Acremead Kennels

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!

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

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!

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

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!!

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

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 :-)