Packington Agility

So, we have a weekend off flyball and what do I do? I book 3 days of agility shows instead! Lol I had entered Dog Vegas on the Saturday but ended up not going and having lots of people come to see puppies instead (I’d forgotten about finding time to fit that in! lol), lots of lovely people came to visit and now all of Lori’s pups have homes which is great. There are some new pics of this lot Here


We set off bright and relatively early on Saturday morning for Solihull and Packington Agility show, this was a nice little show and not too busy. I had entered both in 3 classes on Saturday but had decided to pull Faith from hers and put her in the anysize jumping instead, see whether I could actually get her to concentrate for an entire round and complete everything! The course was already running so I watched a few dogs go and it was fairly straightforward, it was early and quiet so I went and got Faith and she seemed fairly focused, she set off great and was really listening…so much so that when I forgot the course (yes…I did…and it was really easy!!) and she was heading the right way…I called her off the jump and she came! Good girl Fi but what an idiot I am!! 5f but a finished course and a well behaved attentive dog!! Woo Hoo!! Doesn’t sound much but I was very very pleased. That was Fi done for the day at 9.30am…Teal’s first class didn’t start ‘til 1.30pm!! I went and had a cup of tea with Michelle (who owns Haze…B. Summer Breeze, an Oz-Pip daughter) and spent some time with Moody playing with him around the rings and in Michelle’s garden with her other dogs. Moody is the very dark blue/white boy from Viggo and Dazzle’s litter born back in November who was sold as a puppy but returned to me a few weeks ago, apart from chasing and barking at the swallows in the garden (which is mildly annoying) I have yet to find any fault with him so I was starting to look for a new home for him when it started to dawn on me that I might not want to let him go again, with very limited input he’s very into me, keen to play and ‘do’…I actually really like this dog, although he is not one I would have chosen from the litter he has a super temperament and great working attitude, he’s a big strong powerful dog with bags of potential...hmmm….the following day I bought him a new lead and a training tug toy and we’ve re-named him ‘Woody’…nuff said! lol

Woody just loving a tug toy!!


They announced a rather impromptu measuring session over lunch and amazingly (for me) I was organized and had all my record books in the van so took the opportunity to get Teal’s second measure. I started to get really nervous while waiting that she might not get small again and I’d have come all that way and not be able to run her…stupid I know! She easily got her second ‘small’ measure, comfortably under the hoop…phew! That’s her done now, she won’t need measuring again :o) So, her first class was 1-2 agility, quite a fast flowy course but 12 weaves…I have a real hang up with weaves…it is definitely me and not the dog, I need to trust them more but I just really seem to struggle and don’t cue them very well! She did a beautiful A-frame but missed her dogwalk contact, ran the whole course nicely but just didn’t pick up the weaves at all, I took her back and sent her again, she went in at 3 and came out at 10, I ignored this and carried on to the finish…she tries her best and I don’t want her getting a hang up about them too! 1-2 jumping also had 12 weaves, again she did a lovely run but missed the entry again, we re-did them and she got her entry but came out in the middle and then completed….argh!! the 1-7 helter skelter (no weaves!) was a cracking course but you had to leave them in a wait and position yourself by 3 to get into position to get them over 3 and 4, I was sure we’d go clear in this but….she broke her wait!! (Shock, horror!) so ran over the first 3 before I got in position and then sailed over the wrong jump…big fat E!! Rather disappointing :o( We were all done by 3pm so set off and met Joy and Becca at Sally’s garden centre where they were moving the agility equipment to a new field, we did a bit of training and I proofed Teals dogwalk contact and we did some weaves…proving our weave issues are me and not Teal when she completed them perfectly every time for Joy!

We set off early again on Sunday morning, back up to Packington, no anysize class so I decided to try Faith in her normal classes. First up was grade 1 agility, she had a late running order so I waited right ‘til the end of the class before bringing her out and running her. Amazingly…she was pretty good! She went under one jump, just before the dog walk…something she often does when she gets that up-plank in her sights! But did a really lovely dogwalk and seesaw, was listening and completing her jumps, ran over to the pole picker to say ‘Hi’ after the long jump but came back, did a lovely A frame and weaves (because I hadn’t expected to get that far I hadn’t worried about them so she just did them by herself! lol) and completed the course! Again, this sounds like most people’s idea of a disaster but this is serious progress! This was the high point of her day, I pulled her out of both the jumping and helter skelter when she was back in her usual ‘eyes everywhere and not concentrating’ mode and going under jumps. I’ve decided to enter her in anysize classes where I can and failing that, agility only…I definitely struggle maintaining her focus on jumping only courses. Not ready to give up on her just yet!

Teal’s first class was the 1-3 agility and at the last minute we decided to try Joy running her, see if we could get her to complete those damned weaves! Right from get go this turned out to be a non starter, Teal was very hesitant and not at all happy about the fact her mummy wasn’t running with her…big baby!! She did finish the course (good girl) but didn’t complete the weaves as she was too distracted looking for me so I guess she’s lumbered with a crap handler! lol The 1-3 jumping was a fairly straightforward course but I hadn’t got to walk it and got there just as it was closing so didn’t have much time to think about how I was going to handle a change of sides, I decided to cross behind which was the wrong decision because she wasn’t far enough ahead of me…she stopped in front of the jump and I nearly stood on her…she actually squeaked in terror at the prospect! lol We carried on and completed the course with 5f…I was so mad with myself!! I think this affected her (and my) confidence in the 1-7 helter skelter later in the day which was in the same ring and we just went for a nice steady clear, no point pushing to compete with the fast and experienced G7 dogs, I just wanted her to have a nice, uneventful run and we did, good girl.

We had a nice weekend anyway, got to catch up with folk and see quite a few of my pups running, we’re entered at Wigton (near Penrith) this weekend so I’m planning to drive up each day for that, another nice small show (some of Teal’s classes are tiny!) but chance to gain a bit more experience. We’ll see how that goes.

Drax - May Bank Holiday

Fallen a little behind on the blog again…oops!

So…over the bank holiday weekend we went over to Drax for three days of competition. Two days of open competition on the Saturday and Sunday and multibreed on the Monday. As it happened we didn’t have any teams running on the Saturday so had a nice leisurely day pottering about and helping the Tyne teams. I took most of my dogs with me and also had Ebi, my brother and sister-in-law’s parson puppy from Squirrels’ litter so he and sister Esther had a nice weekend together and had chance to catch up with their littermates Boz and Stella.

Here's Boz making the most of his 'ringside seat' in Bob and Lyn's caravan ;o)


The weather was kind and I crashed with the Tyne team….proper camping…in a tent and everything! lol The clubhouse there serves excellent food and is good value so we ate all our meals in there. We also collected our new (secondhand but new to us) flyball box, we’re planning to move from a boomerang box to a flat fronted CanAm style box which should give us faster box turns but requires a well trained box technique.

So Sunday arrived and we had a busy day ahead, three of our teams running, two of them at the same time in different rings! Hmmmm, that was going to be fun! I was also down to judge the division that Squirrel was running in with Tyne so had to ask Gemma to judge for me. As it happened I needn’t have bothered, Squirrel ran the first couple of races perfectly then just decided she wasn’t going to play ball. Firstly she wasn’t bringing her ball back, then she was bringing the ball but not coming over the hurdles then eventually she just refused to run at all….arghhh!!! What on earth possessed me to train and run a terrier??!! lol I just put her back in the van and panicked about what we were going to do for multibreed the next day when we needed her to run! We managed to hastily secure a super-sub JRT from the York Monsters flyball team…phew!

Here’s a few pics of her when she was actually doing it!


Very happy with that box technique…


Really MUST do something about that hurdling!! lol

It just turned out to be one of those frustrating days, we were top seed in Div 2 with the Demonz and 2nd seed with the Racers but just really struggled to get it together…everyone seemed to be struggling with the new start light sequencing so there were loads of false starts for both me with Mac and Gemma with Bailey. The dogs that tend to hit the box hard really struggled and were way off their pace including Bailey so the first team really suffered…we had thought it was due to us running on the new flat fronted box but he ran no better when we switched back to the boomerang, just seemed to struggle getting his footing when pushing back off which we eventually put down to the hard ground in that ring…most of the div 1 dogs were also way off their pace and a lot of teams were running a good 0.5sec off their seed times. I saw a lot of 4.1-4.2sec dogs clocking 4.5’s instead. On a positive note all the other Demonz ran well on the new box and it particularly seems to suit Teal and Faith well; Gemma has taken it home to do some box work with Bailey and I’m hoping his underperformance was down to the ground and not the change in box type. We ran an 18.17 as the fastest time which is just rubbish…we seriously need to tighten those changeovers!

We ran the Racers on the boomerang but struggled for consistency with running a 6 dog team…going to have a re-think about that one. Running a 6 dog team is actually quite tricky when you have 6 unevenly matched dogs. Firstly, you get a seed time based on your fastest four dogs, which obviously you’re not always running so can’t always achieve and secondly, you have handlers swapping between dogs which makes consistency very difficult and it showed in our results…lots of lights and lots of ‘should have won’ races…all in all rather frustrating. Ideally we could do with sticking to running the same 4 dogs but that then means 2 of my dogs don’t get to run. Lexie and Ethan have hardly run at all this year and it’s really not very fair when both are good dogs and both enjoy it so much. We desperately need to get that 3rd team running but until Squirrel starts running more consistently and we get Jovi out into Open competition we’re a bit stuck. The Demonz finished 3rd and Racers 4th, not a great day.

Thankfully our starters all ran really well, I swapped between Maizy and Jovi since, at the moment, I feel they both need me to run them…Jovi is very much a ‘mummy’s girl’ and has eyes only for me and Maizy needs someone who knows her well enough to be able to react to what she might do next…she was much better this week and we didn’t have any running back up the lane or dropping the ball…good girl :o) The revelation of the day was Fynn who ran very reliably…always got his ball, always brought it all the way out and no running back up the lane…by jove…I think he’s got it! He’s also picked up the pace but is only putting in about 50% effort…I’m hoping the rest will come as he gains more experience. I was very pleased though when we ran them in singles on Monday without any netting and they all ran perfectly…Maizy is certainly nothing if not consistent…she ran all 3 timed runs in 5.07secs exactly! She has loads more to give but considering she’s actually only been doing flyball for 3 weeks I’m over the moon with her performance!

A few pics of the babies thanks to Brian McMurray from Tyne…

Jovi


Maisie


Fynn


Monday was a much more successful day altogether, Squirrel still started the day ‘out on strike’ so our second multibreed team (Demon Medley) ended up only containing one of our dogs for most of the day! We decided to run Dylan on the first team (Diverse Demonz) rather than Bailey simply because there’s nothing between them time wise when they’re both on form but Bailey had definitely been off the previous day. We also ran that team on the new flat fronted box. So that team ended up being… Ruaraidh (xbreed), Leo (standard poodle), Dylan (BC) and Teal (cocker) and worked really nicely…of course my changeover with Teal was easy peasy since that’s the changeover we do every week in the Speed Demonz but everyone else did a great job and we easily won the division with a fastest time of 17.84.

A few pics of the Diverse Demonz thanks to Kirtsty Price from Linnotts...

Ruaraidh (Rory)

Leo

Dylan

Teal


We had to work somewhat harder with ‘Medley’ which consisted of Finnbarre (standard poodle), Bailey (WS), Jet (xbreed), Scooter (JRT) and Squirrel (when she finally decided to do it!)…it was a shame because they were narrowly ‘pipped’ in a couple of the earlier races and it wasn’t until the last race, when we were against Scooters team (Monster Mash) that I decided to give Squirrel a go and see what she would do…of course she ran all 3 legs perfectly and they ran 0.25sec faster despite my late changeovers….grrrr…bloody terrier!! lol Scooter was a little star and that team would have been completely stuck without him. They managed a 4th place which is exactly where they had been seeded. Sorry, no-one took pics of this lot!

I’m just glad that Squirrel managed to finish the weekend on a good note and I have learned a valuable lesson….treat the terrier like a spaniel (i.e. be extremely nice to it and don’t let on it’s done anything wrong no matter what it does) or it just won’t run so our new team mantra is no longer just ‘keep the cocker happy’ but also ‘don’t upset the terrier’!! lol

All in all it was a good weekend, it’s a lovely venue for hanging out and spending time with friends because of the club house (although the food is far too good and portions too big…I think I’ve probably gained several pounds over the weekend!), 4 of Squirrels puppies were there which was nice and loads of Viggo babies to enjoy cuddles with too. Just a pity the weather wasn’t better, although mostly bright and sunny it was quite cold and windy with intermittent showers. We have a weekend off now and will be back out competing again on mine and Sharon’s birthday…Dinnington Rugby Club on the 15th May :o)

Tilly...a Viggo baby out of River (Bryning Super Cool)


too cute!

BCC of GB

I missed the BFA AGM this year as it was the Border Collie Club of Great Britain Championship breed and agility show this weekend, they tend to hold the club show the weekend after Crufts so that visitors from abroad can combine both shows in their visit over to the UK which is a great idea and also ensures a good healthy entry. The class sizes here are not far of those at Crufts and it’s a good show for catching up with folk, more relaxed and less hectic than Crufts (well, usually anyway!). This is only the second year that the club have also held an agility show at the same event and I didn’t go last year but this year thought I’d be brave and attempt to do both. I entered Mouse, Faith, Mercy and Spark in the breed show (although I’d forgotten I’d entered Mercy and didn’t take her!! Doh!) and Faith and Teal in the agility; just two classes each Graded 1-4 jumping and agility for Faith and Combined 1-4 jumping and agility for Teal. Of course, the heavens opened on Saturday so I had to bath dogs and try to keep them clean amongst all the mud…typical! We travelled over Sat evening and stayed with my friend Julie at Trevellis Border Collies so we only had a short journey to the venue in the morning.

Agility

We got there shortly after 8am and I went and walked both of Faiths courses, this was her first time competing outdoors and I was hoping she would be less overwhelmed and more focused with the more open spaces…I was wrong! I decided to run her courses early and get them out the way, the jumping was first, started tyre and 6 weaves, I knew she could do this so wasn’t too worried but she ran staright past the weaves (as I saw a lot of other dogs do too) so I had to bring her back…she was just hyper and not at all focused so she made a very pathetic attempt at the weaves and I made her come back and do them again…it took 4 attempts but by this point she was just off her head, we did jump – tunnel – jump and retired from the ring.

Here’s Veronica running Ice (Bryning Osprey) on the same course…

To quote Veronica…Still 'mad as a box of frogs' but great fun to run lol

My heart also sank when I saw the jump-dogwalk start in the agility…such a common start to a course and one I know will guarantee Faith will go under the first jump. She is so focused on the contact equipment and she’s only a small dog, you sit or stand her in front of a large jump and her natural gaze will be right underneath it…I wish we double poled as standard here like they do in the US…anyway, she did exactly as I predicted and went straight under the first jump, did a nice dogwalk did jump 3 but went under 4 and then over 5 , you were then supposed to repeat 3 and 5 but instead she ran up the A-frame (also very predictable) and at that point completely lost the plot and was just looking around all eagle eyed to see what else she could do…we retired from the ring (again!). I have decided that there is no point trying to compete with her until we do more regular training; then hopefully the novelty will wear off and she will realise that agility is a serious business. We don’t have this problem at flyball but she’s done much more training for that; when we’re going to find time to do more agility training I really don’t know??

I didn’t get to run Teal’s courses ‘til right at the end of the day and she’d spent the day sat in Julie’s van at the agility end of the showground. Oh yes, I forget to mention that, unlike last year, this year they decided to have the breed rings and agility rings at opposite ends of the showground! I spent the whole day running back and forth and nearly missing everything…I was exhausted! This is not conducive to a happy confident cocker! That said I was pleased with her, unfortunately both her classes had 12 weaves in them and I know she’s not 100% on 12 weaves because we haven’t done nearly enough training on them (about 3 x 5 min sessions actually)…what was funny is that at home she’s been going in fine and coming out at 10…in competition she kept going in at 3? Bless her, she really didn’t think she’d done anything wrong and she wouldn’t knowingly anyway, she is a very biddable little dog and always tries her best. We did her agility run first and I totally mishandled the start (idiot!) but was caught by surprise when she broke her wait…we got going and she did a nice running A-frame but…missed the weaves, then went in at 3 so I took her back for a couple more goes then eventually moved on. I wish I hadn’t done that because it made her very hesitant on the rest of the course, she likes to make sure she’s doing things right and that knocked her confidence and she was really slow. The rest ran ok apart from her missed dogwalk contact, I was too close to the equipment and in front of her and that makes her rush to catch me up; she’s much better if I hang back or stay wide (I know this so I don’t know why I didn’t do it?!).

Teal’s agility run (kindly filmed by David Wilson)


Her jumping run felt better, much faster and more flowing and I just ignored the weaves so she went in at 3 and completed the remaining 9; she was better for not realizing she’d done it wrong. Considering the tiny amount of training this little dog has had she’s a little cracker…I think that once we crack those weaves and build her confidence she’ll be super. We have entered a couple more shows at the end of May so I have 8 weeks to work on those things.

Breed Show

We’d dropped off my grooming table and fabric crates in the hall and I’d left my van parked up there and took just Faith and Teal down to the agility in Julie’s van so once Faith had finished her runs (thankfully without getting too dirty!) we walked back over to the hall and I started prepping them all for the ring. Bitches were being judged by Bruce Kilsby (WHenway). Mouse was in first in Junior Bitch, I had ummed and arrhed about whether to bring her, she’s only just turned 12 months and is still quite ‘puppy’ compared to a lot of the older bitches in that class, she’s just had her first season and is out of coat and also quite skinny; she’s at that age that’s hard to keep weight on. I’ve not had her out in the ring since October when she was a pain in the arse and wouldn’t move (too busy with nose on the ground sniffing!) so I was interested to see how she went. She’s quite a willing little dog so not so difficult to handle…I know she still has faults that I hope will improve with age but she also has a lot of things to like, she has a lovely reach of neck and turn of stifle and is very balanced and free moving in profile and she has a beautiful pretty head with lovely soft alert expression (there you go, that’s my critique on my own dog lol). There were 21 entered in junior bitch, it was a HUGE class with some really lovely young bitches, Mouse had her sniffy head on in the move out and back (as did a lot of others so maybe there was something very smelly on that patch of grass?) but she moved nicely on the circuit…she has a lovely long easy stride, especially for such a little dog so I was pleased when she was shortlisted and placed 5th (VHC).

The judging broke for lunch and during this break they had the special classes judged by Veronica Avory and what a thorough job she did too, this judging over-ran the lunchbreak so was moved inside to allow the main judging to resume in the outdoor rings. The first special class was Special Open (Agility) Dog stakes for dogs that were entered in both the breed and agility show; this was a well supported class with 13 entries which included a number of dogs that have done a lot of winning in the showring (including a champion) so I was over the moon when Vicki and Diesel (Bryning Don’t Stop Me Now at Ruffs) won it! Next up was the Special Open (Agility) Bitch stakes which I had entered with Faith; this also had a good entry of 12; Faith went really nicely…moved out well and we managed to control that rather exuberant tail! She is looking really well at the moment, having the litter has brought her on nicely, she’s broadened up, filled out but still very muscular rather than fat and her coat is in lovely condition at the moment too. I was pleased as punch when we ‘did the double’ and Faith also won this class. Sadly the main judge did not seem to like Faith at all and she was unplaced in Limit Bitch or AOC class.

Lastly I had Spark entered only in the Any Other Colour class which had a good entry of 10 and included some dogs that have done a lot of winning. The dog judge was Doug Collier (Collherd). It had been a long day for the boy and he was tormented by the number of bitches in season around the show so was making his ‘best ears’ and gay tail at anything that so much as looked his way! He decided he was madly in love with the Bitch CC winner (and eventual Best In Show winner) Caleykiz Rhythm in Black and was whining when she was in the ring during the bitch challenge…funny boy! (although she is a lovely little bitch so he has good taste at least lol). Thankfully Spark knows when he’s ‘working’ and behaved himself in the ring, he went nicely and won the class (good boy) making it once again into the dog challenge, he went nicely in the challenge but the Dog CC went to Aust Ch Sh CH Danari De Beers IMP (Aus) handled by Gary Clarke and the Reserve CC went to the lovely Oliver, Etherial Up in Lights IMP (Aus) handled by Sam Goulding. Really pleased for Sam and Heather, he looked an absolute picture of power and elegance on the move, lovely boy.

Am afraid I have no piccies of any of the dogs because everything was just so hectic and everyone seemed to be really busy the whole day. Will maybe pinch one of Vicki’s with Diesel when she gets them uploaded somewhere.

I had all the dogs out for a blast of a run on the showground before heading home, they are just wild when confronted with a big open space and were doing enormous speedway circuits of the van! Lol I left for home just before 6pm and expected to be home around 8 but…as I was heading over Saddleworth Moor on the M62 the van engine started making the most horrendous sound and I had to stop on the hard shoulder, I couldn’t see anything obvious and as I set off again it seemed fine until I put it in 5th gear and the banging started again….oh no…gearbox!! I came off the M62 at junction 22 and limped home cross country in 4th gear arriving home about 9.15pm, totally knackered and extremely pee’d off! Poor old van is currently in the garage waiting to have a new gearbox fitted and poor old me is skint!

Wilmslow Agility

On Saturday we went to Wilmslow Agility show at Myerscough college which is just down the road from here and I had decided that, despite having done no training over the summer, I would just enter Faith and Teal and see how we got on. Neither of them are weaving yet and the last show I went to at Myerscough there weren’t any weaves in the G1-2 classes (they’re hard to peg down on the surface there) so I was hoping for the same…alas no…weaves in every ring! So I decided I would run them both anyway and use it as a training exercise and a way of seeing how each of them would react to a competition environment. We didn’t complete a single course and it was all very messy, Teal was at least focused and driven but Faith was off her head and had absolutely no concentration at all. That said, I found a couple of positives to take away for them both.

The most Faith managed was in the Combined 1-2 agility which started jump – dogwalk; I knew before we even started that she would go under the first jump, this is something she tends to do at the moment when there is an exciting piece of contact equipment on the other side, she gets her head down, focuses on the up plank and complete fails to notice the pole above her head! Some shows will double pole these sorts of jumps in G1 but sadly not here so she went under as I expected, we just carried on, I can’t blame her, she’s not had nearly enough training. She then completed the next jump and a ‘star’ of three…onto the A-frame and then down over a jump out to a curved tunnel…they had to jump back and then complete the two jumps again but this time not do the tunnel….this proved too much thinking for Faith so she ran up the A-frame again…we left the ring. In the next class which also started jump – dogwalk (argh!) I set her off and she ran straight up the A frame which was set up to the right of the dogwalk…I’m seeing a theme developing here! Grasping any positive I can from her performance…her contacts were lovely, some of the best in the class…fast and accurate with just a single command to ‘go walk’ onto the dogwalk/A-frame and she ran straight down into her 2on-2off and waited for the release; I think this is probably the one benefit from having not trained, she’s not had chance to ‘un-learn’ this! It’s just everything else we need to work on!

I was most pleased with Teal, I was a little concerned about how she might react to the noise and bustle of an agility show, this was quite a big one for her first ‘go’ at agility competition but she wasn’t fazed at all and in fact she was a little OTT hyper in her first class; she managed to bounce of someone’s chest in the queue!! I was so embarrassed…she does it to me all the time when she’s excited but I didn’t expect her to do it to the woman stood next to me! Her excitement showed, she broke her wait so that I had to replace her and then when I released her she set off like a bullet, did most of the course (except the weaves of course) but missed every single contact including a very dramatic flying seesaw to finish…eek! Back to the drawing board. We had an hour or so to wait for the next agility class and thankfully she had calmed down a bit by then, she missed a couple of jumps which I realised was my fault for running on too far ahead (wait for me mum!!!) BUT she nailed all 3 contacts…nice fast running ones too…result! The small 1-2 jumping was the last class of the day and by this point all the other rings had finished and they were packing up; I don’t know if it was this or whether it was me but she just didn’t feel like she was that up for it in this class, in hindsight I should have had her out for a good while before she ran and played with her and warmed her up. I think she’d got cold sitting in the van (probably should have put her coat on) and she gets a bit ‘mard’ when she gets cold; she was really clingy and missed a few jumps trying to stay with me. All in all I was pleased with her, especially considering how little training she’s had; not just recently but ever….she’s probably had less than 10 training sessions since she started her agility at the beginning of this year!

They’re both entered at Wyre in 2 weeks time but I probably won’t run either of them until we’ve got some training in. Although both are due in season fairly soon and Teal will hopefully be mated so she might not get much training in before then.

A 'quiet' weekend at home...

Well, we had a pretty quiet weekend, the weather continues to be awful…constant rain!! Saturday we had lots of people come to visit Dotties’ pups so 4 of them have now been chosen, they will start leaving for their new homes in 3 weeks time so I need to pull my finger out and decide on registered names! They are a really lovely litter, I started weaning them last week and they are eating like gannets!! Dottie is being a great mum again, very relaxed and easy going around them but attentive at the same time; they’re all lovely clean and well fed babies. New pics of them due today now they are 4 weeks old, ready for their next dose of wormer and well ready for another nail trim!

Sunday wasn’t ‘too’ bad a day weather-wise, it stayed mostly dry so I took the opportunity to take some updated pics of the youngsters in the garden. The lighting still wasn’t great so they’re mixed quality… some better than others it has to be said!

Jovi aka ‘JoJo’ – Bryning Amistoso Love Always

Tarka – Bryning Riverine

The ‘boys’…
Wesley– Glendream Stargazer at Bryning and Travis – Raezhaven Bryce at Bryning

Maisie– Randoms Maisie


I also did a little bit of agility training with Teal and Faith before it got dark and started pee’ing down again! I don’t have a lot of equipment at home so it was very basic stuff but since neither girl has trained for months it’s just as well! We did a very simple loop…jump – channel weaves – jump – seesaw. I was actually very pleased with them both since they were both really ‘up for it’ and had remembered their contact position/run off well. I kinda have this theory that less training is better for this sort of thing, once they have an understanding of what you want, leave it alone so you don’t risk inadvertently ‘de-training’ it when your focus moves elsewhere! lol

Biggest problem with Teal was her popping out of the weaves if I’m running too close…everything is a race with her so I have to hang back and let her finish them or she thinks I’m getting away from her and comes out to catch me up! Faith’s biggest issue was ducking under the jump before the weaves, Faith LOVES the channel weaves so was getting her head down in anticipation of the entry and completely failing to see the jump! I dropped the pole on one side and asked her to just complete the jump a few times before then asking her to find the weaves afterwards, this seemed to cure it! Not much use in the ring though! lol

Both girls are entered for their first show this weekend, just down the road at Myerscough College…I may well chicken out and not run them though, it is rather mean to expect them to compete when they’ve had no training all summer, we’ll see what the courses bring and then decide I think (cluck, cluck lol)

Dazzles’ pups were also a week old on Sunday, new pics on the website, and I have to say they are really fat puppies…bordering on obese! Lol

Six big fat chunky slugs and then the little pale merle girl who looks like a midget but is actually just a normal sized puppy! She was the smallest at birth and while she is doing fine I am a little concerned that she may be struggling to compete against her monster littermates so I’ve made the decision to take her away from Dazzle and let Lexie rear her instead. This isn’t something I’ve ever done before but then I’ve never had a bitch with such a small litter before, the little girl is much closer in size to Lexies’ blue boys (not the monster black fella!), although only a day between them in birth dates Lexies’ were of course 5 days early. I wasn’t sure whether this was going to work but Daz doesn’t seem too concerned about being a pup short and Lexie has accepted the new pup so all good so far. I moved her while the mum’s were out toileting so Lex came back to her bed to find the new addition and she did give her a good sniff all over and obviously knew this was not one of hers but she is a very maternal bitch and just let her feed and cleaned her along with the boys and happily settled down with her increased brood of four; her pups were a week old yesterday so new pics to come later.

Last night Jovi and I travelled down to Tom and Kate’s near Wrexham, meeting Gemma and Fynn on the way to get blood samples taken for rabies titre testing. Fingers crossed both will pass and be joining us at the Euros next year…wherever that may be!! As yet we are all still waiting to find out whether the Austrians and/or Germans are going to host the 2010 event.

Think that’s it for now :)

clever cockers

I was just mooching round the BFA website (as you do) and checking on what awards each dog is coming up for when I fell upon the breed statistics; imagine my suprise to find that Drake and Teal were the 2nd and 4th highest scoring cocker spaniels over 2008 despite both only coming out in Feb/Mar!! More impressively Drake is currently standing 10th and Teal 15th in the highest pointed cocker spaniels in BFA history! They've only been competing for a year! What a pair of clever cockers :)

Mid-week agility training

Went to agility training last night, I was late what with one thing and another but as it's a fairly free session it didn't really matter, just meant less time to do stuff. I took Faith back for the first time in 4 months and it definitely showed! I just wanted to kill her! lol She had completely 'forgotten' her 2on2off position on the contacts so she went straight back on lead and suddenly remembered! Fact is, she had the attention span of a gnat and was totally preoccupied by the other dogs working, putting her lead on made her concentrate on what she was doing a little more. I wish I'd just done that in the first place instead of getting cross with her...live and learn! I ended up tying her up and working Teal instead (the nice focused little dog who hangs on my every word...or maybe it's just the toy I have in my hand! lol).

Teal worked really nicely, we did lots of jumping exercises and I worked on my position and timing at getting her to turn tightly and come through, my god can that little dog turn tight! (if I get my timing right!). I don't know why this should suprise me, it's the very reason she always beats the collies to the ball when we're out! Her long lean body is perfectly designed to wrap around jump wings! :) We finished up doing a long run down 4 jumps into a box out into a curved tunnel offset to the right of the box, back into the box and then a long blast back up the line of jumps. I got Faith out to do this and she loved it, worked on ahead to the tunnel really well allowing me to stay in the box to put the reverse turn in to pick her up on my right to go back up the line...she was flying and really having fun. For the time being I think we will concentrate on lots of these fast flowing exercises for Fi and get her concentraion and interest re-sparked. It was good to finish on a positive with her though. Doing this exercise highlighted my biggest problem with Teal at the moment...if I have her toy on me she is reluctant to leave me, this meant that I struggled to send her on ahead into the tunnel and stay in the box for the pick up. I ended up placing her toy at the end of the tunnel and sending her on into the tunnel, each time I ran a little shorter but encouraged her on with my voice. I think we may just need to lose the toy for a while and just play with it at the end of each exercise. I also think I need to start using my arms more to encourage her on ahead. I think a trip down to Joy's is probably in order! lol

So much for my 'two free weekends'...they're almost fully booked already!

A hive of activity

Just a quick post...today is Teal's 3rd birthday. I know I say this every birthday but it's really hard to believe 3 years have gone by already! She's a super little dog and I'm so glad I found her :)

wasn't she just the cutest puppy??

I've been struggling for a while trying to get her to do a decent turn off the flyball box. She does a lovely fast four footed turn off the chute but as soon as you move her to the box she reverts back to sort of tentatively touching the bottom and turning on the ground in front of the box instead.

So after chatting with Katie and watching a video of her box training Jet with an angled slant board in front of the box I thought I'd give it a go. We did a few reps on Monday and again this evening and...By Jove...I think she's got it!



Thanks Katie :)

Have quite a lot of work to do with all the dogs as the flyball season gets underway. Faith has come off her litter VERY unfit so I'm trying to get condition on them all. Teal isn't too bad as she's been agility training quite a bit over winter and Drake never loses any condition...he's permanently like a coiled spring! I've started off doing quite a bit of brisk lead walking on the roads, during lunch at work and in the evenings at home. I started with Mac, Dottie, Lexie and Faith but have dropped Mac as he needs reminding to walk to heel every 3 seconds and I'm aching from head to foot having to keep checking him! We're doing about 5 miles a day at a brisk pace so that the dogs keep to a steady trot so hopefully I'll be getting fitter too! lol

The lighter sunny evenings are sooo nice...the pups get to play out for hours and I get to spend lots of time out training with all the dogs so I hope they continue!

And so it begins...

The hectic spring/summer schedule got underway this weekend starting with flyball at Rotherham on Saturday.

We had decided on a slight change of teams on Saturday and had both the cockers running together in the Pawz (always a gamble!) while Dottie moved into the Racers. At this stage in the season it's very much about moving dogs around and see what does/doesn't work. I'm pleased to say that this did work! :) Both teams ran really well. The Pawz were seeded bottom in division 3, Paul and Pip went start, I ran Drake second (and have the extensive bruises to prove it!!), Gemma ran Teal 3rd and Alison ran Ethan last. The 4 really gelled well, Teal ran in past me and Drake running out no problems and we didn't get cockered once!! Both ran like little angels all day :) Steve did the line for us and, for a team we'd never run before, even in training, the changeovers were near perfect :) I was so proud of our little team. They finished up coming 3rd with a fastest time of 20.08 (I think).

The Racers were seeded 3rd in Div 3 and this lot took a little longer to bed down. Paul and Mac went start. Mac really wasn't running that great, will have to get Katherine (Chiro) to have a quick look over him next time we see her. He seemed to be really struggling off the box. Gemma and Bailey ran second and Alison and Lexie third. Alison struggled a little running Lexi in behind Bailey simply because she's not used to running behind a dog that's so fast!! It does take some getting used to! I ran Dottie last dog and I was SO pleased with her...she was storming!! lol It wasn't til the afternoon that we really got changeovers sorted and by that time the ground had really started to go off so the times weren't great. They did run 18.88 in the morning which matched the fastest time the Racers have ever run. This team finished up 3rd too. I think we'll probably stick to this combination at Angelsey this weekend.

Div 1 was very exciting and I was really very proud to see all the Brynings putting in some cracking performances. Young Lucy and Tarn (Bryning Tarn - Jaff X Spangle) running start dog in the Live Wires and winning the division with a fantastic time 17.62. Zephyr and Nell (Mac X Molly) running in Wire Sparks and finsihing up 2nd with another sub 18.00 time. Ollie (Storm X Flick) and Charlie (Ethan X Dazzle) running in the Rotherham Razors and putting in some fab performances. I did actually video Ollie and Charlie in a couple of legs...
Ollie running start dog...

Charlie running last dog


Only running the two teams was lovely as we had quite a bit if time off over the day to catch up with folk and walk the dogs etc. We even managed a very civilised hot lunch in the pub! :)

Dora and Bolt were with us too and had a lovely day enjoying the sunshine and just running free round the van. Toni from Rotherham got some lovely shots of them playing so I'm hoping she's going to send me a couple. Bolt developed quite a fan club and Gemma even begged me not to send him to Bermuda so she could keep him!! lol (Don't think the family waiting patiently for him since January would have been that thrilled!).

Here's me, Alison and Gem sitting out of the breeze and enjoying a hot chocolate in the back of Gemma's car lol

There was an awful lot of giggling coming from the back of that car!!

And here's the boys waiting for their next run....

Eth using his bowl as a pillow (hmmm...very comfy! lol)

Mac man...

I think my van crates could do with a scrub!! lol

We left abut 7.30pm and I headed straight down the M1 to Joy and Becca's. I hadn't anticpated the 30 miles or so of roadworks that had us down to 50mph a good stretch of the way so the journey was really rather tedious!! We arrived about 9.15pm to a lovely hot meal! Thanks Joy! :) Then I got to have a good nosey at Wren's pups, just 12 days old and eyes starting to just open slightly...absolutely gorgeous...glad I'm not having to choose one!!

Becca had had a good day at Shuttleworth show with Teal having her first grade 7 agility win. Well done girls :)
Here's the winning run...


Sunday morning we had a very civilised lie-in 'til 8am, got the dogs walked and the pups had a good hour or so playing in the garden before we had to give Bolt a bath and blow-dry in prepartion for his journey to his new home in Bermuda.

Here he is just ready to leave for the airport...

They've opened a new animal reception centre at Gatwick now which is much better and we saw Bolt off on his way. I got an e-mail late evening to say he had arrived safely and was making himself at home.

Back to Joys' and we had some lunch and faffed about and then did some training with Teal. (My Cocker-Teal, not Joy's Teal...confusing I know!)

Firstly we did some on lead seesaw work, just teaching Teal to check herself for the 'tip' (she's a bit gung-ho on this piece of equipment!); this was definitely starting to sink in so hopefully more repetition at home once ours arrives this week should have it sorted. Then we just did some contact work. Joy took a couple of vids so you can see how she's getting on...


I'm pleased with what we've got just 10 weeks into her agility training. I can't stress how much easier it is starting with a dog that has already done flyball and totally understands the concept of working for a reward. She's a joy to train because her enthusiasm is limitless! I love this little dog :)

Am hoping to make training at Hest Bank on Wednesday, flyball training on Thursday (Mac's 7th birthday!!) and then off over to Anglesey on Friday morning for 4 days of flyball fun!! There are only 6 divisions running over the weekend so we're looking forward to a lovely relaxed and chilled out weekend. I can't wait!

'Quick, slow...Quick, Quick..slow'

It's been a funny few days with long periods of total inactivity interjected with short bursts of intense activity! I've been laid up with 'flu' for a couple of days so haven't done much apart from the bare essentials with the dogs and puppies. I really didn't think I was going to make Stocksbridge on Saturday but slept most of the day on Friday and drank about a gallon of lemon and ginger tea with honey in and dosed up on paracetemol and amazingly felt not too bad when I woke on Saturday morning. Paul and Alison arrived at around 6.15am and we all piled into the van and headed over to Stocksbridge on the outskirts of Sheffield for my first flyball tournament of the year. This is a venue I haven't been to before and I was really pleased to see the lovely big exercise area available to run the dogs on. It was another superbly organised affair from the Sheffield Speeders, we started off with dog measuring, the first time I've had my lot done since the new jump height rules have come in, as expected Teal measured 8" and Drake 12", this is the final measure for both of them so I can now apply for their height cards. I also had Dottie and Lexie measured and they have both now come in as 13" height dogs under the new rules (5" below shoulder height). We just ran the two teams, as expected the Demonz were seriously outclassed in Div 1, we've decided we probably won't run under this team name again until we get Dylan back running later in the year (fingers crossed!), they were running mid 19's most of the day. The Pawz were also a little off form running mid 20's but after such a long break and on the indoor rubber matting I was actually really pleased with everyone's performance. Both the cockers in particular runnning really well. Thanks must go again to the wonderful lot from the Notts Supadogs for their much appreciated help in box loading, ball collecting and running Mac and Dottie. I judged Div 4 which turned out to be a fiercly contested affair, I must admit I was (secretly) really pleased when the Nunnies won it running two of the Oz sons (Bray (choc/white) and Shimmer (tri blue merle)) that Pam had bred, two very handsome young boys. I must thank all the teams and the very patient ring party for putting up with my coughing and sniffling throughout, I think I'll sterilise my whistle before I use it again...god knows what germs it must now be harbouring! lol

Sam and Andy popped over in the afternoon although they weren't racing 'til Sunday so I got to have a cuddle with Eabha and I also snapped a few pics of Sparks' brother Charlie.



(no...he hasn't got a short tail...he just wouldn't stop wagging it while I was taking his pic! lol)

Dora and 'Jerry' came and were impeccably behaved, I was quite suprised by Dora who is quite a cocky little madam at home but wasn't too sure about all these people and all these big dogs somewhere new...she'll soon get over that...she's got a lot of flyball to go to this year! lol

Here she is eating a biscuit...

Jerry was just 'Mr Cool' and took it all in his stride and as the day wore on I was really starting to weaken towards the idea of just keeping him. Watching him trot about on the field with his stunning movement already showing at 11 weeks old I was seriously beginning to wonder whether I was quite mad to let him go! Fortunately(?) a lovely lady came today and took 'Jerry' (now known as 'Stanley'), he's going to be living relatively close by and will hopefully be competing in obedience in the future. I really hope things go well for him because he's a super little fella, I was very sad to see him go.

I woke up this morning feeling really rough again, maybe I just wasn't up to a full day of flyball yesterday after all?! Just seemed to take me ages to get going. Needless to say I didn't make it to agility training and just had a quiet morning at home. We had a steady stream of visitors this afternoon. Conrad, Jackie, Amy and Jess came over and we did some flyball training with Radley in the garden. She's doing really well and was doing full runs and triggering the box by the end of the session and even had 'mummy' Teal running in on her doing close changeovers. We just need to do some chute work to perfect that box technique and she should be ready for starters! :)

Nathan (my brother) and Sue popped over with Connor and Charlie; they'd been into town and Charlie was sporting his new hat and shoes...HOW cute is he??


Once all our visitors had left we finally settled down to a roast dinner and Sunday evening tv. Here's a pic mum took of me and 'the girls' watching the 'Dancing on Ice' final (and HOW good was Ray Quinn?!!)...

...to be honest...I think I may have been the only one of us actually watching it lol
(check out my poor red nose...tissue chaffed from excessive nose blowing!! lol)

So...off to bed and hoping for a return to feeling 'normal' in the morning!!

Ah the joys...

Well, another weekend is nearly upon us and I didn't even catch up from the last one yet! I've come down with a bug this week, I thought it was just the early onset of hayfever but it isn't so I've been feeling sorry for myself with terrible sinus pains and a raging sore throat (poor me...lol)

Last weeekend we went training with the Dolphins down on the Wirral, to do some work with the babies and run a team against Manda's Nell who has started running across to the other lane in competition but runs paw perfect in training. We thought we'd try running some different dogs and people against her and see what she did but...she ran paw perfect! lol No excuses now Nelly!!

We did some run backs and run ups to the box with Radley who proved to be a bit of a natural, I think she's going to make for quite a quick little cocker! :) Then we just ran the team dogs to stretch their legs before Stocksbridge this weekend and Alison, Amy and myself popped for some lunch on the way home, we had a nice day. It was nice to catch up with folk, haven't been competing for a while so have been missing everyone!

Here's a pic I took of Orlaith-bear too...she turns 1 at the end of this month...where on earth did that year go??!!



I snapped a few pics of Kittens pups in the house earlier in the week...
Here's my little Dora (cute or what?!)

and Bolt who heads off to Bermuda in a couple of weeks (lucky him!)

and here's a few pics of Jerry I took today...



Jerry is a really lovely pup, as well as being simply gorgeous he's a real fun chracter...lots of attitude, a real cheeky little man; he has however been subject to a string of complete and utter time wasters which I just find REALLY frustrating!! In a way it makes me glad that they never got him because he's too special to go to someone who doesn't desperately want him but honestly...what goes on in some people's heads that makes them firstly enquire about a pup and then make arrangements to view and collect to then go and make some really lame excuse??!!!! The absolute bain of a breeders' life! Well, Jerry is staying here until the perfect competitive dog sports and/or show home turns up for him...no more timewasters!

Have been doing quite a bit of agility training with Teal this week, working on stringing a few obstacles together...she's starting to work ahead and pick up the next thing I want her to do now. At home I have everything still quite close together, partly through necessity (garden 'aint that big!) and also to make it easy for her to get it right. At training on Weds we're having to work with a more advanced group so I'm having to ask for more. We've had some long straights of mixed up obstacles but with good distances between them so I've been back-chaining small sequences to help her understand and it seems to be working, she does try very hard to get it right so is relatively easy to train. So this Weds she managed a long straight of flat tunnel - long jump - jump into a curved pipe tunnel round to the dog walk. It's situations like this that I need her to work on ahead because she is fast and was easily beating me down that straight run to the tunnel! lol By the end of the session she was targetting the tunnel herself and didn't need me to go there with her which meant I could move across to pick her up on the other side and position her onto the dogwalk. Good girl :) Teal absolutely LOVES the dog walk, I think it's her favourite obstacle! We also did a bit on the seesaw but that's definitely going to need some work teaching her that she has to wait for it to hit the ground before she runs off it so it's all on lead at the moment still.

Faiths pups have turned 2 weeks old and continue to do well. Developmentally they are right on target, no signs that they were so prem. All eyes are open and they're pushing up on their feet now and starting to mouth and 'play' with each other...very cute. They're all a really good size (fat little piglets!) apart from our little sable girl who is about 2/3 the size of her siblings but she seems ok and I swear she's slowly growing into that tongue! lol

New pics on my website...Two Week Pics

but here's a few extra pics I snapped earlier...
The dark sable boy, I love his colouring...it's like rich mahogany...

The blue sable boy, the shading is really starting to come through on his coat now...

Our little girl...
sneaking an extra feed...

having her face washed...

and now her bum (how undignified lol)...


Erm...I think that's about it for now...another rather garbled posting! lol It's Viggo's birthday tomorrow (well, today actually now it's go so late!) so I'll post some pics of him later :)

Crufts TV

So, I ended up having Wednesday and Thursday off work which was great because I got to spend (almost) the entire day watching the fantastic online CruftsLive.tv which was live broadcasting from the main arena at Crufts...all the agility, flyball, heelwork to music competitions and displays etc as well as the group judging.
Of course, I had an added interest in Thursday mornings Agility and the Eukanuba Mini-Maxi pairs with several friends competing and two 'Bryning' girls taking part. Firstly was Nancy and Niamh (Bryning Red Rascal) running with Nancy's husband Andy and his little sheltie Kizzy.

Here's the pic that Nancy text me on the morning...Niamh and Kizzy arrived and set up on their bench...

Nancy ran a beautifully handled careful clear on quite a tricky course to hand over to Andy but unfortunately Kizzy missed her weave entry out of the straight tunnel which I think is actually harder than it sounds, the dog is coming out of a dark tunnel straight onto the weaves so they're coming at speed and see as litte of the weaves as possible i.e. a single pole, if you imagine the noise a dog is generating whilst running through a pipe tunnel and the way in which it's amplified coupled with the large noisy arena at Crufts I doubt they hear much in the way of verbal commands either. They finished up 9th. Next up was Joy with Teal (Bryning Time to Shine) running with Carla and her poodle Gucci. Joy and Teal were having a cracking run until...Teal took the wrong end of the tunnel so they got a big fat 'E', this was a real shame because Carla and Gucci had a lovely quick clear...ah well...maybe next year eh.

One big update...

Ok, so I've been offline for the past 10 days while we moved house. There's loads happened in that time so I'm going to try and make this update as short as possible!!

I took the Thurs and Fri off work to finish packing stuff up and get ready for moving all the furniture on the Saturday....D-Day! I have to say we are SO incredibly lucky to have such a fantastic group of friends and family who have offered so much help and support in so many ways it's just untrue. I must make special mention of Gemma who had worked like an absolute trooper for the last few weeks, helping with all the packing, cleaning, DIY and decorating on all her days off, I know how precious those days are and your help is greatly appreciated. The move itself went really smoothly with our little army of helpers and Sat evening saw us mostly unpacked and a chance to relax all cosy in front of the open fire in our new lounge (haven't had an open fire for years, it's lovely at this time of year). This really was no mean feat, although we only moved a few miles we did take 15 adult dogs and 17 puppies with us!

The pups were the last thing to move, once we'd got everything set up in the utility room at the new house, here they are at the old house waiting to go....
Lori's litter...

Kitten's litter...


The dogs have settled really well, they now have their own huge 'dog room' in one of the garages that Gem and I have insulated and boarded and painted the floor etc, they have access in and out of here all the times and have loads of room with their toy box, a radio, lots of beds and crates and best still...the tops of the crates are boarded with carpet on top so they have somewhere to sit and look out of the windows! lol I wondered how they might be not sleeping in the main part of the house as they've been used to but our new kitchen is just not big enough to accomodate them all and they seem quite happy in their own 'dog room' and have adapted to the new routine very quickly. I guess one of the advantages of feeding at bedtime is that everyone is always keen to go to bed!! lol There are two large concreted areas, one of which they have access to all the time and a nice grassed area that they can go out and play on (supervised...no hole digging allowed! lol), I will also have some flyball and agility equipment out on this area for training too. There are loads of footpaths close by as well as the canal that has a nice wide towpath for walking down so we have quite a lot of exploring to do! The location is just ideal, we share the lane with only two other houses...the nearest of which is at the farm a couple of hundreds of yards further down...in fact the cows are our nearest neighbours!! lol

Here's the view to the East of the property (taken out of the spare bedroom window)...hello cows!! lol

And this is the view directly out of my bedroom window, to the front of the house

and this is to the West, out of my side bedroom window (yeh..my bedroom is twin aspect, nice huh?)

and this is out the back (from the landing window)

and this is out the back showing the outside of the 'dog room' ...and one lonely puppy...the others were out there too just hiding round the other side of the extension, I promise I didn't shut him out there all by himself! lol (incidentally, this is the puppy that's still looking for his new home)

Sunday we had lots and lots visitors
Here's my nephew Charlie having a cuddle with Drew

and here's my auntie and uncle's cocker, Radley, saying hello to 'Beau'

We basically spent the rest of the week getting the old house cleaned up and painted, tidying up the garden and powerwashing the yard, stables and fence ready for renting it out...if I ever see another paint roller!! Again...loads of help from our wonderful friends and family...total stars! :))

I've also had Lori's puppies leaving this week. Drew was the first to go when Julie braved the weather and came up on Tuesday. Incidentally, while the rest of the country has been snowed in and practically ground to a halt, we've had only a tiny sprinkling of snow and blue skies and sunshine for the bulk of the week. Needless to say, the news bulletins were becoming rather tedious...'will everyone please shut up about the bloody snow!!!!' lol

'Fiddy' (boy 6) was the next to go as Clare and her daughter drove down from Glasgow on Friday. Here's a couple of pics Gemma and I managed to snap of him before he left (still a little damp after his bath but gorgeous nontheless!)...


Bryning Celtic Sea aka 'Fiddy' (Fiddy is short for 'Mufidy' which is a gaelic name meaning 'man of the sea'...nice eh?)

3 more pups left on Saturday...Baxter (boy 1) and the two girls...Flo and Spider (loving that name! lol) and Chance (boy 7) left early Sunday morning for the long journey back down to Essex so we're down to just 3 'til Chico leaves tomorrow...feels very quiet!!

Once Chance had left on Sunday we headed up to Hest Bank Kennels for Teal's agility beginner class. It was outside this week and it was really nice to catch up with everyone from Faith's training group afterwards. Can't wait to get Faith back training after she's had her litter...will be really weird having two dogs to work. Overall I was really pleased with Teal. She was much happier and more confident outdoors and working forward over her dogwalk nicely, she was also jumping her full height (small) with ease making no attempts to duck under at all. She was happily running through a long curved tunnel no probs and did the A-frame and tyre for the first time happily too. I did some 'wait' work with her last night at home. I've never needed to teach her a wait before so she doesn't have one (oops!) but she's picking it up. I also decided to teach Squirrel a 'sit' which took no time at all (she's a smart little cookie that one!) and started them both doing left and right spins. I may start doing a little agility training with Squirrel once she's running reliably in flyball, we'll see. I will get some of my equipment set up at home so I can do more training with Teal over the weekends, will be better when it starts getting lighter in the evenings and we can use that time too.

I think that's about it for the update...a little longer than I'd hoped for...sorry!! lol

It will be another week before I have internet access at home so my postings and replies to e-mails etc might be a bit slow in coming for a little while longer.