Agilty Dogs Fitness

2012-01-29T00:52:00.000-08:00

Well the razzmatazz, glitz and noise of Olympia has faded into a distant memory, and it is time to look forward to the summer season. Time to get back to training! I feel very lucky to have such a lot of good trainers available down here in south east England, although venues are hard to come by and very expensive (I really do wish I could afford to have some space and equipment of my own for training). December and January have both been incredibly hectic months, I have a lot of change going on at work (yes, I’m now even more over-worked and under-paid!), plus new ventures in other parts of my life (all very good and exciting!). We had quite a long break from training over Christmas, and only started back in the second half of January. I would like to thank Shaun Young, Amanda Rogers and Matthew Goodliffe who are my main trainers at North Downs DTC (and also to congratulate all North Downs members for winning the premier league in the Agility Club points league. How fantastic is that?!) I also feel very lucky to have got some training with Toni Dawkins and Natasha Wise this winter. Thanks to them and all my friends for all your help! I really appreciate it. I have been hoping to get some video of how the training is going but have not yet found a willing volunteer to hold the camera! Now is the time to really have a think about what I can improve, in readiness for the start of the season. I have a very long list! But I find it all exciting and am feeling very motivated. We have had a very kind winter (weather wise) so far, I hope it continues long enough to work through my list! (Our first deadline is Crufts....)
I have started with some weave training. The new weave width, standardising the gaps between poles to 600mm, came into force Jan 1st 2012. I am really pleased about this, the wider weave spacing seems much kinder to our dogs, especially when they are trying to get those difficult flat weave entries. However, the weaves are noticeably longer as a piece of equipment now, both for transportation and as part of a course! I have agreed to a number of judging appointments this year, and am getting down to some serious course designing. I hate watching dogs stutter round tight, cramped courses, especially the younger dogs, and want to design courses that are a pleasure to watch dogs run round, as well as courses that are interesting for the handler to work. I do have one short bit of video of Zazzy doing some weave training, here it is.

Pictures of Zazzy at Olympia

2011-12-30T05:44:00.000-08:00

Just love these pictures taken by Ian Watts

Olympia!!

2011-12-20T14:19:00.000-08:00

Olympia has the most amazing atmosphere, and it was fantastic to qualify to be there. In the past Zazzy has been overwhelmed by big occasions, and I said beforehand that if I could keep her happy and confident, then I would consider the day to be a success. Zazzy was brilliant, she ran really well, after a little wobble to start with, she seemed to relax and enjoy her day, so I was very happy. However, I underestimated how easy it would be for her to pick up the wrong end of the tunnel, so we got eliminated. I was very disappointed with myself for that mistake, but still, overall we had a great experience.

To end the year on a high, Zazzy won the Agility Club points league for large grade 5, clever Zazzy :-)

2011-12-20T12:44:00.000-08:00

We had a fantastic day out at the UKA Grand Finals at 'The Hand' Equestrian Centre, Bath. It was a well organised and very enjoyable event. There was a lovely atmosphere, great people, and Deece was adopted as an honoury sheltie for the day! I was really pleased with Deece, he had three runs and was brilliant. Clear in the first two, but not quite in the final LOL.

North Downs show

2011-11-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

It's a beautiful sunny day, so rare in November, and it's a terrible shame that I feel too ill to fully appreciate it! I have got the cold that is going round all my friends and colleagues, the annoying thing is that after over a week of it, it just seems to be getting worse and worse. Bit of a set back, I am impatient to get on with my own training, but the slightest exertion leaves me wheezing and weak, I have lost my voice, and I feel exhausted and can't think straight. Everything is on hold until I get over it, but with Deece's final next weekend, time is running out! I did still go to the North Downs show, it is my club and I wanted to help. Luckily I was given jobs where I could sit down! It was lovely to catch up with people, well the ones that risked getting close enough to talk to LOL. Unable to run, and with the dogs unable to hear me, we didn't manage to do anything great in the competitions. Deece really enjoyed the noisy environs of the indoor school, but Zazzy got flatter with each run. Thanks to Karen for videoing this run, Deece's 4,5 jumping.

Cooling down/warming up

2011-11-23T06:36:00.000-08:00

That is, the weather is cooling down, but it's time the dogs and I started getting a sweat on with some training! Both Deece and Zazzy are back doing agility now, but all too quickly the finals are rushing up towards us! This weekend we get to run at the North Downs indoor show, so I guess we will see how we are getting on. I would love it if some kind person would do some videoing :-S

Deece's final is next weekend, and Zazzy is at Olympia the second weekend after that!! Eeek! I don't feel ready! It is getting colder now and I am glad to have 'Back on Track' coats for them for warming up and cooling down in (above is a picture of Kaydee modelling hers), the coats keep the body warm and so a good supply of blood is kept supplied to the muscles. This helps prevent injuries or muscle soreness.(I have t-shirts that I wear at night that help the shoulder I injured this summer too)

SOS

2011-11-11T04:03:00.000-08:00

In these colder darker days, I love cuddling up with my dogs on the sofa, and I look forward to the Christmas sparkling lights, the promise of a season of peace and goodwill, and of course to eat, drink and be merry. Recently I woke up cosy and warm, but just a teeny bit uncomfortable, because Deece was stretched out over three quarters of the bed surface while I was squished up by, and just about to fall off, the edge. I voiced my complaint and reminded him that some dogs have to sleep out in the cold; he responded by grinning, wagging his tail and rolling onto his back offering his belly for a rub. It’s at times like this when coming across pictures of starving, abandoned, unwanted or mistreated dogs is particularly painful. The thought of anything horrible happening to my dogs is unbearable to me, yet no one can ignore that potentially wonderful loving dogs like them are out there, sometimes in a desperate state, sometimes just unwanted, thrown away, and facing their final day in a pound. They are not abandoned / starved / imprisoned / mistreated, or facing their seventh and final day, through any wrong doing on their part. It is a terrible and sad thing.
Now turn away from this and see something wonderful and amazing, a miracle for these dogs; there are some remarkable people out there who are devoted to helping them. People like Val Phillips-Pollock who runs Valgrays Rescue http://www.valgraysbcrescue.org.uk/todonatehelpvalgrays.htm , Sylvia & Bill VanAtta who run Many Tears Rescue http://www.freewebs.com/manytearsrescue/ and Donna Cain who runs Morgans Rescue http://morgansrescuedogs.giving.officelive.com/aboutus.aspx
For these wonderful people that are devoting their lives to help redress the balance, we can help. We all know that after Christmas, the rescue centres will be over-run with unwanted dogs, and these are the people who will be working so very hard to help them. We also know that times are hard and they are struggling for funds to treat them. If only we could all spare a little cash, just a pound or two, well if we put all our pounds together, it would make a lot of pounds, and in so doing we could make a lot of difference. I have decided to try and facilitate this, this is my plan......
I would like so much to help all three deserving rescue centres, but objectively have realised that to start with it may be best to focus on helping my most local centre, Valgrays. For an example of what Val does, here is one example:

'This is Wei Wei - he is a 14 week old Whippet/Lurcher type pup, found as a stray in an appalling condition. This little pup had to stay in holding kennels for the legal 7 days - but sadly no one claimed him, his condition in the kennels deteriorated and the dog warden contacted Valgrays to see if we had space as we have in the past helped other strays....of course we said yes immediately....unfortunately for many strays after 7 days if they do not get claimed or rescue space is not found these poor dogs do get put to sleep....that is fact.......anyway unknown to us we had no idea that he was in such a bad state - but the morning he arrived our heart sunk - this little bundle of bones arrived with us on Tuesday 23rd August in a terrible state, he was emaciated, dehydrated, weak and had no will to live, he was also very cold, he was put under a heat lamp and had a nice fleece coat put on, we knew that this pup needed urgent medical attention, we phoned our vet immediately and told him we needed to bring down a very sick puppy, we arrived at the vets with Wei Wei, when we arrived the vet was horrified at his condition - weighed in at 7kgs (just bones) running alive with fleas, and he was put onto a drip where he stayed for the some hours.....
Urgent funding for dogs like Wei Wei is so important to get them back to health, veterinary care is very expensive so if you feel you would like to help and support Wei Wei - Valgrays would be so grateful. Updates will follow with his progress and we are keeping our fingers crossed that he makes a good recovery...for the time being he is having the best care possible and he even had a cuddly teddy sent him in the post today, so thank you to the person who sent this - this poor little pup needs our help, he did not ask to be born - he did not ask to be dumped
How could we deprive this poor young dog a chance of life.... he's just a baby and has the rest of his life ahead of him, he could be dead by now.... along with many other helpless dogs......
Wei Wei . deserves every chance of a long/happy life with a caring family...we need to get him better his future is in our hands.
Thank you'

Helping: Part 1.
Between now and Christmas, I have pledged to lose 9 lbs, and I am hoping that those of you who don’t want me to at your Christmas meals despondently sipping tap water, complaining of hunger, and holding up pictures of Wei Wei, will sponsor me, if only to make me stay away. All proceeds will go to Valgrays.

Part 2.
Please donate:
• Bedding (vet bed, etc)
• Collars - always needed
• Leads, harnesses, head collars, etc
• Dog coats (for older rescues)
• Dog Treats / Toys / Chews
• FOOD! (for the dogs that is!!)

Part 3
Would you would like to do some training, and help Valgrays at the same time? I am in the process of organising some workshops:
Weaves (channels and V-weaves for dogs still learning)
Weaves (proofing and more challenging weave sequences for dogs that can already weave)
Jumping workshop (getting the dog to go on and concentrate on jumping well; handling and cue-ing turns)
The first three are in the planning stage with a tentative date of Dec 10th and venue Brinsbury college, near Pulborough West Sussex (indoor school)
Co-ordination and balance workshop – still to be arranged.
-Can anyone can offer a venue free or cheap, to help Valgrays?

If you are interested in any of the above workshops, or would like something different, please do let me know ASAP!

Edited Jan 2012
I am sorry and very embarrassed to say that although I lost the weight, I haven't made any money for Valgrays from doing so. In fact colleagues at work laughed at me when I asked for sponsorship. Very embarrassing. It seems if you want to raise money for charity, the bar has been raised pretty high, and you need to do something pretty extraordinary! At least run a marathon or cycle from Lands End to John o' Groats! I also ran a workshop to see how viable running a few to raise money for charity would be. It went very well, but I found the cost of venue hire, buying/borrowing and transporting equipment, and the amount of organisation and effort required to make it happen, are all much greater than I realised. I think raising money for charity would only work if it was added on to a pre-existing set up. Back to the drawing board. HOwever, my sister made some delicious cup cakes and £13 was donated to Valgrays from people enjoying these at the workshop.

November - conditioning phase

2011-11-01T06:50:00.000-07:00

Just a quick note on getting my dogs back to fitness for agility. I believe that dogs have to be fit to do agility, because twisting at high speeds, braking, landing impact, and sharp turning movements, are demanding on muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bones. A dog must be fit in order to be able to do all these things. I have read articles by many experts in canine fitness, who talk about the importance of background fitness and conditioning in agility dogs. So what does it involve? Having been involved in the past with athletics and training horses, I found the same idea was employed in both cases. If you want you, your horse, or your dog, to be fit enough to sprint and jump, the first conditioning phase involves a gradual increase in low impact cardiovascular conditioning, improving stamina and strengthening muscle, tendon, ligament and bone. Although muscles respond very quickly to exercise, tendons and ligaments have a relatively poor blood supply and may take 6 weeks to repair, so the increase in work must be gradual to avoid injury (no more than a 10% increase in load per week). For my dogs this means that I am increasing their walks (and trying to find hilly places to walk them!), taking them swimming if time and finances will allow, we are going back to self control games (for waits etc.), and including lots of co-ordination and balance games which are so useful to build or maintain core muscle strength: http://agilitynet.co.uk/training/co-ordinationandbalance_hannahbanks.html

Fab holiday, northern England and Edinburgh

2011-10-30T03:00:00.000-07:00

Quick catch up!

2011-10-17T10:27:00.001-07:00

The dogs and I have enjoyed a break from agility, photos of a fabulous recent trip 'up north' to be posted soon! I still miss Becky hugely, and find waves of grief and sorrow wash over me at unexpected times... when we reach a new hill top and she is not there, when we get home and she is not there.... My wonderful friends had a huge canvas print of her made up and it now sits above her ashes in my living room.
The end of season news was that Zazzy won the Agility Club points league for her grade, and Deece won his first G5 class (fortunately jumping so he is still in novice, phew! :-)) They are both looking well after their rest period, and now seem keen to be getting on with things again!
Soon we will start looking forward to starting to train towards Deece's final at The Hand arena at the beginning of December, and Zazzy's visit to Olympia in the middle of December. Meanwhile I have been dreaming up schemes to raise sponsorship for animal rescue charities, more news on that when the plans are more concrete! The other news is that the London Low Emission Zone is being extended from Jan 1st 2012, and my old van will fall into a £100 per day charge for driving into work under this scheme (!!!!!!!) so it will have to go.....

Autumn approaches....

2011-09-04T00:49:00.000-07:00

What a season we have had this year! Zazzy won her fourth G6 agility class at the Dogs In Need show, and is now grade 7. She has also qualified to go to Olympia. Clever Zazzy :-)
Deece qualified for the Novice Cup final at the Kennel Club International Agility Festival with the highest score, and then went on to qualify to run at Crufts. He has also qualified to run in the UKA steeplechase final at the beginning of December. We still have plenty to work on, and I am hoping that he will start next year in novice so he can have a go at trying to qualify for the novice Olympia final, although he took me my surprise by winning his agility class last weekend, so now he is in grade 5! Eeeek I don't want him to be clever again until the Olympia qualifiers, which start next spring!

Lake District June 2011

2011-08-06T14:02:00.000-07:00

View from Haystacks

On teh way to Grisedale Pike

Stopping for a drink on the way up Grisedale Pike

View from CatBells, near Keswick

Whinlatter Forest - the inscription reads 'Nature's peace will flow into you like sunshine flows into trees'

Looking back to the Lune Valley showground from Farleton Fell (walked there from the show on a day off)

Zazzy looking out towards the sea from Farleton Fell

Catch up - Deece

2011-08-06T11:53:00.000-07:00

Deece continues to be the loviest dog. He is still quite goofy and gullumphs around making me laugh all the time. We are not going clear around many courses! Mostly just a pole, recently he has had quite a few faults in the weaves (I think the weave bases at that show were spaced more narrowly than most). Some of the courses have had very tight spacings all the way round. Here is one video of him, you can see how many bounces he puts in, and just the one pole!

Having said we haven't gone clear that often, he has had four jumping wins so has now moved up to g4! He is doing some lovely bits and I am really pleased with him.

Catch up - Zazzy

2011-08-06T11:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't written about how the season is going for ages, so here goes. The shows started for us in April, although I am not doing as many competitions as I have done in past years (due to rocketing fuel prices and a frozen salary), and have also been judging rather than competing at some of them. Just as the vet said, it took at least six to nine months for Zazzy's hormones to settle down after her op, but here we are a year later, she is sooooo much happier.
At her first show of the season she had a jumping win and a second in agility at grade 5. She has gone on to get 10 wins and 11 seconds which, along with her other top 10 places, has taken her to the top of her league in the Agility Club points system, despite missing the first 6 months! Clever Zazzy has qualified for both novice Olympia semi final days, and at the Thames show not only won her Olympia qualifier but came second in the CSJ novice qualifier. Unfortunately, due to work committments, we will not be able to make the CSJ final though which is disappointing.
So Zazzy moved up to grade 6, and I thought that would be the end of the trophies, but to my surprise and delight on her first day at g6 she won her agility. On her second day she had another win and a second. On her third day she had a second and a third. Unfortunately I only have a video of that third place (thanks to Lorna for filming) - I had been scriming all day and my timing was late throughout the run (great dog shame about the handler...), in fact towards the end I momentarily forgot my handling plans and made something up.... clever Zazzy for going clear despite me LOL.

At this point the bubble did finally burst. Zazzy went acutely lame for a few hours, however thorough examinations by Dave Munnings (osteopath) and Donna Cordon-Stacy (vet) only found a small mark on her toe, our best guess is that is was a wasp or bee sting! Anyway, I didn't run her at Tuffley and she had a week off agility. The following Sunday we had a day out to Chipping Norton and Zazzy won her third g6 agility. Then she broke a toe nail right down to the quick so that was Rugby out and another week off! The following weekend she broke into my friend's picnic and stole and ate a pack of half a dozen cooked chicken drunsticks. OMG I was so worried, but she was absolutely fine (didn't want to run her for a few days though, to be safe she had another week off!). Last weekend was the Agility Club show, I was judging Sunday and got food poisoning Saturday.... I will try and blog separately about judging, and also the fab holiday we had in the Lake District, but that is the shows up to date, no shows this weekend and oh I really hope that's our run of bad luck over!!

Becky

2011-07-04T10:40:00.001-07:00

I have been trying to put together a video tribute to Becky, but it seems my operating system is too old to cope with editing software! However with a bit of help from my friends I hope to have one soon...

Why love a dog?

2011-06-14T08:56:00.000-07:00

Why do some people form such a deep attachment to dogs and/or other animals? I came across a really interesting and well written article today that suggests our connection with animals is ancient and has been an important and significant driving force, defining the path of human evolution. Have a look at this: http://patshipman.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/New-Scientist.pdf
This article suggests that the human-animal link makes sense of three of the most important leaps in human development – tool-making, language and domestication. It explains how developing an understanding of prey and predators was required to develop and make the most of tool-making skills. Prehistoric art from 50,000 years ago shows that understanding animals was the most important thing to the people that depicted them, and observing animals, compiling and sharing information was a strong impetus to developing language and communication. It suggests that the first domesticated thing was the dog, the earliest known dog skull is estimated to be 32,000 years old. Domesticated dogs may have provided hunting assistance, protection, and possibly even transport, and could live on animal remains that were not so desireable to humans (meaty bones and tripe!). In addition, domestic animals could be seen as a mobile source of wealth and personal power (and continue to be seen as such on the streets of cities today!). It is easy to see how important, beneficial and valued it would be to develop an understanding of how to keep them alive and well, of being able to communicate with them and control them, and of understanding how to change their genomes to enhance or diminish certain traits. All these things may have driven human evolutionary success and development. We probably owe dogs a great deal more than we realise! Food for thought.

RIP Becky (aka Squecky, aka Wildkap Wannabe) 3.3.00 - 5.5.11

2011-06-14T05:31:00.000-07:00

I have not felt like blogging for quite a while.

In the beginning of May, less than a week after finding two lumps, Beckys lymph system was overpowered by cancer (multicentric lymphosarcoma). Within a few days she was unable to eat, struggling to drink, and fighting for every breath. By the time I knew what was going on, it was too late to even take her somewhere nice for a last walk, as she was too ill to walk far. I couldn't leave her side that last week, being torn apart as I watched her fade away so quickly.

It was the worst week of my life by far.

RIP Becky I miss you so much

Becky always gave every bit of her spirit and soul in everything I asked of her, all she ever asked in return was to be near me.

It breaks my heart that she did not have the many happy golden years that she deserved, that I expected her to have.

The evening she died I wrote this for her:

How quickly time slips away

We were having such fun only yesterday

Plenty of time for our lives to be totally entwined and united

Not as much time as was taken for granted

Not enough time in forever to make this feel right

Part of my soul, part of my shadow, is lost tonight

Becky (aka Squecky, aka Wildkap Wannabe) 3.3.00 - 5.5.11

Now, some six weeks on, I still think about her (and therefore cry) many times every day. However, I realise that the reason it hurts so much to loose my Golden Girl, and the reason that loosing her has left such a huge hole, is because of the enormous amount of life and great and good things that she brought into my life. I am grateful for every single day that I had her there with me.
My other dogs have pulled me back to functioning in the real and present world, and I realise how lucky I am to have them, how precious every moment is. I think I appreciate them more than ever now. I feel the need to enjoy every moment I can with them. After all, the only thing we can be certain of, is that we have the moment that we are in.

April, blog to order!

2011-04-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Hoorah! The show season is starting up again. I have been to a couple of UKA shows so that I could do some training in the ring, particularly so that I could relax Deece into his first experience of competing and could give him lots of reward. It was also lovely to see people that I haven’t seen for a long time and I have had many interesting chats. It’s really good to be getting out to shows again!
Thank you to the lovely people who came up to me to say how much they enjoy reading my blog, what a nice surprise! I have been asked to write something about warming up the human part of the partnership in readiness for stepping into the agility ring, so I have been thinking about that. I have a routine for warming up my dogs, as they obviously have the most athletically testing part of the performance, but I don’t have a warm up routine for myself. Probably partly (OK mostly!) because I’m lazy (for example, at the recent UKA show I was up at 5am and constantly on the move from the time I arrived at the show until the time that I left 8 hours later, apart from sitting down for a 20 minute lunch break, so didn’t feel like expending any more energy!) and partly because I’m self conscious about prancing around where people can see me! As a consequence of not warming up, I have tweaked something. So this is definitely something that is good to think about (and more importantly to action!).
Why is warming up important?
Movement is powered by skeletal muscle contractions. Our muscles are made of bundles of muscle fibres, and in turn these are made up of smaller structures called myofibrils, where the actual contraction occurs. Within myofibrils, there are two types of filaments; actin and myosin. According to the sliding filament theory, when a muscle is activated and movement occurs, these two interlocking filaments grab onto each other and pull like a ratchet system, which causes the myofibril to shorten. This shortening causes muscle contraction. The contraction is powered by calcium ions, an energy source (ATP), and for the contractions to continue beyond a few seconds, oxygen is also required. So the first requirement to efficient movement is to have a good oxygenated blood supply. By the time you reach the start line, ideally your heart should already be pumping, and you should be breathing more deeply, so that your circulatory/cardiovascular/pulmonary systems, muscles and physiology are fully ready to power your sprint round the course. Because it takes five to ten minutes for your body to respond to the demands of moving faster, your warm up should involve enough exertion for at least five to ten minutes beforehand to get to this state of readiness.
Hmmm, I haven’t been doing this – unless the end of the class has been called and I have to charge back to the van to get a dog before I miss my run!
However this is important, because an appropriate warm up should improve performance by:
1. Releasing adrenaline, which:
 Increases heart rate to a level appropriate for faster movement
 Enables oxygen in the blood to travel with greater speed
 Increases blood flow through active tissues as local vascular beds dilate, increases metabolism and muscle temperatures
 Increases production of synovial fluid located between the joints to reduce friction allowing joints to move more efficiently
 Causes dilation of blood capillaries, and therefore a better blood supply to the muscles
2. Increases muscle temperature
 Decreases viscosity of blood
 Enables oxygen in the blood to travel with greater speed
 Facilitates enzyme activity
 Encourages the dissociation of oxygen from haemoglobin facilitating oxygen utilization by warmed muscles
 Allows greater economy of movement because of lowered viscous resistance within warmed muscles
 Greater extensibility and elasticity of muscle fibres
 Increases force and speed of muscle contractions
3. Increases muscle metabolism
 Increses supply of energy through breakdown of glycogen
 Increases speed of nerve impulse conduction. Facilitated nerve transmission and muscle metabolism at higher temperatures; a specific warm up can facilitate motor unit recruitment required in subsequent all out activity
4. Aids mental preparation
 Allows time for you to become mentally focused on the training or competition ahead.

So warming seems like a very good idea, but what happens if you don’t warm up?
Best case scenario - if your body isn’t ready to react to a sudden sprint, it simply won’t be able to respond quickly enough and you won’t be able to run as fast as you potentially can.
More worryingly, ‘cold’ muscle, tendon and ligament is more prone to rip and tear if put under sudden stress (comprehensive warm-up programmes have been found to decrease injuries in soccer and athletics).

What would be a good warm up?
A good warm up should be specific to task. Warming up before competing or sprinting should start with 5 or 10-minutes of jogging. Gentle running will get the blood flowing. This can be followed by dynamic flexibility exercises and some faster running. Current opinion is that static stretches are not a good idea while warming up. Firstly because if you stretch cold muscle, ligament and tendon you could over-stretch it and cause damage, a strain or a tear, secondly because it is not logical to want to have your muscle fibres stretched before you want efficient muscle contractions to power your sprint, and thirdly static stretching for too long can weaken the muscles temporarily. However, stretching all the muscles in this way after exercise is important to help prevent injury, shortening of muscle fibres, and allow greater flexibility and agility in the long term.
Examples of dynamic stretches include:
Arm Swings
Swing each arm in a giant circle, maybe five forward rotations and a five backward rotations with each arm.
Leg Swings
With your left hand on a wall, stand on your right foot and swing your left leg backward and forward in an exaggerated kicking motion. Complete 10 swings and repeat with the right leg.
Star jumps
High knees – slow and fast
Form drills include a slow motion, exaggerated high knee run. The aim is to concentrate on your running style, to make it efficient, smooth and powerful. Your arms should be moving straight forward and back, not across your body. The knee lift should be a powerful movement getting the knee as high as possible, rising onto the ball of your other foot. Once you have good form try a faster running on the spot with high knee movement.
Heel kicks to bottom
In a fast running style.
Squats
Imagine that you are going to sit down, so you are pushing your bottom out and back, and keeping your knees from going too far forward (you do not want them further forward than your toes, this will save your knees).

Warming down
As mentioned above, it is a good idea to stretch after your run, but while your muscles are still warm. Stretching will aid recovery, keep you muscle fibres long and flexible, and help prevent injury.

Deece is 18 months and goes to his first show....

2011-04-03T09:25:00.000-07:00

I have taken Deece to a UKA show so that for his first show experience I can take a toy into the ring and reward him lots....

Recent training

2011-03-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

Training with Natasha Wise

Training with Lee Windeatt

Deece is a wonderful dog, so happy and nice, everyone loves him. I am fairly pleased with his agility progress, although I have never had so much trouble with teaching a dog to weave. He gets his very long legs in a terrible tangle, and just can't seem to 'get it'. Because he had so much trouble with different sets of upright weaves, he slowed right down. Now he is very accurate, concentrates really hard but still gets his legs crossed, especially in tighter spaced weaves. I think I made a big mistake by teaching him using weaves that are wider spaced, think mine are 23" between the poles. However, according to the current KC rules and regs our weaves can be between 18-24" apart (varying by up to 6" between poles, what a massive difference!!), and Deece really struggles with the tighter spaced ones. He also sometimes looks very ungainly running up the dogwalk, like his back legs are too wide apart for the width of the plank, and he is trying to run on stilts! Bless.
Zazzy has done some fab training, but gets very stressed around dogs that she doesn't know. She does unexpected things fairly often, for example recently she has been flicking away from me, despite doing training exercises designed to improve her running with me.

More weaving

2011-01-15T11:31:00.000-08:00

Deece

Co-ordination and balance for agility dogs

2011-01-11T22:44:00.000-08:00

I have been asked, why bother teaching co-ordination and balance?
The following is the first part of an atricle that I have been asked to prepare for agilitynet http://agilitynet.co.uk/frontpage.htm
Good co-ordination and balance is absolutely essential for agility dogs. I have been surprised that so many dogs don’t pay much attention to what their back legs are doing – but then why should they?! In normal dog life they usually do fine just following the front ones! In the course of canine evolution, racing along high narrow planks, negotiating twisting jumping courses at high speeds, braking sharply, weaving, and so on, are extremely recent requirements. Dogs’ hind legs contain the largest and most powerful muscles, and a dog will only reach its full potential in agility if it can engage them in a controlled and efficient way. Improving balance and co-ordination will enable dogs to:
• Find agility obstacles easier to negotiate, which means that during training, they will get it right more often, get rewarded more, and subsequently learn and progress faster.
• Find fast, accurate movements easier, resulting in less chance of hitting equipment awkwardly, reducing the chance of accidents and injury, reducing the possibility of knocked poles, and producing more accurate, controlled negotiation of contact equipment.

When should you think about training co-ordination and balance?
Ideally this type of training should begin quite early on in your dogs agility career, however it can benefit dogs at all stages in their life, and the sort of exercises that are of benefit can also develop or maintain core muscle group strength. Even dogs that do not seem to have an obvious co-ordination problem could benefit from improved core muscle strength, and balancing high impact agility activities with more subtle muscle fine-tuning. You could use the exercises as a warm up before competing or training, or teach new tricks at home when the weather is horrible outside!

Puppies and teaching co-ordination and balance for agility
Agility is a highly demanding athletic sport for dogs. While we should be wary of letting puppies exercise in a way that might damage growing bones and joints (e.g. repetitive high impact activities), they are capable of learning a great deal very fast. This is a perfect time for them to learn to work with you, and also to learn how to balance and co-ordinate their movements in preparation for the future. By helping them to learn how to use their bodies effectively, young dogs will be more physically capable of learning how to negotiate the different agility obstacles more easily when that time comes.

Background fitness
Twisting, braking, landing impact, and sharp turning movements are demanding on muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bones. A dog must be fit in order to be able to do all these things. The type of exercises that develop co-ordination and balance will help develop large and small muscle groups that ‘fine tune’ exact movement. These muscles also help stabilise joints, and therefore protect them against excessive movement leading to wear between the joints, or overstretching that may lead to injury. Strong muscles help protect the joints and back from injury, as anyone with back problems who undertakes pilates classes, or professional rugby players who take regular hard knocks that less well muscled mortals could not endure, will tell you. It is extremely unfair to submit an unfit dog to such a demanding athletic sport as agility.

Co-ordination and balance exercises:
Foot placement
Ladder work is probably the best known and most widely used introduction to co-ordination and balance, a simple but effective way to help develop proprioception and kinaesthesia. You can use a suitable stepladder laid down on the floor, a specially prepared frame, or a line of cardboard boxes (some physiotherapists do not like to see ladders used because they are solid and unforgiving should the dog stumble and hit a rung). The idea is for the dog to very slowly step its way through, placing each of its feet accurately within the framework. The slower this is done the better, as more muscle control is required.

In the photo, Zazzy is learning to accurately place all four feet between the rungs of a ladder as she walks slowly through. The handlers' luring hand is low and close to the ladder to encourage her to concentrate on her foot placement. The dog should walk as slowly as possible! The height of the ladder rungs are slightly lower than her hock height, but still plenty high enough for her to have to concentrate on lifting each leg. You can see she is concentrating very hard and has engaged muscles in her back to lift her hind legs high enough.

Balancing on unstable surfaces
The use of rocker boards, wobble boards, balance cushions etc. help develop both balance and confidence. Physiotherapists advocate the use of these after injury to develop physical balance, reflexes and rehabilitation of weaker areas of the body, as it prevents favouring stronger areas. Some dogs hate the feeling of things moving as they step on them, and so it is important to build up in tiny increments what you ask of your dog, and make sure everything is safe and fun.

Weight shifting
Great control and balance is required to negotiate steep downwards slopes. The dog needs to learn to engage its hind legs underneath it, so that it can rock its weight backwards and use the powerful back leg muscles to control movement, this will decrease the amount of strain and impact on the shoulders and allow better balance and ability to brake, turn or accelerate as required. Most dogs naturally engage their powerful hind leg muscles when going uphill, but you can also teach them to rock their weight back when going downhill by asking them to move very slowly down slopes, or to reverse uphill.

Bending, curving, turning
A flexible strong spine is vital in agility. You can ask your dog to walk round cones, teach it to weave through your legs, or when stationary bend round to get a treat held to the left or right (you can add degrees of difficulty by doing this when your dog is standing on a wobble board or cushion).

Front and back feet doing different things
I find a pill-shaped inflatable fitness ball is the easiest thing to start with. I place the ball between us and make sure that it is securely wedged up against my legs. Then I lure the dog towards me so that it steps up on the ball with its front feet, and reward it while it is standing, not flopping onto its elbows. Once it is confident standing up on the ball with just its front feet, I carefully and slowly take a small step backwards. Because the dog has its weight pushing the ball towards me, the ball rolls back until it is against my legs again, and the dog keeps its front legs on the ball by walking forwards with its hind legs.

You can use this as the starting point to getting the dog to walk along behind the ball around the room, or transfer it onto a skateboard, or transfer it onto a box or tin and teach the dog to move its hind legs around in a circle while the front legs stay on the box or tin (commonly called the elephant trick). The ball can be used for many other tricks, however I would urge caution in taking care to prevent the dog slipping or falling from the ball.

Tricks
On a rainy winter's day, what better way to develop your working relationship with your dog as well as building up co-ordination and balance than to teach your dog some tricks?

Here are a few ideas:-

Teach your dog to circle left and right to a verbal cue. This not only gives directional training which will be useful in a future agility career, but also the movement helps the dog to become more balanced and be aware of all four feet.

Walk backwards. This also excellent for helping with balance and co-ordination.

Position changes, for example getting the dog to go from a down to a stand; and sit-stand-sit etc.

Bow (stretching out the front legs, while keeping its bottom up in the air).

Giving a front paw, or waving.

Giving a back paw

Sitting up /begging

Balancing (on three legs, or if really advanced on two legs).

Catching toys or treats

Targeting with front or back feet. Going to a mat or teaching the dog to target objects with the front or back feet

‘Elephant' (standing front legs on a low, stable box or tin, and getting the dog to move its hind legs in a circle around it)

Getting into a box

Weaving through your legs

There are many more tricks you can teach your dog which can be found freely on the internet. Some examples are below. You can also discuss ideas with your trainer(s) and friends.

Other web sites which might be of use include:-

http://silvia.trkman.net/lolabu/

http://obayshelties.blogspot.com/2009/03/zaz-tricks-12-weeks.html

http://summerick.blogspot.com/2009/05/proprioception.html

http://nellie-bean.blogspot.com/2010/11/doing-silly-things-with-our-dogs.html

In conclusion,
Adding a few fun tricks or exercises to your dogs' routine could be of great benefit. Like cross-training, it is a more holistic approach to your dogs' fitness. Start with just a little and build up both quantity and difficulty of what you are asking very gradually. The dogs' muscles will be working hard even though you may not immediately be able to see it. Just like sit-ups or press-ups, just because you are not running flat out and breathing hard, that does not mean that your muscles aren't working hard! If you teach your dog some tricks, that will also have the added benefit of building your relationship with your dog, a winning situation all round!

Deece - weave training

2011-01-08T09:50:00.000-08:00

It seems like such a long time since we could do any training! Snow, ice, rain, and van problems have all contributed to this, as well as club training having a long break over Christmas. Lee Windeatt's training day had to be cancelled, but luckily was then re-arranged to take place in an indoor venue (more about that in a different post). At last a window of opportunity to train this weekend as the weather has improved. Deece is 16 months old now, time we got serious about some weave training! This is what we did today.

Images from 2010

2011-01-03T06:10:00.000-08:00

A family walk up Box Hill, one of the last photos taken of my blue eyed boy Boogie, now gone but not forgotten. From left to right: Becky (aka Squeacky); my mum; Boogie, Kaydee with Deece in front of her; my sister Mary; her black lab Jazz; Zazzy.

Deece and Zazzy in the spring at Polly's field

Becky

Rosettes all round at a local UKA show for Monty (Morris); Kaydee; Zazzy; Becky

I love the new venue for the Newton Heath show

Fabulous holiday in the Lake District

Another Lake District walk

West Witterings beach. The youngsters play around while Becky looks on!

The New Forest, another good new venue for the Burridge show

A recent winter walk

December already!

2010-12-04T12:41:00.000-08:00

Well I should be able to update with lots of news of agility, but sadly that isn't the case. Partly due to the van breaking down again (can't say anything more about that in case it becomes a court case) and partly because all recent training has been cancelled due to snow.
There has been one of my monthly training days with Lee Windeatt since the last post. I had lots of really positive comments from people who came. Unfortunately as I warmed Zazzy up for her lesson she scraped her pad. It healed in a couple of days, but it did mean that I couldn't run her in her lesson. Booo. So much effort goes into organising the training days!
I was really pleased with Deece. We still have contacts, weaves and tight turns to do (not much then!), I hope the weather won't prevent that happening!

North Downs show

2010-11-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

Here are Zazzys three runs at the North Downs show. Interesting to see how Bernadette also ran her shelties over some of the same courses http://obayshelties.blogspot.com/
In her agility, Zazzy's contacts and weaves were not as good or confident as I was hoping, the volume of dogs and distractions definately affected her, but she does look happy at the end. My handling of the line before the turn to the dogwalk could have been better, I was relying on calling to her to turn, when I should have got my right hand up to indicate a turn coming up as well!

Jumping class - I called too early and pulled her off a jump.

Second jumping class. Bit messy as she came out the tunnel, I was too late in indicating the rear cross.

There were times (especially in the queues) that Zazzy got quite stressed about the other dogs around her. Although it was amazing to see how she transformed when she realised that she recognised her friend all of a sudden! I still have lots of thinking to do about helping her cope with scary lunging dogs, flags etc.

Bit of training

2010-11-16T06:02:00.000-08:00

Zazzy

Deece, 14 months old. When Deece was a puppy I had noticed that he prefered always to lead in the canter with his left leg. I did a lot of circle games with him using cones, and this seemed to help him become balanced using either lead leg. I had completely forgotten about this until Lee put up a figure 8 jumping exercise to teach him to change the lead leg. I recreated it and videoed it so that I could see how he was doing (hard to see while you are working with the dog!).

Millie

2010-11-15T14:28:00.000-08:00

Meet 'Millie', the new addition to my mum's household. She came from a local rescue centre and is thought to be about a year old.

Kaydee's plan

2010-11-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

When I was running the co-ordination and balance course last weekend, I realised that it has been a long time since I have done any of those sorts of exercises with my own dogs. This is particularly remiss in the case of Kaydee, who would benefit most from the sort of exercises that recruit slow, controlled, intense muscle use, but without impact or excessive twisting. The sort of exercises that strengthen core muscle groups, and develop large and small muscle groups that 'fine tune' exact movement. These muscles stabilise joints, and therefore protect them against moving out of their natural range (hyper-extension) that might cause injury. At the same time, they develop proprioception and encourage circulation of joint lubricants, both of which should assist in reducing any joint pain. In the same way that my own back benefits from regular pilates, I think getting Kaydee back into that sort of regular excersise should help her problems. So the first part of Kaydee's plan is to get out the balance ball, wobble cushion, wobble board etc. and to make sure we do lots of fun little exercises with them on a regular basis. The second part of her plan is to take her swimming. I really struggle to be able to afford this, I would love to take all my dogs swimming regularly, but I will do as much as I can.

Two steps forward, one step back

2010-11-06T01:50:00.000-07:00

Well the bad news is that Kaydee has slipped, and in so doing hurt her back again. Luckily for us Stuart McGregor was available to help out. He said her symptoms are typical of a slip where the front legs go one way and the back ones go another.
This seems a good point to refer back to something Stuart said in his seminar that I found particularly interesting, so I have done a little more googling to find out more.
He talked about why it hurts when a joint becomes immobilised. This can happen if a joint is hyper-extended (taken beyond its natural position), because muscles around the joint then 'clamp down' to protect it from damage (the feeling of muscles going into spasm). The theory for this pain is explained by the The "gate control theory" proposed by Melzach and Wall (1965).
In the gate model of pain, the neural fibers that carry the signal for pain and those that carry the signal for proprioception* are mediated through the same central junction. Because signal transmission along pain fibers is slower than transmission along proprioception fibers, the gate model suggests that intense stimulation of proprioception fibers can block the slower-moving pain signals.

This means that when your vertebrae or other joints are free to move normally, there is proprioceptive feedback constantly occupying your neural pathways, so you feel no pain. However, if a joint becomes immobilised there is no proprioceptive feedback mechanism occurring to block the pain signals, so you feel pain.

The "gate control theory" proposed by Melzach and Wall (1965, 1979) identify cellular structures in the substantia gelatinosa in the gray matter of the dorsal horns of the spinal cord, which act as a "gate" that when "open" allows the perception of pain through the reticular formation and thalmus, with response from the limbic system, among others. When the mechanism is stimulated to "close," the gate inhibits the perception of pain. Two types of fibers as identified by Melzach and Wall affect the way pain "gets past, or affects the gate." Small fibers affect the "T cell" and act to "open the gate" when noxious stimulation occur. Larger fibers affect the "SG cells" located in the substantia gelatinosa in the gray matter of the dorsal horn to act in response to proprioception and touch during changes in body movement. They inhibit the T cell response and "close the gate." This in theory changes the course of noxious or painful stimuli, and causes a natural analgesic effect. "Inhibition of pain is increased by stimulating the mechanoreceptors (larger-fibers) in two ways: by movement and activity of muscles and joints, and by manipulation of the joint."
Melzach R, Wall PD. Pain mechanisms: A new theory. Science 150:1965; p. 971.
Melzach, Wall. Gate Control Theory. Churchill Livingston; 1979; pgs. 21-23.

What this means is that by correct manipulation to re-establish normal joint position and movement in a joint, the pain disappears.

*Proprioception
Proprioception refers to sensory information telling us about our own movement or body position, so that we do not have to look to see where our body parts are to know where they are and what they are doing. It provides perception that helps integrate touch and movement sensations. For example, it allows us to walk in complete darkness or touch-type. Receptors for the proprioceptive sense are in the muscles, joints, ligaments, tendons, and connective tissue. The stimuli for these receptors are movement and gravity. Proprioception, the "position sense," sends messages about whether the muscles are stretching or contracting, and how the joints are bending and straightening. Even when we are motionless, gravity stimulates the receptors to create proprioceptive messages without our being consciously aware of them.

Kinesthesia
Kinesthesia is a term that is often used interchangeably with proprioception, although use of the term "kinesthesia" can place a greater emphasis on motion, and they seem to be separate physiologically. Proprioception and kinesthesia are seen as interrelated and there is considerable disagreement regarding the definition of these terms. Some differentiate the kinesthetic sense from proprioception by excluding the sense of equilibrium or balance from kinesthesia. An inner ear infection, for example, might degrade the sense of balance. This would degrade the proprioceptive sense, but not the kinesthetic sense. The affected individual would be able to walk, but only by using the sense of sight to maintain balance; the person would be unable to walk with eyes closed. Proprioception is, in essence, a feedback mechanism; that is, the body moves (or is moved) and then the information about this is returned to the brain, whereby subsequent adjustments could be made. Kinesthesia is a key component in muscle memory and hand-eye (or paw-eye!) coordination, and training can improve this sense. For example, the ability to catch a ball requires a finely-tuned sense of the position of the joints. This sense needs to become automatic through training to enable a person to concentrate on other aspects of performance, such as being aware of where other people and objects are.

Autumn colour

2010-11-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

Richmond Park looked beautiful this morning

A lovely calm relaxing hour walking in Richmond Park before work was very welcome, as everything has been extremely hectic and busy recently. Fab weekend, I organised a training day at the Dog Barn on Saturday, which all went really well. I trained Deece, Zazzy and Kaydee with Lee which was brilliant (no video though sorry). I also ran two co-ordination and balance workshops which went really well, while Lee taught two more training sessions. Quite a long day, exhilerating and exhausting, learnt a lot, and met some lovely people and dogs. I have had lots of really lovely positive feedback for both our courses, so thanks everyone for that, for coming along, being fantastic to teach, and for making it all so worthwhile and enjoyable.

Sunday I went to the KC Canine Sports Science Seminar at Stoneleigh. Another long day (not helped by forgetting to put my clocks back, so I got up at 4am instead of 5am!). It took an hour and a half to get there but three and half hours to get home! We had four quite long seminars, three were really excellent and one was a bit disappointing. The subjects covered :

The Practical Application of Osteopathy in the Working Dog by Stuart McGregor.

Nutrition in the Canine Athlete by Marge Chandler.

Functional Stability Exercises for the Canine by Jackie Grant.

Rehab, Hydro and Fitness Training in Dogs by Angela Griffiths.
I might get round to writign summaries if I have time!

Getting back to training

2010-10-25T10:09:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, instead of just having Zazzy, I find myself with three dogs to train, how fantastic is that?! I'm really enjoying it, the more fun it is, the better the dogs go, and the more motivated I get. Obviously I'm being very careful with Kaydee, but she is absolutely loving doing bits of agility. Deece is an absolute joy. And Zazzy is also being fantastic, in fact she seems so much happier, fitter and perkier that I wonder if there was something up with her in August. At that time, not only did she seem a bit down and tired, but she was also quite restless at night. Additionally I try and give Becky some fun, it is hard to find time to fit everything in, but she deserves that.

So, time to put a training plan in place...

Well last year I trained with a lot of different, very good, people. I was looking for someone who could help me with Zazzy. Of course at the end of the day (/year) there was no magic wand or secret to help with her lack of omph. In fact, with hindsight, as she is such a sensitive soul, it could be possible that trying different things might have knocked her confidence and slowed her down. SO consistency in her training over this winter is what I'm aiming for. Huge thanks to Karen and Toni Dawkins who talked this through with me. We are very sad to loose Toni from the UK, our loss is Belgiums' gain. Anyway, I asked who she would recommend that I take Zazzy to for training, and she said Lee Windeatt. I have seen how good he is with Beep, as well as needing no introduction concerning his own dogs of course. Setting up training, however, has not been that straight forward, as neither of us have our own place to train. So I am arranging one training day a month, so that other people can also benefit from his training, so that hiring a venue becomes affordable, and so that it is worthwhile for Lee as well.

Phase one then, before even starting to train, Lee wanted me to get Zazzy driving to a static toy. Easier said then done, but I have perservered with this, and what good advice it was. I am now seeing the benefit of it. As I was running Becky this weekend I remembered that I did use static toys all the time until more recent training with Zazzy. I stopped using them as Zazzy was completely disinterested in them. However, we have played and played and played, and she is now happily running to her toy. Before I was always throwing toys, running and tugging with her, and giving her lots of verbal encouragement. Lee wanted me to stand still, cue once, and let her get on with it. I have done this with lines of jumps, weaves and sending Zazzy onto the dog walk so that she goes to the end on her own. This has built her confidence in what she is doing. Although she was pretty slow at first, that has improved as the reward is always waiting ahead of her.

Kaydee is doing little bits. She looks a bit 'scuttley' to me, she puts in lots of little strides. She extends well over jumps but can't, or won't, extend her strides to bounce between even the lowest jumps. This could be due to bad memories, as she couldn't do this when her back hurt, or it could be physical. I am, however, obsessive about watching her to detect any indication of pain, stiffness or lack of extension. I can't see any, and she seems soooo much happier in herself too these days. I have also realised (thanks Natasha!) that when I run her 'properly' she looks really good, if I keep watching her as she runs, she becomes hesitant ('what's the matter? What's the matter?') I will keep working on her fitness (carefully!), especially trying to build up the muscles in her back end, meanwhile I am just trying to give her big spaces and short exercises, and to get her driving forwards. Her contacts are pretty good, I am now proofing them by sending, recalling and running as fast as I can past her, front crossing at the end etc.

Deece is 13 1/2 months old now and starting to learn about agility equipment. We have done straight lines to a dead toy, and a front cross using a fan of three jumps. He is learning his end position in 2 on 2 off contacts. This video was taken this last weekend, this exercise puts together a recall, send on and front cross.

At the end of a good weekend, some training and lots of lovely walks.... I need a bigger sofa!

Day at the beach

2010-10-10T11:46:00.000-07:00

Karen, Bernadette, Nancy and I made a trip to West Witterings today, in memory of Sassy who loved this beach.

Kaydee

2010-10-07T14:51:00.000-07:00

Kaydee's first agility lesson in two years....

After a year off and another year very carefully building up, Kaydee did a couple of exercises at North Downs last night (Thanks to Amanda Rogers for this)

No agility...

2010-09-23T11:00:00.000-07:00

There has been no agility since DIN (August), and this is why! My wonderful sister has gotten married to David Coles, here we are gathered on the big day with nephews and neice (I'm the girl in purple on the right!). Of course before that there was the hen party and arrangements to be made... so a busy but very happy September.

Interesting training

2010-09-23T09:12:00.000-07:00

Thought this was an interesting little exercise, which I have been doing for short periods over a few days now.

I wanted to increase Zazzy's drive to a static ball. I have been working on tugging and chasing a thrown ball seems like forever, but 'dead' toys are of little interest to her. If I put a ball down, Deece or Kaydee run to the ball and get it, and they think that's fun. If I call them they bring it back to me, and sometimes we then play with the toy. Or I reward that, or we might move on to something else and use the ball as a reward.

If I put down a ball for Zazzy, she just looks at me. I decided to use treats to reward interest in the ball. She looked at the treats and offered a down, a wave, and a number of other behaviors. I put the ball down close, and rewarded her for moving vaguely towards the ball, then upped my criteria so that she would run to it and touch it. But sometimes she stopped briefly to look back at me before running to it. At first I just waited until she touched the ball, marked and rewarded, then thought that I didn't want her stopping, I want her to go fast and direct. So I called her back when she stopped, to try again, but in that split second she had already turned back to touch it... grr. Reward or ignore? I ignored that and asked her to try again. She stopped, she went to go, she stopped again, she came back. So I put the ball in my hand for her to nose touch from a close distance, but now she thinks this is a nose touch exercise, when what I want to do is get her to find running to the ball rewarding. I tried to move the ball away from me but she just offered loads of other behaviors again instead of going towards it. Hmm. Got Deece out, held Zazzy and let Deece go get the ball. She seemed excited by this. Held Deece, let Zazzy go to get the ball..... she stopped, looked round, lay down, whined at me. ... oh my. If you have a dog that is easy to reward, rejoice and count your lucky stars!

Catch up

2010-09-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Zazzy.
Results have been.... mixed. The Lake District holiday was fantastic, fabulous, and fun. Zazzy won two grade 4 classes at Lune Valley, and her first grade 5 class seemed to arrive very quickly after that, at the Rugby show. Unfortunately, following a (to other dogs maybe!) fairly innocuous incident, Zazzy had a few weeks during which she left the weaves early (all it took to spook Zazzy was a judge cutting across a cloth tunnel travelling towards her while she was in the weaves, while rushing to get into position to mark our up-coming A-frame). So in training I upped her rewards for weaving, and then proofed them by stopping and starting, waving my arms, and generally running about erratically. Then I got some friends to run up and down alongside her in the weaves as well. Good girl she coped with that. So that took us up to Rugby and her first g5 class. At Rugby I was horrified when she emerged from the van on three legs half way through the weekend. I packed up and went home, full of dread and worry, to find her pretty much sound again when we got home. After careful searching I found what looked like a sting on her foot. Poor Zazzy, but at the same time, phew! Glad it wasn’t anything worse! We went to the UKA Nationals and I judged and trained Zazzy. At the Agility Club show we had an Olympia novice qualifier, but were a second off the lead and came 6th. At Burridge we were very close to the lead time, just like last year she came 4th (top 3 qualify). But this year we were lucky! Sharon had already qualified, so we were through to the semi!!! Wooo hoooo!!! I enjoyed the the KC International Festival, I had a much better camping spot not too far away and that made a huge difference. On the ring where I was helping, I really felt for the ring manager who had to contend with people offering his garden fence to their dogs for them to pee up, plus people leaning on and denting his van, and some other really really rude people. Zazzy’s performance was a bit erratic, she came 2nd in one class, but was slow in others, however she did qualify for the novice cup final. We had an awful run in the final, in the main ring, she didn’t want to move towards the edge of the ring and missed out parts of the course…. Oh dear! Around that time she began missing weave entries regularly and I didn’t know if this was due to a physical reason or another ‘thought process’. I took her to a chiropractor, who found something and did an adjustment, and after that she could weave again… how guilty did I feel! Always worth getting your dog checked out! At the same time, however, I had been very quick to say 'weave' followed by 'yes' when she entered the weaves, and so she had been wrongly told she was correct a number of times for getting the weave entry but then skipping the next pole. So I made sure I said 'weave, weave' and waited until she completed them before telling her she was good. So maybe that was a large part of it as well. Anyway, next it was Dogs In Need. Again Zazzy got trophies in some classes, and was not so good in others, but she qualified for the finals (video already posted in the last blog). She doesn’t normally hit poles, and in fact I think the one she hit in her final run is only the second she has knocked this year! She did look very tired by the end of the week though. Some dogs seem to get fitter the more they compete, and I am a little worried that she looked so tired, after all it is only 9 runs in total over the week. DIN was our last show, so just the Olympia semi to go. Zazzy had one week off, and one week with minimal training before ‘The Big One’. So the day arrived, and we had a warm up run first, where I thought she ran quite well, and she came 2nd. Out of 36 competitors, 16 get through to Olympia, so we pretty much hope that a clear round will be enough. However, it was not to be. Zazzy missed the weave entry (OK it was quite a hard entry from a tunnel), and just to make sure we didn’t scrape in on 5 faults, hit the long jump on the run home too. Oh well never mind, I’m pretty pleased with her for getting there. We can all have 20/20 vision with hindsight, and it’s clearer to me now that she runs a notch down in competition compared with training, and that she feels any pressure, and is affected by anything she doesn’t like (rain, heat, other people or dogs moving or making a noise, strange looking objects…. Etc etc) so I think that continuing to work on motivation, drive, looking more to me for reward, and counter-conditioning as many distractions as I can, is my way forward over the winter. And more weave training (after a thorough check out!!) of course!!
Kaydee
Very slowly and gradually Kaydee has been doing more agility. It has taken all year, but she is now doing full height jumps and all the equipment. I was over the moon, my optimism was beginning to grow, and I arranged for her to start training at North Downs, which has a superb surface in an indoor school (just what she needs for winter training, I want to avoid any slipping!). She was due to start in about half an hour.... but a couple of days ago I took her for a run, and she was pacing rather than trotting. This flags a potential problem, it could mean that she is uncomfortable. So I booked her in to see an osteopath tonight instead of starting her first agility class in two years. I can't see anything so want a professional opinion. Would you believe it, the clutch has gone on my van, which means we are not going anywhere tonight. Boooo.
Deece
Deece has just turned a year old. He is really gorgeous, a lovely friendly, happy soul. He is keen, motivated, loves toys, switches easily from toys to food and back, we have done lots of foundation work (crate games, shadow handling, co-ordination and balance, cone games etc.) and I am really looking forward to starting some equipment with him. Well he has already met a plank, tunnels, small jumps. Will try and get some video of him.
Becky
Well, she is fabulous (and noisy) as ever. We are still having fun, doing some bits of agility, but now that she is approaching 11 I am not thinking of doing agility competitively any more, although she certainly still enjoys coming out to play. Everything now is just for her enjoyment. Yes with little 'serious' training she is becoming even naughtier in her old age! But she certainly owes me nothing and deserves as much fun as she can have.

Dogs In Need

2010-08-26T04:22:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of blog updating to do, meanwhile here is the only recent video I have of Zazzy, thanks to Becca! Zazzy qualified for her finals at Dogs In Need (grades 4 & 5 combined agility), where unfortunately she had a pole.

Boogie 1995-2010, my Blue Eyed Boy, RIP

2010-08-02T03:44:00.000-07:00

My gorgeous Blue Eyed Boy was given peace this week, after six months of worsening heart trouble, fitting, and loosing the use of his hind legs. How lucky I am to have had Boogie in my life. He really lived life to the full, and made the most of every situation. He was a full-on happy and playful boy, he loved to rip up cardboard boxes (the bigger the better!), loved to run, and loved any type of ball (in particular footballs!! Although any ball would do, and he was rarely without one.) He was a master ball finder, if we ever left home without one, he was sure to locate one while out on the walk whatever the terrain or weather, day or night. His motto was 'Let's Play'. It was very hard to bear the day that he stopped wanting to play.

He came to live with me when he was about a year old, and was a hooligan! I decided to take him to obedience classes, but it was not long before we were asked to wait outside the hall for a while as he was being 'disruptive'. I waited outside for someone to call us back in, but no one did.... I was so embarrassed that we never went back. Luckily someone told us about agility, so we gave that a try instead. Boogie took to that like a duck to water! So Boogie's bad behaviour is completely responsible for getting me into the sport, and changing my life's direction. He was a truly great dog, and he had to suffer all my mistakes and ignorance, despite which he very quickly won through the ranks from elementary to senior, taking me to many finals and teaching me many lessons on the way. Such a smart little thing, he used to make out there was someone at the door and when the other dogs rushed up to the front door he would steal their bones and take them all to his own bed. What a dog. Sadly he damaged a cruciate ligament when he was about seven years old, and not knowing as much then I don't think his recovery was as good as it could have been. He did not get back to how he was before, but he did teach me to always warm up my dogs before agility, because if I didn't he would knock the first pole. His era was before digital cameras so I need to do some scanning so you can see how gorgeous he was. To know him was to love him. My mum fell for him too, and after his retirement from agility looked after him while I was away at shows. A couple of years ago her own dog sadly died and Boogie was such good company that I didn't get him back! He kept my mum company and they were rarely apart for his last years, he had a lovely retirement walking over the Surrey Hills three times a day and being thoroughly spoilt! She is bereft and desolate without him now. He took me to hills, beaches, forests and fields far and wide as we competed around the country, and got me addicted to agility. He taught me such a lot.

He was a little dog, with big paws, big ears and a big heart. We miss you Boog.

Yet more holiday....

2010-07-07T14:36:00.000-07:00

From Thornthwaite we travelled south to the Lune Valley show. Sadly no videos of the agility! Loved this show, and had some really joyous, fun runs with Zazzy who is enjoying her agility more and more (some great results too: two agility wins, plus three seconds, a third, a fourth, and a fifth!) and also joyous runs with Kaydee and Becky in the allsorts, they really loved it. Kaydee is looking great, her muscles are much more balanced, and she is flying round the low jumps (she went round one course in 15 seconds - now I appreciate the difficulties of running a dog at medium height!!). Shame there is nothing to bridge the gap between allsorts (low jumps and tunnels) and the grade 7 courses which are her only other option at KC shows. I had great company and was well looked after (in fact thoroughly spoilt!) by Bernadette and Dennis, Nancy and Andy, Anne and Tony and Sue and Mike who were camped near by. I had my first taste of bananas BBQ'd with curleywurleys (not sure how to spell that though!) and snickers bars. Plus many other very naughtly but very tasty things! I stayed on a couple of days after the show, for the 'bit in the middle', where we got together for some agility training along with Pete and Margarate Jennings, and Norman Stokoe, which was really fun as well as interesting. A couple more walks, up Gummers Howe:

and lastly found my way to the top of the big hill that overlooks the showground (forgotten what it is called though) (and forgot to take the camera too) on my last morning.

I then left for the Tuffley show (Berkely House, Gloucestershire). Another fantastic venue.

I really enjoyed my weekend at Tuffley as well. Zazzy again was running really well, but I made mistakes. In her KC qualifier I said 'go' thinking she would move off the A-frame with me, but she was very good and went straight on just like I have trained her, I should have said 'left'. Think I just about recovered quickly enough that she didn't realise my mistake, and despite that elimination she carried on smoothly to do a really good run over the rest of the course. She impressed me with her run round a very tight and tricky course, but seemed to stumble in the weaves and missed the last weave pole. I was later told she had spooked at the judge who was rushing very close by over the cloth tunnel to get to the A-frame. So more distraction training needed! She did a good run in the CSJ qualifier, just missing out on going to the final by less than 0.2 secs (top 2 qualified). I chose to play it safe and front cross to prevent her going down the more obvious end of the tunnel, and lost a bit of time by giving her more ground to cover than necessary there.

Got home Sunday night, and Monday was very lucky to be able to train with Dawn Weaver, Toni Dawkins, Polly and Karen. A fabulous day. Deece's sisters (Galaxy and Lotus) are looking phenominal already, you can really see how slowly and carefully Dawn has taken the first stages of their training, lots of shaping and attention to detail! I was a bit embarrassed to reveal my comparatively rough half started efforts with Deece! Toni made us laugh by saying she can't be doing with all that shaping stuff, she had just plonked Kite on the end of the contact plank and told her she was good. There's probably a bit more involved than that I bet! Toni's baby, 'Cute', is also looking absolutely fabulous. I took the opportunity to do some fast pulls to the 'wrong end' of the tunnel with Zazzy, and got Toni to stomp up and down by the weaves while Zazzy ran through them. Shame I can't have another go at those courses now that I'm ready for them!! I'm really happy for Toni about her move to Belgium, although at the same time sad that we are 'loosing' her. However she promises to come back for a week every month for the foreseeable future, I hope she will be able to keep to that! One last thing I have noticed is how much better Deece is moving - balanced and co-ordinated - follwing our hill walks. I can really see why Silvia Trkman rates her trips into the mountains so highly for getting her dogs physically prepared to do agility.

Holiday....

2010-07-07T10:03:00.000-07:00

Back to the lovely lovely holiday.... I mentioned Newton Heath. As well as a great venue they are lovely people there, it was great fun helping pack up the show on Sunday.

Arley House

Exercise areas

After the Newton Heath show, it was up to the north-western part of the Lake District where I stayed in Thornthwaite http://www.stayinthornthwaite.co.uk/?c=lanefootfarm&a=index

A farm campsite where the chooks and lambs kept us company:

We had the most wonderful walks in the hills, including Hay Stacks:

Buttermere:

Whinlatter Forest (no pictures though), Knot Rigg:

Lords Seat (no pictures, it rained - gasp!! So all we could see was the inside of a cloud!!)

Latrig:

Plus other woods and lakes

Holiday... continued!

2010-07-05T02:29:00.000-07:00

Oops the images were taking so long to load I fell asleep!
Back to earth now with a bump after such a fabulous holiday. I was thinking oh wouldn't it be lovely to live in such a beautiful place? I wonder what that would be like. I would love to live somewhere more dog friendly, with lovely walks close by. My walks in the hills showed me that we are really not fit! Not that I didn't really know that. When I was younger I had plenty of drive and self discipline. In the last few years it has all dwindled! I suppose partly because of retiring Becky and Kaydee and not seeing any immediate reason or motivation to keep pushing myself to keep fit. It's also quite hard around here to find a place to go for walks or runs unhindered. I constantly worry about what other people and other peoples' dogs are doing, since the problems I have had in the past have been so devasting and detrimental. I have to drive 45 mins to get anywhere nice and my time is pretty much already accounted for, working full time, teaching two evenings a week, training one, shopping on the other and then usually off to a show Fridays to Sundays! Oh excuses excuses. When I chose my career I was concerned about the world and the environment, I didn't think making lots of money for moneys sake would be my route to happiness (although naively I didn't realise the salary might be so meagre that I might not have enough to pay for all the necessities!), and had a huge interest in how plants work and plant research. While that is all still true, I have frequent conversations where people have said that they do not believe there is enough proof of man-made climate change, or there is a problem with bees populations crashing (and so what if that happens anyway), etc etc etc. I am not sure quite where the communication has failed but it seems that not everyone thinks that the environment is damaged by human actions, and I'm shocked that people don't think that it's a problem even if the proof is provided that it is. We seem so detached from how important the environment is and how it works. And it depresses me that while there is relatively little money spent finding out more about our planet, how it works so that - at least - we know the extent of the damage/how to prevent more damage/how it can be restored to a healthy state, meanwhile footballers, filmstars, popstars, bankers etc earn such disgustingly huge amounts. Food, air, water, climate affect us all, they are fundamental, precious, how can people think it's not their problem, not worth investing in, not more important than a film, song, bankers' bonus, or football match?
I have never heard anyone say, oh s/he made his/her millions by being a good scientist, have you?
Well I did really really enjoy my holiday in my little caravan (despite its leaky window and barely working fridge), and I suppose at the end of the day at least I can put my hand up and say I did make sacrifices to my life style to try and do what I could. But right now I just feel tired!
Oops that was not really about the holiday sorry. Will finish that later.

Added later:
Sorry about that rant, not hard to spot the person back at work who wishes they were still on holiday is it?!
It was not my intention to pick on any individual, just to try and point out the (imo) perverse priorities of our society. Look back in history and see how the last trees were cut down on Easter Island to build and move monstrous statues designed to appease the Gods. This lead to environmental degradation, loss of firewood, and the demise of all the people on the island. Such disasters could not destroy such an enlightened civilisation as ours now could it??

Back from our holiday!

2010-07-04T15:26:00.000-07:00

Just back from a fabulous two week/three weekends away, a stange little time warp as it feels like hardly any time at all, and at the same time quite a lot has happened!

Firstly, there was the Newton Heath show at a really lovely new venue (Arley Hall). Impressive house and gardens, and lots of space to walk the dogs. Great courses. Zazzy got a second and fourth place in graded agility classes but was still more than 2 seconds off the pace in the grades 3-5 KC Olympia qualifier (she came 9th, the top 3 qualify).

From Arley Hall we travelled on up to the Lake District, where I made camp at a small campsite on a farm. We spent the week walking in the hills, and paddling in the lakes. Mostly glorious weather, it was just fantastic.Lots of sheep meant all dogs had to be kept on a lead at times.....It turns out that Deece is quite a water baby!

Quick update

2010-06-14T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well the van and the caravan keep needing repairs .... thank goodness for Steve Ison (Motorite) who is brilliant and has been making regular visits! The caravan has lots of annoying little bits wrong with it ... rotten front lights, the fridge just isn't cold although it's working, the door retainer is broken, the ceiling is falling down, the battery wasn't charging, and tonight I discovered one of the windows is leaking... you get the picture. I/we have been working through the problems, but now feel like I need a holiday! (Whether the van and caravan are up to it though is open to debate! LOL)
I have been to a few shows and really enjoyed them. I was at Thames last weekend, famous for the live band Saturday night which was/is FABULOUS. They have been playing at Thames for 11 years, that's longer than I have been going! I guess people who do agility are active, movement loving people, because boy they love to dance! The place was packed, the atmosphere fantastic, just brilliant. Agility wise I think Zazzy is getting happier and more confident. The weekend before, at Hinckley, her first run was good, but it developed into a very hot day and she hated the heat (not sure I liked it either though), dropping from one or two to more than six seconds off the pace. This weekend I thought she was running really well, the connection was there, she did everthing I asked and we started to run! Loved it. Becky had a go in the veterans class, recognised some old friends in the queue which is lovely, and she thoroughly enjoyed herself as always. Kaydee had a go in the allsorts, and she absolutely flew round. She seems a lot happier in herself these days. I realised that I don't see as much of my friends who are walking different courses and standing in different queues to me these days. The course walking banter was always a lot of fun. But of course if there are championships to go and watch that gives plenty of opportunity to catch up!

Well done Becky!

2010-06-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

Becky has been awarded a WCAP (Win Champion of Agility Performance) and CAP2 (two times Champion of Agility Performance) under the UK Agility scheme.

Muffin RIP

2010-06-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

I was greatly saddened to hear at the weekend that Muffin, Tim Marsh's Saluki cross, has passed over Rainbow Bridge. Muffin was a fabulous character, I remember his happiness, and the way he woofed while shaking his fluffy ears. I know he was a rock for Tim during difficult times. This is the only picture I have of him, from a few years ago, this is the Dogs In Need senior final. Yes Muffin was up there, competing well against the collies! (In the picture: myself and Becky are on the left, Tim and Muffin are in the middle, and Mary Ray is on the right). He was a brilliant dog. Gone but not forgotten, rest in peace Muffin.

Packington

2010-05-31T14:04:00.000-07:00

Had a nice day at Packington, it was a friendly laid back show and it was nice to catch up with people. Only Zazzy ran today, and she came away with three clears out of three runs, three top ten places between 1 and 2 seconds behind the winning times. She was 'with me' today (rather than in her own world), when she got distracted by something, she responded and came back to me. Woohooo! She played and was happy, and today she heard me telling her how fantastic she was. (Or maybe she always has but just hasn't let on!). Anyway it was lovely to be able to think about the test of the agility course, rather than just fighting for her eye-contact and attention! Finished fairly early and had a lovely walk across the Chilterns on the way home (shame I forgot the camera, there were Red Kites very close, and Common Spotted Orchids in flower).

Bank Holiday

2010-05-29T12:57:00.000-07:00

Well an exhausting week! To start with, the clutch went on the van on the way to work Monday morning, so I was left blocking the A316 (no hard shoulder or lay-bys to get out of the way, everyone hooting and shouting at me, the breakdown recovery claimed I had no cover and when they finally realised that I had and they should come and get me, it took them two hours... bit stressful!)

It was a week until Kaydee could walk after burning her feet by walking over the fishermens fire, lucky that I got her straight in the river and her pads were OK or it would have been much worse, it was between her toes that she was sore, I guess the water could not cool the damage as well there.

With one full time job and two evening jobs by the time Saturday morning came around I had trouble rising early! (The irony of trying to earn enough money to do agility is that I don't have the energy left to do it!) However I did make it to a UKA show near Reading.

Monty, Kaydee, Zazzy and Becky with their rosettes!

Anna and Monty came to their first ever show, and did fabulously. They came second in the beginners steeplechase. They also had a brilliant run in the nursery class (just knocked a pole). Tina and Fish also had two really good runs (but missed the photo call!). Kaydee enjoyed her runs in the two casual classes (one jump height lower than her competing height), I did not do the weaves or see saw in the agility, but she won the jumping. Here's the video of Kaydee in the casual jumping class.

Becky had one gamblers run and came second. Zazzy was a little better than in the last couple of shows (she didn't stop and sniff half way round the course!), but still got distracted on the start line and it was hard to get her attention, then it felt to me like she was running through heavy mud in that she was very slow, weaves were poor, and her turns wide and floaty. In training she is going quite well so it is frustrating. I took a toy into her agility and that training run was better. Despite the rain we had a good day, and had a picnic under brollies!

Caravan progress

2010-05-24T14:05:00.000-07:00

I've been working hard!
Before: After:

Bathroom before:

After:

Wot no agility?

2010-05-17T11:31:00.000-07:00

My plan: a peaceful weekend .... do some gardening..... watch the birds nesting outside my back door (this pic taken through my window- fantastic camera! Managed to get this picture in the few seconds the wren was there!)

The reality? It turns out that a weekend without agility is both dangerous and expensive!

1) Someone asked me if I would sell my caravan. Having a free weekend, I looked into the possibility of a slight upgrade (sadly couldn't afford to get my dream van - an ABI Adventurer!) I found a caravan like mine but with a fridge in it, and decided to go for it..... You would never believe the out proportion amount of effort and anxiety it cost to change this 1992 van:

for this 1995 one:

However, I now have a FRIDGE!!!! Horrah! And also an oven, fitted toilet, outside water pick up, a couple of extra lights, and a fold-up sink! It needs a bit of work (especially inside), I have started already! I have learnt a lot about Freedom caravans in the last few days! Quite excited about camping now, got a couple of weekends to get it ready.

2) Thought we would go for a peaceful walk along the river. The dogs ran ahead to a favourite paddling place. Unfortunately unbeknown to me some fishermen had spent the night there. Kaydee managed to run through the remains of their fire and get tangled up in the fishing line that they had discarded.... she has burnt two feet, one of which is very swollen and she can't put it down....

Poor Kaydee!

Tunbridge Wells

2010-05-10T03:38:00.000-07:00

Another bitterly cold weekend! Zazzy was again distracted, especially Saturday where in the middle of a fast jumping course I suddenly found myself running on my own as she had skidded to a halt to have a sniff at a patch of ground.... My voice alone could not get her going again so I ended up using the opposition reflex (holding her back while using an excited voice to rev her up) to get her past that spot. After a below par day I began wondering whether I could take up a different hobby, needlework maybe, when someone approached me who had seen Zazzy run and told me that their bitch had behaved in exactly the same way. Like me she had her checked for physical problems first (e.g. by an osteopath) and then had taken her to the vet. Her vet said that she had all the symptoms of hormone inbalance and prescribed 'Galastop' which improved the situation in a couple of days. Her dog was entire but I said that Zazzy had been speyed, what was it now, three months ago.... then the penny dropped. If I had not had her speyed she would be in season right now. So suddenly the extra grumpyness with boy dogs started to make sense, plus some of her other behavior. Well OK, a couple of weeks of distracted, grumpy behavior would be OK, I thought, a ray of hope there that things will improve! But the reason I had her speyed was because of her phantom pregnancies, which caused her 9 - 10 weeks of abject depression. What if she has a phantom phantom? That just doesn't bear thinking about.....
Anyway Sunday was a brighter day, and in Zazzys last run she actually did start squeaking with excitement as she ran, so even though she came out of the weaves I was really pleased with her. It is of course my feeling that I have failed to get her competing as well as I think that she can that is both upsetting and knocks big holes in my confidence, the things that I thought were true about dog training, and in my own drive and motivation. This is greatly more complicated than I (and many others judging by some comments that I have had) have experienced before. I love that little dawg, and hand on heart, I have put huge amounts of energy, positivity and thought into her training; I have not done it half heartedly. (Although admittedly there have been mistakes). It has crossed my mind that it would be horrible to make a dog do agility if she didn't want to do it, but if I thought that Zazzy didn't enjoy herself in training then I would stop. I really want to thank those great people who said really nice things to me, what a difference that makes, especially Hazel who pointed out that this will make me a better trainer, and Sharon (who bred Zazzy) for saying she thinks I have done a really good job with her.
Thanks to them the needlework will have to wait..... I have some running around to do!!

Vyne

2010-05-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

Quick update to say huge congratulations to:
Karen and Todd, getting the reserve ticket in the medium champ
Laura and Boomer (Zazzy's puppy hood friend), 2nd in the grade 3 agility
Toni and Beep (another of Zazzy's puppy hood friends!), 2nd in grade 4 agility
Laura and Rodney, reserve ticket in large champ

Huge thanks too to those who made suggestions for Zazzy, and those who helped so that I could step out of the queues with Zazzy on Monday. It did indeed make a difference, and we had happy Zazzy back enjoying her agility, which is my first target to reach for Zazzy this year. Next target is to build her confidence until she goes as well at shows as she does in training!

Kaydee meets sheep

2010-05-05T02:22:00.000-07:00

Here is Kaydees first ever meeting with sheep captured by my sister's phone. Kaydee is 6 years old. The lady with the stick is our instructor as neither of us have done this before! However, you can see that K is trying to get the sheep off the fence and get behind them, trying to figure out what she should be doing. You can see her looking round for inspiration at the end! Bless! Within her first twelve minutes she was herding them towards me and we were able to turn them and move them in any given direction (well within the confines of that small pen anyway!!). Clever girl!

Agility ups and downs......

2010-05-02T02:14:00.000-07:00

Well last weekend I was overjoyed with Zazzy, but yesterday I came away disappointed. I'm sure we are never supposed to be disappointed with our dogs, as it must be something that I have done. Or haven't done. I had plenty of time to reflect and philosophise this morning on a long walk in the rain (I can't be distracted from introspection in the rain, when you wear glasses in the rain you quickly loose your vision!) We had 3 runs, she was first in the ring (again!!) for her agility where she knocked two poles and missed a straight forward weave entry. I excused this because the grass was wet and slippery, as both of those are unusual for her. I looked forward to better runs, lots of people asked how she was and I had joyfully been saying how much happier she is now. Well the next class was jumping, the first half went OK but then she went off course and unfortunately I could not let her flow on (I could not think quickly enough of a course where she could keep going) so I called her back and continued.... only now she was half speed, she came out of the weaves, and then her nose went down and superglued itself to the floor..... I could not get the slightest bit of response from her not even with a tap on the shoulder, let alone get her to play at the end. It was little consolation that many other dogs also stopped to sniff there, wonder what on earth it was. Last run was senior gamblers, I found a nice flowing course for her and again we set off well, then half way round she started shaking her head, like she had a fly in her ear. I thought she might fall off the dog walk, but she slowed down enough to multi-task for that, but then unfortunately ran through one jump and under another before finally shaking off whatever the problem was and continuing. The whistle came a little earlier than my calculations because of this, however she still managed to make the gamble (the time for the course being 50 secs and she came in in 49.9!! LOL) and despite all that she won the class!! (Although that's not really the important point here is it?!) This morning after much thought I wondered whether her less good runs are a direct result of stress in queues. In the queue for the jumping class, which was the one that worried/frustrated me the most, the dog behind was off lead all the time and actually on the start line while the dog in front of me was running. At Wallingford I spent 20 minutes queueing behind a lurcher that was lunging and barking, and as it was a lurcher that attacked Zazzy so badly last year I was trying to keep a bit of space (it was hurting my ears as well!). Unfortunately the guy behind was really crowding us, and his dog kept getting up Zazzys tail and she started getting grumpy with it. I tried to move away but he kept moving in and was shoulder to shoulder with me at one point, making me claustrophobic and stressing us both as I was trying to concentrate on the very twisty course. Some people leave their dogs lying to one side while they queue, but so many people let their dogs go up to/go for/walk on other peoples dogs that I don't want to risk doing this. My friends (assuming we are at the same show!) obviously have their own runs to worry about, and don't have that sort of time to spare for queuing. So I need to think of something else. Anyway, back to the show, at UKA shows the classes change fast and you have to be on the ball all day as not all changes are announced over the tannoy. I happened to be on the way to the loo when I passed the ring that Kaydee was to have her one casual run in when I realised they were about to close her class! Just managed to get her in time although I had no idea where the course was supposed to go! Not ideal, as she is the dog that most needs a thorough warm up. However, she did enjoy it! I've saved the best 'til last, good ol' reliable Becky had three runs, and despite no formal training for a couple of years at championship level she managed to get fourth in the jumping, fourth in the agility, and second in the gamblers! She thoroughly enjoyed herself!!

Zazzy - agility - work in progress!

2010-04-21T12:18:00.000-07:00

I am so very pleased with Zazzy, we are both really enjoying our agility together. Because it makes me happy that she is happy, she gets more positive feedback, so she is more motivated, and this has sent our training into a positive upwards spiral. Let's see where that takes us! I have been very lucky lately. A couple of weeks ago Toni Dawkins visited, and together with Karen we had a lovely day which included a (very healthy!) picnic and some agility in the sunshine. Beep, Zazzy's old playmate, is looking really good in training, although Toni says she is still majorly shutting down at shows and has a plan to deal with that before competing with her again. We have plenty of discussions about what to do to help our girls! They are similar in so many ways. All the dogs had a play, lots of fun, and I got some really good ideas from Toni for my training (she always gives me at least one really good idea, but excelled herself this time!) She also videod a few things for me so I can see what Zazzy and I are doing, I have included a short bit although it is not one of my proudest moments! Zazzy is speeding up on the contacts, but also now coming off them sometimes. This clip shows her response to being asked to do the AF again, even though I play with her and try to keep it happy and light, on the second go she gives me accuracy but by doing a really really slow creep. Work in progress!!

This last weekend I had another very lucky break. Lincoln Agility Enthusiasts were looking for extra judges for their show as the entry was higher than expected. So I offered to judge and thus was able to take the opportunity to get up there to train with Lucy Osborne. This resulted in a fabulous long weekend! I was up before the birds Friday morning to make it up there early, to set up camp before a two hour group lesson with Lucy for grades 3 and 4. She worked us hard, long runs down a line of jumps to a tunnel and back up the dog walk for example, and really putting lots of effort into reward and praise. I was really pleased with Zazzy. The venue is really good, lots of space, large exercise areas, camping close to the rings, good facilities, good ground. Also four classes for every dog (all sizes, all grades) each day! Everyone was really nice and the atmosphere friendly. My course was more or less set up by the time I got to it, just tweaked it a bit. G1 + 2 agility course below. I really enjoyed the judging on the whole. What really saddened me were those few handlers who pointed their dogs at the wrong obstacle with poor handling, then shouted at the dogs for 'not listening' and then stomped out of the ring. Or handlers only using one command, 'No, NO, NO!!!!' Those poor dogs! It seems that well worn adage ' if it goes wrong either you handled it wrong, or trained it wrong', is not being quoted enough in some places! What was crystal clear to me at the end of the day was that the dogs in the higher grades were doing better and going faster because they were getting more praise and encouragement in the right places. One highlight for me was the allsorts class. I saw some familiar faces from Becky's age group getting some special time, and boy the delight on their faces was a joy to see as they raced round! Above all, whatever happened, whether they got the course right or wrong, there was praise and laughter for them at the end. Brilliant. My grade 4-5 jumping course was a bit more testing but lovely to watch, handled well the dogs had a lovely flow with places to open up. When I set it up I thought it looked a bit harder than I had planned, but I gave Zazzy a run round it and it felt really good, and was glad I left it as planned. (G4-5 Jumping course below)

Sunday Zazzy got to compete. We had one small thing go wrong in the first three classes but I was really pleased with the way she was going (getting eliminated for going on when I layered a jump then turned late for example, fantastic! She was pulling off fences at my slightest deceleration last year). Then, a clear!! Zazzy came third in a very fast G4 jumping (lovely trophies too!).

Monday, more training, a 1-2-1 for both Zazzy and Deece. We were all worked hard, and I was really happy with them both, they were brilliant. Deece has not done much, but he amazed me with how quickly he picked things up and moved on. Zazzy played through the entire lesson. Just fantastic, this time last year she lost interest in playing after a couple of minutes, and was completely flat after five. So I returned a tired but very very happy and proud mom. Fabulous dogs!!

Blue and quiet skies

2010-04-18T07:12:00.000-07:00

OK it's not agility, but it's a big deal to me - I'm talking about the volcanic ash cloud from eruptions in Iceland that is preventing any air traffic over us here in the UK. WOW I didn't realise what an impact it made having constant overhead aircraft noise until it is no longer there. It's wonderful!! I have been out sowing seeds in the garden, and really enjoying the new improved quiet walks, and peacefulness. No planes waking me up in the morning, I can leave my back door open and enjoy the garden. And fabulous sunshine so that I can really make the most of it while it lasts!

The morning dew drops look beautiful to me today!

Courses

2010-04-13T03:29:00.000-07:00

Here are the courses I set up at Spring at Shuttleworth. First, small grades 4-7 agility. About 90 dogs in this class. No wait was needed, but without it some handlers mis-handled jump 4 to the A-frame. It otherwise looked fun and exhilerating to run. I worried the night before that it was too straight-forward for the grade, but at the end decided it was OK! Not many people who ran down the left hand side of the dog walk managed a tidy turn away to the next jump, but it was not too hard to put a switch in before the dog walk, either by running through to the end of the tunnel, or sending the dog to the tunnel and picking it up between jump 9 and the DW. A few people sent their dogs on after the long jump instead of steadying for jump 12, and this made the weave entry harder for fast dogs.

There were about 300 dogs in the large grade 3 agility. Only one handler pre-curved jumps 1 to 2, but this made a much nicer and faster turn for the dog. This course didn't need much of a wait but without it the turn 2 to 3 could end up being quite wide. Many dogs also went straight from A-frame to tunnel if the handler hung back too much to help the dog get the contact, or missed the contact if the handler ran forward past the A-frame, so it proved a slight test of the contact training! (However, you could also cross behind the A-frame!)

First shows

2010-04-12T08:35:00.001-07:00

It's fantastic to be going to shows again, to see everyone and catch up. Zazzy had a couple of classes on the last afternoon of the Easter Celebration show, I went along early to help on the ring and chat. Agility classes are going to be a confidence building exercise for a while (her contact criteria have changed since competing last), and we had one small (handler) error in each of the two jumping classes. Last weekend was the first outing for the caravan since last summer, to the Spring at Shuttleworth show. No tyres exploded and no wheels fell off, so I consider that a successful trip. We had sunshine!!! After a long winter of poor weather it was fantastic to get good weather for camping! I also have a very nice new chair, a lovely thoughtful gift from Karen. Here we are camped next to a field of llamas and emus.

We competed on Saturday and I judged on Sunday. Although Zazzy is happier since her op, and this makes training her so much easier and more fun, it of course hasn't worked any agility miracles. While we might never set the world on fire, I can still see lots of things we can do to improve. Meanwhile, Becky and Kaydee had a go in the allsorts class. Kaydees face was a picture when I took her lead off on the start line, she has not run in a class since 2008! She joyfully set off making me really run (medium height jumps round the edge of the ring!!). Unfortunately no video, I would love to see how she was moving. Bless her, it's a testament to her innate drive and love of the game that she won the class (150 dogs in it), leaving Becky to take third place. Come to think of it she won the last open competition she was ever entered in too.Kaydee continues to amaze me, she is such a brilliant dog. I took her to try sheep herding, and she was fantastic at that (my sister video'd a bit on her phone, will post it when I can!) I still feel sad that my dog who most wants to run and do things is stuck in a body that just isn't strong enough to do what she wants. However she is much less frustrated now that she is doing various bits and pieces.

Judging. Well I was pleased with how my two courses ran, although I had to make last minute changes as I had two tunnels in the plan but only one was available! First was small 4-7 agility, followed by large G3 agility (just under 400 dogs in total). Will post the courses tomorrow. The dogs looked good running the courses, and lots of people said they enjoyed running them. The downside was the lack of helpers at this show! Thanks to Marion who helped ever such a lot despite needing a mobility scooter to get around herself. I must have spent more than two hours trying to put my course up the evening before, a lot of that time on my own. The following morning no one turned up at all until I went to ask the organisers for help! It was a very small band of people who worked a miracle and got the ring to run smoothly through the day, some missing their own runs to do so. This problem has been discussed on the agility forum but I don't know what the answer is really. At the end of the day you pay to compete, and someone is making money out of it, but the shows cannot run without people working for free. The worst part of the day for me was at the end when I stood for an hour in the secretarys tent waiting to give my presentation; two of the trophy winners had had enough, apologised and left. Other judges seemed to come in and give their presentations reasonably quickly so it was frustrating. I was one of the last people to leave, and my poor dogs had been stuck in the van for nine hours. I was asked back to judge next year. Hmm I don't know. If no one wants to judge or help, how will shows continue?

More pics - Chobham

2010-04-08T10:27:00.000-07:00

Happy smiley Zazzy! Zazzy has been happy and playful since her op.... that makes me so happy!

Zazzy loves playing with the water! She splashes it up with her paw then tries to catch it in her mouth!

All four are in the picture... !!!!

Handsome puppy!

2010-04-06T01:28:00.000-07:00

Deece is now 6 1/2 months old.

Zazzy at Natasha Wise's training morning

2010-03-29T09:53:00.000-07:00

After postponing then cancelling training through the winter due to tons of bad weather, I was pleased and excited to be training with Natasha at last! Unfortunately my back went and I was struggling with moving, breathing and playing. Never-the-less Natasha's training was brilliant as usual, and gave an opportunity to try out the video mode on my new Nikon L110! (the other video was taken on my old (tape) camcorder, but William was able to get an edited file onto the computer - something I have failed to do despite buying lots of gadgets and different software!)

Moving images!!!

2010-03-29T01:34:00.000-07:00

Zazzy's agility run at Newlands Corner, thanks to Anna and William for this!

Box Hill walk

2010-03-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

My guys on top of the hill

Mum with Boogie and my sister Mary with Jazz

OK got the picture, let's get on with the walk!!

My special blue eyed boy, I'm so sad that Boogie has started to have fits due to a heart condition. He is 15 this year.

My birthday!

2010-03-26T12:03:00.000-07:00

No prizes for guessing what I have got! HUGE thanks to my mum, sister, Chrissie and Karen for this gift!. I am a very lucky girl. Here are the test pictures!

Becky - looking good at 10 years old!

Zazzy in the spring sunshine

Kaydee

I love the spring flowers!

Gathered on the playing field for their morning run!

The grass is growing fast already!

Kaydee and Deece exploring

More spring flowers!

Thoughts on injury prevention in agility dogs

2010-03-12T01:41:00.000-08:00

Are more dogs getting injured now that jump heights are lowered? It seems far too often now that I hear of another dog that is injured. I don’t remember so many dogs getting injured five years ago, are there just more dogs doing agility now, or is there a reason why so many are getting injured? Some people have asked my for some thoughts on injury prevention, so here they are!

1. Your dog should be fit before it starts doing agility. Do not make an overweight dog do agility!

2. Every dog has an injury threshold. Agility is a high impact sport; do too much and something will eventually give way. Just how much ‘too much’ is will vary from dog to dog. Of course, our goal is to avoid injury. In human sports, top trainers warn people in training to beware the 'terrible toos' - doing too much, too soon, too fast. Every research paper and every expert agrees that this is the number one cause of sports injuries. The body needs time to adapt from training changes and jumps in duration or intensity. Muscles and joints need recovery time in order to handle more training demands. Intense muscle usage causes muscle microfiber trauma, and this activates the development of more muscle fibres, which is how (during the rest period after such activities) muscles become bigger and stronger in response to exercise. While muscles can respond to exercise in a time scale of days and weeks, it has been estimated that it takes six weeks for human ligaments to repair after injury. If you rush the training process, you could break down rather than build up. It is worth starting with a very small amount (on lowered equipment if possible) and following ‘the 10 per cent rule’ used by many sports coaches as a general guideline. This means that the weekly increase of training would never exceed 10% more than the week before (ie if the total amount of agility the first week is three ten minute session, the second week would be three eleven minute sessions.) However that does not take into account the intensity of your sessions, so if the equipment is being raised that should be taken into account as well (so reduce the total time spent training and only raise the equipment very slowly). In addition to following a hard day/easy day approach, many top athletes use a system where they scale back by 20 to 40 per cent on a regular basis, maybe once a month.

Action Plan: Increase the amount of agility you do with your dog very slowly. Keeping a detailed training log can help you gauge your balance of injury prevention with improving performance. Record your training and how your dog is behaving. Look for patterns. For instance, too much training could cause your dogs’ performance to suffer rather than improve. Try to find the perfect balance!

3. If something is not quite right with your dog, if it isn’t jumping smoothly, or starts having problems with something, if there are behavioural changes (doesn’t seem to want to ‘play’), or you just have a gut feeling that something isn’t right, then stop training! Most sports injuries don't just suddenly appear. They produce signals - aches, soreness, and eventually persistent pain – but your dog cannot tell you this in English! It's up to you to notice – and not dismiss - the signs. Get to the root of what's causing the changes that you notice, you could prevent a major injury by spotting problems early on. Regularly massaging your dog may also help you to notice sore, hot or tense spots that signal potential problem areas, and massage may also help alleviate minor problems before they develop into something more serious.
Action Plan At the first sign of atypical behaviour that might indicate pain stop training your dog and get it checked out by a professional. Follow the advise the professional gives you regarding treatment and a recovery period, then ease your dog carefully back into work, do not rush it back into doing the same amount of work as before, you may cause the same damage again, especially if your dog has lost fitness during its’ time out. When unused, muscles degenerate and after a period of time muscle wastage is apparent. (See points above!)

4. Core muscle strength can help keep your dogs body properly aligned. Healthy movement should be as symmetrical and as fluid as possible. If you don't have muscle balance, then you lose the symmetry, and that's when you start having problems. Just like human athletes, a well conditioned and muscled dog that is properly warmed up is far less likely to suffer from sprains, pulls, tears, back or joint problems. Strong muscles protect the joints and back from injury, as anyone with back problems who undertakes pilates classes will tell you. Bodies are susceptible to injury from carrying out the same movement repetitiously (resulting in what is commonly called repetitive strain injury (RSI) or overuse injuries). So a mixture of exercises (swimming, walking, trotting, long walks, free running over different types of terrain, ladder work, wobble boards, tricks and games, as well as agility) are less likely to cause injuries and more likely to build a happy, fit dog, than carrying out the same exercises repetitively (ie only doing agility). Twisting, braking, landing impact, and sharp turning movements are demanding on muscles, tendons, ligaments, joints and bones. A dog must be fit in order to be able to do all these things. Slow controlled core muscle exercises will help develop muscle groups that ‘fine tune’ exact movement. These muscles also help stabilise joints, and therefore protect them against excessive movement of the joints that lead to wear between the joints, or overstretching that may lead to injury of ligaments, muscle or tendon. Rest periods are just as important as exercise. It is during rest that the body rebuilds itself and becomes stronger in response to the demands of previous activities. Without adequate rest, the wear and tear of exercise would weaken rather than strengthen the body. It is also interesting to note that gentle exercise is much better for the dogs’ recovery than complete inactivity.

Action plan: Give your dog a variety of activities, with regular gentle activity days. Balance the routine of more demanding agility alternating with days of gentler walks, core-muscle strength exercises, co-ordination and balance exercises, or tricks.

5. Get into habits that prevent damage. There are a few things that are done habitually by many people that regularly cause injury (and sometimes fatal injury). Releasing a pack in an exercise area to charge off racing each other has caused many terrible accidents, as the dogs are looking at each other while they are racing, and not where they are going. It is easy to prevent a catastrophic event by getting into a habit of releasing individuals in a controlled way, either releasing them one by one over time and distance as they settle into the walk, or keeping one (or some!) on lead throughout the walk, swapping individuals from free running to lead walking if necessary. Throwing toys is another danger area. If you talk to your vet about how many injuries have been caused by sticks being thrown I doubt that you will ever throw a stick for your dog again! In fact I would not recommend throwing a toy constantly for your dog, as the concussive force and twisting caused by the dog braking and snatching at a toy that it is chasing at full speed can cause acute or chronic physical damage. If you are throwing toys and there are a number of dogs likely to chase it, the statistics of an accident happening are significantly increased!

Action plan: Manage your dogs’ daily exercise habits to prevent accidents.

6. Warm up your dog properly before training, and cool down gently after.

Plans....

2010-02-15T09:34:00.000-08:00

Here is Zazzy’s post-op recovery plan (now half way through it!):

Week 1

Zazzy is confined to downstairs, sofa is replaced with my mattress. (Yes I slept down there with her for a week!) Z was only let out into the garden on lead to see to the calls of nature. She feels very sorry for herself, crying in the night and trying to rip out stitches. I did not get much sleep! Poor Z has to wear a bucket collar all the time for the first week.

Week 2

As for week one, adding short lead walks of a few minutes, gradually building up in duration to a walk round the block. Ten days after the op the stitches are removed. Zazzy is feeling better, she is now trying to run around, play, and leap on/over things, I’ve got my work cut out trying to keep her calm! Although the vet said she can run off lead once the stitches were out, I kept her on lead until the end of the second week just to be sure.

Week 3

Zazzy is allowed free running. She wants to go wild running and playing with the puppy, while I desperately try to keep her as calm as I can (!!!!), while at the same time trying to increase gentle exercise (walks) (well that's what I was thinking, she had something more exciting in mind!) to build her fitness back up. Also work on wobble board, pilates ball, ladder work, walking backwards etc.

Week 4

Start playing crate games, sends and recalls. Letting her run as much as she wants now. She seems more playful than ever! (that makes me happy!!) Half way through the week I got Zazzy going round one large circle over low jumps (twice, once in each direction), plus had two goes at recalling her to the end of the see-saw, rewarding her there then gently lowering it to the floor. Kept up the balance and co-ordination work.

Week 5

Plan is to build up her fitness with on lead trotting, free running over hilly terrain, balance and co-ordination work, crate games, and introduction of more agility equipment if or when possible (lowered if available).

Week 6

Plan is to build up back to all agility equipment during the sixth week. Not sure how long it will take for her to be fit enough to return to training classes as usual, will have to see how that goes.

Good luck to little Yazoo who is having her op this week! And even more so to poor fretting Karen who no doubt will have a tough time holding down the little fidgeting flea for the next couple of weeks! I will be thinking of you!

Start lines and queuing

2010-02-12T09:42:00.000-08:00

I have met a few people now who are encouraging their dogs to go crazy barking and lunging at the ends of their leads when around agility. Not just for a few seconds while psyching the dog up to get ready to compete, but all the time they are anywhere near agility. The handlers tell me that they have been advised to get their dogs like this when near agility, because their dogs are not driven enough and this will make them faster. They must never stop their dogs from behaving like this for fear that it will damage their agility prospects. My immediate gut feeling was that this made me uncomfortable (apart from the discomfort of having to stand near them that is), but it has taken me a while to think about it and figure out why. If I’m truthful I guess I would love to find a way to get Zazzy more motivated. Because Becky was (and still is!) very noisy when working, that did make me think a bit harder about the correlation with barking and motivation. But I don’t think this is the way forward and these are the reasons why: 1). I don’t think that continuous hysterical barking can be good for a dog (and it's certainly not good for me!). Think of all that adrenaline coursing through its body, doing this repeatedly must be a physiological strain (on the heart, adrenal glands etc.). 2). I have seen this behaviour, if encouraged, escalate into nipping, chasing, charging, biting, and going for anything that moves if it gets too close. 3). It may be a short cut to getting a dog excited, but once you have your dog in this hysterical state, can it think straight? Can you get a start line wait? Will it leap off the contacts? Can it be directed accurately? The answer I have been given is that ‘I would rather have my dog going fast without a wait/contacts or going in the right direction, than a slow accurate one’. That doesn't seem like a solution to me, more an exchange of one problem for another. 4). Getting dogs into a hysterical over-reactive state is not training let alone good training. Good training would be bringing out the best of the dog using motivational confidence boosting rewards. Of course that is harder and will take longer, and you would have to find yourself a trainer who knows how to do that rather than one who can offer a shortcut that may or may not work, and also possibly leaves you with a dog with bigger issues and bigger problems to sort out later. 5). I have seen many dogs barking in different ways (flyball dogs are interesting to watch for example). I have seen dogs barking hysterically that are not that fast or motivated when working, and I have seen that many of the best and fastest agility dogs are silent. I am not convinced that encouraging hysterical barking and lunging behaviour will ultimately have an exact correlation with increasing speed. Dogs can behave like that and still not be terribly motivated doing the job that you ask of them. Getting excited about the movement going on around them does not automatically mean they will be fired up to work for you. That comes from what motivation you have been using for the actual training. Also a dog that has gone rigid with over-stimulation cannot move well or jump properly. 6). Look at the top dogs in the sport. How many of them are hysterically barking and lunging on the start line? If I think of the top handlers that I know and have seen in training, such as Dawn Weaver, Toni Dawkins, Natasha Wise, their dogs are the fastest around, but I have never seen them standing by the ring for half an hour making their dogs bark! 7).Even if this were a good thing for your dog, what about the rest of the people and dogs in the queue, and at training? My dogs have been intimidated on the start line, subdued in the queue and even bitten by over-hyped dogs. It is hard to concentrate standing next to a screaming dog (and sometimes the noise is painfully loud), let alone try to remember a course or run it well when you are trying to keep your own dog out of harms way. And what about my poor dog?! Surely all the dogs in the queue have a right not be intimidated, let alone put at risk of harm?

I have just found this on Susan Garretts’ website http://susangarrettdogagility.com/2010/01/random-barking-thoughts.html and it sums this subject up very well, from someone who knows a great deal more than me:

‘…. I am NOT in favour of allowing any dog to bark and go crazy while another dog is working. Geeez, aren’t these critters supposed to be our family pets first? How does that contribute to the behaviour of your family pet? And as Rebecca pointed out, the top dogs in any sport have a grace and fluidness rather than a franticness about them. Don’t allow displacement frustration replace good old fashion drive training. There is a MAJOR difference. One requires thought and a progressive training plan. The other only requires you tie a dog to a fence and let the chips fall where the may. You can see why some trainers will offer up that advise, it requires little effort on their part and it may create what you want (however beware of what else you get in the process!)’

There is a ton of really good advice on her website.

Crate games.

What can I say? Brilliant. I played crate games last year with my dogs, who had already been brought up a different way. I thought it was useful and valuable, particularly it helped with Kaydee who gets over-excited when I am getting ready to take them out for a walk. However Deece has been playing crate games from the start, and now I can see even more benefits. I am grateful that I have been allowed to take the crate to the end of the indoor training centre that is not being used for agility training, while Zazzy is not able to do her usual agility class. This has allowed Deece to play crate games with dogs working near by, and I have been trying to move the crate a bit closed each week as his focus improves (had to move it back away a bit this week as he kept looking at a excitable dog when it was near, and ran towards it once, but generally he is getting better!) I have been concentrating on 1) getting him to play, play, and more play with me! 2) a fantastic foundation for a start line wait: ready, focused, not moving! 3) he is quiet when working 4) building drive and speed when called to me (at the moment his return to the crate is slower, something to keep working on!) 5) He is being rewarded for having his collar grabbed 6) he is learning to go from a toy reward, to a food reward, to a toy again. Deece is very interested in all other people and all other dogs, at the moment they are of more interest to him than toys and most foods as well, so these games are really invaluable for him. It has been three weeks since Zazzy’s op so I also took her to play some crate games last night. I was really pleased with her speed, drive, and desire to play. However there was one really interesting moment. She left the crate before I released her, and at that point I stood still and did not get the toy out to play with her. Within no more than two seconds her face completely crumbled, and she sunk to the ground like her world had ended, it took a long while to get her happy and moving again. A timely reminder of how careful I need to be with her training, to make sure I only ask for small incremental steps of difficulty so she gets it right most the time, to try and keep the speed and happy demeanor that she had last night.

Game of trumps

2010-02-10T02:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was out with Becky and Deece. A couple of friendly dogs and their owner passed us, and Deece started playing with them which was nice (I want him to give him lots of chances to socialise).... then we both went on our ways (in opposite directions)... only Deece carried on going with his two new best friends. I called him, and he carried on playing. Uh oh the first time he has not responded. Hmmm. I got Becky to bark (this has worked with other preoccupied puppies in the past!).... no response. I called again as he was now disappearing over the horizon. I could see him jumping up at the his 'new owner' (naughty boy I have been working in teaching him not to jump up!) and she was gesticulating in my direction. I called again. At last he came running back and I made a big fuss of him, and played with his toy. Well I have worked hard on getting him to play as he went right off tugging when his baby teeth started coming out, but playing with a toy with me does not trump playing with other dogs. Hmmm. So last night I was lucky to be able to set up a similar situation with a friend and her dog, good boy there was no hesitation in coming when I called. Today I went out with sausages. Sausages, I am happy to say, do trump engaging with other dogs. I am not sure they trump being called away once play is underway though, so this is something to keep working on! We are also playing a new game out on walks. If he goes off and turns his back on me, I run off and hide! Ha ha! It has worked like a charm, he keeps an eye on me now! He really is a doggy dog, very interested in smells and he really (and I mean REALLY) got the hots for one of the puppies at puppy class last week, which is a bit of a worry!

Wishful thinking

2010-02-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

This morning an amazing thing happened. I was out walking my dogs before work, there was someone coming towards me. I changed direction but her dog set off towards my pack quite fast. Having suffered numerous incidents in the last year, I didn't wait to see what it had in mind, but asked her to call her dog.... and here's the amazing thing..... she called it back to her. I have rarely seen such a marvellous thing occuring in park during the last year, and it really made me happy. No argument, no 'why should I', no 'oh he/she only wants to play' (as some rabid beast in full hunting mode charges into my dogs barking and snapping), no pretending that I cannot be seen or heard as they walk past me leaving me to try and fend their dog off. This kind of problem is a regular topic of conversation among all the dog owners I know, so is it just wishful thinking that things could be improved, or is there something that could be done?

On a completely different note, I have bought a cheap second hand camera off of ebay hoping to jazz up my blog. That was a week ago and it hasn't arrived yet. So feeling a bit like Bart Simpson I guess I will have to send a daily email of 'where's my camera?' WHERE'S MY CAMERA?' until it arrives! I need to get some pictures of my 'puppy', who is now as tall as my girls! Deece continues to be a ray of sunshine, his tail is constantly wagging and he is nearly always grinning. His canines are coming through now, although his baby canines are just about hanging on in there. He and Zazzy get on really well, and now Zazzy has got over her op she is more playful than I can remember her ever being before, so I am very happy about that. I have a six week plan going from operation to starting back training for agility. I can barely remember what it is though! Due to the bad weather we have hardly done any this winter. I guess I am feeling well adrift from agility, we have been out of competitive mode since last August.
I had a lovely time at 'The Dog Barn' near Chichester on Saturday. I met up with Laura who helped me do some restrained recalls, and in turn I helped her with Boomer's contacts. Boomer and Zazzy did their puppy class together, but he is streets ahead now, really fast and looking fantastic over the equipment, and has really muscled up! Laura brought her gorgeous borrowed sheltie to the co-ordination and balance workshop that I ran in the afternoon, and wow what a transformation! She has really done wonders with her. The course was really enjoyable and all the dogs seemed to have a fantastic time.

Pictures of Deece at last!

2010-01-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

Deece at 71/2 weeks when he came home with me: known as 'Little Munchkin', best known for 'munchin' everything he could, and humping everything else! Thankfully the humping phase soon passed.

Will he have a beardie coat, or a collie coat?

Deece at 8 weeks, the age where you are supposed to be able to get the best idea of the physique he will have as an adult. Note lack of naughty spots.

Deece starts going to puppy classes at Sue White's, here seen with his best mate 'Squiffy'. Now known as 'Monster Munch', the naughty spots are starting to appear! Christmas! The legs are growing! Who knows what the ears are doing!

My garden in the snow.

Most recent photo (Doing his 'Mr Perfect' impression!), 4 months old and weighing 12.6kg. Although you can't see the naughty spots they most definately are still there! Deece goes off playing with me, and has a phase of ignoring me when I call! His 'big dog' front teeth are through, but he still has baby canines.For comparison, Zazzy is my biggest girl, 16.5kg.

Poor Zazzy!

2010-01-24T04:24:00.000-08:00

Zazzy has been spayed, and is not coping very well at all. She came away from the vets fine, but had a very bad night the first night, crying out then leaping up and violently biting at herself. I spent all that night making sure she didn't rip her stitches out, and took her back to the vets where I was given rimadyl and a bucket collar, however her nights in particular are still horrible for us both. I moved my mattress downstairs and put it in place of the sofa, so that she cannot do any jumping onto sofas or climbing stairs until the stitches are out. Poor Zazzy!

Thaw at last!

2010-01-17T12:36:00.000-08:00

Woohoo at last! We have been able to get out to go walking properly (rather than just to my local park), and there is agility again! Horrah! Zazzy has had her first goes at stopping on the A-frame, the majority successfully! Now I feel back in familiar territory, and can see that indeed, there is a great deal of work to be done, lots of rewarding, and then lots of proofing! I am looking forward to it! Also there is an issue with reward to sort out, as she is creeping down the contacts if I use a toy reward, no matter how it is deployed at the end. HOwever, she is getting over her latest phantom which means she is happy and getting more playful (double horrah!) In fact all four dogs have had a play at something this weekend, and we have all had a fantastically enjoyable time. As I suspected, on the A-frame Zazzy is very aware of where I am, if I try to leave her to go ahead on her own, as that is hard (actually impossible) to do on your own with a running contact. Everyone is talking about entering shows, but as she is being speyed on Thursday, I cannot think about anything but that at the moment.

Notes on running A-frame training

2010-01-06T04:33:00.000-08:00

I wanted to add my thoughts on what I have learned in teaching Zazzy to run the A-frame, as I think the technique can certainly work. But regular access to an AF for short training sessions would be necessary. The method I used was to teach Zazzy to target a mat with her paws, then transfer that to between the first two slats of the contact zone (as the dog runs down). I think we did thorough foundation work, she had high drive to target the mat with her paws, and could target the mat coming out of tunnels, going to tunnels, with distractions either side, after a jump or circuit of jumps with variable stride lengths so that she could regulate her stride length (from the sofa, from around the corner etc as well!!). However, without much access to a lowered A-frame (only at her 'puppy' agility class), I think the transition to a full height A-frame may have been too fast. There were also some Zazzy-specific circumstances that affected her performance; she lost 12 weeks of training last winter (a relatively large chunk of time in between her starting agility and starting to compete in the spring) due to cut feet followed by hurting her back by slipping over, when she returned to training she immediately came into season and this was followed by terrible depression for 10 weeks due to a phantom pregnancy. She also had a couple of incidents with other dogs which led to her completely shutting down at one venue, and I stopped training there as it was likely that similar incidents would keep happening. From that point, until quite recently, Zazzy could only go for a very short time before going completely flat, this meant that she only did half a class a week (no more than 3 or 4 exercises). I think during this time Zazzy learned to do agility slowly, but with hindsight, would I have not done agility with her for six months? Hmmm. So possibly she started competing too soon. I have seen people claim they train their dogs up to world class agility standard in 15 minutes a week, but sorry I just don't believe that's true! Specific to running A-frames, I think (again with Zazzy particularly), trying to teach two 'opposite' behaviors on contacts (that is, a stop on the dog walk, and to run the A-frame) requires more dedicated time, and could possibly lead to a bit less certainty, when compared to stopping on (or running) all the contacts, so that the dog continually gets rewarded for the same behavior. Maybe a higher drive dog would be fine, I don't know. Since her phantom pregnancy, Zazzy shuts down if she feels she got something wrong, this makes correcting her AF quite difficult. Toni Dawkings suggested always having a toy after a following jump and always running to it, but only play with her if I am happy with her AF performance. This is the best method of reward (thanks Toni!), although Zazzy won't actually even pick up the toy without me telling her 'yes' (again, this only started afer her phantom). Another problem is that the foot placement on a running A-frame is more of a grey area than teaching a 2o2o stop. (A diagram would help here!) A foot below the strut is a yes, no feet below the strut is a no, sounds simple doesn't it? But there was a time when three of us were watching and none of us knew if it was a yes or no, and if it's that grey to us, how clear is it to the dog? Althoug my eye did get better 'trained' the more I did it. Back to specific running A-frame training, my opinion now is that a split-stride run is better than a pounce (unfortunately I initially taught Z to pounce on the mat); I think pouncing behavior may encourage leaping rather than striding fluidly down the ramp. I think the Trkman method has a lot of value, but because the AF is so steep the dog cannot run all the way to the bottom, so it cannot be used if you are only training a running AF. You also need to get your method of reward right, and that will vary depending on your dog. The dog needs to be looking forward, not at the handler. I have found this hard, training on my own, and can see the value of the various gadgets available that can overcome this (wish I had chosen a better paid career now!) Again, a problem that I was never able to overcome is that I always have to see the contact so that I know whether to reward it... this means that I am always looking at her (= some degree of intimidation and not cueing the next obstacle) and also resulting in never being able to train a fully independent running AF.
Well I hope these bits of information are helpful to someone!
I have opted to re-train Z to stop on the AF (2o2o), I have done a couple of sessions with her in my living room so far, rewarding her stop position on wide plank (another useful thing - if all contacts are stopped you can teach the dog to generalise the position on bits of wood at home! So lots of opportunities to reward) If the weather would only improve! (there has been no agility training for weeks now).

New Starts!

2010-01-04T11:42:00.000-08:00

Well I haven't blogged for a long time, partly because I haven't done much agility to speak of since August, partly because I have not been able to get my videos onto my computer and my 'camera'phone refuses to have anything more to do with images, partly because of feeling a massive failure. I am hoping to be able to post some begged/borrowed/stolen puppy pictures soon! Deece (now aka Monster Munch) has done a good deal of growing! He is gorgeous and I love him.
Olympia has been and gone, and from what I saw on the tele it looked very exciting (I was disappointed not to see more - for example Zazzy's brother was cut!!! How could they?!!) I was gutted for Karen as Todd went lame for exactly the wrong few days. Most likely due to knocking his foot on one of those wretched metal tunnel holders, surely enough dogs have been injured by them to get them banned by now?

It's that time of year to have an honest look at yourself (ouch, harsh), and gather some resolve (over a nice glass of port... or two... and possibly a glass of that Glayva liquer I got for Christmas too... but put those chocolates DOWN!!! Oh no, too late...) There are a couple of major things that really have to be addressed. Now that the festivities are over (I LOVE Christmas!) I need to find a way to reject chocolates, and embrace a healthier diet. (Here I am on day 4 though and I can't say I've done very well so far, I'm telling myself I'll just gently ease into it ....)
Poor Zazzy should be spayed this month, but I'm already getting upset at the prospect of it. I can't bear the thought of anything horrible happening to her, let alone being responsible for inflicting it on her. Also, here it comes, A-frames. After a week at Dogs in Need, where Z qualified for the grade 3 final, I was pleased with her running A-frame
RESULTS FOR GENESIS LARGE GRADE 3 FINAL

JUDGE: PAUL MOORE ENTRY: 30 COURSE TIME: 45.00secs

1 2232 HANNAH BANKS ZAZZ MA GIRL B/C C 35.34secs
2 1418 DAVE MUNNINGS SHEREBRIDGE JUSTA LIL MISS B/C C 35.49secs
3 494 DAWN SMITH MEG OF DALEBROOK WSD C 37.54secs
4 2083 MICHAEL CRISP ACE D'LA VISTA WSD C 38.15secs
5 2270 SUE DENNISON SUNWOOD HOT SHOT (AWB)
I was pleased with her running A-frame (wish I had that on video!), but after this her foot placement started getting higher. The next show, she won her agility on the first day, and on the second day had the Alpha Agility final.
Results:
1 Sian Powell with Midsummer Llangwn Blodyn C 32.11 secs

2 Sue Stock with Lucy Longsocks C 33.30 secs

3 Kate Wheeler with Would He Be Clear C 35.11 secs

4 Martin Reid with Marts Magical Moss C 35.40 secs

5 Susan Carroll with Brillo of Cocksford C 35.99 secs

6 Jacky Motts with Hexagon Sense C 38.80secs

7 Hannah Banks with Zazz Ma Girl 5 30.99 secs

Her A-frame was marked. If my job is to train her to hit low enough so that the judge never has a decision to make, then I have failed. It is certainly true that some judges will mark running contacts more harshly than slower ones! I then stopped competing and just trained for two months. I went to one indoor show, where I had no doubt, she missed her A-frame. I was very disappointed. We trained as much as we could. However, I do not have my own equipment, and really only got to concentrate on A-frames about once every third week. Zazzy was invited to run at Discover Dogs which I thought would be a great experience, OMG how wrong could I be?! There Zazzy completely shut down. She didn't want to step on the carpet, she didn't want to play, but 'the show must go on' and unfortunately that meant two of the most painfully awful rounds of agility I can remember. I tried to make it a good experience for her, but the next day I can remember thinking, I don't want to ever do that again! However, after training with Toni Dawkins and Amanda Pigg, I had re-newed energy and enthusiasm, and new ideas and confidence about how to train and reward her, and determination to continue with a running A-frame. Well training has gone well for a couple of months, and yesterday I took her to a simulated indoor show, where you can take in toys and food and reward your dog. She LEAPT off the A-frame. LEAPT. I'm still horrified, she could hurt herself. SO this is it, officially, the end of my running contact experiment!

Time passes so quickly!

2009-12-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

It was mid-summer when I didn't finish my last post, I can hardly believe that it is now December!!

The most important thing that I didn't get round to writing about at the KC Festival was that Karen and Todd, as well as Bernadette, qualified for Olympia.

WELL DONE GIRLS!!

For me Olympia is the most exhilerating agility competition (that I have been to), an unrivalled atmostphere unlike anything else I have ever experienced, with a huge arena, sparkley lights and an immense (and immensely loud!) audience. I wish them, along with Toni and Natasha, lots of luck on Thursday in the mediums, I hope they have a fantastic time. And to everyone else who has done so well as to qualify, well done, I hope you enjoy your day(s). Zazzy sends special best wishes to her brother, Rocky, of course! (he is running in the Novice section on Sunday) and also to all her Waggerland and Nedlo relatives! I understand that including medium, small, large, novice large, and ABC there are 100 competitors running over 5 days of top notch, exhilerating agility. Wish I was going to watch, can't wait to see the videos! It's a huge achievement to qualify, I hope everyone enjoys their time there.

My special news

Well I do have some special news! There is a new addition to my family. Meet Deece, aka Little Munchkin, here pictured at 7 weeks old.

KC fest and DIN

2009-08-26T23:00:00.000-07:00

Before I set off for my 'Big Holiday', I felt 'fluey' for a few days, and I felt absolutely exhausted (and achey) for a week afterwards. Everytime I sat down I fell asleep! There was one evening when I thought about going home, as with extra hormones being thrown into the mix, I felt I wasn't coping very well. However, in the past when things haven't been going well, it has paid off to put my head down and keep going because eventually things turn around, and this strategy paid off again this time. I only realised how bad I had been feeling when I started feeling better. Unfortunately that wasn't until Thursday, nearly time to go home! Thanks to the people who were so great despite having to put up with me!
The KC Festival was massive! Lovely venue. Bit of a mix up with camping, the helpers and non-helpers camping areas were miles apart and despite being down as a helper, I was not sent the right pass. Thanks Sara for sorting that out! Although not with Karen, I had a nice spot near the exercise area. These things make a lot of difference to how much you enjoy the experience! I timed the journey to the rings at 7 minutes which didn't seem too bad. Well, not bad if you only do it once. Example, the journey done four times (there and back) to walk courses, four times to check on progress, six times to run = 28 x 7 = 196 minutes (if walking @ 4 miles an hour that over 12 miles!!). In actual fact it felt like non-stop walking all day. Wow how small things build up! Now if we apply the same principle to dog training, many small things that don't seem very much on their own could build up to something really impressive. While away I loved being with my dogs 'full time', and felt our bond really strengthening. I had the time to do everything how I wanted - individual attention. Now that I am back at work I am really hating my lack of time! I had time to worry about being made redundant while away, it would mean a complete career change. Well maybe from my dogs' point of view that would be a good thing! There was some fantastic agility to be seen, and I did try to make it to see the finals (unfortunately missed a lot as I was working on the rings at the time). Zazzy did very well and qualified for the novice cup finals (someone said there there were 500 dogs entered, but possible there were more, I thought there were 150 grade 3's in each of 3 parts, plus there must have been 100 G4 and another 100 G5, that would be 650, perhaps someone still has a ring plan?). Anyway my handling let her down in the final, I tried to tighten the turn off the second jump too much and pulled her right off it, I should know better than that, disappointing! As an example of the standard of competition, Zazzy came third in one class with the first place dog only 0.04 seconds faster.
Straight onto DIN, I like that venue too, lots of dog walking around it. Will have to continue later as I am late for work!

Burridge

2009-08-12T06:27:00.000-07:00

I love the Burridge show! It really is a chilled out show, only one ring, so it's easy to keep an eye on what is going on! Quite a contrast to what I think the KC International Festival with 20 rings will be like this weekend! These pictures attempt to show why I love it so much:

You can just see the caravans of people camping at the show nestled in the valley in the background. These pictures are taken from Butser Hill, the highest point on the South Downs Way. If you keep going on the road you can see in some of the pictures (the A3) you get to the south coast. It is just beautiful on the top of the hill, looking in all directions.

Despite being small, don't be fooled into believing (as I hoped!) that the competition would not be fierce! It holds the last Olympia qualifiers of the year, so for many an all-or-nothing run was called for. So I was very pleased with Zazzy, who got good places in all but one run. Thank you to all the lovely people who mentioned that they could see a difference in the way she is going. She is much happier, and I am still looking for, and finding, little things to make her even happier and more confident. I hope we can keep making progress. I was thrilled and surprised and happy when she placed fourth in the Olympia qualifier. She came fifth in the last one and sixth in the one before. Shame, then, that it was the last one this year, as only the top three qualify! However the big news comes from Becky yet again! With her good friend Jessica (run by Karen Cole) she came second in the pairs, qualifying for the Pedigree pairs final!

UKA Nationals

2009-08-05T11:04:00.001-07:00

This is the first year I have taken a week off to go to the UKA Nationals. I have mixed feelings about the show. Greg and Laura Derritt did a fabulous job as usual, working hard organising the agility competantly from early in the morning, and carrying on working late into the night running the entertainment. I have never seen Laura without a smile and cheery greeting. The weather was against them, we had a lot of rain, particularly on the Wednesday when everyone in the lower parts of the camping area had to be moved due to flooding. I enjoyed great company and fun times with my friends, however there were a couple of very ugly selfish people around. A few driving way, way too fast around the camping area, who, when asked to slow down, responded with foul verbal abuse. And a few who thought it was OK to let their dogs wander around the camping area unsupervised, and blatantly not bothering to clear up after their dogs. I had to pick up for other people after returning from a walk during the day off, and twice after coming back from watching the finals. Yuk. Of course my own dogs do perfectly acceptable solid little nugget poos, but picking up other dogs' cold sloppy piles is dusgusting! Also sickening was whoever stole some agility equipment during the last night. On the up side, it's a beautiful place (see pictures of our walk in the Malvern Hills), and we had brilliant evenings playing Bingo, card games, there was a great live band the last night so lots of dancing, and lots of play all week with Bernadette's fabulous puppy 'Vinny'. I was ready to stand in, in the (unlikely) situation that his new owner changed her mind about having him! Sadly no such luck!

Agility-wise, well Zazzy hated the rain and didn't want to run. Also - disaster- her running A-frame went wrong. Possibly it started with a short-distance and awkward angle to an A-frame in one class where she had to throw herself over the top, having a rather scary flight and landing. It got me wondering whether I would really teach another collie running contacts, just because there are so many courses with minimum distance and horrible angles set going to (and from) contacts. In the class I have just mentioned it was one (nasty angled) stride off a jump to the A-frame, and a bounce off the A-frame to the next jump pushing away to the side. And yes, all these horrible courses have been in grade 3 (the KC calls these 'graduate'). So I trained all Zazzy's agility courses all week. Becky, on the other hand, was an absolute star, despite hardly any training, and only being entered in one or two classes a day. Bless her, she came home with many first places, including winning the champ snooker, despite being up against some fabulous younger dogs trying out for next years' IFCS World Championship team. She might also have won the gamblers too, apart from a hiccup where she missed a turn-around straight back onto the dog walk. As we lost a lot of time there I did not attempt the 5-point circuit I had planned, but still ended up 4th only 3 points behind the winner, and her gamble (a series of distance push to a jump-pull to 'wrong' end of tunnel-pull over a jump-push way back to the finish) impressed Greg enough for him to suggest that she should be trying out for the IFCS team. Wow, clever Becky. She also got through two heats to make it to the National final, although unfortunately we had 5 faults in the final as I had to push her so hard, well at 9 1/2 she does not have the speedy legs of those younger dogs, and it was a very fast course, so no twisty places for her experience to make up for lack of speed and power! I felt terrible for poor Kaydee, the exercise area was small and became even smaller when the camping had to move up from the newly-formed lake! She is now on a course of massage and I will take her back for more osteopathy. Sometimes she looked so bored and miserable it almost choked me, I feel so sad for her.

Mid season review

2009-07-09T07:58:00.000-07:00

I am soooo pleased for Karen. To win with two dogs so quickly , one of which was a 'thrown away dog,' a rescue, most certainly highlights that the driving force behind the success is the trainer and handler. Way to go! And keep up the good work (Don't worry Karen, once we are partied-out, you can trust us to keep your feet on the ground, lol!)

I am really pleased with Zazzy. She is really enjoying her agility, and I love running her. Last night I noticed how much she has tuned into me, I only have to think about what is coming next and it happens. Good thing really, although I haven't noticed her run faster, I have noticed that she is taking less strides between obstacles, so it's getting more and more important that my handling is clear and that the timing is right! Last weekend we met a tough running A-frame sequence in the KC Olympia course ( I love Dave Jolly's courses, they are always clever, interesting and testing, well more testing for the handler than for the dog, as long as the handler does his/her job properly!). Coming out of the weaves Zazzy had a 180 degree turn and space for just one stride before the AF. I knew she would find it hard to get the impulsion to hurdle the top of the AF and get her striding long enough to hit the contact on the down side. Zazzy naturally has a long stride, the drawback of this is that it takes her a while to build up momentum. Like Becky, her best runs have been when I can keep her flowing without too much stopping and starting. I have began to work more on training acceleration, and I can see her gradually getting stronger, but I must admit Kaydee had it naturally, she can go from stationary to flat out, and flat out to stationary in the blink of an eye! Anyway I had about a 5 minute opportunity to do some proofing on the AF this week, and the course at Bookham turned out to be a perfect opportunity to test it. The tunnel was under the AF, so no run up at all! Whereas I really struggled with such things when she was first learning the AF, I was really happy to find her much more successful last night. Just a couple of instances of being higher than I would like. She is such good fun and so lovely to have around. I am also over the moon with Becky, she is really enjoying herself and is really impressing me with hard she is trying. Of course, I am still sad for poor Kaydee, but I am still looking for ways to get her looking and feeling on top form.

Thundery downpours!

2009-07-08T08:06:00.000-07:00

Visitors often ask why the Brits talk so much about the weather. After a short while it becomes obvious that there is a lot to discuss! After I had to leave the girls at home during the day last week because it was so hot (feeling guilty because they missed an hour of free running every lunchtime), yesterday we went for a walk in Richmond Park at lunchtime, during which we got caught in a torrential downpour of rain. We took shelter under a huge old oak tree, some of those trees are up to 500 years old, isn't that incredible? I guess they have seen a lot of weather! Then it started to thunder and I decided it might be better to leave!

Actually perhaps we don't talk about the weather enough, more dogs died in hot cars last week, including two police dogs. It's appalling and really upsets me.

Now that I've got the camera phone working again, I can show a couple of good reasons why it is good to be home! The smell of Jasmine in the evenings, and fresh strawberries!

Tuffley

2009-07-06T10:42:00.000-07:00

What a great show! When I read that the venue was in the grounds of Berkley Castle, I didn't realise that I would actually be camping under the castle!

Berkeley Castle has been lived in by the same family for over 900 years. It is where Edward II was murdered, where the Barons of the West gathered before Magna Carta, and where Queen Elizabeth I hunted and played bowls. It was a lovely weekend, cooler than of late thank goodness! We started getting heavy showers Sunday afternoon, but it only really badly affected one of my runs. Zazzy seemed to be enjoying each run a little more, and it made me really happy. She came home with more trophies! Becky also had a couple of runs, and although she had some faults, wow! She really enjoyed herself!! Kaydee had a special walk exploring the area with me. There was plenty going on, lots of great people and interesting conversations. I was reminded of how sensitive Zazzy's litter are when Shaun told me how badly Fix (or is that Phix?) was affected by the sounds of sizzling from a nearby burger van at the show last week. Fix didn't want to do any agility most of the week, and he is a dog that is obsessed (or is that transfixed? ha ha sorry) by agility. After a week of work, however, Shaun seems to have sorted out (or is that fixed - sorry I'll stop that now) the problem, he looked fantastic in the run I saw, really powerful, and he came second. Well done Shaun! I also saw Cookie (with Claire Murray), who is also looking phenominally powerful, fast and keen! Claire said Zazzy is the polite one of the litter, that made me laugh!

Karen Cole Superstar

2009-07-06T10:40:00.001-07:00

What can I say? Karen won more classes with Todd over the last couple of weekends than I can count, but not only that, she also won some with Jess. So not just Todd, but also Jessica are now grade 7. Champion!

Zazzy is attacked

2009-07-02T12:16:00.000-07:00

It has been really hot this week, I thought I would take the girls down to the river near Chertsey Bridge where they could have a paddle and swim. We had just got out the van and they were running through the long grass, when out of nowhere a large tan and white greyhound/lurcher appeared, chasing them down. I only had time to call once, as they came back to me the lurcher chased down and pounced on Zazzy, knocked her to the ground and held her down as it stood over her tearing chunks of fur out of her as she screamed. Luckily she was close and I was over there in a heartbeat, lifted it up and backwards by grabbing under its hips, taking its hind legs off the ground, I threw it away from Zazzy. Thank goodness for all involved it reconsidered going back in, as I was now in its way and left it no doubt it would have to go through me first; it turned and ran off. No owner in sight. Poor Zazzy was whimpering and crying and staggering to her feet.

HOT!

2009-06-30T05:33:00.000-07:00

It has been getting hotter and hotter, going over 30 centigrade now, so keeping the dogs cool has become my priority. I saw my friends dog collapse from the heat once (and it wasn't as hot as this!) so get quite anxious. I have got them cooling coats, electrolyte drink, and covet shade for them. I get upset when I see dogs in cars if the owner has not taken precautions to keep them cool.
Last weekend I went to a UKA show nearby, intending to do some training runs. Unfortunately, after Zazzy's contacts didn't seem that good on Saturday I noticed that she had scraped a pad. Not too badly, but I decided not to do any more contacts with her. Instead, I used the time to reward her waits. After having to put an enormous amount of work into Kaydee's waits (she is a nervous, can't sit still for a second, twitchy fidget!), Zazzy has been a dream. But it can't hurt to take the opportunity to reward her anyway! However, she did do (and win) a senior jumping run (can't remember if I mentioned she has won up to senior level in UKA). Becky also did some training runs, and also won a champ jumping (and got a couple of seconds). As I only do one or two runs a day with her now, I usually enter agility runs. But I noticed that she only needed a jumping win to gain her the UKA title of Win Champion of Agility Performance (WCAP). So clever girl, she has got that now. Actually she also has nearly enough points for a second CAP. I am very glad for UKA shows, providing a place to train if you want to, where Becky can compete at a lower height which has brought her back out of retirement, and where even Kaydee got to do a casual run over low jumps and tunnels. She was very happy about that, and grinned for the rest of the day!

Karen and Todd win into grade 7

2009-06-30T05:27:00.001-07:00

Huge congratulations to Karen Cole and Todd, who have won more classes than required to take them up to the highest level, grade 7.

The last week and Golden Valley show

2009-06-23T09:30:00.001-07:00

Last week was full on, and full of things breaking.... the van needed some new bits, the caravan needs new bits, even the zip on my fleece broke....
Zazzy's training went really well last week, I was trying to keep her flowing forward smoothly and things seemed to be clicking into place (dog walk will need more work though!). I'm still doing very short sessions with her, and she shares her training at Bookham with Becky now. I have been doing a bit more with Becky and she is loving it! I keep a close eye on her though, at 9 1/2 I worry that I will make her shoulders stiff if I do too much. I am pretty sure it's to do with her conformation, her wrists and back are not very flexible and she has always jumped in straight lines and then turned on her shoulders. Anyway, she is really enjoying herself and I am enjoying running her. She can't be faulted for lack of keeness! I have done something crazy, and entered her into the championship class at Rugby(July). It will be her last champ class, a bit of fun.
At Golden Valley (lovely venue, on a hill, great views, new toilet and shower block!) we had a quiet weekend, as Karen et al. had gone to Axstane. I was very pleased that Zazzy qualified for the Alpha Agility final (out of a class of around 430 dogs!) which will be at Stoneleigh on the same weekend as the Olympia semis and pedigree pairs and team finals. She came second in her agility on Saturday, and I was kept in suspence as she was in the lead for around 230 dogs in her agility on Sunday, but in the end, bridesmaid again!

Karen and Todd - two more wins!!

2009-06-23T00:58:00.000-07:00

Sadly I missed seeing Karen and Todd winning two more classes, as we went to different shows, but huge congratulations, just one more win will take them to championship level, grade 7.

Thames Champ show

2009-06-14T22:21:00.000-07:00

Well last week, the day after I cancelled the holiday in the Lake District, Kaydee looked completely sound again! I can only guess that it was a bad reaction to a sting. This weekend we went to the Thames show. Fantastic weather, fantastic company, and a fantastic band Saturday night! Agility people love to dance! I judged grade 6 agility Saturday . I was pleased with my course, and it was interesting watching all the different ways of handling, I think I learnt a lot. It was won by Lesley Osborne with Fizz (Nedlo Lets Get Fizzical) (A fabulous run, and no doubts about that dog getting her contacts!), Fizz's mum is Zazzy's mums' sister!

On Sunday Zazzy had three runs, a pairs run where she met a wall for the first time (it took two attempts, sorry Karen!). She is looking happier and that is such a relief to me! It was horrible running her when she was flat, in fact I realise now probably a big mistake, as apart from the obvious, that it isn't nice, I wondered if long term I have taught her to do agility slowly. But I was stuck between a rock and a hard place, as I didn't really know what what going on until we tried it and it wasn't right, and also with her three months off over the winter for various other things, she would easily have had six months off and we would be starting from scratch about now! Anyway things are what they are, and I have what is in front of me. I am very pleased with her performance over the weekend. Her running A-frame was good, and her dog walk was not too bad. We have had some homework because of my bad handling; in the last few shows she had been hitting the AF contact a bit high, and her dog walk was getting slower and more creepy. Both of these problems were my fault. I had been trying to encourage her to go a bit faster, so she was trying to leave the AF faster (shorter strides = not hitting low enough) and I was releasing her DW too early (confusing her criteria therefore uncertainty was making her creep - how many times have I advised other people not to do that!!!). Thames is a large competitive show, and so I was pleased that she came 6th in ther KC Olympia qualifier with a very shabby wide turn (bit of homework needed there!), and 8th in her jumping where she got caught up in the cloth tunnel and had a real struggle getting out! I thought that the KC qualifier course (judeged by Rob Davies) was really good, it looked deceptively easy! Zazzy's brother Spider (with Laura Derret) came third, and we thought had qualified for the semi, but I am still to find out whether they have, as Lauren Langman (who won it) has already qualified, but there was uncertainty about whether it was Matt's dog that she was running in that class. (By the way Lauren, is there any chance that I could have my wobble board back, please?) I couldn't decide what to enter Becky into (choice was highly demanding KC or Crufts qualifier courses, championship.... or veterans - talk about extremes!) wallowing in my indecision I ended up missing the closing date! So apart from helping me to test out my course, she didn't run. I really enjoyed watching the championship, the pangs of not running in them myself any more are still there but not as bad, although I still miss running Kay terribly. It was great to have a chat with Char about Tia who is going through the same type of thing. Thames is a very well organised show, and top of the list of 'must do's ' because of the Saturday nights! Overall a very enjoyable weekend! (I didn't want to come home - shame I have to go to work now!)

Poor Kaydee

2009-06-01T13:18:00.000-07:00

Poor Kaydee was running round a field when she suddenly came to me tail between her legs and very distressed. She was skipping on one back leg, after much examination we wondered if she had been stung by a bee. However over the weekend she began to look worse, hopping on both back legs Saturday and looking lame on three legs by Sunday. I took her to the vet today and he could not find anything, nor can I. No heat or swelling anywhere, no pain response to manipulation, no loss of range of movement. I was looking forward to a week of walking in the Lake District hills and was due to leave Friday..... as she doesn't want to walk anywhere right now I guess I had better cancel! It breaks my heart to see her so miserable. And so frustrating that I don't know what's wrong and don't know how to help her.

Well done Karen and Todd - wooohooo!

2009-05-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

It was a hugely sunny day today at Cippenham (24 centigrade). Huge congratulations to Karen and Todd, who have just moved up to grade 6. They got their first win towards grade 7 today and are looking fantastic!
Little Zazzy showed today that she is feeling better, she came third in her grade 3 jumping and second in her agility, so she can now enter the Novice Cup at the KC festival.

Tunbridge Wells and BATS

2009-05-18T00:59:00.000-07:00

I judged part 2 of the grade 3-5 jumping, so a relatively easy day for me! Not only was I only needed for half a day after after lunch (which meant that the dogs got a lovely long walk around the cross country course in the morning- Ardingley is a lovely venue!), but also I already had a course ready built! (Although I did make a couple of changes so that it was more personal to me, I took out the pull-through by moving jump 5 round from the end of the first line to make a fan instead, along with moving the number 6 to the other side of the jump. I also moved the tunnel and jump 15 further out). I am happy to report that Zazzys brother Spider (with Laura Derritt) won part 1! It was interesting that not many people used a recall on this course, Laura did though, and I'm sure the perfectly executed push-through 5 to 6 helped win the class.

Below is the grade 3 jumping Zazzy did at BATS last Saturday. I love the variety that you get in agility courses, but when I walked it I thought it was not terribly suitable for grade 3 dogs. In fact there were quite a few clear rounds, and some very good runs. We did get eliminated, but she did the first half of the course beautifully. It was only when I relaxed too much and sent her off down the line 9-13 that it went wrong, she didn't start turning for 13 and looked like she was going to keep on going past it, so I gave a very sharp call and pulled her right off the jump! She then completed the course perfectly!

I am happy to say that Zazzy is beginning to look much happier, and although she still has udders it looks like the lights are beginning to come back on! It makes me so happy to see her looking like the perky old Zazzy again! Thanks to Mike Douglas for giving her some homeopathic remedy for phantom pregnancy, whether it was that, or whether it is that, if there had been pups, they would have been born now, and she was coming back out of it naturally, I can't say for certain.

May is flying by!

2009-05-17T01:17:00.000-07:00

Wow how quickly the spring progresses, everything is lush and green, in a couple of weeks my garden plants seem to have grown about a metre higher!
I attended a fantastic meeting on the evolution of flowers at the Royal Society in London this week http://royalsociety.org/event.asp?id=7434, absolutely brilliant and inspiring. I have worked with one of the organisers, Peter Crane, when he was the Director at RBG Kew, and admire him immensley. He has phenominal intelligence, ability to see the BIG picture (I'm talking evolution of plants here which is a massively large subject!) and focus on the detail at the same time (I have carried out and published results of two pollen projects with him). All this while being in charge of the Gardens, he was jetting off to a different part (or parts)of the world every week, and has a family. Rumour has it that he only needed four hours sleep and was out running round the Gardens at 4am. Shame on me for thinking it is sometimes a challenge to fit dog training around work!

The camping season is underway - horray!

2009-05-07T03:03:00.000-07:00

I am very much enjoying getting to shows again, and camping with my friends, although it is still a bit cold at times (3 degrees centigrade in my caravan when I woke up last Sunday morning!).

Kaydee

I am going back to the vet tonight to discuss future options. She does look better after her course of cartrophen, and even her nails are wearing more evenly. I am trying to fix up an appointment with the physio who saw her last, before her cartrophen treatment, to see what she thinks by comparison, as I really value her expert opinion (boy she is hard to get hold of though!). I have tried to get her to trot steadily beside me to try and build more muscle, but I can only get walk, pace or canter (pacing being moving two legs on the same side at the same time, as opposed to trotting with opposite diagonals). I have always wondered about whether her predilection for pacing might have started as a pain response, but also know that it is a habit for her now. I am told that some dogs pace in preference to trot and not to worry. (My other two have nice normal trots!) She seems very happy these days, and calmer (less anxious, less nervy) than she used to be. I think they all look very well on the barf diet. Current thoughts are, if she can return to agility training, it is obviously going to be a long slow process. A) Too much work at a time could flare up joint pain so sessions must be very short and not too frequent; B) increases in amount/intensity kept very small; C) I bear in mind that it takes around six weeks to replace cartilage/ligament which is what I have to be really careful to protect; D) as she gets older, any repair to damaged tissue will get slower. It will all have to be done on gut feeling, and I think free running is an important component here because you can watch how well they are moving and much running they feel like doing. The problem that Kaydee has is that if she ever competes again she will have to run grade 7 courses, designed to test dogs at the peak of fitness and training. Actually the same problem that I face with Becky as she gets older, but there is no veteran class option for Kaydee for years yet unfortunately! Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself! I have been thinking about contacts. To reduce compression on her spine, would it be better not to have stops on the contacts? Dawn Weaver, highly experienced and successful at teaching both running and stopped contacts, thinks that you cannot retrain to running contacts if the dog has first been taught to stop. However the challenge of re-shaping Kaydees contacts so that they are smooth and of less impact is worthwhile if it maintains a happy and fit dog. Of course it also has to be done with minimal training......

Lets talk about Zazzy!

Zazzy is looking perkier and happier, for example for the first time last weekend she initiated play with another dog. Oh that makes me happy! At the GT UKA show Sat/Sun she won another gamblers class, came second in her Royal Canin agility qualifier, and won a steeplechase that qualifies her for a final and gained a £20 dog games voucher. I was really happy that her brother Fix (run by Shaun Hunt) won the large dog section of the same steeplechase class. We trained other classes, which was good bar the last one. I was tired and a bit down about some other stuff going on. I shouldn't have tried to run that class, without my full energy input Zazzy was soooo flat I could have cried.

Becky continues to have the best time a dog can have at UKA shows, doing no more than two classes a day at standard height. I was over-optimistic in her gamblers, and over-cautious in her snooker classes, I trained one agility run, and over all we had a fantastic fun time and she gave it her all. We both loved it. Not sure what happened in her Royal Canin qualifier, there was lots of clapping and complete strangers very nicely came up to say what a good run she had done, I assumed she was clear , but unfortunately didn't check her ticket until later when I found she had 5 faults.

I am judging one day this weekend and am looking forward to another camping weekend. I have decided that I really do need a fridge in the caravan so am on the look out to see if I can find an affordable one!

Bits I forgot to write earlier

2009-04-27T05:57:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-14T05:37:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-05T08:24:00.000-07:00

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!!

2009-04-03T09:50:00.001-07:00

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.....?

Cold-hot-cold

2009-03-30T09:53:00.000-07:00

This describes our spring weather, and the state of health of some of my friends! I had an awful cold last week, and feel guilty that Karen was feeling terrible over the weekend (actual degree of guilt not established).
Zazzy had a little scrape on her pad Monday, but I didn't want to take any chances with it so she had a quiet week, and it had healed by the weekend. Saturday we went to Waverunners, a local UKA show. Freezing cold wind! I kept my dogs in coats most the day! Becky had a run in the casual agility class which meant she ran at standard height rather than large ( I have always run her in large without measuring her because it is the same height as KC jumps). She LOVED it! (and got 1st place for her efforts). I decided to get her measured, and she is easily inside standard height, which is fantastic news as it will be great fun to be able to keep competing with her (I had decided to run her in veterans classes this year, which I will still do at KC shows). Better get her a bit fitter! (Do you think at nine years old it is too late to teach her to wait at the start?!)
Well isn't it so much easier to see where other people could improve than do a perfect run yourself?! Zazzys first run was snooker. I walked my course, then thought about it, and decided I would do a training run instead. Except I found myself running my pre-prepared course and only realised I wasn't going to get to do the bits I wanted to train when the whistle signalled my time was up. What a fool!!
I thought most the 'beginners' courses at the show were very hard, two that I did needed a recall across the entire ring (three or four obstacles); happily Zazzys waits were fantastic. (Well I say fantastic, sometimes I wonder if she is ever going to move!) She is still a bit flat, I have been told this could go on until the puppies would have been due, so I guess there could be many weeks of this yet! Zazzy's responce to my handling was very accurate, just one misunderstanding. She slipped and nose-dived going into one set of weaves, unfortunately just as I was crossing behind her (no comments on the size and/or weight of her nose please Toni, you are soooo rude), so she came out of those. Otherwise her weaves were good, also her see-saw was confident so I was happy with that (she has been very unhappy doing see-saws for a long time due to an early scare which had made her very cautious). There were no dog walks (taken out due to a very strong gusty wind). She didn't miss an A-frame although one was higher than I'd like, so we need to build on that technique a bit more. She won her steeplechase by three seconds, and I'm pleased with her jumping style. We are starting to do a few grids and turns in training now, I think this will be really beneficial. I'm looking forward now to doing a few more shows as I am hoping her confidence will grow with more experience.
Sunday I had a Toni Dawkins training day, which was a hoot, and included rather a lot of hilarious banter forming the background to some very good training. I was disappointed again as about 30% of Zazzy's A-frames were higher than I wanted (although again she didn't actually miss any). Toni had us recalling the A-frame from beyond other equipment, a good way to see if our body positions are affecting the dogs performance. We did some handling of more testing turns, and with a bit of help from Toni I was really pleased with our progress. Between those two things I have plenty of homework!