A few of this years pic's

So here are a few of this years pictures, Ronny, Keisha and Kody. It's hard to believe that this weekend is my final show of the year, it has flown by. We are off to Norfolk this weekend, I have never done this show before but Jackie persuaded me to do it, unfortunately Jackie's dog, Jake, has gone lame so she has decided not to travel all that way to just run one of her dogs, I think she is just wanting to stay behind to get a head start in the puppy agility class with Speedy on Sunday !!!

Dashin Dogs Update

Keisha is officially back on form, we had some great runs at the weekend, I did really push her and she responded very well. On saturday she came 3rd in her jumping and then went on to run a brilliant agility round to finish 2nd, sadly my handling in that class really let her down as I ran a poor line and completely confused her forcing her to do those horrible collie turns in front of a jump, thankfully she rescued me and we finished the course, I just wish I could stop throwing our chances away. On sunday keisha ran another lovely agility round to finish 3rd, it is starting to come together now, well its typical, the season is about to finish !!!

Ronny is just in another league all together, he had some mad runs on saturday, his drive and enthusiasm just got the better of him and it was just another gentle reminder of how hard it is to actually work him.

Sunday didn't start great either, 3 poles in his jumping round, followed by him rushing the last jumping sequence in his agility to get eliminated, in fact we had 7 out of 8 eliminations.

But I can honestly say he ran the best agility round ever, it was G5-7 and I must admit I was absolutely dreading it, all those professional handlers stood queueing watching me and my out of control rocket.
The last thing mum said to me was "you will never get him around this course" ........

........ and off we set, he flew the first jumping set, hit the weave entry spot on at speed, zoomed up the dog walk and over it to stop dead, I lost sight of him over the fast jumping part as the judge got in my way (mind I couldn't keep up with him anyway), regained control over the tight pull ins and then up the back straight over the A-frame and on to the see-saw, sadly Ronny missed the down contact so I managed to stop him and put him back on getting us eliminated, he then finished the last tricky jumping sequence which a lot of dogs got eliminated on, not a single pole down and it was the fastest I've ever seen him run. I am still completely buzzing from it now, he was amazing. I didn't care that we hadn't gone clear, apart from the naughty contact he was really listening and he made us look good, thank you Ronny.

Congratulations to Emma and Maisy for their second jumping win, she wont be in the same pot with Ronny if you keep getting all these clear rounds !!!

Mid week update

A busy week already, I'm absolutely snowed under with work at the moment, I thought my job would have been busier through the summer holidays but it hasn't turned out that way at all, I can only assume they are rebelling against being back at school !!!

Anyway, the dogs have had a good week, we have been down to the field a couple of times this week, not started agility training yet as we are waiting for the agility season to fully come to a close, a few games of fetch soon did the trick. I have been running Zippy with Ronny and Keisha and he is absolutely loving it, he isn't far behind them either.

I must admit I'm absolutely amazed by Pudsey, he runs with Kody during his ball game, Kody seems to be sprinting his heart out and Pudsey who beats him all the time just looks like he is having a stroll in the park, I may have to reconsider doing agility with him.

This weekend we are off to Dashin Dogs, I'm really looking forward to the show and it will be like old times, I'm only running Ronny and Keisha so hopefully I wont be as knackered at the end of the day.

The weather is looking good which is great news, not to hot and not raining which is the main thing, I think that will suit the dogs best.

2 down 1 to go

A very interesting weekend, out of the 18 classes we actually only managed 2 clear rounds.

I think the appropriate word to use is "Keen", who would of thought having one weekend off would make the dogs (mainly Ronny) have lots of zoom zoom zoom.

I must say I wasn't really dissappointed at all, none of the dogs were naughty on saturday just full of energy, Ronny was just mad !!!

Keisha had a great jumping class on saturday to finish 1st, 2 jumping wins now so only one more to go, this weekend she showed signs of getting back to her normal self, her speed is just starting to re-appear and her tight turns are definitely back.

Kody had a good weekend, ive added a clip of him below of his last jumping round today, silly me got him eliminated, you think by now I would know which way to turn my body to give him the correct signal, still we all make mistakes !!!!



Congratulations to Emma and Maisy for their fantastic jumping round to finish 2nd today, 3 clears in 3 weeks, things have definitely turned a corner now. Congratulations to everyone else this weekend too, im sorry I can't remember the placings.

Bromsgrove Agility

Thankfully the weekend has arrived and we are going to the Bromsgrove Agility Show, this will be Kody's last show of the season so hopefully we will finish on a high.

Unfortunately I woke up with a bad back this morning (god knows what I was doing in the night) so im hoping there is not much running involved tomorrow, yes I know im dreaming !!!

Not much to update you on this week as we have done nothing but relax all week, Zippy has lost all his hair and is now going through the stringy bean stage (don't worry Jan, he hasn't grown Ronny legs yet).

He is absolutely toy mad which makes it very easy to train him, I cant wait until the winter season is fully here and we get the opportunity to go down to the field on a regular basis.

Meet Murray

So this is how it all started, Murray was my first ever Malinois, bred by Rosemary Banfield, I believe it was a litter of four, 3 boys and 1 girl, Murray, Horrace, Beau and Zena, all of them became working dogs serving for the military police and the ministry of defence police.

Many moons ago I was in the military police and ended up having Murray as my police dog. It's a funny story really, when I first went to pick my dog up I was given a German Shepherd called Bruno, great I thought, he was a big hairy, scary looking beast, the only problem was he kept running off chasing rabbits, not at all interested in working, obviously he didn't make the grade and found a new pet home.

So back down the kennels to get my next dog, Ron who was my trainer said "Ive got the perfect dog for you"

We walked through the kennels passing the well known German Shepherds, barking and jumping at the doors upholding their reputation and finally stopped at the kennel of my new dog, a waggy tailed whippet standing at the kennel door on his back legs wanting a fuss, "him ?" I said, "Yep he will be perfect"

I thought I was being blagged at the time but I can assure you Sgt Ron was not joking, all I kept thinking to myself was how can I take this back to the unit.


Well it turns out he was the best dog ever, he was just 11 months old and was already fully trained, he just needed to mature and get out on the streets and show his stuff.

Murray was just awesome, in our life together we caught some great criminals, he never let me down and was always there to protect me, he even had one of the Army officers on the arm when they came to close to me, Oopps !!

Sadly I later left the Army and Murray was rehomed with the Ministry of defence police, he is still working and the handler will be keeping him when he retires (obviously I would have had him back otherwise).

So that's how the story moves on, who would want any other breed when you can have a Malinois, before I had Murray I didn't even know the breed existed, Ron was right "He was the perfect dog" and my current five dogs, Ronny, Keisha, Kody, Pudsey and Zippy are now the perfect dogs.

The picture above is Murray and Cindy who both served for the Military.

Look what I found

These are the first pictures I ever had of Ronny, at the time I wasn't online so Jan sent them via email to my mum's work address, I printed them off and have kept them ever since.

Now I no longer live in the dinosaur ages I have finally got round to scanning them onto my computer.

How grumpy does he look ?

Can you believe 5 years have flown by and it was about this time all those years ago these pictures were taken. I have added another one of Ronny further down the page of when he was slightly older, I found it hiding in all my paper work and have now got the scanning bug.

Tomorrow I will add the picture of how it all started.

Just Chilling

This week has been very quiet, the dogs have had a nice relaxing week off, agility training has now finished in the week and will soon be starting on sunday again for winter training. I think its come at a good time as the nights are starting to get darker alot quicker.

Zippy starts his puppy class in 4 weeks, I can't believe how quickly this year is going, thankfully our foundation training has been going extremely well, it always helps when you have got an extra keen dog to help !!!

The picture above is of baby Keisha, another few years that have flown by, i'm starting to feel old.

Not much to update you on, I guess its that time of the year when the agility season is coming to an end, well almost. Next week we are at Bromsgrove, followed by Dashin Dogs the week after and then Norfolk to close the season, oh and of course Keisha and I will be going for the BSD World Champ qualifier on Oct 10th.

Anyway have a good weekend everyone, it looks like the weather is going to be good.

Ever had a bad weekend ?

This weekend had been like riding a roller coaster, one minute its great the next its horrible. Let me explain........

We arrived early friday morning just in time to walk the course, the weather was really windy but all the agility courses had all the contact equipment in, I walked the C3-5 agility Part 1 for Keisha and then later ran her but unfortunately she didn't go clear, Ronny was in part 2 but the judge had decided to take the see-saw out as it was blowing up from the wind, the dog walk was kept in, Ronny's running order was right near the start of the class so I went and got him, he ran absolutely brilliant not putting a paw wrong, running contacts the lot, he was winning right up to about 70 dogs in, in my heart I knew it was gonna have to be a rocket to beat Ronny but I just had this dreadful feeling something was going to go wrong.........

The judge then decided to re-start the class as the dog walk had become dangerous due to the wind and it needed to be taken out, all dogs must re-run.

I couldn't believe it, why does it always happen to me, the judge came up to me whilst I was re-walking the amended course and said it was such a brilliant run and he was looking forward to seeing him run again, I explained to the judge that Ronny is only spectacularly clear on very few occasions and a re-run in a class he already knew was never going to be clear again, he just laughed and said he will, well he didn't, 10 faults for two poles knocked.


Saturday was a mixed day, Keisha still thinks she is in season and is obviously running with some heavy weighted hormones as she has lost some of her speed (she has of course been spayed ages ago) she still managed a 4th in her c3-5 agility just missing out on first place by less than a second.

Mum and me decided we needed a good night out at Bingo, we didn't win a single thing all night until they played the last jackpot game of £150, I kept saying to mum I needed number 7, number 7, OH MY GOD number 7 was called, I won !!!

The dogs have been spoilt, new beds, toys, leads and lots of treats.

So then on to sunday, Keisha still running like a slug but managed a 4th in her helter skelter run and a 5th in the ABC jumping, it wasn't until the last class of the day in her c3-5 agility she realised she has actually been spayed and finally showed signs of getting back to her self, she ran a really nice round but sadly missed the dog walk contact just before the last jump, she would have won it by miles, im still having the moment constantly reminded in my head in SLOW MOTION.

Thankfully Kody brought a smile to my face, he ran a really nice jumping run to finish 7th, the photo above is of him, who would of thought he couldn't do the tyre a few months back.

Massive congartulations to Grace and Kiah who won two agility clases at the weekend to go grade 5 and to Lisa and Meme who also won their agility class to go grade 4, well done guys.

Letchworth Show

The dogs have had three days of complete rest, we have done absolutely nothing and I'm completely bored, thankfully we are off to Letchworth Agility Show tomorrow so I cant wait.

I cant believe we are in September already, where has the time gone, Zippy is going to be 11 months old in a few weeks and will soon be starting his agility class. On the plus side I have started his very basic training and it is going great, its like having another mini Ronny but with a bit more control (well at the moment anyway).

The season is drawing to an end, three more shows left after this weekend and then its into some serious winter training, all my equipment is now down at the field and ready for the stampede of my mally's, I've had some really great tips from people this year and I'm going to try some of them out over winter.

Anyway enough of me rabbiting on, I've got a show to get ready for, see you all in a few days.

Helter Skelter

Ive added the video's of Ronny and Keisha in their helter skelter class yesterday, unfortunately the one of Kody didn't record so i will do my best at getting some footage of him this weekend.

Ronny is first followed by Keisha.