Upcoming Show

We have just been at Weardale Champ Show, which as you may have guessed is miles away in fact just over a 5 hour drive away! Besides from that, the show is set in a beautiful location and is a lovely show to attend! Rusty did really well in the Championship qualifiers and even came 2nd in the Jumping where most dogs were struggling to get clear and clear within course time! Ziggie ran so well, however no clears this time as we managed to get atleast 5 faults in each run.

This weekend we have Agility Club Championship Show, which is rather exciting as it will be Tia's second ever show! Which will be soo great as she is just getting better and better at training and I cant wait to see how she performs in the ring this weekend! Of course it will be another chance for Dave & Rusty to take that last and elusive Championship ticket, so fingers crossed everyone! Ziggie is also running at this show which is great so that I can try and push her a bit to get more speed out of her.

Until then Tia has some training at Sunniday and Rusty has more training at ANJU. Only 3 more days untill Agility Club!!!

Birthdays, Birthdays and more Birthdays!

Over the last couple of weeks we have had 3 special Birthdays to celebrate. The first being my Mum who we took out for a very yummy lunch and got her nails done so they were looking really pretty!

Tia has now celebrated her 3rd Birthday and for her special treat we went to Premier to do a little bit of agility training. She was even naughty enough to come off her contact but knew she wasn't supposed to and went straight back on - such a good girly.

Two days later, Rusty celebrated her 6th Birthday. For this very special occasion I decided to backe a Birthday Liver cake for her (and Tia). Which actually turned out very well and even the doggies agreed it was a perfect treat!

Tia's New Sports Wear!

Unfortunately our little Tia, decided that she would gain her first Agility injury by ripping her dew claw which ended up at right-angles on her paw, after taking a long jump.

So after a visit to the vet, one less claw and £100 pounds later Tia was all better! So we have decided that as she seems to rip her dew claws quite often that she must wear a new sports range for her agility, we call Tia's Sport Socks.

Here is a picture of Tia, showing off her new range...

We did a tiny bit of training last night and I am pleased to say that wearing her new Sport Socks doesn't seem to bother her one bit, so we now wait for her next show which is to be Agility Club at the end of July!

Lansdown Agility Show

This was Tia's very first show, and I was super excited about running her especially after I had been putting in lots of extra time in her training over the last couple of weeks.

On Saturday Tia had 2 runs, a Jumping and an Agility. The first run of the day was the Grade 3 agility, which she did really well and not only did we get a clear round but also managed to get a 16th! Below is the video of Tia's very first run...

Her second run of the weekend was a Grade 3 Jumping which once again Tia did really well and we got another lovely clear round! Below is the video of her Jumping run...

On the Sunday, Tia had 3 runs, a Jumping, Agility and an ABC Agility. Our first run of the day was the jumping which Tia ran soo well, she was even better than on the saturday. I am sure that she gained some more confidence and was faster and finished the run in a good time. ABC Agility was her next run, which Tia worked so well. We did end up with an Elimination but it was not a huge suprise as there was a tunnel under a dog walk (Tia loves all contacts!) so I had to push her out slightly towards the tunnel, so Tia made her own tunnel between the tunnel and the dog walk tressels then went over a jump as I called her back to complete the proper tunnel. The final run of the day was the Grade 3 Agility which Tia did her very young dog run and got an Elimination. We had a couple of weave issues where she kept trying to get to the contacts, she ran round a jump and sort of crashed though another where she didn't really take off for it!

Overall, Tia got 3/5 clears over the weekend at her very first show which is totally awesome! I am SO proud of Tia's performance and how well she coped with the entire show atmosphere.

Rusty and Ziggie also had a pretty good weekend. Rusty won the ABC Agility and also came second in the Crufts Singles agility, both after wonderful runs and superb contacts. Ziggie got 3/4 clears and picked up an 11th in her Grade 6 Agility on the saturday after a really nice clear with lovely contacts. Our next show is Tuffley Championship Show, which will also be Tia's second show and already I can't wait!!

2x2 Weaves - Day 9 - 10

Day 9
During these sessions I continued with the 4 poles and added in a jump, so that Tia learns to find the weave entry from an obstacle. She did this really well, and she found all the entries that she faced. Tia is doing really well, and her confidence through the weaves is really showing, she has also properly started to single foot through them which is great to see.

Day 10
During our weave sessions today, I have moved her on to 6 poles. At first I added the 2 poles at the beginning of the weaves in order to help her with finding the entry and then gradually after she had successfully found her weave entries. I didn't leave the poles open for too long and closed these up so that she is now getting 6 weaves at various entries. Tias' weaves are so much better, and this shows with the confidence and speed she is showing.

2x2 Weaves - Day 8

Today we continued working around what is called the "arc" getting Tia to find the weave entry from various different angles. This she seems to do very well, and doesn't seem to have a problem finding entries that many dogs would struggle with. I am so proud of her progress, not only is she looking more confident she is looking like she is enjoying learning and doing her weaves, plus she gets food every time she does it correctly.

In the next couple of sessions I am going to be continuing with the 4 poles as well as adding in a jump. I will then hopefully be moving on to adding another set of 2 poles. The 2 poles will be added at 1 & 7 o'clock and slowly closed up to 6 straight poles.

2x2 Weaves - Day 7

For this session, we simply continued with what we had been previously doing during session 6. At the start of our session I decided to move the sets of poles so that they had 4' between them because Tia was finding it difficult to work out what to do with the 4 poles. After doing a couple of repetitions of the poles 4' apart I moved them to normal competition distance. Tia completed all the repetitions really well, she found her entry to the poles pretty much every time, and I could see that she is getting more confident and speeding up once she got into the entry.

During the afternoon part of this session, I continued with some more repetitions of the poles set at 1 and 7 o'clock and then gradually move them so that they eventually ended up in a straight line. Tia coped really well, she is finding the entries from either side and is not going slowly, she is doing so well, I really am impressed with the progress so far.

Birthday Pressie Surprise

On Wednesday last week I had rather a lovely Birthday surprise. I dropped my car round for Alex to give my car a service that was SO long overdue, I don't think that it has been serviced since I brought it so over 2 years ago now!

When I went to pick it up, Grace & Alex had not only given it a clean bit of health but also Valeted (in and out), an awsome ariel topper, air freshener and they also gave me some new speakers for my car.

These are photos of my clean car and the super duper cool ariel topper, so Thanks very much to Grace and Alex!

2x2 Weaves - Day 3 - 6

Session 3

Our third session on the weave training was less successful than the session before. This session the weaves were at 2 and 8 o'clock. Tia did get them although she didn't seem to drive through them as much as before.

Session 4 & 5

During session 4 we completed more repetitions from the above stage, just making sure that Tia understood what she was supposed to do with the poles at the 2 and 8 o'clock angle. Her accuracy on this has definitely improved.

In Session 5, we moved on to the next stage of moving to two sets of two poles. At first the sets of 2 poles were 15' apart, then 7'. Tia did these very well and seemed to go from one set to the next very well. Tia was not as accurate on the "wrap" round entry as she went through the middle of the first set.

Session 6
This session is our las one for this week. We moved the 2 sets of poles so that they were 4' apart and then after Tia has succesfully completed many repetitions I decided that it was time to push her forward and move the 2 sets of poles into normal weave spacing (2') and also change the angle of the pole of 1 and 7 o'clock. I was so impressed with Tias' progress during this session, it is really teaching her to drive to the weave entry and through the 4 poles. I am really looking forward to the next session which we are doing on Monday!

This is a photo of Tia, a little while after her awsome session 6 training, what a happy girlie

2x2 Weaves - Day 2

Stage 2 of our weave training involved testing Tias' understanding of what is expected of her. To do this I stood further back allowing her to think and problem solve on her own. The session proved to be rather successful, when Tia worked out for herself what she needed to do in order to get her reward.

As you can see in the Video, there is a moment where Tia "stalls" and then works out all on her own what to do, without me saying anything to her. It is great to see that she was really having to think to work it out and the video below really shows this progress. Susan garretts advise of letting them work it out all on their own really does work!

Video to be uploaded ASAP!