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!

2x2 Weaves - Day 1

Today I started on the very first stage of our weave training. This first stage getting Tia to understand and get Value from the 2 poles.

Personally, I think that our first session on this has gone well. I kept the session very short as to keep Tia interested and not lose interest with the two poles. Tia seemed to quickly understand what I expected of her and what she needed to do in order to get her reward. Fingers crossed I will be able to do this method justice and have a great weaver!

2x2 Weave Training

After reading quite a lot and hearing about the great success of the Susan Garretts' 2x2 weave training method, I have decided that I am going to re-train Tias' weaves with this method.

The main reason that I am choosing this method is because although the traditional method seems to work for many dogs, I think that this 2x2 method may help Tia understand what is expected of her and hopefuly improve her speed.

I am going to video all of our training sessions and also document our success & failures, hopefully with all fingers crossed, we will have a confidently weaving Tia!

BSD Agility World Championships

This year the FMBB World Championships were held in Cottbus, Germany. We arrived rather late at the Hotel in Cottbus on Tuesday 18th May. The hotel which we were staying at for the duriation was rather up market and our room was really nice and roomy!

The next day we wondered around the small market that was just outside the hotel which we had a really nice bratwurst (saussage) in a roll. Later that day we then had to set up our base at the venue and then be a part of the Opening Ceremony which was slightly shorter than normal simply because it was beginning to get rather late. That evening we all went out for dinner at a lovely restaurant called Olympia, which served great food and for a reasonable price.

It was now Thursday 20th May, which was training for all countries. Luckily our team didn't have to be oe of the first so we got to watch all the other teams route around the equipment that was laid out. During that time we watched a different training technique for training up-contacts, which involved putting stride regulators on the up plank of the dog walk which meant the dog almost "skipped" its way up the contact, ensuring its stride took it on to the contact. The GB team had 16 minutes of training/practise which went really well which was a great confidence builder for everyone. After the success of dinner on the previous evening, which was much better due to the english speaking Waiter and also the lovely food, so we chose to go back once again to Olympia.

The following day, Friday 21st May was the first day of competition. The first run was an Agility run, and Dave and Rusty gave an absolutely awsome performance with a clear round which ended up being placed in 2nd and confidently qualifying them both for the final on Sunday! The next run was the Jumping run, where Dave and Rusty put in yet again another stunning clear and again qualifying for them for the final. The final run of the day was the team jumping round which consited of Dave, Jo, Gill and Michelle. The team got 3 out of 4 clears, unfortunately Rusty took a pole however in FCI competition only 3 runs out of the 4 in the team actually counted. In the evening once again the team went to our now favourite restaurant, Olympia with its truely great food!

The 2nd day of competition, Saturday 22nd May, started with a Jumping round where due to the surface being astroturf with sand so in order to preserve Rustys' paws we decided that we should pull her from this run. The next round was the Agility where Rusty ran super well, and only taking 10 faults, one being a pole and another a dogwalk contact, which was very close. The final run for this day was the Team Agility round, Jo & Keisha unfortunately got 5 faults on the down A-Frame contact and Gill & Check got an Elimination whereas Michelle & Jive and Dave & Rusty both got great clear rounds. The Team did awsomely well and much better than the year before, and it was just soo unfortunate that Jo and Gill did not get clear rounds as it would have been likely the team could have had a podium finish. After the show, everyone decided that for our last evening we should go back again to Olympia where the Manager/Waiter (English speaking guy) gave everyone their first drink on the house as we had been such loyal customers since we had been there.

Our last day was the Finals Day, Sunday 23d May. Dave & Rusty and also Helen & Zeus had qualified for the finals. The first run was the Jumping round where unforunately Rusty powered past a jump, Dave managed to recover the round and they ended up with just a 5R . The final round was Agility where Dave & Rusty pulled a stunning run out of the bag, even getting a round of aplause before they had finnished due to the layering of the contact which they accomplished. The closing ceremony, was rather long and they had put on a band to open the closing ceremony. As soon as the ceremony has finished, we got back to the coach ready for the long trip home from another great year at the FMBB World Championships.

I am hoping to upload a video of Rustys' Final Agility round soon :)) For the results of how the other squad members did go to ... http://bsdwc.blogspot.com/

Mammoth Catch-Up - Part 1

Well I will first start off by Wishing everyone a very belated Happy New Year!

And now on to the huge catch up of our last couple of months...

Just before Christmas and after Christmas sometime, the skies decided everyone was deserving of a rather large dumping's of the "White Stuff". Which not only provided the dogs with something new to run and play in but great photographic opportunities, which probably amounted to over 300 photos! This is a photo of the Rusty mally mutt in the snow, learning to toboggan...

Ziggie's Birthday was on the 28th December and has reached 10 yrs old, and is still running so well in her agility career. Although I have decided that from now on I am going to enter only 2 runs a day, which is already proved difficult as I see the other classes that I would have liked to enter her into as well, but to try and keep her doing agility for longer and not put too much stress on her legs and joints it will be for the best in the long run.

I'd also like to wish Happy Birthday to my best friend Gill, who is currently at University in Birmingham and came down for her Birthday celebrations. We had a great night bowling and a lovely Pizza Hut dinner.

Photo To Be Added

We have also been past Valentines Day. I am pleased to announce that Dave and I have now been together for 2 years!

On a more recent note... Dave has just qualified without a doubt for the BSD World Championships held in Germany this year, May 2010. It was the 2nd Selection Day and he already had 4 out of 4 runs under his belt and then at this Selection day, guess what?
Dave & Rusty got 4 out of 4 runs once again!!!

Photo to be added

The final GB squad for this year is as follows and the new Team Manager is Louise Challis...

Dave & Rusty
Jo & Keisha
Michelle & Jive
Gill & Check
Andy & Thor
Helen & Zeus
Tony & Poppy
Mike & Jet

Congrats to the whole GB squad!!

Part 2 of Mammoth Catch up due soon :))