A rare weekend off…

So, we had a flyball free weekend so what did we do? Stay at home and relax? Catch up on all the housework and gardening? No of course not, Saturday afternoon I drove down to Oxford to collect Moody (A Viggo-Dazzle puppy who has been returned to me at 6 months old) and visit Joy and Becca. Moody, thankfully, is a lovely little lad (actually, no he isn’t little…he’s HUGE) who has fitted right back in with everyone and enjoyed his visit to Joy and Becca’s farm as much as the rest of my lot…charging down the bridlepaths and across the fields and then jumping in Joy’s pond! Lol We had a nice evening, Chinese food and Rioja and a good old natter and then headed over to Sally’s lovely garden centre, Purely Plants near Banbury, on Sunday morning to do some agility training; our first in ages and much needed before our competition at the end of this month! We did some good little bits but it really did highlight our need for regular training; I must get back up to HBK Agility
again as it’s the perfect setup for me but just seem to really struggle to find the time. We had a nice weekend and it was lovely being able to catch up with Joy, Becca and Sally and all their lovely Bryning babies of course :o)

Joy also helped me get some new photos of Aston who has just turned 6 months old, he’s still very much the baby but shaping up nicely, I’m very pleased with him :o)

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!

Playing Catch Up!

Ooops, nearly a week without a post again, I can see the number of posts are going to be dropping as we get busier and busier over the summer!

So, what has been happening this past week?

Mum was away in Bulgaria with some friends from church, painting a shelter for abused women on behalf of a charity out there called 'Mission Possible'. This left me home alone and actually, I had a very constructive week! I always seem to get a lot more done when left to my own devices...not sure why that is?!

We had beautiful weather all week so the pups got to spend a lot of time out in the garden and the dogs spent a lot of time out, I left them with the run of the yard and 'dog room' while at work each day. Road walking lunchtime and every evening with my competing collie girls and then some flyball box work and agility training after that. I gave agility training a miss on Wednesday as Teal and I were going up to Hest Bank for a Nigel Staines training evening on Thursday. By this point I had to 'vet wrap' my lower legs because of the shin splints I had inflicted on myself with the excessive road walking all week! Amazing the difference some simple strapping can make! lol

This was supposed to be a Grade 1-4 training session so I wasn't sure how much we'd get out of it as we're obviously not competing yet but it was a useful session so I'm pleased we went. I very much liked Nigels' manner with both dogs and people, very patient and very encouraging. So we have some new exercises to train at home and I have a lot more to think about. I had been struggling with Teals' seesaw still, in fact what I learned is that she totally understands her running contacts...that she has to run to the end of each piece of equipment so what I actually need to do is leave her to get on with it! We did a flowing sequence of dog walk - flik flak - A frame - jump - seesaw (ok, it was supposed to be flowing but I kept cocking up the flick flak by trying to rush it so it took me a few attempts to get it right...cue EXTREMELY patient intstructor! lol)...regardless...what we learned was....when I was running like stink alongside my little dog she was tending to leave her contacts early and only just getting them or missing them completely but when I stayed very wide of the contacts and limited how much I ran with her she nailed them every time! It's ME inadvertently rushing her that's making her do it wrong, she's more than capable of doing it right if I leave her well alone! lol This is going to be quite tricky for me because I have to start thinking very hard, about where Teal needs to go and where I need to go...i.e. not the same route...yeh, I know...that's agility handling but I'm learning ok! I think Teal could be ready to compete fairly soon, me on the otherhand.... ;)