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.... ;)

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!

Cock-a-Hoop

Have been very lax at blogging again (tut) but here's a couple of cocker updates...
Teal weave training in the garden last week...

starting to close the channels up closer now so she has to 'get a wriggle on' lol We have a group training session with Nigel Staines next week, I'm not sure how much we're going to get out of this as we're not competing yet but I'm sure we'll find some of it useful. Looking forward to it anyway :)
Here's a pic of daughter Rio who made her agility debut at UKA and won her first rosette...2nd in the Steeplechase :)

Radley also made her flyball debut in starters this weekend and she was soooooo good!! The star of the team :) I really wanted some video of her running but as I was running Squirrel in the same team it didn't happen :( It was an 'interesting' day and just about anything that could go wrong did at some point but there were also some very encouraging points too...Squirrel stayed focused all day and proved very consistent on the start (good girl), we just need to work on getting her to take the ball cleanly and come off the box quicker. Helen's litte rescue girl Meg ran reliably but she is still very lacking in confidence, hopefully this will improve with time. Oban had moments of brilliance (very speedy little height dog!) followed my moments of sheer lunacy! lol He has an awful lot of eye and is distracted by the other team dogs very easily. All in all...a work in progress!
We did however get some video of the 'Intermediate' team...

...this was actually 3 of our open sanctioned dogs (Pip, Bailey and Drake) being run by completely novice handlers with Alex and Jeep running anchor dog, Jeep hasn't run for nearly a year and had a lovely day bless him :) Our new handlers were actually my uncle Conrad and two cousins (Amy and Jess) with Auntie Jackie collecting balls and shouting all the dogs back so it was effectively 'Team Holtappel' lol, they did a really fantastic job with some cracking starts and changeovers and came 2nd in the division! :)

'Shattered and Sunburnt'

Anglesey at Easter

Well, who would have predicted the fantastic weather we had over the four days we spent on Anglesey, blue skies and sunshine from the time we arrived to the time we left...absolutely perfect :)

With only 6 divisions of racing over the weekend we had plenty of time to enjoy the fabulous weather, the big open spaces for dog walking and the fantastic flyball and agility training facilities provided by those lovely PODS. Racing started at 9.30am each morning although we were racing in the last division on each day so we got to enjoy a nice leisurely walk and breakfast in the sunshine followed by a very civilised hour lunch break and presentation around 4pm. The whole weekend was just a very leisurely and relaxed affair, a perfect little flyball holiday.
Breakfast on Easter Sunday...boiled eggs and 'soldiers'...what else?!! lol

Paul also introduced us all to his new favourite vodka cocktail...Apple Pie...a specific brand of Vodka (sorry, can't remember which), cloudy apple juice and a sprinkling of cinnamon...absolutely delicious (it does taste just like Apple pie!!). I'm so glad we decided to spend our Easter over in North Wales; Anglesey is one of our favourite venues and chances are we won't be at the summer show this year as it's only on for one weekend, it's a bit of a trek for just 2 days.

I'm also really glad we took Faith and the pups, she got plenty of exercise to help get her back fit and they got lots of time and attention.

sunbathing on Gemma's lap...look at all that milk still!!

a short vid of the pups playing...

Dora also had a whale of a time, she was able to be allowed loose pottering around the caravans most of the time and really enjoyed the freedom, she's a very easy little pup to have around, she loves company but is equally happy off playing and amusing herself and so far (fingers crossed) she has a fantastic recall!

Both teams ran well but we did get an awful lot of lights! We ran the same dogs in the same order as last weekend but swapped all the handlers so we might as well have been starting from scratch! lol I did get to run Mac start dog again though which is something I always really enjoy. I also had to run Teal as she suddenly decided she was going to be a mummy's girl and didn't want me running Drake instead of her! I think it may have been something to do with the fact I had been doing some chute training with her in the morning. We've started loading her ball in the left hole as she's now decided that's the way she's going to turn. I remember Oskar took a while to make his mind up so maybe it's a spaniel thing! The Alpha's did a brilliant job boxloading for us though which was greatly appreciated and Genna has offered to be our boxloader for the Euros which will be great. I judged div 2 on the Sunday and really enjoyed it, the racing was tight and the relaxed friendly banter between teams was really nice.

On Monday Gemma and I competed in the flygility with Bailey and Teal, this involved a short agility course and then straight onto a flyball lane, the dog must bring the ball back out of the lane and then do the agility course back the way they came. It sometimes takes the dogs a while to understand that they're doing agility and flyball at the same time but Teal seemed to pick this idea up quite quickly, so long as I didn't move past the first agility jump on the way back before she'd exited the flyball lane (else she thought we were done with the flyball bit and dropped her ball!). The course started on the weaves so dogs not weaving got to miss the first obstacle and got a 10 sec penalty, you then got a further 5 secs for every obstacle you (the handler) had to run past so the further you can send your dog ahead the faster time you get. I just decided to run the agility course with Teal because at this stage she's still learning and I want to keep her confidence high, she did however complete the whole course (minus weaves) in the fastest time of the day, under 16 secs. Gemma and Bailey predictably won it (again!) as he was the only dog that would send on over the whole course and back again so they incurred no penalties, he did the whole lot, including the weaves in under 20 secs. Go Bailey!!

I had also agreed to run Squirrel with the Dolphins starter team on Monday but after her performance in training recently wasn't sure this was such a good idea. It wasn't a problem because they had a 5 dog team so I could try her and take her out if she messed about. Well, unfortunately a Dolphins team member had to leave urgently on Monday morning so that left them with just the 3 dogs so Squirrel had to run. We took Viggo over with us too, in desperation really because he really isn't ready to compete. We tried running Squirrel last dog in the first race of the day but she just got so excited watching the other dogs go she wanted to just chase them instead of going for her ball (bad little parson!!) so we ended up trying Viggo and...he did it!! We won that race :) In the next warm up we tried sending Squirrel first with Gemma on the box to get her focused, this did the trick and she ran fine after that. We even managed to get two rolling starts on the last race of the day! Don't think I've ever seen a terrier running start dog before?? lol Vi didn't run again, they'd started the flygility in the top arena and he was totally distracted by that and wouldn't bring the ball back. To be fair to him, it was a big ask, I only showed him flyball 2 weeks ago and he's done about 10 mins training so I really didn't expect anything from him. There's plenty of time to let him pick it up slowly. So our little starter team of Squirrel, Steve's Rory, Roxy the cocker and Bridget's Tearlaidh ended up unbeaten and winning the division!! Not bad for a first outing and especially considering how our day started! Paul took a couple of short videos of Squirrel running so I'll upload them when I get them.

We're over at Sutton Fields this weekend for the judges training seminar and starters competition. Radley will be making her flyball debut so we're hoping to get a little training session in one evening this week and see how we get on. I just hope Squirrel remembers what she's doing!!

Happy Birthday Mac Man

Well the 'big man' is seven years old today. SEVEN!!! Already!!! I can hardly believe it! I don't think anyone has told him quite how old he is yet because he does still insist on behaving like an over enthusiastic puppy all the time!!

I remember vividly the day I drove over to Shirley's to see a litter of pups. I had in my mind that I wanted a dark marked choc merle with green eyes and she had just the pup so I arranged to go and see them. I was working in Penrith at the time and went straight from there to Shirls in North Wales one lovely sunny summer evening...a 3 half hour drive! I then spent another 2 hours watching the pups and meeting all Shirls dogs and trying to make my mind up which one to take!! Poor Shirl...she had the patience of a saint! None of the young pups quite took my fancy, there just wasn't that 'thing' but when Shirl said she had a couple of 16 week old dog pups that she'd been given backword on I said I'd take a look. She opened the kennel door and these two stunning young boys bounded out. Mac just followed me around the field and wouldn't take his eyes off me. He was a big chunky flashy marked BLUE EYED puppy, not what I had gone for at all but there was just something about him. He was coming home with me. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate that someone else had turned this puppy down and given me the opportunity to own such a fantastic lad. I feel very sure that he was meant for me.

That weekend we were at the Nuneatons flyball tournament at Sharnford when Pam Harrison spotted Mac and dashed over to ask me where he was from and was he for sale?!! After much pointless persuasion she accepted I wasn't letting him go (lol) and they headed off over to Shirls on the Monday to collect his brother, Indi....they also came home with a pup from the other litter in the form of Tigger!! I don't think Pam would regret that day for one minute. They've proved to be really smashing dogs.

So I have Mac to thank for the longtime firm friends I found in Shirley and Pam :)

I wouldn't say Mac has always been the easiest of dogs to live with, he went through a very difficult 'teenage phase' where he was very hard work! I soon realised that for all his bravado he was actually very lacking in confidence and all he really wanted was for someone else to make all the hard decisions for him. Once we had agreed that 'someone' was me things improved dramatically and we formed a very strong bond. He's a very friendly lad, he absolutely adores people and will accost anyone that comes to the house or people he meets out on walks to play with him. If he can't find a toy he'll just find the nearest thing he can...a plastic bottle, a piece of wood, a shoe! He's very enthusiastic and incredibly keen to please. Whatever you ask of him he will always try his hardest and I think this is the thing that I love most about him.


At this moment I don't have anything from him and this worries me, he has a work ethic that none of my other BC's can quite match up to and tends to pass it on to his offspring; this is something I don't want to lose. Hopefully I will have another litter by him at the end of this year and keep something from this, my next 4 sec flyball dog (not asking too much then!! lol)

Flyball training musings...

I've been spending a bit of time this week going back and looking at some videos of our dogs training and competing and have come to the conclusion that we're still a long way from getting the best performance possible out of each dog. Most of it comes down to efficiency in box turns and drive/motivation back from the box so I have resolved to sit down and devise some exercises, tailored to each dog, to see if we can make some improvements in these areas.

By far my biggest headache is Ethan who has bags and bags of drive and enthusiasm; the muscle, power and speed to pull his handlers arms out the sockets(!!) and get him down to the box very quickly but a complete lack of focus on the runback which results in an amble back down the hurdles while having a nosey at what's going on in the other lane!! (Grrrrrrr)...I'm wondering whether it's possible to buy one of those head blinkers they use on racehorses but designed for dogs instead?? Surely they have something similar for Greyhound racing? Not that Eth's head resembles a greyhounds' head in any way, shape or form!! lol Might scare the opposition too!! lol

I need to seriously get my thinking cap on for something that will draw his attention back to his handler and motivate him to get there as fast as his fat hairy legs will carry him! lol Unfortunately a bevvy of 'in-season' beauties is totally out of the question but it has got me to wondering whether having him castrated might help him concentrate a little more?? With the season about to get into full swing it's really too late to be thinking about having him done now (why didn't I think of it earlier??!) so we're going to have to come up with something else if we're going to see any improvement. Maybe running him with Mac would help?? Clutching at straws??? lol

I think we'll take the training chute and a couple of jumps to Anglesey with us and hopefully we'll have the time (and weather) to do some additional training while we're there.

Hooligans!!

This is my absolutely fave pic that Toni took of the pups playing on Saturday :)

Dora with all four feet off the floor as she launches an 'attack' on brother Bolt...what a pair of hooligans!! lol


(photo copyright to Toni-Marie Hudson)