Training today

This will probably be the last blog post for a while as I start work FT on Monday (poor me). So I'm making this post extra long :o) I organised for a few people I train to hire Laura's field today for a couple of hours. Laura (different Laura) brought her puppy Be, I haven't seen her for a few weeks, couldn't believe how much she had grown! I've made a vid of her for those who are interested, she is Flynntastic Red Jaff of Tarnforce x Min at Kipcroft, she is such a super puppy with a faultless temperment. Great watching her grow up :o)



Jess came up with her springer spaniel Copper, who was lurrrvely. I used to go to school with Jess, she emailed a couple of months ago to say her boyfriends mum had a collie they'd like to do agility with, and asked about doing it with her spaniel who was only about 8 months old at the time. Great, I thought, another flipping spaniel. However Copper really isn't a typical spaniel, so many of his behaviours are identical to a collie (like waiting at the start, where he drops his head and shuffles his paws getting ready to be released, I love it, so cute!). He's 11 months old now so we are just doing FP on aframe, although he can do dog walk and seesaw. I started him earlier on the seesaw than I have done with all other dogs as I don't think doing it once a week 3-4 times is actually as horrifying as a lot of people think it is. He's jumping the height below small, and will go up to small at 12 months. He is so fab to train, motivated by toys and treats, and really enthusiastic, and best of all, Jess has the agility bug big style and can't wait to compete, yippee!

Lee, Jess's boyfriend, brought his mums collie, Toby, Toby is about 18 months now, red and white, absolutely STUNNING to look at. However he was ruled by his man bits, so he got the chop a couple of weeks ago, and did his first lesson today and was much much better, and didn't want to pee on the jumps! Progress! I can't wait to see what he'll be like once all the testosterone has gone completely.

Jo and her kids, and Wesley came up too, I wanted to see how Wesley would react in a new environment... well he wasn't great! He was ok to start with, but then spooked as he didn't want to do the tyre (he spooks when we ask him to do anything new) and then continued to spook when we tried to get him to do the weaves, and then proceeded to snap at Jo and then try and bite me! Eeek, big scary shepherd! We put him away and then I did Jess and Lee's lesson, got him out at the end, and got a different dog! Much happier and less spooky, and he was doing everything we asked. It's so frustrating training him as everytime we try and push his training on we go back to square one with him trying every tactic to avoid it, but once he gets over this fear he is fab. He was like it all those months ago when we did dog walk, aframe and seesaw for the first times (esp seesaw), hated the v-weaves, refused to jump any height except small, and would only do completely straight lines, yet he is now brilliant at them all! He's so good once he gets going that it's easy to forget what he used to be like, just got to grin and bear it I guess :o

Tia was good, I did some at the start with Laura, and again at the end after Jo's lesson, and Jo was kind enough to film some of it for me, so here it is! I'm gonna carry on letting her run her a-frame until I put her back in the ring, just because I am curious as to whether her stride pattern will gradually change so her first stride over the apex of the aframe is further down, which will then take her second stride into the contact zone.