Bits I forgot to write earlier

Two other lovely things that made the Patanden show special were firstly the lovely picnic we had on Saturday (Karen was the key organiser, on Sunday when she selfishly went to a different show neither Bernadette or I had brought any food..... lol!), and secondly the nightingale that was singing it's heart out.
Only a couple of bad things, the most important of course was missing Karen's happy fun company on Sunday, and the second is that I realised that there hasn't yet this year been a day at a dog show where there hasn't been an upsetting incident involving dog aggression.

Patanden UKA show

This weekend I went to another small UKA show, one that was held close to where my sister lives, so I stayed a night at her house (Thanks sis!). A great weekend, not only a fun relaxed show but also a night out partying as it was my cousin's birthday. Becky had a fantastic time, she is never as happy as when we set off to compete. She dances and plays (and, ahem, barks) and nothing else makes her as happy. She had four runs, she won three of them and came second in the last (missed a distance weave entry in the gamblers class). What a fantastic little dog she is. I am very grateful that she can jump lower jump heights at UKA shows and continue having so much fun. Zazzy is beginning to perk up, although she still has udders due to her phantom pregnancy. I have been working as hard as I can, really truly, playing with her, doing everything I can think of to motivate her, and keeping everything upbeat. I really can only do short bursts because I put absolutely everything I have into it, and it is exhausting!! I really like the UKA shows as you can train when you need to, so we had a good mix of running some classes and training others. Perfect for now as her contacts are still a work in progress, and I can build in short highly rewarded sections to keep her motivated and happy. Interestingly she is more motivated if I frequently change the toy I am using. I ran her agility class on Saturday and she won that, she has already won a jumping class so she moved up a level to novice. I'm glad about that as her novice jumping class on Sunday had some subtle but short spaced zig-zags, and this showed where our homework is needed, she was not looking for the jumps but running in straight lines. Her gamblers run on Sunday was laid out in such a way that I could easily find a perfect course for her, and then she was a really good and clever girl doing the closing gamble, so she has had her first novice win and we finished the weekend on a high.

Kaydee

Well Kaydee has had her fourth of four injections of cartrophen prescribed to help arthritic changes in her spine, and I think she looks really well. I don't know if she will ever do agility competitively again, for now it is just about fitness and quality of life, which means lots of this kind of thing.....

Fantastic! Going walking is why I have dogs, and in this glorious spring sunshine I can't think of anything I would rather be doing!

Easter

I'm hoping to sort out the videos from the Easter Celebration show, meanwhile here are some pictures from my beloved new 'phone:

Who is herding who??!

Back at Pollys field (Monday) - the sun comes out at last! (have you seen the triangle of collies behind Polly?!)

Last walk of the weekend (Chobham Common)

Back home everyone gets comfy, and Zazzy gives Kaydee a wash!

Dog tired!

My dog seems to be finding it too exhausting to sit up long enough for me to take a picture...... I guess this is my definition of her being a bit flat! Poor Zazzy!

This is Zazzy with her brothers (from L to R) Spider (Laura Derritt), Fix (Shaun Hunt), Rocky (Hazel Barker). (Zazzy of course being the one lying down!)

Good old Becky did her stuff though, she was rewarded for her nice championship agility run by winning first place.

My day off - woohooo!!

Here is a group of some of the usual suspects on a SUNNY Friday afternoon, at a UKA show (Scrambles). Leah claims she is no good at running (hate to think what her definition of good running is then :-)) but I've never seen anyone move so quick as her when I produced my new 'phone! Yes this one is a camera phone!! So at last I can have a pretty blog like other people.

Becky had one agility run at standard height. I decided that we would train it, more to reward a wait than anything else. She LOVED it and threw herself 100% into her run! HUGE fun for both of us! (p.s after trying a couple of lunges which usually makes me start running, oh yes she has shaped my response under competition conditions really well, she waited perfectly, just like at training! Mind you she always has been able to tell the difference between a training run and one I want to really run. So it will be interesting to see if I can keep her believing that I am now always cool, calm and in control...someone get Cesar Milan over here quick! lol!)

Zazzy ran her jumping first (standard height), and won it! Her brother Fix (with Shaun Hunt) won the large height section, so a fantastic day for the family! I trained the other two of Zazzys runs, so that she got lots of short sections with high reward to build up her drive and enthusiasm, and this seems to be working. Although there is still plenty more room for improvement I am happy as long as she is happy! I feel that it is important that everything she does in agility is rewarded fantastically at the moment, even if I'm not always quite sure that it is!!

Kaydee had a pamper day (grooming and massage). After discussing her problems with my vet, we have put her on a course of cartrophen to see if it will help with the arthritic problems in her spine. Up until now, she has been able to lift her left back paw on cue, but could only shuffle her right back paw forward and ends up sitting as she tries to lift it. Well today I asked her for each hind paw in turn and could hardly see a difference in the way she lifted both. Co-incidence.....?