Speedy's Show Update

Jackie's email:-

He was brilliant at the show stood like a rock, showed lovely and was 2nd out of 3 in the open class. I had put him in the wrong class, but he was such a good boy.

God my sister now thinks he is even more wonderful his eyes are soooooooooooo blue.

He wanted to lie down at the show but the concrete floor wasn’t very comfy so I put my coat down for him to lie on (it is old and I was warm) but that wasn’t good enough, off Anne went and bought bedding for him, she claims its for her terrier! But at night she had put a piece near the door to stop the draught should the golden child lie there. But that was very short lived as I laid in bed I could hear shredding, I shouted Anne and sure enough he was ripping it up !!

Contact Training

This weekend has been packed full of stuff. Yesterday morning I managed to get a couple of hours training done down at the field, we worked only on jumping sequences and all dogs had a great session and things are progressing nicely. Didn't manage to make it to club this morning due to the weather but I did get to the field again this afternoon to do some contact work. It appears it's finally starting to click, im currently working with targets just to confirm the correct postion with speed.

Ive attached a video of each dog .......

Zippy

Pudsey

Kody

Keisha

Ronny


Still got lots of work to do but its certainly a good start, this was only Zippy's and Pudsey 3rd attempt so im really pleased with their progress. Zippy has a streak of Ronny madness in him, I caught this wacky attempt of the A-Frame on video, definitely a Ronny moment ....

Zippy

Fast Friday

Just got back from agility training, a bit of a mad night, unfortunately Ronny was in a hyper mood and added to the indoors with lots of other excited dogs it just seems to tip him over the edge, the start of the class didn't go so well, he has reverted back to running contacts which in most peoples eyes is great, I find it quite frustrating with Ronny as when he starts running them I know flying them is about to follow. Still Jackie and the rest of the class gave me some good words of wisdom and by the end of the night we had cracked the contact position with a stop, phew !!!
Jackie said she is hoping Speedy will turn out like Ronny, is she mad ?????????????????
I have got a sneaky suspicion that Zippy might follow in his daddy's foot steps too. Look at him in this picture, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth. YEAH RIGHT

Thankfully the weekend has arrived, the weather isn't looking great but im determined its not going to ruin my plans. Tomorrow im out shopping again, need to get my christmas shopping done as its fast approaching.

Good luck to Jackie and Speedy tomorrow for the Breed Show at Newark.

Good News

Just received some good news that Meg has passed her Bronze Good Citizen Test last night, well done Meg and Katie, hopefully many more rosettes to follow.

Tony called earlier in the week to inform me Eva has now mastered the tunnel after getting over her fear of the unknown, sounds like she has now converted into the loony club, I'm glad its not just my dogs that are mad for tunnels, its the extended family too !!!

Speedy and Jackie are attending another breed show on saturday, Ive been informed its at Newark so at least its not too far to travel, good luck for the show, keep me posted with the news.

Tunnel Twins

Well I did say I was going to get the tunnel in the house, I've had to move some of the furniture around to accommodate it but at least Zippy has learnt the flat tunnel in Ronny speed.

I just knew Ronny was going to be a good teacher at this ..........



and just to prove Zippy can do it on his own ..........



Completed some great training this weekend, yesterday I was up at the field for most of the morning, both Zippy and Pudsey are now stringing jumping sequences together and it actually feels like we are making progress, both of them are really good at reading my body language which is a bonus. The bigger dogs were working on getting things done tight, Keisha and Ronny have mastered the pull ins hogging the wings whilst I practiced the flick flacks with Kody, something that he wasn't great at last year but now I'm hoping there will be loads of them next season as I think we have finally cracked it.

This morning we were at club. Zippy had a good class and his jumping was really good, I must admit I do forget sometimes that the puppies need alot more help than what Ronny and Keisha do and when we got to the contacts Zippy definitely reminded me of that. The good thing is he did his first see-saw practice today and by the end of it he was definitely looking better. Also in the class was Speedy, he is such a lovely boy, he did some great jumping sequences too and Jackie seems to understand his typical Belgian character and run him well. If I can remember I'm going to try and take my camera next week to get some footage. (No pressure Jackie) he he.

Hi Nat, I spoke to Tony in the week and he is going to do his best to get some Eva and Zippo pictures sent to me, as soon as I get them I will post them on the blog. Tony if your reading I've only told .......... well everyone :)

Finally huge congratulations to Clare and Charlie for winning out at the weekend, its about time. Looking forward to seeing you in Grade 3.

The real Pudsey

Why have the stuffed teddy bear when you can have the real Pudsey, admittedly he is not yellow but he has certainly got the kind caring character that is needed.

Tonight I have been at agility training, our club has found an indoor venue which is great news, its every friday evening but at the moment you can only run one dog, I think its to see how big the classes are going to be as it would be pretty rubbish if you had to wait an eternity to get a go.
I decided to take Ronny tonight as Keisha has been hogging the training sessions lately. There were some signs of brilliance, some rubbish handling by me and some of Ronny being cloth eared. We had some really tuff courses but we got around them which was the main thing.

My agility equipment arrived today, by the time I got home from work it was pitch black so I haven't been able to get it out yet. I'm going to get the flat tunnel in the house tomorrow, not sure if it will be one of my better ideas but im sure I will find out.

Something to make you laugh

Here is an email I received earlier in the week, it will definitely make you smile.

A co-worker got a pen stuck inside our printer. He started to try and remove the pen, but I told him we don't have time for that now, just put a note on the printer telling folks not to use it and then report it to the Help Desk. So he grabbed a piece of paper and scrawled on it. I left before he finished the note.

About 20 minutes later, one of my techs comes in laughing and says he was just in the lobby, saw a piece of paper on a printer and went to investigate.

Below is what he found .......
Sometimes things don't always come out the way you want them to.........  
 

Now that you've smiled at least once, it's your turn to send this to someone you want to bring a smile to (maybe even a chuckle)...in other words, send it to everyone. We all need to smile every once in a while.

Obstacle course

Just been reading everybody's blog, looks like you have all had a good weekend, some great results so well done everyone.

Not much happening for me at the moment, after all that moaning on my last post I did actually manage to get some training done. Saturday was a complete wash out so I decided to go clothes shopping instead. Mum and dad have upgraded their Sky to the HD package and have also brought a massive 42inch TV so its quite hard to drag myself away from their house at the minute, especially when the fire is on.

Sunday agility training was on but I had already made other plans so sadly couldn't go, I did however manage to get to the field later in the day and get some great training done. Zippy and Pudsey are getting on great, they can now do, tunnel, straight lines, right and left turn, front crosses, rear crosses and flick flacks, their dog walk and A-Frame are really starting to come along too, just the see-saw and weaves to master now.

Talking of the see-saw, I have ordered a new one along with a flat tunnel and some wooden competition weaves (Ronny keeps breaking the plastic ones) and they are arriving on friday. Ive decided to put the flat tunnel in the house for a week so Zippy and Pudsey can get used to running through it, im sure Ronny will offer to help out. Ive also brought the tyre home and a few jumps so we can do extra practice in the garden during the week, anything to get some energy out of the dogs, I can see the house and garden turning in to an obstacle course over the next few weeks.

I heard from Tony tonight, Eva and Zippo have started agility training too, Zippo is loving the tunnel whilst Eva is more for the dog walk and jumps. I'm really pleased that all the puppies have started training, I can see the next few months of training being very interesting for us all.

Rain Rain Rain

Will it ever stop?

Out of all the weather conditions rain is by far the worst, you can't do anything, agility training is always cancelled, if you take the dogs out for a walk they come back covered in mud, towel drying becomes a pain, especially when the towels never really dry out from the time before and on top of all that there is nothing worse than the smell of a wet dog.

Anyway after all that moaning there is something to be happy about, the weekend has arrived. Not sure what the new plans will be now agility doesn't feature but im sure I will find something to do. Have a good weekend everyone, dont let the rain ruin it :)

That's what they call it

Team Work - That's what they call it.

This picture is brilliant, it reminds me of how I felt last weekend, most things go to plan but not all the time. Its a true skill getting it right with your dog, something that I can do on occasions but it comes few and far between. As much as I would like to be in control and dream about it on most occasions, I can always rely on my loyal dogs to bring me back to earth, usually Ronny leading the way.

This week has been a bit manic, work has suddenly got all busy, its that time of the year when they want your personal development review done, as usual I've left mine to the last minute and im now having to glue myself to the desk to get it completed by friday, it doesn't help as tomorrow im out all day at meetings (we get homemade cookie's at the meeting so I don't mind). The good thing is the office is quiet at the moment, alot of people are on holiday, including my boss, yippee !!!

Three training days

Picture of Ronny and Rusty

After a 4.30am alarm clock Friday turned out to be a great day, Emma and me picked up some really useful tips, we both have different style dogs in Maisy and Keisha so we were able to come away with different ideas. The good thing about a group session is you get to see other peoples problems and learn ways to overcome it, something that will be handy for future training.

Saturday's training at Helen and Andy Browns was fantastic, we did some really tricky courses and I have come away with things I want to work on, saying that I was really chuffed with Keisha, she is running really well and I think our training is paying off. I know the World Champs training in Kent was today so I hope it went well for everyone.

Today's training didn't quite go to plan, Zippy and Ronny was supposed to be at club but unfortunately it was called off for the second week in a row, the rain is really annoying at times, saying that by 11:00am it had stopped so I packed the mob in the van and went down to the field. All the dogs did the same course, we worked on what we had learnt on Friday with Dave Munnings and all of them had a great session. We finished the day with contact training, mum came up to help which I really appreciated, the older three did some really nice work, Kody and Keisha are now glue-ing their feet to the contacts which is nice, Ronny had the odd running contact (not quite what I wanted) Zippy is starting to understand what it is all about and Pudsey was just a nightmare, I think it was a case of 1 step forward and 3 steps back today, im going to sit down and think about what went wrong later. I think it would have been a bit greedy to get them all right.

No rest for the wicked

I thought I would just pop the dogs in the garden whilst I eat my dinner in peace, well I thought it was a good idea at the time until the heavens opened and the dogs got soaked. Ive just got back in after spending half an hour in the garden towel drying them, not helped by Zippy grabbing the towel and running around the garden thinking it was a toy. Still that will teach me for trying to grab a minutes peace.

It's my last day at work tomorrow for this week, I have booked Friday off as Emma and me are travelling to Ipswich for a training day with Dave Munnings, Maisy is accompanying Emma and I've decided to take Keisha. It's gonna be an early start but im sure it will be worth it, its a 3 hour session so im sure the dogs will be exhausted by the end of it.

Saturday is another training day, im off to Helen and Andy Brown's for a training session to prepare us for the different style courses they might use abroad if we qualify for the World Champs, again its with Keisha, im sure she wont mind !!!

It's ideal for us Midlanders as the other scheduled training days in Kent are just to far for me to travel, especially as I have to consider my other 4 dogs, im sure they wouldn't appreciate sitting in the van all day.
Hopefully Ronny and Zippy will get their chance at agility training on Sunday, just got to hope the weather will be kind.

Weather wont beat us

When I woke up this morning and noticed the heavy rain I knew agility training would obviously be cancelled. Thankfully the rain had stopped by 10:00am so I was able to go to the field and get some training done. The dogs were brilliant, Pudsey and Zippy can now do the dog walk, something we have been working on over the last few sessions, I decided to change the way I normally teach my dogs and this time I wanted them to master the end contact before doing the whole lot, at present it appears to be working which is a great relief. The other three horrors I've decided to re-train the same, I've obviously had to change the command but I think it might work, the speed in Kody has dramatically increased, he flew over in a previous session so fast he fell off three times in a row, not knocking his confidence at all, fingers crossed by the time the summer season arrives it will all be mastered to perfection, no flying contacts anymore, im sure Ronny might challenge me on that !!!

Yesterday was a day of relaxation, shopping, shopping and more shopping, a pit stop for a massive hot chocolate at Costa followed by Pizza Express for dinner at the end of the day which was absolutely delicious.

Earlier in the week mum and me went to watch The Vagina Monologues, starring Lisa Riley, Sally Lindsay and Sarah Jayne Dunn, very very funny, something I would definitely recommend for a good girls night out.