Lush show, lush weather :)
Firstly Imogen and Honey were AMAZING, Honey speeding up all the time and their last run of the day on Sunday was fantastic, Honey going almost the same speed as she does in training. Im made me smile in the agility on Sun, Honey in the tunnel and Imogen yelling "COME ON!!!!" they are both really enjoying being in the ring now. 4 runs in 1-2 over the weekend and 4 wins, winning on Sat by 2 and 5 secs, and on Sunday by 3 secs each class. The week before I had promised Imogen that if she worked hard last weekend/this weekend she could have whatever dessert she wanted from a restaurant... so we went to Pizza Hut so Imogen could have her profiteroles 'to share' for herself, she managed 12 out of the 14 profiteroles which I couldn't quite believe!
Ricky had a clear in anysize on the Saturday and loved his tripe stick or whatever it was that he got at the end. He was hopeless on Sunday knocked 2 poles and kept pinging off to try and do whatver he wanted, made me smile as at the end he normally grabs his toy and runs back into the ring, and I can't get him back. Well this time he picked his ball up and promptly dropped it and ran to the lady giving the tripe sticks out :) I'm sure lots of people prefer rosettes/trophies for this class but I sure know what Rix prefers :)
Just ran T in the G7 jumping on Sat and she did a roly poly in the tunnel :O which the dogs went into on an angle, altho the tunnel itself was straight. Well most dogs slightly collected themselves before the tunnel but not Ditzy. She did a massive stride IN to the tunnel and promptly skidded in it and I just saw Tia's upside down legs in it :O so I called her to me rather than carrying on, to check she was ok. She was very excited and barking so once I'd gathered all 4 legs were still working we carried on and she finished nicely.
Then Sunday she had a lovely run in the agility, was flying, got her weave entry but then skipped the next weave, put her in again and same thing. 3rd time lucky. Watching the vid back she is absolutely flying, extending probably the best she has ever done and is barking more than ever (grrrr) it was long jump weaves and she hit the weaves really fast, more fast than she is used to I think lol. Just one of those things and I can't expect any more of her as I don't train the weaves at home as it's a lot of pressure on her back and legs, maybe I need to think about it tho and just do 4 poles so can practice entries.
Did some nice bits in her jumping but again T barking so much that she ran past the weaves, think a combination of Tia barking, vvvv loud tannoy and me not having shoulders in right direction (mainly latter!). She is so much faster though, we need to do much more training!!!
Oh and I have to blog about how brillo Scandal was. She was better on Sat than Thatcham thank goodness, I told her off twice when she went ridiculously OTT and was being generally horrible,the rest of the time a 'sweeties' when she is looking at a dog in the ring and she's straight back to watching me, and is then rewarded about 10 sec later. Well, Garth walked her round the rings on Sun afternoon, grrrrrrrr Scandal is so good for him!!! I think she barked once, maybe twice the whole time, he's mr calm, so she is miss calm! She completely adores him, and he only has to calmly say 'Scandal, no' to her and she's back casually walking by his side, head relaxed, none of this bouncing/growling/barking stuff that I have! So she can do it, I just have to be calm and relaxed, oh and not stop to chat to people, as then Scandal gets bored and diverts attention to competing dogs.
Wednesday, 21 April 2010
Sunday, 18 April 2010
Daves training
Ok I'm getting behind with the blog, this post is nearly a week late.
Imogen, Laura and myself went to Dave's last Tuesday, Garth drove, yay :D we had a lovely time and then went to Sandwich Bay afterwards which is a private beach which was lovely, then went and had Fish and Chips on the beach which was lovely too. Was nice for the dogs to have a good walk after training as I think it's good for them to be able to unwind.
Imogen was as usual brill, she picks things up so quickly, Honey was great, and even bounced a jump right at the end which is good as she'd had an hours training. We do an hour with each of them, but break it into half hours, so we all do a half hour, then all do another half hour, gives them all time to rest in between. Was pleased as it's the first time Scandal's had an hour, the other times shes had 45 mins, and she was still remotely up for it at the end which is much better than she has been before.
I absolutely loved this lesson and was probably one of my faves, got so much out of it and have been practicing the stuff this week and feel that we have made lots of progress but still lots to work on. Scandal's dogwalks was good she hit every one nicely, they only thing she did was on one of them she was expecting me to throw her toy afterwards so ran round a jump. Aframes were nice apart from the first one when she did the apex-contact, and didn't put a stride in, time out for 10 secs and she didn't do it again. The seesaws were the first seesaws she's done anywhere except mine, and she was lovely on them, did a fast one too. Not too worried about the speed of them as think will come eventually plus it looks slow on vid as she'd done about 50 mins work by that point so was flagging :)
So we did loads of work in collection after a turn rather than me just doing the turn and assuming Scandal's following, me cueing but not too early or too late as I tend to do one or t'other :) Scandal was great at collecting herself for a front cross but I was not great at collecting her afterwards. I'm sure she had sped up as at times I did feel like she was leaving me for dust and I was trailing. The one thing she was not good at was lots of cross behinds on a staggered line of jumps in a straightish line, she decelerates nicely but doesn't tend to shape into a turn after. We did some work on cross behinds after this and they were good, it's just the staggered line for us to work on. Actually I think looking at the vid we've got quite a lot to do in the way of working on her finding a line and powering off to it, she now (thankfully) can power down a straight line, but if she's ahead of me and I say 'right' and she has to power 5-10metres to the next jump she won't go full speed, I think it's coz she wants to be sure to get it right, she's being careful :)
Also did the most full height stuff she has ever done (not much!!) and she was so much better than I thought she would be, I don't think it's gonna be as much of an issue as I thought it'd be. She's still much more comfy on 22" but then we have still got 6 weeks or so before our first KC show.
Laura's Be is looking amazing and the difference in her in the or 5 lessons we've had with Dave... well looking at the first vid from back in October it's hard to believe it's the same dog as the stuff Dave has got her to do has so helped in sorting out her striding, learning how to jump, and powering to the jumps.
So all in all a good lesson, got another one end of next month just before Scandal's first KC show eeek!
Imogen, Laura and myself went to Dave's last Tuesday, Garth drove, yay :D we had a lovely time and then went to Sandwich Bay afterwards which is a private beach which was lovely, then went and had Fish and Chips on the beach which was lovely too. Was nice for the dogs to have a good walk after training as I think it's good for them to be able to unwind.
Imogen was as usual brill, she picks things up so quickly, Honey was great, and even bounced a jump right at the end which is good as she'd had an hours training. We do an hour with each of them, but break it into half hours, so we all do a half hour, then all do another half hour, gives them all time to rest in between. Was pleased as it's the first time Scandal's had an hour, the other times shes had 45 mins, and she was still remotely up for it at the end which is much better than she has been before.
I absolutely loved this lesson and was probably one of my faves, got so much out of it and have been practicing the stuff this week and feel that we have made lots of progress but still lots to work on. Scandal's dogwalks was good she hit every one nicely, they only thing she did was on one of them she was expecting me to throw her toy afterwards so ran round a jump. Aframes were nice apart from the first one when she did the apex-contact, and didn't put a stride in, time out for 10 secs and she didn't do it again. The seesaws were the first seesaws she's done anywhere except mine, and she was lovely on them, did a fast one too. Not too worried about the speed of them as think will come eventually plus it looks slow on vid as she'd done about 50 mins work by that point so was flagging :)
So we did loads of work in collection after a turn rather than me just doing the turn and assuming Scandal's following, me cueing but not too early or too late as I tend to do one or t'other :) Scandal was great at collecting herself for a front cross but I was not great at collecting her afterwards. I'm sure she had sped up as at times I did feel like she was leaving me for dust and I was trailing. The one thing she was not good at was lots of cross behinds on a staggered line of jumps in a straightish line, she decelerates nicely but doesn't tend to shape into a turn after. We did some work on cross behinds after this and they were good, it's just the staggered line for us to work on. Actually I think looking at the vid we've got quite a lot to do in the way of working on her finding a line and powering off to it, she now (thankfully) can power down a straight line, but if she's ahead of me and I say 'right' and she has to power 5-10metres to the next jump she won't go full speed, I think it's coz she wants to be sure to get it right, she's being careful :)
Also did the most full height stuff she has ever done (not much!!) and she was so much better than I thought she would be, I don't think it's gonna be as much of an issue as I thought it'd be. She's still much more comfy on 22" but then we have still got 6 weeks or so before our first KC show.
Laura's Be is looking amazing and the difference in her in the or 5 lessons we've had with Dave... well looking at the first vid from back in October it's hard to believe it's the same dog as the stuff Dave has got her to do has so helped in sorting out her striding, learning how to jump, and powering to the jumps.
So all in all a good lesson, got another one end of next month just before Scandal's first KC show eeek!
Thursday, 15 April 2010
Scandal's first UKA show
Mixed weekend with Scandal - i took her to Wye Valley on Saturday and felt like we made massive progress, she was much calmer round the rings, sitting quietly, no lunging and only a bit of barking... almost civilised.
Then at Thatcham, omg, what a pain. I forgot her headcollar so we kicked off to a real bad start with me resorting to muzzling her as it calms her down very slightly and means she can't bark quite as loudly. All the good work from Saturday was immediately undone, if I have her out long enough she calms down a little bit, still bounces around but no lunging, but then she didn't calm down at all on Sunday I think due to having no headcollar, which evidently has more positives than I thought it did.
Here's the video of parts of her runs, editing out the toy playing, and a bit of stuff we did at Dave's on tues, more about that in another post.
Her first run was beginners steeplechase... 1-8 she did brilliantly, then on a turn I said 'left' and she did, so I said good girl (=toy)... and so she ran past the next jump :) so we did the turn again, which she did nicely. Then she got totally confused on the last bit, it was a sort of arc shape, which most of the baby dogs just couldn't do... infact I think the only ones who managed it were the ones who ran the 'long' way round, but with Scandal I wanted to cross behind - however have taught her cross-behind = sharp turn, and she just couldn't understand what I wanted and kept pinging off to pick a jump up (a mile better than when she was clingy) so I got on the inside of the arc and made it easier, in hindsight I should have done that at the beginning and not seen how she got on.
In the agility, the start was jump-dogwalk and I'd decided we were going to do a running contact, she did a big leap down the down plank and just got the contact, ... so we did the down plank and she did it great, so we did the whole thing (expertly captured on camera... not ;)) and again she was great. Then we did aframe, jump tunnel and she was nice again. Apart from Garth pressed 'stop' on the camera as Scandal went up the aframe, and start just as she left. I was well moody after that, oops! And then did a simple jumping bit to finish, which I was chuffed with, she's trying soooooooooo hard.
Must must must work on my waits. Again in both rounds we had 'sit. wait. one paw forward. one paw back. one paw forward. both paws forward.' I get so excited that she is keen and wants to go but I have got to insist she sits properly else I think very soon we won't have waits at all. I will work on this over the next couple of months but then in training she has a very upright sit, doesn't lean over at all. Not like in the ring! I am really pleased however that she is very enthusiastic, which is completely opposite to what I thought she'd be like!
Then at Thatcham, omg, what a pain. I forgot her headcollar so we kicked off to a real bad start with me resorting to muzzling her as it calms her down very slightly and means she can't bark quite as loudly. All the good work from Saturday was immediately undone, if I have her out long enough she calms down a little bit, still bounces around but no lunging, but then she didn't calm down at all on Sunday I think due to having no headcollar, which evidently has more positives than I thought it did.
Here's the video of parts of her runs, editing out the toy playing, and a bit of stuff we did at Dave's on tues, more about that in another post.
Her first run was beginners steeplechase... 1-8 she did brilliantly, then on a turn I said 'left' and she did, so I said good girl (=toy)... and so she ran past the next jump :) so we did the turn again, which she did nicely. Then she got totally confused on the last bit, it was a sort of arc shape, which most of the baby dogs just couldn't do... infact I think the only ones who managed it were the ones who ran the 'long' way round, but with Scandal I wanted to cross behind - however have taught her cross-behind = sharp turn, and she just couldn't understand what I wanted and kept pinging off to pick a jump up (a mile better than when she was clingy) so I got on the inside of the arc and made it easier, in hindsight I should have done that at the beginning and not seen how she got on.
In the agility, the start was jump-dogwalk and I'd decided we were going to do a running contact, she did a big leap down the down plank and just got the contact, ... so we did the down plank and she did it great, so we did the whole thing (expertly captured on camera... not ;)) and again she was great. Then we did aframe, jump tunnel and she was nice again. Apart from Garth pressed 'stop' on the camera as Scandal went up the aframe, and start just as she left. I was well moody after that, oops! And then did a simple jumping bit to finish, which I was chuffed with, she's trying soooooooooo hard.
Must must must work on my waits. Again in both rounds we had 'sit. wait. one paw forward. one paw back. one paw forward. both paws forward.' I get so excited that she is keen and wants to go but I have got to insist she sits properly else I think very soon we won't have waits at all. I will work on this over the next couple of months but then in training she has a very upright sit, doesn't lean over at all. Not like in the ring! I am really pleased however that she is very enthusiastic, which is completely opposite to what I thought she'd be like!
Saturday, 10 April 2010
Yay the sun is here :)
Just come back from Wye Valley, lovely show, even better with a river to play in (not swim in, Sandals won't go in further than her elbows, she has forgotton how good she got at swimming last year!)
I ran Honey in 1-7 circ jumping and she didn't like it one bit, and went on a plod, on set up Imogen has recently taught her to set up like Bernadettes Zen (I think) where the dog comes and sits between your legs, well when I did this with Honey she decided she'd go the other way and sit facing out the other way, ie the opposite way I wanted her to go, so she could wait for Imogen to release her! Think she got a low place in that but would have been interesting to see what she'd have got if she had her speedy socks on!
Imogen redeemed herself after last week and worked brilliantly, in the 1-3 graded Honey was flying and at the end just came off the seesaw a bit too early, but was something like 16 secs faster than the winner of G2, and 4 secs faster than the winner of the grade 3. She then won the 1-3 graded jumping in G2, winning by 9 secs, and her time would have put her 2nd in the G3 part. So all smiles :)
Did 5 mins with Scandal at Bincknoll on Wednesday working on running contacts and she was lovely, I did the last plank a couple of times and then the whole thing, she was scrummy :) nice aframe and weaves too. Yay for Scandal :) we've only had a chance to do 5 mins of training up at the field this week and just spent it working on one jump doing lots of rewarding for turning the right way, tightly. Going to Thatcham tomorrow, Scandal's first UKA..... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I ran Honey in 1-7 circ jumping and she didn't like it one bit, and went on a plod, on set up Imogen has recently taught her to set up like Bernadettes Zen (I think) where the dog comes and sits between your legs, well when I did this with Honey she decided she'd go the other way and sit facing out the other way, ie the opposite way I wanted her to go, so she could wait for Imogen to release her! Think she got a low place in that but would have been interesting to see what she'd have got if she had her speedy socks on!
Imogen redeemed herself after last week and worked brilliantly, in the 1-3 graded Honey was flying and at the end just came off the seesaw a bit too early, but was something like 16 secs faster than the winner of G2, and 4 secs faster than the winner of the grade 3. She then won the 1-3 graded jumping in G2, winning by 9 secs, and her time would have put her 2nd in the G3 part. So all smiles :)
Did 5 mins with Scandal at Bincknoll on Wednesday working on running contacts and she was lovely, I did the last plank a couple of times and then the whole thing, she was scrummy :) nice aframe and weaves too. Yay for Scandal :) we've only had a chance to do 5 mins of training up at the field this week and just spent it working on one jump doing lots of rewarding for turning the right way, tightly. Going to Thatcham tomorrow, Scandal's first UKA..... ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Monday, 5 April 2010
Great weekend at TAG
I'm exhausted. I had forgotton how draining camping shows are. Especially with two kids who want to play Connect4 at 6.45am!!!
Tia was amazing, I couldn't be any more pleased with her, she did everything I asked, she loved every second of it, by the 3rd day she wasn't arguing with me quite so much on turns and the 4th day in the jumping I finally got a round out of her that I thought was almost perfect... apart from the bit where she ran past the last jump... oops.
She hasn't trained on 26" for about 3mths as has been training on 22, whether this made a difference or not I don't know as I think in 4 classes she had 1 pole, although 2 of them were on wing wraps with me dropping my steady arm, so totally my fault.
I think training with Dave over the winter, and him giving me tons to work on (with Scandal) has also transferred to Tia, I have only had 1 lesson with Tia, and that was about 15 mins as it's all she can do, we have got another lesson next week and I think I may do 45 min with Scandal and 15 with Tia again.
I am so different in my philosophy of shows and classes now, at one point I wanted to beat person X, or win class Y, but now I couldn't care less, of course I am still really competitive and want to do well, however my aim is to beat the course, and I think it is the first show that I felt like I could handle the courses and be confident in Tia. I didn't run 2 of her classes as one I thought the ground was too slippy, and the other I thought the course was totally inappropriate for the ground conditions, everything was minimum distance with sharp turns that required the dog to bounce, and the dog had to do several jumps several times, so the path was a mud track, and I wasn't prepared to put Tia round that. For almost all the other runs the ground was nice, soft but the dog could still get a grip on it.
Rix was good, winning anysize with Lee on Friday, and then just having a pole in most of his other classes. Still a fast boy at 11 yrs :)
Imogen did well getting 3 wins and was then pants the next 2 days, grrr naughty child. Jess and Copper span did great getting a 2nd in agility, and 7th in 1-3 jumping.
OOoooh and small handlers look out for Sam Lane's GORGEOUS 20month old chocolate working cocker spaniel, won out of G3 this weekend at her first show and just oozes drive, she is lovely.
And thanks to those of you who recommended Asics shoes, I got a pair the day before TAG and they are LUSH, they are cushioned and I feel like they have springs in them, they are the most comfy pair of trainers I've ever bought and I want to get another pair already :)
Tia was amazing, I couldn't be any more pleased with her, she did everything I asked, she loved every second of it, by the 3rd day she wasn't arguing with me quite so much on turns and the 4th day in the jumping I finally got a round out of her that I thought was almost perfect... apart from the bit where she ran past the last jump... oops.
She hasn't trained on 26" for about 3mths as has been training on 22, whether this made a difference or not I don't know as I think in 4 classes she had 1 pole, although 2 of them were on wing wraps with me dropping my steady arm, so totally my fault.
I think training with Dave over the winter, and him giving me tons to work on (with Scandal) has also transferred to Tia, I have only had 1 lesson with Tia, and that was about 15 mins as it's all she can do, we have got another lesson next week and I think I may do 45 min with Scandal and 15 with Tia again.
I am so different in my philosophy of shows and classes now, at one point I wanted to beat person X, or win class Y, but now I couldn't care less, of course I am still really competitive and want to do well, however my aim is to beat the course, and I think it is the first show that I felt like I could handle the courses and be confident in Tia. I didn't run 2 of her classes as one I thought the ground was too slippy, and the other I thought the course was totally inappropriate for the ground conditions, everything was minimum distance with sharp turns that required the dog to bounce, and the dog had to do several jumps several times, so the path was a mud track, and I wasn't prepared to put Tia round that. For almost all the other runs the ground was nice, soft but the dog could still get a grip on it.
Rix was good, winning anysize with Lee on Friday, and then just having a pole in most of his other classes. Still a fast boy at 11 yrs :)
Imogen did well getting 3 wins and was then pants the next 2 days, grrr naughty child. Jess and Copper span did great getting a 2nd in agility, and 7th in 1-3 jumping.
OOoooh and small handlers look out for Sam Lane's GORGEOUS 20month old chocolate working cocker spaniel, won out of G3 this weekend at her first show and just oozes drive, she is lovely.
And thanks to those of you who recommended Asics shoes, I got a pair the day before TAG and they are LUSH, they are cushioned and I feel like they have springs in them, they are the most comfy pair of trainers I've ever bought and I want to get another pair already :)
Tuesday, 30 March 2010
Bincknoll
Well Scandal had her first show on Saturday. We went to Bincknoll as Scandal could do nursery agility and 1-3 steeplechase on medium height NFC. As it was they also did a nursery steeplechase which was the same as the 1-3, so Scandal got 2 goes at it :)
I was dead chuffed with how she did, have been panicking at how she'd do. Infact the reason I wanted to do this one was because they only had 1 ring indoors and 1 outdoors, so there wouldn't be agility going on for her to watch. As it happened when it was Scandal's first run, there was a bit of equipment fenced off with barrier netting, and I took Scandal's lead off, and she took off towards the fence, not speedy, but a bouncy trot with her trying to work out how she could get through the fence I imagine! I called her back and she came straight back and for the rest of the show no problems. Her waits were a bit naughty on all of them, the first one she moved her paw (we are very strict - sit wait = sit wait and not stick one paw as far forward as you can) but I let it go as I was excited that she was looking keen! We broke it down and did 1-7, 8-12, 13-18 (ish) as I just wanted her to get everything right and have loads of opportunity to get rewarded so she thinks that staying in the ring is more fun than going off to chase other dogs! In the 2nd round (on the vid) we did pretty much the same except I did the tunnel as well before giving her the toy in the first bit.
In the agility it went jump-dog walk-tunnel, I've decided to stop her on her dog walk until I can get in the ring at UKA and train it properly, so set her up to succeed, didnt want her first experience to be leaping off the dw! As it happened I said "target" and she ran down the contact and then looked like she was going to stop but then trotted off it, great... so I called her back and went to the top of the down plank and did it again, with me stood behind, and she went down and did a lovely target, and then bit me when I gave her the toy, thanks Scandal. So then we did tunnel and a couple of jumps, then I gave her her toy again before the aframe, because it was a straight tunnel aframe and she hasn't been doing full height aframe for too long (god i'm rambling!!!) so again I didn't want her soaring off the aframe. So we did tunnel aframe and she did a nice aframe, good girl.
Anyway if you are still reading this! here is the video
All in all very pleased except still got massive prob with her chewing toys, Garth made her an 'indestructible' toy with some very very strong rope and she chewed through it within about 5 minutes :O the problem is she is much more keen to chew the rope part than the actual toy which is fairly annoying. Naughty Sandals.
Imogen and Honey were on form too, getting a 1st and a 2nd. Coupled with Honey getting out on to a road when we were walking her and getting hit by a car, brought us all back down to earth with a bump!!
Took Honey to Lowri's on Monday so she could do a fitness assessment (to be on the safe side after getting hit) but turns out she needs some treatment, so then off to Garth's vets we went which was Langford veterinary centre... well, I am still cross about it now! They wouldn't just write us a referral which is what my fabbidy vets would do, no, we had to go in and see the stupid rude vet, for 5 minutes, for her to poke Honey around and tell us she needed x-rays, to which I replied, thanks, but no thanks... now, can you just write a referral to SMART in Cardiff please :) well, you should have seen the look on her face, if looks could kill! She did tell me that this would mean Honey would probably be out of action for a long time, as if this specialist is going to try and keep Honey out of the ring for a long time? Cheeky moo, as this won't be the case I'm sure! After giving me a massive death stare she disappeared off and then came back a few minutes later to say that would be fine but she wouldn't be able to write us the referral until tomorrow. And then charged £29.50 for the consultation. OMG, I know vets need to make a profit, but that to me is ridiculous. I am so cross. And it makes me appreciate what an angel my vet is ("hi, Ricky's lame, I want to go to xyz, can you write a referral please?") lol!
So I am going to Lowri's tomorrow with Rix, Tia and Scandal, and taking Honey too, my lot haven't been for 3 months and I can really tell with Ricky, he's much stiffer than he has been.
Imogen trained Tia yesterday and she was brill, although I suddenly remembered that Tia's been jumping 22" for 3 months and hasn't done any 26... never mind.
We are off to TAG in 2 sleeps time, OMG I can't ever remember being this excited about a show :D :D
I was dead chuffed with how she did, have been panicking at how she'd do. Infact the reason I wanted to do this one was because they only had 1 ring indoors and 1 outdoors, so there wouldn't be agility going on for her to watch. As it happened when it was Scandal's first run, there was a bit of equipment fenced off with barrier netting, and I took Scandal's lead off, and she took off towards the fence, not speedy, but a bouncy trot with her trying to work out how she could get through the fence I imagine! I called her back and she came straight back and for the rest of the show no problems. Her waits were a bit naughty on all of them, the first one she moved her paw (we are very strict - sit wait = sit wait and not stick one paw as far forward as you can) but I let it go as I was excited that she was looking keen! We broke it down and did 1-7, 8-12, 13-18 (ish) as I just wanted her to get everything right and have loads of opportunity to get rewarded so she thinks that staying in the ring is more fun than going off to chase other dogs! In the 2nd round (on the vid) we did pretty much the same except I did the tunnel as well before giving her the toy in the first bit.
In the agility it went jump-dog walk-tunnel, I've decided to stop her on her dog walk until I can get in the ring at UKA and train it properly, so set her up to succeed, didnt want her first experience to be leaping off the dw! As it happened I said "target" and she ran down the contact and then looked like she was going to stop but then trotted off it, great... so I called her back and went to the top of the down plank and did it again, with me stood behind, and she went down and did a lovely target, and then bit me when I gave her the toy, thanks Scandal. So then we did tunnel and a couple of jumps, then I gave her her toy again before the aframe, because it was a straight tunnel aframe and she hasn't been doing full height aframe for too long (god i'm rambling!!!) so again I didn't want her soaring off the aframe. So we did tunnel aframe and she did a nice aframe, good girl.
Anyway if you are still reading this! here is the video
All in all very pleased except still got massive prob with her chewing toys, Garth made her an 'indestructible' toy with some very very strong rope and she chewed through it within about 5 minutes :O the problem is she is much more keen to chew the rope part than the actual toy which is fairly annoying. Naughty Sandals.
Imogen and Honey were on form too, getting a 1st and a 2nd. Coupled with Honey getting out on to a road when we were walking her and getting hit by a car, brought us all back down to earth with a bump!!
Took Honey to Lowri's on Monday so she could do a fitness assessment (to be on the safe side after getting hit) but turns out she needs some treatment, so then off to Garth's vets we went which was Langford veterinary centre... well, I am still cross about it now! They wouldn't just write us a referral which is what my fabbidy vets would do, no, we had to go in and see the stupid rude vet, for 5 minutes, for her to poke Honey around and tell us she needed x-rays, to which I replied, thanks, but no thanks... now, can you just write a referral to SMART in Cardiff please :) well, you should have seen the look on her face, if looks could kill! She did tell me that this would mean Honey would probably be out of action for a long time, as if this specialist is going to try and keep Honey out of the ring for a long time? Cheeky moo, as this won't be the case I'm sure! After giving me a massive death stare she disappeared off and then came back a few minutes later to say that would be fine but she wouldn't be able to write us the referral until tomorrow. And then charged £29.50 for the consultation. OMG, I know vets need to make a profit, but that to me is ridiculous. I am so cross. And it makes me appreciate what an angel my vet is ("hi, Ricky's lame, I want to go to xyz, can you write a referral please?") lol!
So I am going to Lowri's tomorrow with Rix, Tia and Scandal, and taking Honey too, my lot haven't been for 3 months and I can really tell with Ricky, he's much stiffer than he has been.
Imogen trained Tia yesterday and she was brill, although I suddenly remembered that Tia's been jumping 22" for 3 months and hasn't done any 26... never mind.
We are off to TAG in 2 sleeps time, OMG I can't ever remember being this excited about a show :D :D
Monday, 29 March 2010
6 (& 7)
Ok 2 posts combined, im getting behind.
Trained Scandal for 10mins on Thurs I think it was, or maybe Fri, she was great lovely aframes but was high on her dog walk twice, nooo idea why, but was doing lovely rights and lefts and picking up jumps really well so I was pleased.
Yesterday just did snakes and wing wraps mixed in, haven't done many snakes so kept them on small, only did about 5 minutes tops, she was just brill, think she was perfect every time, seems to be clicking what wing wraps are finally! Also did seesaw and think was best seesaws she has done, gaining confidence in running to the end when she knows I'm not gonna hold it.
Did some gridwork with her today along with Lee and Jess's dogs and Scandal was the worst one of the lot - ahhhhh! Really struggled with gaging distances after the first 2 jumps, just jumped longer and longer and closer and closer to each jump, before jumping the last 2 as a spread. Did some work on it placing the toy in the gap, just doing 3 jumps etc but soon as put it back to 5 she wanted to do the last 2 as 1, so we did 4 and left it at that. She was fine with the moving grid and we will do the progressive next week. The other 2 dogs Cop and Todd did fab, both quickly adjusting and jumping nice and balanced taking off in the middle between each jump. Lots of work on this in the future!
For those that want to know - Honey was seen by Lowri today for a fitness assessment and has got a sore shoulder and hind leg, so is off for treatment along with my 3 on Wednesday. Think she probably got bumped off the side of the car rather than being hit infront - it was a 4x4 that hit her so if she'd been infront would have probably gone under the car, rather than living to tell the tale.
Scandal had her first show on Saturday - nursery agility and 2 x steeplechases, we ran them all NFC and took her toy in for all and broke them up into small sections, as it was Scandals first time working in an uber exciting environment I wanted to be sure to be more exciting than anything else, as still paranoid about her running off, will blog about it tomorrow.x
Trained Scandal for 10mins on Thurs I think it was, or maybe Fri, she was great lovely aframes but was high on her dog walk twice, nooo idea why, but was doing lovely rights and lefts and picking up jumps really well so I was pleased.
Yesterday just did snakes and wing wraps mixed in, haven't done many snakes so kept them on small, only did about 5 minutes tops, she was just brill, think she was perfect every time, seems to be clicking what wing wraps are finally! Also did seesaw and think was best seesaws she has done, gaining confidence in running to the end when she knows I'm not gonna hold it.
Did some gridwork with her today along with Lee and Jess's dogs and Scandal was the worst one of the lot - ahhhhh! Really struggled with gaging distances after the first 2 jumps, just jumped longer and longer and closer and closer to each jump, before jumping the last 2 as a spread. Did some work on it placing the toy in the gap, just doing 3 jumps etc but soon as put it back to 5 she wanted to do the last 2 as 1, so we did 4 and left it at that. She was fine with the moving grid and we will do the progressive next week. The other 2 dogs Cop and Todd did fab, both quickly adjusting and jumping nice and balanced taking off in the middle between each jump. Lots of work on this in the future!
For those that want to know - Honey was seen by Lowri today for a fitness assessment and has got a sore shoulder and hind leg, so is off for treatment along with my 3 on Wednesday. Think she probably got bumped off the side of the car rather than being hit infront - it was a 4x4 that hit her so if she'd been infront would have probably gone under the car, rather than living to tell the tale.
Scandal had her first show on Saturday - nursery agility and 2 x steeplechases, we ran them all NFC and took her toy in for all and broke them up into small sections, as it was Scandals first time working in an uber exciting environment I wanted to be sure to be more exciting than anything else, as still paranoid about her running off, will blog about it tomorrow.x
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