Love my Scandal

Loving Scandal... not loving autumn/winter and the short days!


Thank you to Cat for the lovely pics :)

Today I met up with Laura and Be today and we took the all dogs out for just over 2 hours, including some hill running. Scandal and Be looked great and although tired were not overly so, however I think we nearly killed Tia (she is fine ;)) so I am going to have to scale it back a bit with her as I don't want her damaging her cruciate again. Although it's brilliant exercise for them, and me, my legs are aching now, maybe at this rate I will get fit too :)
Walked 5 miles with all 3 dogs yesterday and they all did great, Scandal especially, her hind leg seems to have settled now and no problems at all, so the proprie stuff seems to be working.

Really want to start training Scandal again now but am determined to hold off until December to give her a proper break. Plus, as soon as it starts raining I'm sure I'll lose all enthusiasm for it, so just a matter of time!

SMART

Scandal went to SMART for a few days last week. Hasn't been lame or anything but in my paranoidness I am always sure she is breaking or about to break.

I have been awfully lazy with doing her proprie exercises lately... infact we have hardly done any in the last 5 months. And it shows.

Scandal doesn't use her abs, which isn't really suprising considering I have done nothing to get her to use them since 5 months ago. So she is not weaving/jumping as well as she could (well, was not... she hasn't jumped since mid Sept).

So Lowri's given me some exercises to do with her and I've been thinking of a few of my own. Scandal loves working again! She really struggles with 'crawl' - this just happens to be something Tia is a total pro at (one of the few things!) so Tia gets to play too :-) so we are working on that... her crawling with each individual foot rather than jumping with her back legs and somehow her front legs under her chest (so you cant see her feet) with her head on the floor, not the best way to crawl!

Also doing some skateboard work, which I can't say Scandal's entirely convinced by, and the balance ball and wobble cushion. And some handstandy stuff but not against a wall, against a sofa so it is lower, but is involving her using her front end.

Oh and we are doing hill sprinting (Scandal, not me, so she, not we ;-)) twice a week.

Ohhhh and to top it allll off Munnings is moving to Newbury - how BRILLIANT :) I am so happy that he will only be an hour away and we won't have to tackle the M25!

I am actually looking forward to starting agility again with Scandal in December, I think I'm going to get a much more mature doglet than a few months ago. Well - I hope!

Scandals 19 months

Made this vid a couple of months ago but forgot to put it on here. Scandalbabyyyy.

The good and the bad...

Well we've only got one more show to do this year, and 2 more finals.
Everything kind of went a bit pear shaped after June... having no lesson since May is definitely showing, my handling has gone t*ts up! We didn't have a clear after Weardale until DIN where Scannie won G4 jumping.

We only competed 1 day of KC Fest as Scan escaped out of the garden, ransacked someones caravan/bbq/other food source, burning her nose and getting the worlds biggest belly in the process, was really sick, and took a few days to recover from it, poor girl.
Edited to add a nice pic taken by Cat Clark :)


We had the DV final at the end of August. Scandal was superb, Lee was judging and having won a couple of Lee's semis/finals I was keen to win this with Scandal ;) well she flew round, and then Char = wally, panicked at the end instead of holding my ground just ran at the last jump, and Scandal ran round the penultimate jump, a wall, which she'd never seen before. She crossed the line in 33, the winner was 34. Was really chuffed with her, she was soooo good, I just couldn't quite hold my nerve.

The weekend just gone we had the Olympia semis, didn't get off to a good start as Scandal hated the big wings, running round jump no 3 like it was going to eat her and doing a huge jump over the next (the joint aid jump), she then ran awkwardly and kinda fell up the aframe, somewhere over the course she managed to split her dew claw. I vet wrapped it, and she then decided she would act like a frog and could only walk in leaps, so that had to come off for the final, luckily it wasn't a bad split but of course poor Princess I just wanted to wrap her in cotton wool :)

In the final Scan was great, just me again not holding my nerve, I walked the course and just lost every ounce of faith that I had, normally I walk a course and even if it is hard, I am excited about running it but all the excitement just melted away leaving me dreading it and not looking forward to running it, I have never not looked forward to running Scandal. After the weaves I didn't pick Scandal up correctly so she didn't have a clue where she was going, and got a refusal at the next jump. A 5 would've got us in but she made sure we didn't by taking a pole... she's only taken one possibly 2 poles in the last 2 months of competing so I guess fate just has a way of making sure :)

I was really gutted, and actually cried like a right baby about it that evening... not the fact we didn't qualify, but the fact that the last 2 weekends I have let Scandal down sooooo much, and made her look absolutely rubbish, when in fact she is not. However looking on the bright side, it has taken all of the pressure off as I can now give her 3 months rest, and don't need to worry about keeping her in peak condition when the hours are short, and I won't be getting home from work until it is dark. I am still not happy about her hind leg so hopefully we will be able to work on this over the winter so she will be fully weight bearing on it next year. And of course next year she will be more mentally mature, and I won't have the thought of a massive final bearing down on me in the next 3 months which I am sure would not have the greatest effect on either me or Scandal!

Hopefully I will update this again soon when I have more time... just very rarely on the PC now I have internet on my phone, I can check my emails on the go and so don't go on anything else!
Ohhh one last piccie of my Princess :)

Rugby, Weardale

Oh dear getting behind again...
Scandal's first grade 4 was Rugby and she was great getting a 3rd in G4 agility, was really pleased with her. Felt like we were starting to click.
Tia managed a 4th in grade 7 agility, bless her as there were 120 dogs in the class.

Weardale and Scandalbeans qualified for the Olympia semis with a 2nd :-) YAYYYYY!!! Out of 260 dogs in the class. She also had a 2nd in the G4 jumping.

This weekend I was a bit crazy and decided we'd do Ag Club on Sat as Imogen had Starter and Junior Finals, but I really wanted to do Derby as it had an Olympia qual... Imogen had a 3rd in the Junior Final but Honey is being soooooo difficult just does not want to know... yet a couple of weeks ago she was flying, and probably will be in another couple of weeks, damn spaniel, give me a collie any day :-)

Our day did not go well yesterday with Scandal missing her dog walk in the 3-5, much to my horror. I know it was my fault as I was not clear enough telling her it was a run, but she still should not have jumped it anyway, grrr. We redid the down plank ok, then she went in her weaves and came out at the 3rd, so we left.

Into the practice ring we went, and she couldn't do the dog walk in there either... 1 way, towards the tunnel... the other way was fine, Grrrrr. She could do both by the end of all the millions of sessions we had tho ;-)

Then in the jumping she had a lovely run but bobbled in the weaves 2 jumps from home, but we carried on as no point making a big deal of it.

Today in the Olympia I said "go" after the aframe instead of right, and she did, again we carried on. Then her dog walk, as she went up it, she lost her balance, nearly fell off, got her stride completely wrong and pretty well missed the contact again... hard as I wanted to say "good girl for trying to stay on" but at the same time please can you try and get the contact anyway ;) Gary the judge let us redo it and she did it perfect this time.

Jumping she was lovely just had a pole but worked soooo nicely.

Then the agility, the dog walk was near the end and 2 jumps on sharp angle after it, all I wanted her to do was a nice running dog walk didn't care about the jumps after it, so put her toy out of the ring by the score tent in a straight line with the dw, she did a stunning run and then we did a "go go go" to her ball, she did a perfect contact so I was really happy :) apart from the judge did ask why we didn't want to finish, I don't think he quite realised how important I thought it was to reward Scandal for doing a brill contact and abandoning the last 2 jumps :)) but anyways I am happy.

Honey was a bit better, 1st in G5 jumping and 2nd in Junior U12s, Tia got a 4th with 5f fastest time, she and Imogen are working so much better now.

Week off next weekend, then KC fest, woohoo :)

Tuffley

Just a short(ish) post as nothing too exciting happened.

On the Sat, Scandal's first run, she won 1-4 jumping, it was a pretty fast course and I didn't say too much to her, just left her to it and put the directionals in at the right places, she was a good bean. Her bro Chilli came 3rd :)

Grade 3 jumping she did some crazy bounce work all lovely, came out of the 10th pole on 12 weaves, again i have been ready for her to do this so we 'happy Char'd' it back to the start and she was fine, rest was lovely.

KC 3-5 ag (may as well write E on my ticket before I've even booked in). Was having an absolutely blistering run, then scrambled up the dog walk as went on wide, re-corrected her stride to do a perfect running dog walk, and I was so stunned that for the snake which followed I said "right" but didn't turn my shoulders so she ran round the 2nd jump, what a twit I am, my brain just can't react fast enough, it's faulty, wish I could swap it for a better version!

Today in her CSJ agility she felt quite floaty, weaves were a bit steady, she fluffed her aframe contact although got it fine, but she did a 'ahhh' moment where she went up it with a bit too much momentum and then had too long a stride on the way down. Then took the pole after the dog walk, I need to do a lot more control work after the dog walk, but seeing as she won't even do a RC in training at the moment I think it will have to wait. Then at the end again my brain had gone into the faulty section and I couldn't remember her wing wrap commands, so we re-did the sequence... oops. Oh and to top it off she did the worlds slowest seesaw. Yay.

In the G3 agility it was Graham Taylors, 'interesting' but I loved it. Scandal worked the first part fantastically, almost sliding seesaw (which i held), tight turns, perfect aframe, then wing wrap to weaves she almost went back up the aframe instead of the weaves, found them at the last moment, took herself out round the first pole and as I was miles infront couldn't quite get the entry and went in the 2nd. So we redid and she was lovely, then did the next bit lovvely and we did a stop dog walk, for no particular reason other than we need to do more of them, and it wasn't miles speedy but she ran all the way into position. Then went in the wrong end of the tunnel which was last obstacle.. hmm going to have to work on this as she's done it twice now, found the wrong end of a tunnel (instead of staying on my line, flicking away).

Then the Alpha 1-3 agility, I'd decided to train it as we are away for the final, well Scandal was lovely did a nice stop on her seesaw, I didn't say much to her on the jumps just let her find her line as she was trying sooo hard to keep the jumps up, perfect aframe, then did the best stop dog walk shes done, back feet right on the last inch of the contact :) and a lovely go on to finish, she finished 5th, so I was really happy with her.

Absolutely adore running her, she is the best little girl in the world. I even cooked her an omelette tonight as she was so good :O

Imogen has been at Dashin Dogs this weekend with Honey and Tia, and has done brilliantly, Honey winning 4 classes and a 2nd, and Tia having a 1st and 2nd in juniors! Yayyyy :)

x

GT UKA

Running a week behind! I entered the Saturday of GT but somehow forgot to enter Scandal in the Sunday of Lansdown, even tho I entered Ricky and Tia lol??

Had 4 runs at UKA but only ran 3 of them, as the gamblers still had at least 1.5hrs to go and we were all hot and bothered and home seemed much nicer than melting.

Ohh and I got Scandal measured, my friend Laura's dog Be was measured standard and we both decided Scan was smaller than Be, so I wasn't worried... hmm I think I should have been! Cut off for standard is 500mm... Scandal was measured as... 499mm :O so she got in by the tiniest of margins... I can't believe she's 20"... especially as people told me last year she'd be medium, lol!

Decided before I'd even got to the show that I was going to do all 3 runs NFC as I think Scandal needed a confidence boost. I managed to miss walking all 3 of my classes, the only one I walked was gamblers which I never ran, ahhhhh, scatty head on! Well I didn't actually arrive until 8.45, which explains why I missed the first one, but the other 2 I was just being ditzy.

First run was jumping, and I rewarded her wait at the start, then rewarded her weaves. Her weaves felt slower than usual but hey we're ignoring that, she did them, that's all I care about :) then did a nice bit next, but tried to bounce a jump on a wide 90 degree angle and crashed through it, she looked a bit suprised so I called her to me and gave her a stroke before we carried on - made me feel better anyway!

Next was steeplechase, rewarded her wait again, and sort of made up my own course so Scandal wouldn't have to do lots of bounces, but she bounced instead in 2 places where the jumps must have been at least 8 paces apart :O crazy long stride. I did 3 wing wraps with her and rewarded her on 2 of them, the 3rd one we did coming out of a tunnel, I said 'cik' and she really digged in and turned sharply, so I was happy.

Last run was agility, again rewarded the wait, did perfect aframe, then 3 jumps, perfect running dog walk, tunnel, and I rewarded at this point, then jump weaves, rewarded after the weaves, then couple of jumps seesaw - which she got but didn't hold position, so we re-did the sequence of jumps-seesaw and she got it nicely.

Hmm more seesaw work, although I did realise that we didn't do any on the one day we trained last week, oops. I'm pleased with her weaves being good, and of course it was really nice to be able to reward her dog walk, as I haven't rewarded any since our last UKA show. Such a good Scandalbean, she tried so hard!