More Flyball

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...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This week

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

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

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

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

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

Winter Training begins

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

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.