Saturday morning we were up relatively early to get the van packed with all the flyball equipment for our first session at our new training venue, we've managed to find a good sized patch of unused ground, well fenced and not too close to any houses that we have permission to use whenever we like and better still...it's right next to a pub! (well done Paul for organising that one!). It was a glorious morning, beautiful blue skies and sunshine...perfect training weather! Gemma was away and Trish was well...just away with the fairies (lol) so there was just Paul, Alison and I which was all we needed to do the things we wanted to do. Rather than use training sessions to simply run the teams up and down we decided to use the time to tackle particular problems or areas of improvement with individual dogs and to get the youngsters going too. This includes using various different 'props' to encourage faster 'four-footed' turns off the box for dogs that need tightening up and working on individual problems like Dylan's sporadic ball dropping and Ethan's eratic turns and lack of focus on the run back etc. I was very pleased with the work we did during the session. None of these things are 'instant fixes' and will need consistent and patient training but we're heading in the right direction and I'm confident we'll end up with a good result at the end. We finished up the session with a drink and lunch sat outside the pub enjoying the sunshine which was very nice too!
Sunday morning I went to agility with Faith, everyone was taking the piss about the 'new member' because I haven't been for so long!! lol They are a lovely bunch of people though and it's all very relaxed, it was a beautiful morning so we trained for a few hours with occasional 'tea breaks' just sitting out in the sun and having a natter. Fi was brilliant considering she's done nothing for weeks! I was so pleased with her, she did some lovely work over some quite 'handly' sections and wasn't phased at all by the cross behinds and reverse turns etc provided I've committed her to each obstacle beforehand. She's very tuned into me and my positioning so I have to be very careful I don't move too early or I can easily pull her off an obstacle before she's committed to it so I have to try and get my timing right all the time (gulp). She got all her contacts and was working on ahead really nicely which I was pleased about. Now I just need her to do it all over full height!! We also spent a bit of time working on her weaves, I decided it was about time I started to teach her the uprights so I ran her through the channels a few times, getting tighter and tighter 'til they were almost completely closed then walked her up through them just holding her collar to keep her in but not 'steering' her in anyway and she did it, we did that a few times then I slowly walked up the side with her without holding her collar, then I started to send her on into them without me going with her, the first couple of times she came out, still a bit unsure of what she was doing but I just kept giving her lots of verbal encouragement and she did it..all by herself!! yay!! lol She's working so nicely on the channels independantly of me I don't want her to start needing me with her on the uprights so I think I'll just do bits at a time to build her confidence. If only I put some more work in with her I think she'd be really good!! lol
Radley came for a visit in the afternoon (she is bonkers!!)...she and Squirrel spent a good half hour just chasing each other round the lounge and wrestling! She is a lovely little dog, I'm very pleased with how she's turned out...she's almost the spitting image of Drake but the size of Teal and although she's bonkers like her dad she's also a big soft 'cuddlebum' like her mum too, she's a really nice mixture of the two of them.
That was about it for the weekend really, a relatively quiet one, I had intended to get some photos of Orlaith and Viggo who both turned 6 months old this past week but never actually got round to it (oops) so here's one of Orlaith's brother 'Sol' aka Bryning Rockstar instead (thanks Greg and Christine!)
1 comment:
Ooooh a weasel brother..hes gorgeous!
Training sounds fab - go Fi too!
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