Finally!!

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!