Rum is Grade 6!!

Just a quick post to say Rum won G5 Jumping at RVA so is now Grade 6 - KC Festival will be his first G6 I think, which was his first G5 last year! So that's nice he has spent a year in grade 5, I have been holding him there this year (contacts and not competing in jumping lol!) but thought it was about time he moved! He also had a 3rd in G5 Agility, Cas a 2nd in G6 Jumping, Emz a 2nd in G6 Jumping and 5th in Steeplechase. Videos to follow at some point.

France!

Last year I decided I would really like to experience agility abroad and I love France so I picked a French show and had the dogs – Rum and Ember (I didn’t bother with Cas as she is 9 now and only doing jumping so I thought she could stay and keep Diz company) vaccinated.
So we set off down to Poole to catch the ferry to St Malo, found a park for the dogs to have a run in at lunchtime and stumbled across a lovely little Italian restaurant by a lake. I was a little concerned as to how the dogs would be on the ferry but they were fine and they didn’t stress out at all. The ferry crossing was fairly smooth and we arrived in St Malo early evening.

I had decided to rent a cottage in South Brittany in the hope we would get some sun, well the cottage was more in Loire Atlantique in a little village called Les Moutiers ens Retz. On our way down we stopped at a service station to feed the dogs and let them off for a run and arrived at the cottage late evening.

We were up early to go to the show in Ploermel, it was quite a big show as there were two rings rather than the usual one – makes a difference from the 14 at Thames! We had to look up what our ring number was on a list then book in, at this point the competitors hand in their licences to compete which are then handed back out at the end, because I didn’t have one of these I handed in my record books. Then the running orders are listed for all your classes. I had four classes with Ember and 3 with Rum as Rum is not KC reg so he doesn’t get to run in the level class.

Ember was running first in the Open Agility which was a qualifier. In France you have to have your dog off lead while the dog in front is competing and you then walk to the start with the dog under control (you are unable to touch your dog, well you are once but sometimes this can be interpreted as more than once by the judge and you would be E’d so it’s best not to at all!) and wait for the judge to tell you to go. I was pleased that I managed to get both the dogs to the start without them bombing off over a jump lol!

So Ember, in the first agility she had the first pole down (she was in category A which is our equivalent of small but the jumps were a bit higher), she then missed her A-frame and had another jump down but I was really pleased otherwise as the weaves are spaced further apart, the tyre was tiny and she has never seen a table in the ring. This was then followed by another Open Agility (not a qualifier), this was a disaster, she knocked that many poles down I lost count!! And she slipped at the end of the weaves (the metal bar was really thick in the middle). Unfortunately I missed her level class as I thought she was in 2-eme degree but she was actually in 3-eme degree, these level classes are the only classes that count towards progression, so you could win hundreds of opens and stay in level 1 as it’s only the level one classes that count. All dogs start in level 1. Finally the jumping class, she was fab in this, had a pole down near the start so I didn’t really work the tunnel entry as well as I should have done and she went in the wrong end but otherwise she ran really nicely.

Rum had the Open Agility (non qualifier) first and did a lovely run but I just lost him in the tunnel – grrr shame as he ran really well. Then the other agility and he missed his down contact on the dogwalk but then I struggled to get him in the tunnel and when he landed after the wall he took the wrong jump I didn’t work him into his turn. In this class the judge had said you must leave the ring when E’d. Finally jumping and grrr he went into a tunnel again when he shouldn’t have – obviously something we need to work on!!

Everybody has to wait until the end where you all sit and watch the presentations, after this you then get your licence back with a copy of your results for each dog. It was a great experience, thank you to Theresa for helping me with everything. Am so pleased with the dogs considering they learnt the table at home last week and have never done it in the ring and the weaves are a lot further apart which Rum seemed more comfortable with but Ember just looked like she was running between them ha!

Well we had a lovely week, a lot of the time it was too hot to take the dogs out during the day so they were better off stopping in the house which was kept cool with the shutters closed. It was lovely to go for a run along the promenade first thing in the morning with the dogs off lead not having to worry about traffic etc. The one day it was cool enough to take the dogs to the beach late afternoon, so we all went for a swim which was fab – Rum is such a strong swimmer!! He easily pulled me back to shore.

Here are a couple of piccies:

Bad Blogger

Well I haven’t blogged for ages in terms of shows, my agility motivation has really diminished lately. I really enjoy training and judging but I just haven’t had any enthusiasm for competing the last couple of months. I have been so busy with other things lately agility shows were becoming stressful and I just couldn’t cope with that on top of everything else. So I took it upon myself to change my mindset and now shows are my getaway. :~)

Rum has been suffering from stress for a while now, just before Christmas it got really bad so I had him on DAP and some xyklene, we worked through this bad stage where I could not get him to do a thing because he couldn’t think he was stressed out up to his eyeballs! Then when the outdoor season started I realised that he wasn’t fast because he enjoyed it, he was fast because he was stressed out, he wouldn’t wait because he was stressed about the dog behind him, he started missing contacts. I realised my hopes of getting to Olympia were vanishing before my eyes, but what’s more important? In my opinion it’s a dog who actually enjoys agility, people may have thought he did but if you looked closely he didn’t at all – it was adrenaline from the stress. Chris Hickman has been excellent and really helped me, after reading Control Unleashed I started working with him at Waldridge initially. From there we have been doing calm around the rings, making eye contact with me rather than watching the dog competing. Slowly we are getting there, and working him now really makes me realised how stressed he was! We started getting our waits back (though if we have a barky dog behind us they aren’t great and I don’t really want to push him in that situation as he isn’t comfortable) and contacts back again.
At Newton Heath this weekend he was amazing, a 3rd in Novice Olympia (not qualifying as was in 2 parts) and I got lost in an awesome jumping class which I really drove him round and he had a great time, followed by a beautiful run in agility where I held his contacts and ran on past. His contacts are so much faster and confident I haven’t had a creepy contact all weekend which is a first!

Cas was a little stiff this weekend and had a couple of poles in her jumping classes so am going to see how she goes. At Thames she was the only one to have 100% clear rate including a 14th in Pairs with Lisa Thompson.

Ember has been another reason I haven’t been enjoying competing, at Waldridge there were lots of start jump then weaves which she has always struggled with and didn’t get a single entry. After that she seemed to lose all confidence in finding her weaves and didn’t pick any up in the ring, I felt all that hard work had just been wasted and we were back to square one. But am pleased to report she didn’t miss a single one all weekend, in her jumping she picked up a really tricky entry and just had a pole otherwise would have won by 2 seconds! Then we are still having a-frame issues and I have decided to down her afterwards as putting her back over is rewarding her for missing and if I took her out it’s giving the obstacle a really negative association. Anyway in the next class she had a beautiful a-frame and we had a 3rd in Grade 6 Agility. Sunday she was so fab in Crufts singles but made a stupid mistake and messed up a straight line of jumps! I was so pleased as I got into position while holding her on her dogwalk and left her in her weaves while I went off into position. In her jumping she was NAUGHTY and was so headstrong she wasn’t listening.

Here are some pics I took with my new lens.

And this is Jingo, Chris Hickman's goldie, she hasn't got many photos of him so I said I would take some, weather wasn't great so didn't get any particularly amazing shots, but I just love this one - isn't he gorgeous!

Race For Life

I am really proud of myself, was just going to walk the two laps (5K) but on the second lap Anna and I ran and we didn't stop, so we ran 2.5k. Really pleased I did it, have only ever run 0.8k at the gym before so I had to push myself to keep going - it was great to feel we were making a difference.

http://www.raceforlifesponsorme.org/ghos

Dizzy Celebrating 10Yrs

Sometime in June 1999 Diz arrived and we took her home from rescue in December 1999.

Training

I was asked to take the competition class at Addicts yesterday afternoon, so had to quickly come up with a layout, I used part of this from one of Bud Houston's layout where it was used in an opening sequence at a Grand Prix qualifier. I wanted something with tunnel under dogwalk as I saw one dog completely freak at it a couple of weeks ago.

It was a really good layout as it was sequences night tonight rather than a whole course. So we did both the around the outside warm ups - 2 jumps, weaves, jump, dogwalk 2 jumps and the opposite, the weave entry proved a little trickier so handlers had to make sure they continued to head for the weaves rather than cut the corner!

Then onto the trickier stuff we did the 3 jumps in a line and over the jump towards the tunnel, tunnel, dogwalk and 2 jumps. This proved easier than I thought and there weren't many dogs that took the jump from the left. So we did the same but took the jump from the left away from the tunnel and this proved trickier, handlers were moving too quickly when they thought the dog had come through.

That's all I've got time to blog about at the mo, am enjoying judging and training more than I am competing at the moment.

Rum!!!

Cat (http://www.themodernlove.co.uk/) took this shot of Rum at Waldridge, I think it is absolutely amazing!!!