Adams

Yeah finally we felt like we were all getting together today.

Cas was a star getting a 5th in Anysize, just had a refusal in Veterans.

Ember was on fire with a 2nd in Dovedale Speed & Power and a messy jumping round ending up 4th, she was having a fab agility round but I ran out of puff & she messed up just before the end - she was really working well!!

Rum was sooo good, we were on our own and had to queue, he was a really good boy, gone up a bit of a gear though so I struggled a little and I did end up taking him out of a jumping class as he lost it a bit.  However we had a lovely round in Grade 6 agility and ended up 3rd despite him stopping on the a-frame and worrying about getting his contact, we were only a second off 1st so with that stop I am really pleased :)

We had a good day and can't wait till Monday :)

TAG

I was a little bit worried about the show today as I wasn't sure how Rum would be.  I needn't have worried as he was a lot calmer.

We started off with a run in 6-7 Agility, he missed a weave entry after the flat tunnel so I trained the rest of the round, he worked lovely and his contacts were spot on.  In 6-7 Jumping he was working so nicely but he then decided to do the tunnel no matter what I said which was a bit naughty!  Last 6-7 Agility and he ran sooo nicely again but just refused the tunnel - something to do with that last round?  His contacts were a bit creepy but not as bad as they have been, I was really please, he worked really fluidly and wasn't stressed at all.

Ember started with tunnel Exchange with my mum running her for the first half, mum thought she could get a wait and she didn't so it didn't start well, I could see Ember looking out of the corner of her eye at me and she was a bit hesitant but they didn't do too badly and I had a clear on my half of the course.  In her first agility she worked fab but went to tunnel instead of weaves then went to weaves instead of tunnel, her a-frame contact was spot on though!  In Jumping she worked well just missing a tricky weave entry.  Finally in her last agility she was naughty on her contacts and walked out of the ring! 

Cas was a little star having 3rd in Veteran Jumping, clear in anysize (which was the same course?).  Having a ball in Veteran Agility, we won't talk anymore about that lol!!

Social ‘Petworking’ on the rise

Social ‘Petworking’ on the rise
- Hounds are ‘top dog’ on social media compared to cats -

Andy Murray’s dog Maggie May has posed with his Olympic medal on Twitter and Karl Lagerfeld’s cat Choupette gives fashion advice to her followers. It’s 2012 and pets on the net are bigger, better and fluffier than ever; the nation’s obsession with their pets means we are increasingly likely to give pets their own social media status from sharing photos to tweeting their thoughts.

Research from Petplan, the UK’s largest pet insurer, and host to one of the most engaged Facebook pages in the UK,[1]  reveals a 36% annual increase of pets with their own social media profile, as well as a 25% rise of pet owners sharing photos of their pets online.

Cats have traditionally dominated the World Wide Web but now it’s the socially savvy hounds who are the true social ‘petworkers’ as 7% of pooches have their own Facebook page, compared to only 4% of felines. Boo, nicknamed ‘the world’s cutest dog’ started and still leads the online trend. Currently Facebook’s most popular pet, this adorable Pomeranian has more fans than the Dalai Lama.[2] Along with Boo, four out of the top five most popular pets on Facebook are dogs including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s pooch Beast. Since the explosion in popularity of Britain’s Got Talent winner Pudsey, dogs are now 12 times more talked about on Twitter than cats.[3] Dogs also dominate YouTube with ‘the ultimate dog tease’ being the most popular pet video with over 100 million views.[4]

Despite dogs’ dominance online, cats are still strongly represented. 83% of cat owners who put their pets online also regularly share photos of their felines compared to 69% of dog owners.  Although it seems that pup parents demonstrate a greater sense of humour with 42% posting status updates on behalf of their dog.

Francesca Keefe, Petplan Social Media Executive comments: “We’ve long known that animals are the stars of the internet, but in the last year since we started tracking pets’ presence online there has been an explosion in ‘pet pride.’ Increasingly pet owners are giving their pets a more active role in their life and spreading the joy that having a pet can bring. As well as the fun side of social media, we’re also seeing more and more pet owners take to Twitter as an effective way to look for lost pets.”

Jan Rezab CEO at Social Bakers comments: “As a global social media and digital analytics company we track online engagement levels across Facebook and Twitter and over the last year we have seen a significant rise in the interaction with pets on social media. There are many social media profiles dedicated to pets, but at the top of our Facebook pages, in the animals category, are dogs with cats coming in fifth.”

Case Study

Denver the dog, owned by Morgan Taylor

Someone who has experienced the phenomenon of social petworking first hand is Morgan Taylor, owner of Denver, a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever. Morgan started taking photos of Denver because he was his first puppy, and he wanted to capture those moments before they disappeared into memories.  He added the photos to his Flickr account under his "Littlest Duder" set.

There was an instant interest in Denver and a picture of him in the park made it to number 11 on Flickr’s Explore page. As page views of Denver went up, new people added him to their contacts, and Denver's fame train was solidly in motion. After that a number of people contacted Morgan asking if they could post his photos on their blogs, requests he always granted. Brekend.nl was one of these blogs, and he regularly sees traffic coming through from that post. Another surge in popularity occurred when a friend posted one of Denver's photos to reddit.com, resulting in 73,000 views to that photo in a single day and 147,000 total views to his Flickr stream.

The most recent surge came from the UK’s Daily Mail posting an article on its website. Following this publication, The Huffington Post ran a similar piece, with further information about Denver; as a result Morgan received 248,000 page views of his Flickr page in a 24 hour period.

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-ENDS-

Notes to editors:

Pick of the best social media pets

http://textfromdog.tumblr.com/

http://maddieonthings.com/

http://dogswaiting.tumblr.com/

http://foodonmydog.com/

Facebook*

Pet	Number of likes	Celebrity comparison	Number of likes
Boo	5,014,674	Dalai Lama	4,179,463
Beast	880,336	Gisele Bundchen	846, 086
Joe	310, 767	Stewie Griffin	306, 483
Mishka the talking husky	286, 450	Richard Branson	249, 964
Professor Meowingtons pHd	101, 870	Al Gore	81, 194

Twitter*

Name	Number of followers
Maggie May	12,505
Choupette Lagerfeld	13,187

YouTube**

Name	Number of views
The Ultimate Dog Tease	109,375,464

Statistics from a survey conducted by Vision Critical July 2012 and the Petplan Pet Census March 2011 both surveying over 1,000 respondents

*Facebook and Twitter statistics taken from August 2012

**YouTube statistics taken from June 2012

---

[1] According to Social Bakers http://www.socialbakers.com/blog/708-june-2012-social-media-report-facebook-pages-in-the-united-kingdom/

[2] Social Bakers figures taken August 2012 

[3] Radian6 figures taken between 1^st April – 20^th June 2012

[4] YouTube figures taken June 2012

Adams

Adams was a lovely show so relaxed however the rings weren’t very well organised and Rum didn’t have his first run till after lunch and three of his classes were running at the same time.


Rum didn’t cope very well and I am hoping it was down to the fact he didn’t do anything till later on. His first run we hadn’t prepared and felt rushed into the ring, we were all over the shop in the agility. Followed by a run in the other agility where we actually went clear but really should have had a 5 on the seesaw and a 5R, I assumed we had and held his a-frame virtually walking the rest of the course – that will teach me to not work a course right till the end as it was tricky and there weren’t many clears. His next jumping and he was loopy, he had worked himself up and I am not sure why, so I ended up bringing him out. Finally another jumping and he really didn’t have his heart in it, he seemed to be so tired as he had been working himself up all day, he was clear but steady and out of the placings.

Ember on the other hand was on fire, she was running so well, the one agility she was naughty and missed her dogwalk, the other I just didn’t hold my position and flicked her the wrong way over the jump. Then two fab jumping clears in combined 4-7 and combined 5-7 jumping resulting in a 3rd and 4th.

Cas was so happy to be out today she bounced out of her bed in the morning and was raring to go in her first class at 8:30am, she flew round veterans resulting in a 4th and last thing flew round anysize resulting in a 3rd. She was so funny first thing though as she sort of growled round veterans she was so happy to be out and doing agility, most mornings she takes a while to get out of bed but today she was really raring to go!

So the girls worked really well, I am really disappointed and upset about Rum as he was high as a kite and crashing rapidly throughout the day. At home he was so depressed. I really hope it was a blip as I don’t want him doing agility if he is going to be like this it’s not fair on him. So we’ll see what he is like next weekend. He’s been doing so well and maintaining his levels really well but today he was up and down like a yoyo.

WBSDS

I enjoyed WBSDS show last year so was looking forward to it, I love having a proper café on site and the ground is lovely to run on. I only entered Sunday as was abseiling on the Saturday, shame as the show is only 30mins away so it’s great.
Rum started off in Graded 6-7 Agility and I pushed his contacts, he didn’t feel as sluggish as he has been but still wasn’t overly drivey, we messed up the weave entry as I let him try and take it too early. Just as well though as his dogwalk was marked, despite him getting it with his two back feet, so would have been a little annoyed if he had been clear. He worked a really tricky course very nicely. Combined 6-7 Agility followed and I don’t know where his head was at, he picked up a tricky weave entry on his own and had lovely contacts (which I held) but that was about it, he was all over the shop, goodness knows why! Graded 5-7 Jumping was a Rum course, I knew it when I walked it, big open spacey course, I have to say he ran it lovely and really enjoyed it, I wasn’t clear on my signals and we had a couple of wobbles where he was turning the opposite way to where I wanted but otherwise he finished 3rd which I was pleased with. Finally Combined 1-7 Collie Jumping and it was a helter skelter type course which again was great for Rum and he flew round it and had an absolute ball, he finished 4th.
Ember was in combined 1-7 jumping first which was helter skelter type so I had to run, she had a lovely round (if a little steady, showing her age!) but knocked a pole. Then graded 6-7 agility and she was taken out of the ring for naughty contacts! In 5-7 Jumping we were flying, she was running really quickly until almost at the end she took a jump instead of the weaves – gutted!! Finally 1-7 Agility and she had a lovely round with lovely contacts, just missed a weave entry – real shame!
Cas only had one run in Veteran Jumping and flew round finishing 4th :) which I was super pleased with as I didn’t think she would ever get a veteran placing. Clever girlie.