6 months ago...

6 months to this day was Tia's last agility competition - there have been times where I've thought we'll never get her back in the ring but the last few weeks she has been totally solid and her jumping has improved 100%. She's going well at Lowri's and hasn't needed accupuncture for about 2 months now. Her back is no longer sore when she has a checkup every two weeks and she is doing her stretching exercises at home really well. She is looking really good on medium height and on walks we jump over benches and she's now extending 8 times out of 10 while turning left. I am hoping to enter WBSDS in April (so a year since her last show) and that's what we are working towards. She's doing all the other equipment minus the aframe, so it's just a case of building the jump height up whilst still maintaining the extended jumping action. I am so pleased with how she is coming along, I just have to make sure I don't rush her too much and take time to build her up to full height.

Cute pup

No I am NOT going to have one!! But Lolly's Tigger and Pat's Becky (Dobby's mum) have had a stunning litter of pups - I just love this red boy, he is soooooo cute!

Haven't done any blog updates for a while as don't really know what to say... nothing too exciting has happened... some of you know already but hopefully there should be the patter of tiny paws in 48 days... not that I am counting hehehehe.

Tia is making progress, we are going to Lowri's every other week, we went on Thursday and physically she is looking very good but she isn't weight bearing very well on her left leg (injury in April), Hannah put an armband on her right leg when she was in the water walker as this makes her keep her left one on the ground for longer and this evened it up, but she's still not right out of water. I don't actually know if she ever will be. She is on medium height but we are still having problems getting her to extend on left turns, I think it is such a bad habit now (as is the non-weight bearing) as there is nothing there to cause her pain. It's just a case of her re-learning, which could take a long time. I am hoping to enter WBSDS with her in April (assuming they have it) in 09, I think I will be able to have her up to full height by February. Her weaves and contacts are great, it's just the dam jumping. I must get a vid of the new exercises we are doing to strengthen her abdominals, they aren't the type of thing you would think of doing but she finds it hard so I guess it's working!

Elm Park/Thurrock weekend

Well we didn't do any good results wise, but I have finished on a high... she worked beautifully on Saturday, just missed the sit position in heelwork so we came out after doing a bit more, so I could reward her for doing it right. Sunday she was an absolute dream in the ticket and couldn't have done better if I'd wanted... unfortunately the judge didn't like her and hammered her, but never mind it's a learning curve for us both and after a while you get to know which judges will like your dog and which won't (bit like breed shows I guess).

Saturday I was pretty sidetracked for most of the day as I got some wonderful photos of Tia done by Nick Ridley... here are my favourites.

That's it for us shows wise now - I am going to put the above photos on my wall and on my wall I am also going to put two words... motivation, and drive. Those are the two words that if I work hard enough on over the winter will help us succeed next year. I have to stop getting on at Tia when it's not going our way. We are getting better, but still need improving. She was a million times better on the weekend, and if that's after only a week of ultra motivating training, who knows what she could do after 5 months of it! I am going to try and do one training day per month now between now and the spring, so I don't lose focus on where we want to be heading.

We did some agility training tonight and she was AMAZING. Yippee. I think this is the first training session (small/medium height) where she didn't tuck up at all and that includes left turns on medium height. She was working soooo well and I am so happy with her.

Also trained Jess with her spaniel Copper and Lee and collie Toby, Copper was just FAB, everything we throw at him he takes it in his stride and just gets better and better each week. He is 14 months now and is on medium height, I can't wait until he starts competing. Lee's Toby was hugely better too, for a collie he is very moody and if he doesn't want to train... he doesn't! However tonight he was very co-operative and we got some good stuff out of him. I think the show atmosphere (he WILL compete eventually Lee!) will really help hype him up as we all know he has it in him, it's just finding what that key is, boy he is hard work though! Need a good sleep after training J&L hehehehe!!!

So I am much happier with the dogs than last week, and am looking forward to a nice long rest over the winter!

Why?

When I heard the news about Hex last week I was truely shocked, I couldn't believe that a dog so healthy one week would no longer be with us the next. When dads Bex was younger and dad knew hardly any one, one of the only small/medium handlers he recognised was Bernadette and Zen/Hex. When Bernadette was in the queue I was always saying "dad watch this, this is how you do it". After I heard about Hex it brought it all to reality how we really never know what is round the corner and to enjoy every moment we have with the dogs.

This wasn't really emphasised when I took Tia to the show this weekend. I don't know what has happened in the last few weeks but not only have we got a lot worse, we have got so bad we've nearly dug a hole down to Australia. Tia is hating every moment of champ, and I know it is my attitude. I think I started in champ in August all happy that we had even got there, and then she got two places in her first 4 shows, and I knew she could've got the reserve CC had it not been for my useless handling getting marked. And then I piled on the pressure, and Tia decided the only way to resolve this was to go in to shut down mode. I can turn and face her in distance control and she will be watching me, but I give a position and its like there is a screen in front of her and you get no response. I know it is because she is unhappy. Even training this last week was bad, I was away for 3 days, came back, and had 2 really bad training sessions, and then 2 bad shows. Even someone who has known me and Tia for a long time, and has helped me a lot, said on Saturday what an earth is wrong with you at the moment, you are acting like a spoilt brat. Of course that has really got on my nellie, and I had a big long think on the way home on Sunday and decided that I will go back to what I was doing in the summer, before the operation on her neck, when she was working amazingly. Put my ear phones in, turn the music up, and have fun, life is too short to get churned up about winning. We did that tonight and boy did we have a good time. We have one show left this weekend and I don't care what she does, as long as she at least in part enjoys it, and I am going to stop taking it seriously :-)

~*Tia*~ September

Update on Tia taken Sept 20th

There may be hope!

Well we had a bit of hope tonight!

I'd almost given up hope of Tia doing agility again as we keep having setbacks and it seemed the only thing could keep her sound was going to Lowri's twice a week and I just can't do that at the moment, so a couple of weeks ago I stopped training her as she kept slipping and hurting herself, it seemed like she had a big problem with her balance. However on talking to Lowri she said if I stopped, it would probably get worse, so the best thing to do is keep persaveering without pushing her too much.

So, tonight, Hannah did Tia's physio and did some different exercises with T, we found although she kept trying to set her spine in a curve to the right, if you try and bend her to the right she is now worse than bending her to the left! We also did some work on turns round poles and some jumping work and Tia was really good, I'm going to up the turn work as it will aid her balance leaning around corners.

We also did some exercises on the exercise ball. Tia's always hated this! Now I realise why... this is my view... so it's not scientific! I think the reason Tia hates the ball so much is because it makes her stretch her back legs EXACTLY like the jumping shape I'm trying to get her to do. When you put her on the ball (her front feet are on the ground), instead of being happy to have her back legs extended over the ball she tries hard as possible to tuck them up (like she tucks them up over jumps!) After lots of wriggling Tia finally stopped tensing up and then was fine, we did some stretches over the ball and then some exercises with her back feet on the ground and her balancing her front feet on the ball - she really struggles with this, did it with Rix and he got the idea within seconds but the ball was toddling off in all directions with Tia - so we have loadssssssss to do! Now, my (unscientific!) theory is that if I can get her to relax and stretch her back legs over the ball, it MAY be the key to teaching her to jump extended in agility. She just has to relearn that jumping and stretching her back legs does not equal pain!!

Excitement over!!

Kipcroft Maybe at 5 months

I went for a walk with my friend Laura on Wednesday and took a few pics of her collie pup Be... I thought Be was about 7 months but she's only 5 months! She's sooo lovely. Here are some pics of her taken today, the quality is pants because my battery is dying and I've lost the charger, it hasn't been charged since last year!!! So I am trying to take the pics ultra quickly so as not to waste too much battery and therefore I miss the split second that Be is posing! She moves so quickly!