Monday 15 February 2010

UKA Valentines weekend

Had an interesting time at the UKA show on the weekend. Tia did the agility and jumping on Saturday and had a pole in each, but ran nicely, extended on most of the jumps. But I was stupid and ran her contacts, coz 1st place got a chocolate heart and I wanted one. Then Tia knocked the 2nd to last pole grrr, serves me right for being stupid!!!

Imogen and Honey had a great time winning Beginners Jumping and 2 steeplechases. Honey's starting to run more like she does in training now which is great.


Jess and Copper had a stunning run in the Beginners Jumping on Sat, but sadly not clear as naughty Cop broke his wait and Jess put him back (yay!) he seems to get faster every time I watch him run.


Yesterday was a bit of a disaster, there was a car boot sale so we had a walk round it for half hour, I took Scandal, as always good for socialisation, I love taking her anywhere with me as away from agility she is so chilled out and sweet, a little girl who must've been about 2 or 3 had her arms round her and was stroking her, didn't want to let go, Scandal loved her and when the little girl stopped stroking her Scandal leaned on her and nestled into her, it was an "ahhhhhh cute" moment!

So, Scandal was walking round, on her headcollar, all lovely and relaxed. Bought a couple of blankets for the dogs kennel, and then heading back and walked past a stall/lorry thing selling lamb chops. OH MY GOD, Scandal completely flipped. Imogen was walking her, I turned round to see Scandal leaping in the air, like a wild pony that had just had a headcollar put on for the first time and was trying to get away. I took the lead from Imogen and backed off a bit, but Scandal was still going absolutely bananas, then I thought she was going to back out of her headcollar, so went to hold her collar but she scratched my arms in her panic and I dropped the lead, thought she'd be off but luckily she only ran a few metres away before cowering down, poor girl. Got her sweeties out and she took a couple before deciding she didn't want any more. I didn't have very many sweeties left so couldn't do any de-sensitizing work as didn't have enough to work through. Once we got past the main crowds (Scandal still with her tail tucked so far under her legs it touched her belly) I let her off the lead so she could trot in front and check that scary-meat-man wasn't chasing her and she calmed down a lot.

I don't know whether it was the fact that there were lamb chops hanging from the lorry, that the butcher guy was cutting them up, that they were using a microphone that was fuzzing in the wind, or a combination of all three that freaked her out, but she NEVER freaks out and has never done it before. I took her into the UKA venue later on and we did a couple of jumps on the practise jump which she loved, then when we were waiting for Imogen's prize giving there were a couple of bangs from people moving stuff and she had a couple of wuffs, but calmed down soon after. Have noooo idea what was going on in her head, a couple of people have said it may have been the smell of meat, but I assumed as she's had raw bones which she goes crazy for, that she'd like that smell. Perhaps I'm very misguided! Oh dear, the stress of having a young dog. I'm evidently paranoid now that this may reappear, but not sure what to do, whether to walk her past some butchers in our town, or what. Poor Scandaluna, what a traumatic time for her.

Her only agility last week consisted of 10 minutes on Friday, we did a sequence that we'd been doing at Daves when she was 10 months old, but built on it a bit more. She was fabbidosee. But no contacts, weaves, or anything else. Ahhhhhhh. Must get training this week!

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