Worcester Agility

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

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

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!

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 :)

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

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

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.