Dogs

These lovely pics of Scandal were taken on the weekend by Iain... thank you, I love them :-)

And one of Imogen too just coz she's gorgeous :-)

A few months late...

My first blog post of 2014, oops. 

The year in reflection…

I had written most of this in January, and then never got round to posting it, so here goes… I have updated it a bit as it was a few months old.

2013 was one of the best years I can ever remember… although I also thought that 2012 was one of the best, so it’s definitely been getting better and better.

My main goal for 2013 was to make Scandal up to Agility Champion, which we did in June. She then won her 4^th CC in July, plus a reserve CC in October, and also had numerous ‘if only’ runs which although may not have resulted in clear rounds, felt awesome running. She now has a total of 4 CC’s and 3 reserves, all gained between the age of 2 and 4 years.

Going to the European Open in July was fantastic and was such a high, I loved the atmosphere at the venue, the team spirit, the European courses and of course loved taking Scandal – she was so chilled on the coach and in my hotel room… she seemed to quite enjoy the adventure. After having Tia who spooks constantly and is scared of most things, it’s so lovely to take Scandal away and just be able to relax knowing that she can deal with pretty much anything without freaking out. Even the absolutely HUGE thunderstorm (and I mean huge… never heard anything like it) wasn’t enough to worry her, and she does pretty well to ignore me and not get my terrified-of-thunder-vibes. I love that she has such natural confidence – I see so many nervy BC’s… Scandal is definitely not one of them.

We also went to Olympia for the 3^rd time in December… a momentary lapse of concentration on my part put paid to our attempts at getting through to the finals, but WOW it felt awesome to be running Scandals, she was FLYING. Our first show of 2014 was Ribble in February, we just went up for the Olympia qualifier, the rules are different this year, only 1 semi day rather than 2 to try and qualify for, Scandal did a beautiful clear round and won the class by over half a second, so has now qualified for the semis (actually… quarters) in August. Crufts we made the champ final and came 3rd, 0.3 from 1st. That was a lot of fun :)

 Last month Scandal won the ticket at KoF. Honey also won the small ticket on same day. Judge Ian Mallabar. Last year at Woodside,  Scandal and Honey won the ticket on the same day... again under Ian Mallabar :) guess I like his courses.

Then... a few weeks ago we found out that we have made teams for European Open AND FCI World Championships. Wow... dreams, goals... amazing feeling! Vid below of champ win and some clips of our runs at tryouts... love the lyrics of the song...

In 2013 I also made up Honey to Agility Champion, and as many people know, I always said if I could make Honey up, I wouldn’t run her any more, she doesn’t really enjoy running for me in the ring, although training is a different matter and she is C-R-A-Z-Y. So Honey became the first Agility Champion spaniel in the country, and has now semi-retired from agility. Honey has run 3 shows with me this year, and won the ticket at KoF, bless her little spaniel-socks. That's it for me running her this year, although she may be making an appearance at 1 or 2 shows with a different handler later in the year...

Scandal’s puppies turned 1 year (now 19 months), and I got to see all of them last year. I see Ru, Zephyr, Coy and Rusty fairly regularly in the summer and I love watching them grow up. I have also been able to watch videos of them all training which is brill. Ru has had lots of top 10 places and I know the others will be hot on his heels. I am sad that I could not keep one but it wouldn’t have been the right time with everything that is going on here. On the plus side, Scandal is very pleased that she remains my princess.

Ricky and Tia are doing well. Ricky is now 15 and 3 months. 12 months ago when he was totally paralysed I was told that he may only have weeks or even days left, so a) for him to have recovered and be back to walking 5+ miles a day, and b) to have ‘made it’ past those initial few weeks just makes me so so grateful for the extra time that we have had together. He is such a wonderful boy and I have so much to thank him for.

Jedlar… Well, he came out, looking very immature, at the end of March/beginning of April ‘13, getting a 3^rd in G3 jumping, and having oodles of fun, and looking very immature at the same time. He showed flashes of greatness and at other times looked like he had never done any training in his life… He can be a lot of fun, and often has us in hysterics with his clown antics. And of course, he does drive me nuts, I have taken him out of more classes than I have any of my other dogs put together. And then he will put together a simply brilliant run and win.  He won out of G3 at Weardale, winning the class by over a second, and then being 6 seconds faster than 3^rd place. That same weekend I took him out of 3 runs that he did. I didn’t want him to win out of G3 as he is so gangly and immature, and thought that with his wide turns and stop seesaw he wouldn’t win, oops. He also qualified for the Olympia semis and was 3 obstacles from qualifying for Olympia before I pulled him past a tunnel… Because all year we had been trying to reduce his tunnel obsession, and by August he had finally learnt that ‘here’ meant ‘stay with me and don’t take any obstacles (tunnels included) unless I tell you to’ which he obediently put into practice in the semi. Another Jed-highlight was Imogen doing her first run with him at Gillingham in September and coming 9^th in G4 jumping. Jed is uber polite when Imogen runs him… not sure how long that will last lol. I don’t have any big plans for Jed. Getting him in the ring was a lot more than most people thought we would achieve. He is just my ‘fun dog’ and anything we achieve along the way is the icing on the cake.

Garth started taking Jed to Lowri’s in Wales at the end of 2013, and we have now changed his diet and a few other things and have seen a lot of changes in Jed (including lovelyyyyy relaxed calm boy for the few days after he has had acupuncture). I have just started bringing him back to agility and he has matured a lot since last year, and is also becoming more thoughtful when I am working him, thinking about what I am saying rather than taking the thing he would most like to do… ‘tunnel? Did anyone say tunnel? That one right in the far corner?’ Jed has just done two runs this year, one of them he won, qualifying for the Olympia ABC semis. He has some more runs coming up at the end of May onwards... will be interesting to see how he does :)

Happy Christmas

I hope everyone has had a lovely Christmas. We have had a week off and go back on the 2nd. Lovely to have time to chill and catch up with family and friends I don't see very often.

Scandal has enjoyed being spoilt and even had time for a spot of dusting, see above photo. She is such a funny, tolerant girl. I have clearly got a ridiculous sense of humour as taking this photo I was pretty much crying with laughter. Scandal just goes along with it patiently, which cracks me up even more.

Olympia has come and gone, I was thrilled with how Scandal worked, definitely the most confident out of the 3 years we have been. She *just* put an extra jump in... which my boss at work pointed out perhaps we should have got bonus points for ;-)

We have been playing around with teaching ketschkers over the past couple of months. I went to a Lisa Frick camp in June which was brilliant. I can't say I will be changing overnight to this type of handling, and I didn't put it in the ring in 2013 as I think it should be taught properly first. I don't think ketschkers are always necessary, and have certainly seen a humongous amount of terrible ones done in the ring this year (of course an equal amount of front crosses, but I have just been looking out for the ketschkers ;-)) however there are a couple of scenarios which I think this handling really suits and benefits the dog, so I have decided to teach it with Jed and then I can use it in the ring if I think it's suitable on a particular course. I love teaching the dogs new stuff, so this is FUN :-)

Scandal thinks this is a great new trick and picked it up very quickly, although only in the house with no equipment. Jedlar got the gist of it but unfortunately we also taught him the 'startline setup' involving circling you and then coming through your legs from behind. So sometimes he offers this instead, and headbutts me in the back of my legs. Jed's head is like concrete, so it's not the nicest of pains... hopefully he will work it out quite soon ;-)

Scandal went to Lowri at the beginning of December and she was all good. Jed also went. I have been dreading Jed going as he flings his body all over the place, he is a total bull-in-a-china-shop dog and doesn't do things by halves. So I was a bit scared that Lowri might say he was totally broken... as usual this was a slight overreaction from me and Jed wasn't too bad :-) Accupuncture, massage, and water physio later and he is looking much better and we have just started some gentle training again. He has really matured in the last 6 months and I can't wait to compete with him next year.

Honeyspaniel is still... Honey. It is strange that she is now 7, I still think of her as about 3 years old. Imogen has been doing little bits of training and they had a 2nd in grade 7 agility at Clevedon show a couple of weeks back. I got invited onto the squad with her which I was really chuffed with, but declined it as I haven't worked her since May when she got her 3rd CC  :-) I am tempted to do one or two shows with her next year just for fun-ness.... maybeeeee.... we shall see :-)

Happy Birthday Scandal

5 years has really flown by... this time 5 years ago I was all in a pickle because there were only 2 girls born in Ruby's litter of 8, and one of those girls was a tri, with a brown leg. I wanted a red and white girl with two white legs, leaving only 1 girl to choose from! I spent hours at Jackie and Ant's each week, watching the puppies growing up. My head was saying the red and white girl, after all I didn't like tri's, and I definitely didn't want one with a brown leg.   

However my heart was saying the naughty tri colour, who's puppy name was "Big Bertha". She was double trouble, always into mischief, loved playing, and was soooo inquisitive. I had wanted the puppy's name to begin with an 'S', and had, for many months, decided it would be Summer. However, this naughty tri-colour just didn't suit the name Summer, she was far too naughty. She was a MONSTER... and so the name Scandal (or Scandalsaurus) seemed more suited.

It was very odd at first having a puppy in the house again. By this point Ricky was almost 10, and Tia was 6 going on 7, and as Tia was my sister's until a year old I didn't do any of her training until she was over a year old. So, it felt as if I hadn't had a puppy for 10 years, and when I had Ricky, I was 10, and had NO CLUE about dog training, and couldn't really remember what I did with him anyway. Scandal landed on her feet and acted as if she had always been here.

So.... 5 years later... I am so proud of what we have achieved... having the most amazing journey, each year just seems to get better and better :-)

Scandal is very patient at having her photo taken... but sometime she does seem to get a little bored of it ;-)

And there goes June… July… and into August

The last couple of months have flown by. I’ll start with Lansdown…

I didn’t do Newton Heath for a number of reasons so Lansdown was our first show for 3 weeks. Scandal had a 3rd and 6th. Honey had a 6th in the Crufts Singles with Imogen. Tia loved doing anysize with Imogen, and got e’d as she couldn’t resist a goooooo tunnel.

Jed… was a total star! He seemed to gain in confidence overnight from Saturday to Sunday. In the main he can still be very distracted when he’s competing and I often feel his attention wander numerous times round a course… he is very immature, but already much better than when he started. He is still quite anxious on the startline with other dogs behind him, especially if they are barking and lunging. I try and lead out as quickly as possible as he holds such a good wait, even though he keeps checking behind him that he’s not about to get attacked. Novice Olympia, 265 dogs, he went clear and came 6th :-) a second off the winner, and half a second from a qualifying place, which I was super chuffed with! Then his ABC Olympia, 233 dogs, again he went clear and came 4th! Top 4 qualify, so Jed is going to the Olympia semis! This was his 8th show, and most of the dogs in the top 10 were grade 6 or 7, so I was really pleased with his place.

The following weekend at Tuffsbury he brought me back down to earth by being taken out of 4 out of 6 runs, all for different things! I know people say dogs aren’t deliberately naughty, but I am sure that doesn’t apply to Jed ;-) and it reminds me why I want him firmly in grade 3 for a lot longer! Ignoring me on his dw when I cued a turn, using the seesaw as a launch pad, unable to weave, and flying over the apex of the aframe all got him swiftly exited from the ring.

Scandal was a good girl making the champ final with a 2nd in G7 agility, and made the champ final, which I won’t go into detail on lol… On to Rugby, Scandal had a lovely run in the Olympia qualifier but took a pole 3 from the end. Again she qualified for the champ final but got marked on her dogwalk. I am 100% convinced she got it, but heyho it happens… amplifies the need for an up contact judge IMO so the judge isn’t expected to judge two ends of a 36foot plank in under 2 secs!

Jedlar was fabulous, with a 5th and 6th in G3 jumping, and did a beautiful run in the CSJ qualifier, apart from jumping out of his skin at the judge who was racing alongside him on the dw, and he fell off. His other runs were all good with just a pole in his G3 agility… can’t actually remember the other runs, just that he felt gooood :) 

And finally on to Weardale, our last show before EO. Scandal had two clears in the champ jumping/agility, which put her to run near the end in the champ final. I’d seen Chris Cole and Lauren do lovely clears, so knew it would be an ‘all or nothing’ run and it was. Scandal won by about half a second, so now has CC number 4! I just did a short course in the 6-7 agility so I could train her seesaw and dogwalk, which she did perfectly. The following day I just did the Olympia qualifier, one of the only courses I have run this year that actually resembled Olympia, thank you Toni Dawkins! And Scandals went clear and won that too, wooo!


Jed……. Saturday he acted like he had never done agility before, looking around, and just being useless in general. Sunday he pulled his socks up and won G3 agility, with a stop seesaw, by 1.5 secs… and was SEVEN SECONDS faster than 3rd. I obviously wish I had held my seesaw for longer, as he is not ready for G4, but had the 2nd place not been clear, I’d have had a job holding him for 7 secs… he’d have wandered off lol. Now I can see why some people just do a different course rather than having to hold contacts for ages.

Then it was EO, which I will talk about in a separate post. The following weekend I had just entered Jed and Honey at Diamond, as Imogen was hoping to be able to do the show and run Honey, but it wasn’t to be. So we left Honey at home as it was only a local one. Jed got taken out of his first run on the Saturday, and then bucked his ideas up winning G3 agility by a second, again with a held seesaw. He did a nice jumping run apart from wanting to miss a jump out. The following day I just did two runs with him. The first he was great, just took a pole, but ran really well. The second one he was super distracted and at one point trotted off looking for Garth, lol. I think he made it to number 14 before finally being taken out of the ring. Out of G3 with a bang…. Ahhhhh. I may be alone in thinking this, but I do think all grades 2-6 need to be changed to ‘3 wins, at least one of which must be agility’, to prevent flukey dogs getting the win to take them straight into the next grade (although maybe some owners don’t mind this). It still amazes me that he doesn't actually have to even DO an agility class, let alone win one, until grade 5. Anyway, enough on that. I will upload some videos and put them on here 'soon', however 'soon' that is ;-)

Agility Champion Rujaff Red Hot Scandal

OMG. Agility Champion Rujaff Red Hot Scandal. 

Just so happy. I can’t believe we have done it. She debuted at Hinckley show at exactly 18 months old, 3 years ago. I always love Hinckley show. Only 5 rings so fairly small, loads of qualifiers, and the biggest champ entry I have seen this year (156 dogs). She was 11^th in the champ agility, clear in the champ jumping, although I don’t know where she finished. We qualified in 5^th place so she ran 16^th out of 20. I knew there had been several clear rounds. The only dog I watched was Dave and Boss. Boss has been putting some amazing times in, so I wanted to see his run. I say I watched his run, but that was from a distance, as Garth wasn’t at the show, so I had to deal with a crazy Scandal who was taking it in turns to a) chew my fingers off for her Chihuahua food, and b) bark and jump about and try and drag me to the ring. Boss did a lovely clear round in 35.something. So I knew it was going to be an all or nothing run in order to beat him. Which I prefer. All or nothing runs are the best.

I love champ finals with Scandal. She runs differently, she knows it’s a final (ok… maybe she doesn’t know it’s a final, but she knows it’s important :)). She saves all her extra speed up for them. I liked the course. Hard, and a few things to work extra hard on, plus it had some big distances in there, which suits Scandal down to the ground.

She was awesome. She went round in 34.something (so I’m told, I have no idea myself) about a second off of Dave’s time, and went in to the lead. Again, so I was told, coz I had no clue of ANYTHING, I had been soooo focussed on Scandal. There were 4 more dogs to run after us, and then Greg was running 19^th and 20^th. He messed up with his first dog, so it was all on the second. They (so I’m told, lol) went round in 36.something, which meant SCANDALSAURUS WON HER THIRD CHAMPIONSHIP. Woah, over a week later and I’m still bouncing around on cloud nine. We’ve achieved 2 out of 3 of our goals this year, the third one was related to Crufts 13 and we part achieved it, and took a tonne of experience home with us. 

Now we have a couple of weeks off, lots of time to reflect, and then get more excited about the European Championships which are in 7 weeks time! I can’t wait to go out there, I have asked Scandal and she said she is looking forward to it too.

Scandallll

Soooo going back over the last couple of months... Scandal... little miss superdog.

She won 4 of her classes of Kernow, then two weeks later we had a good time at Scunthorpe, lovely run in the champ final until I got her e’d two from the end as she went in the tunnel instead of up the dogwalk as I didn’t handle the sequence properly. GRRR.  Went to Kingdom of Fife the following day and had an awful run in the  champ jumping, I think we were e’d by number 6 when Scandal nearly took my legs out to go into a tunnel, so I took her out. Champ agility she won, Bonny Quick had done a lovely round with Ivy, her young dog, who has stunning running contacts, so I knew it would have to be an all out run, and it was… good Scandalbeans.

The following weekend we had the EO qualifiers and we had a great time. Scandal won the second round, had the best time in team agility and our team won too. The following day she had a 4^th and then we made mistakes in the next two runs. Very happy to say that we have been chosen to be a part of Team GB to go to the European Open in Belgium in July! 

We had a break the weekend after the EO qualifiers and then on to one day of Woodside. I’m trying to do the shows that I really enjoy doing, even if they are further away, rather than just doing a show every single week. I find it interesting that as Scandal has matured, she is more in tune with what I am feeling. I find it amazing that a dog knows stress/pressure, even if we don’t think we’re showing it. After Scunnie/KoF/EO Q’s, where I felt that Scandal was simmering and I was just about able to keep the lid on her, I decided that I needed to get some control back, and Scandal did perfect startline waits in all 3 runs (no crouching/leaning forward which she was doing a lot at EO qualifiers), and in her champ agility she stopped (albeit briefly) on her dogwalk and again on her seesaw. She was 4^th in this. She was then 4^th in champ jumping too, which put her through to the champ final running 18^th. They ran the heights small-medium-large so I was on a complete high from having just made up Honey to Ag Ch. Jess Clarehugh and Cara were running 16^th and had done a stunning clear round, so I knew it was an all-or-nothing run. Scandal went clear, but then no one knew whether Scandal or Cara were leading, as both had gone round in 34.8.. Alan Short and Bruce was running 19^th and went clear but was about half a second slower, and then Jacqui Tarn (and Becca?) ran last but got e’d. It ended up that Scandal had just pipped Cara’s time, in 34.807 compared to Cara’s time of 34.863 (I think it was 3), so Scandal won her second ticket! Hooray! We have had a few weeks break and our next show is this weekend at Nottingham, followed by the Team GB training day on bank holiday Monday at Nottingham Trent Uni. And I now don't have work until Tuesday, woohoo.