting there owners to get them used to jumping on and off a piece of wood on the ground and also walking them around their leg on to the boomerang box to get them over this fear. I actually think they will feel more comfortable on a flat front as the movement is less and it is quieter. We've got some lovely starters coming on aswell, think we might have enough for 2 teams in the spring! Got a couple that look like there gonna be very fast, yay :-D!

As we've been doing no full runs the dogs have been doing power training and working on changeovers from restrained recalls. All the dogs are thriving on this, they are soo enthusiastic. We've been running them over 6 or 8 jumps gradually increasing the height until the big dogs were doing 6 jumps over 15 inches and the little dogs and oldies were doing 6 jumps over 11 or 12 inches. The changeovers from restrained recalls have really benefited the more nervous and the starter dogs as they have so much drive when they are chasing their owner for there ball that they hardly notice another dog coming towards them. Asher came out for a bit at the end (apparently just to show off lol) and was completely loopy, he did some power training and some box work and just loved it.

I am currently however having a recurring nightmare about the dogs turns. It really is my worst nightmare that the dogs will come out in the spring and not turn properly! I don't want to be one of those teams that gets a new box thinking it will automatically make them faster without putting in the work and I now see all the dogs as a reflection of me as a trainer, feeling the pressure lol!

Superdog!

2008-12-04T00:12:00.002Z

Had a fantastic session at agility tonight, he did 12 weaves!! He'd never done 12 before but i was convinced to try them and he was brilliant. I doubted that he was gonna weave at all cuz I did some training earlier today and he was a lunatic just ploughing through the weaves and just generally being an arse! He even picked up the entry at a 45 degree angle, superboy:-)! I've also been working alot on rear crosses cuz he's been spinning and he did two out of three tonight where he turned the right way, he really felt like he was listening and was just soo good. We did some quite complicated (for me!!) little jumping courses where he could of blasted ahead but didn't and listened to me and followed my arms. I'll try build some courses and post them. He was alot more sensible on the seesaw aswell, i've added a steady command as he jumps on and that seems to be working well. Tonight was the first time I actually felt like he was approaching a level where he could go in to a competition, whether I could handle him round a course is another story! And the secret to this success ...taking him on a two hour walk with Sarah and her two before training, just seemed to take the edge off his nuttyness :-p! I'll get some videos next week if I can find a willing voluteer!

Agility training

2008-11-23T18:45:00.002Z

Agility training this week was good, did some slightly more complicated courses which we coped fairly well with. Had some sticky moments where he thought we really should be going one way and i thought we really should be going another... then he likes to stand and bark at me! Was pleased with his weaves, he was doing 8 weaves for the 1st time at training. I'm impressed with his entries but if he's going too fast he will still skip a pole further on down. Rear crosses need some work as he will spin when i cross behind, i've borrowed susan garretts dvd 'Success with One Jump' off my friend so i'm trying to learn some stuff off of that, i'm finding it all very enlightening so far! Also managed some snakes without too much drama and was really pleased with them as he wasn't jumping too long. Talking of jumping long, we do have a porblem with that as he has such a long stride, he can turn on a sixpence but he really extends over jumps which is great for straight lines but not so good for turning. Also when he knocks poles it is generally because he has tried to bounce a jump that every normal, sane dog would put a stride in! Contacts were really good, he still has food at the bottom of the contact but i am pleased with them. Tried one without food at the bottom though and that wasn't so good, he still went to postion but as soon as he realised there was no food he spun round to look at me like 'wheres the food!!'. I'll have to work on that, i have a plan!

Wall training

2008-11-03T04:11:00.000Z

Since we have decided to change boxes to a flat front style I have begun retraining asher's box following an american technique of wall training. As with everything he took this all in his stride and is doing perfect turns off the wall. He turns completely horizontally and pushes down off the wall which is what I eventually what him to do off the box. We may train some of the team dogs this way but the rest of them I think we will work off a chute and build them up.

Quick update

2008-11-03T03:30:00.000Z

It's been a while since I last posted but had a lot going on personally and had a lot to think about which unfortunately isn't to do with doggie stuff! Feeling a bit more together now so thought I'd catch up!

Agility wise Asher is doing really well, he's now jumping full height and so far (touch wood) isn't knocking many poles. His directionals are coming along but still need alot more work. His contacts are fab, they are very consistent, he (almost!) always goes straight to 20n 20ff enthusiatically and accurately and never breaks until he's released. He can do the seesaw on his own now but only as a single obstacle as if you give him a run up he goes too fast and slides off the end but he is learning! Weaves need a lot more work, we were having real problems with the channels at club as he was going too fast and not turning his body quick enough so jumping out. We kind of hit a deadlock where every week we would get to the same distance and then he would stop. I tried holding his collar and guiding him through but this didn't work as when he's restained he just switches off. So i've started working on it at home, i've got some tracking poles and started 2x2 training. He's picked this up incredibly quickly and in one wk he can now do 6poles from all angles, finding the entry himself and with me in all positions. He does 'swim' mainly which i'm really pleased about and i'm hoping he has linked it with his channel training. Still loads of work to do though as he still slips a pole or misses the entry if I drive him at the weaves too hard and of course I need to increase the number of poles but overall i'm pleased with the progress we're making. I as a handler however need ALOT of work, I tend to dog watch quite alot which means I don't get in to position quick enough, I also tend to rush turns as I attempt to keep up with him so either end up pushing him wide or pulling him off the jump. Oh well, i'll learn, just don't want to let him down!

Well the flyball season is over, no more competitions until April now :-(, his first season has gone so quickly and I couldn't of asked for more from my little superstar! He hasn't put a foot wrong all year, he won pairs at the british champs with Badger, he won singles at Stockbridge with a time of 3.87secs and he helped our team achieve our fastest ever time of 17.80secs. Since my last post we attended stockbridge and brinkworth. Weather at Stockbridge was glorious, we raced really well but things didn't quite go our way. Brinkworth was fun but ground was slippy so racing went down to best of 3 in the afternoon, again not much luck in the racing but still managed a 18.21secs so we were pretty pleased considering the conditions. We should have also gone to portway but one of our dogs came down with kennel cough so we pulled out. I still went to party with the High Flyers though and had a great time, really enjoyed the racing as I got to be on the line for flyers!

We had a ballistic team meeting last week to discuss training over the winter. We have decided to change boxes to a flat front box which I am really pleased about. I know there are differing opinions but I think if you take the time to teach a perfect turn they will make our team alot faster. We are having ours modified to be as close as possible to an american box. I'm a little bit nervous aswell as excited as I have been put in charge of box training. I have a plan of action (plus a few back up plans) but I'll bore you with that in another post. I'm hoping by the spring our dogs will be perfect!

On a final note, Tess my little princess is now offically retired aged 11.5. She has had a fantastic flyball career and she has given me so much joy over the years. Her first show was 10th July 1999 and her last was 5th October 2008. Now she can take it easy and watch all the youngsters. Hopefully she'll give some of them a bit of advice aswell!