Happy Birthday to Naughty Niamh

Happy birthday to my lovely, gorgeous, beautiful Beebie Neebs, five years old today. I just don't know where the time has gone since I collected her from Lancashire. Here is a picture of the birthday girl in the garden today along with some photos of our new fence which is underway and the lovely roses which are fully in bloom on the arch. Also a picture of Andy's new shed!

Not much time now for more updates as we're off on hols to Lune Valley & Barrow in the Lake District.

Hopefully will have lots of photos and news to report on our return.

Zeki's Training

It's ages since I did an update on Zeki's training. Things are progressing well and I feel I'm getting on top of the chasing problem. There is still one little hole in this process; if I am not either working with her or giving her a job to do then she will chase if she is not on lead.

A good example of this is how I can now do all sorts of training with her with another dog working in the same ring. If I am working on a sequence she remains focused or if I ask her to do a "stay" she will comply. However that grey bit in between where she is loose and I am not paying attention is when she will go. This was proved when I was doing a few bits and pieces with her at Boot Camp on the Monday afternoon. Leah was working with Hex and we were fine until I took a short break to answer a question from someone outside the ring. I stopped paying attention without either putting her on lead or asking her to stay. As soon as she sensed my lack of attention in her direction she was off after Hex at high speed. The plus side is that she did come back to me when called which is an improvement at least!

I also take heart from the fact that all of the above is achievable with a toy reward and no food at all!

Agility-wise she is just such fun. She works her heart out and is happy to try anything I ask of her. She learns fast and just wants to get on with things. IMO she is an obstacle-focused dog rather than handler-focused. This is wonderful but it brings its own challenges which I'm sure we'll have fun working on! She reminds me much more of Poppy and Bess, not at all like Abbey or Niamh.

We are continuing with the running A-Frame and I am still very happy with progress. I have started to teach the turns using stick in the ground poles and her directional cues. So far she is responding well and so now I have to introduce other obstacles into the process.

I am a bit stuck on the dog walk as there is still a little part of me that would really love to train her to run the dog walk also. This is definitely curbing my enthusiasm and commitment to training the stop version!

I was struggling over my turn commands but after a sleepless night after last week's training class I have finally come to a decision on what I will do. I will stick with my left and right for tight turns (e.g. wing wraps and u-turns off the A-frame). For more gentle turns I am going to use "out" to move her away from me on either side and "Zeki" for her to come towards me. There, simple really! Except ........ I am still puzzling over whether to incorporate my favourite collect and turn cue into her training but I'm not sure how that sits with her left and right cues. Oh, here I go again, too much to think about. Sometimes I long for the days when I ran the ballistic missile that was Bess. I had just one command (as we called it in those days!) - Bess. It was so easy!

Anyway, here is a very short film of Zeki's A-Frame at Boot Camp last week. On one of them you'll see how she must have mis-judged her approach as she comes over the apex at a really awful angle and throws herself into the contact area. What a good little girl!

Boot Camp

Boot Camp was incredibly hard work but lots of fun. I am so glad we put in the hours beforehand working on organisation and class structure etc - it really paid off to have everything running smoothly during the long weekend. We got lots of lovely feedback and I think everyone went home very tired and happy after a good time. We are lucky with the venue as it provides a lovely walk, a clubhouse where we could cook and eat and onsite showers and toilets. I think people enjoyed the whole experience as they could relax between and after training and take all their dogs for nice walks.

Andy and Jay were brilliant in their support of the event. They both took lots of time out to help us build the rings (including mowing the area where the rings were to be sited) and each evening they came back and built the courses for the following day. That was a blessing as after each day's Boot Camp the last thing we wanted to be doing was building courses. Thanks to them both and also to Vicky, Liza and Paula all of whom helped keep us going when we were flagging!

Here are some pictures from the Boot Camp weekend, hopefully some more to follow in due course.

Catching up on some zzzzz's

Hinckley

We had a lovely time at Hinckley. I really liked their new venue even though the camping was a little tight to say the least! I think perhaps someone got their tape measure in the wrong place as not only were the gaps between units rather narrow the actual roadways were too narrow. Luckily for us we have a motor mover otherwise we would not have been able to vacate our spot on Sunday afternoon. It was OK if you one or other of your immediate neighbours had managed to get out but if not there was just no swing room.

Back to the venue itself. It was set in the grounds of Stanford Hall a really elegant stately home. The ground was a little undulating and we had to use lots of blocks to level our caravan but they had made a big effort with the ground where the rings were set and it was pretty good; a few pot holes but nothing too bad. One major downside for me was the shooting that started up on Saturday and carried on for a few hours. It was very close and poor little Poppy was a complete mess. Becca gave me some lavender oil which we put on her head. This is supposed to give a calming effect. Stupidly I didn't have her anxiety tee-shirt with me. I must put that in the caravan for the summer because we often hear fireworks at various shows during the season.

We watched the champ finals which were very exciting and set on very fast courses with subtle little handling points which caught out a few. Elspeth and Leah both got into the final and did fantastic rounds. They must both be proud of themselves and their little furry friends.

Our courses were nice but all were pretty quick and in our one clear round (Crufts singles) we just didn't make the places. Rather depressing really. I chose to train my contacts in the KC Olympia qualifier (only because we'll be in Denmark at the time of that semi-final) that said I'm not sure I would have made the time if I had tried! We had a bad luck in both our grade 6 classes. On Saturday Niamh did a really lovely round in Paul Moore's G6 jumping. I really liked the course but it had a tricky ending with a run of offset jumps; Niamh tried really hard but just couldn't quite make the last obstacle which was the wall. She tried so hard to clear it but took all the bricks out. I was really disappointed until I saw her little face the other side of the wall waiting for me to come and play tuggy! Then on Sunday we had a nice G6 agility course set by Gary Doyle and I really fancied our chances on this. We started well but Niamh slipped in the middle of the weaves. I couldn't understand why she skipped during the weaves but Andy and Gary both told me afterwards that she had completely lost her footing. She did the rest of the course beautifully. Oh well.

Kizzy didn't get anywhere on Saturday with one good round but a missed A-Frame and one naughty round where she broke the startline (Andy was very good and replaced her). He then trained all of her contacts. I feel sorry for Andy because he has worked really hard over the winter to improve contact performance and in training it's looking very good. It had been looking pretty good in the competitive environment but this weekend the wheels fell off with Kizzy overstriding the contacts. I think the bit of training he did on Saturday had some effect as she did a lovely round in the KC qualifier on Sunday getting 10th place in amongst some very good competition. Her contacts were too slow as Andy worked hard to make sure she got them and that's really what made their time slower than it would otherwise have been. She motored round the rest of the course. She also did a nice round in her 6/7 jumping coming 8th. So not too bad but lots of work to do on contacts.

The other dogs had a lovely walk each day around the spacious exercise area whilst we were able to look at the gorgeous house. I did some stay training ringside with Zeki which was pretty good so I'm getting a bit more confident that she will stay with me once we start to compete!

We had a very stress free journey home. We chose the slightly longer route of the A14/Mll but it is definitely a more pleasant experience than the M1. We got home in just under three hours and then sat and watched the final of Britain's Got Talent. I am so glad that one of the male dance groups won the competition. They were both awesome.

Leah and I are getting together today to prepare all our courses for our Boot Camp which is this coming weekend. I am extremely nervous but very excited about it. She doesn't know it yet but she's also going to help me build a new course, film Zeki's A-Frame and help me with my dog walk training.

No time to blog .....

Yet another week has flown by and once again I haven't achieved a tenth of what I intended. I had great training plans for Zeki this week but all that we have managed is our Tuesday night class. Crazy because I have all that equipment just outside but no time to use it for myself!

I have been trying hard to keep all my office work as up to date as possible so that there are no nasty surprises when we go away to shows at the weekend. I am also researching travel and other stuff related to our forthcoming trip to Denmark. Before I know it that will be upon us. I am looking forward to the trip and I think I'll stop worrying once I've got the travel sorted. We're going by ferry to either Calais or Dunkirque and then driving about 1000 km to Denmark. We could go to Hook of Holland which would mean a little less driving but it's quite a bit longer for the dogs on the boat and I'd rather be with them driving than them being on their own on the boat.

Last weekend we went to Nottingham. Mixed feelings really. We didn't much like the venue or the running conditions but the weather was good and we had a nice time socially. We had Itzy staying with us and because the weather was nice were able to get her out and about quite a lot. Agility-wise not bad but not brilliant with a spattering of results but not quite what we'd hoped. That said Niamh and I qualified for the Pedigree pairs final with Herbie and Leah which was a nice surprise. We won't travel all that way for one weekend again, not just the venue but it's such a long trip.

Itzy went home on Tuesday evening. I think Bernadette was very pleased to have her back safe and sound. She was very good and absolutely no trouble at all. She got on well with all of our dogs but her special friends were Zeki and Poppy. I can't wait to see if she recognises them (or us) next time we see her!

The garden is keeping us busy at the moment as everything is growing at 100 miles an hour. It's lovely but rather hard work. It's been made harder because we've had quite a lot of windy weather and that results in lots of debris off the trees, especially the weeping willow. Oh well, can't complain it's all beautiful to look at!

Here are some pictures from the weekend.

Zeki shouting at her sister. Poor Kizzy is almost deafened. Itzy looks on in disgust!

Three full sisters each from a different litter. Itzy, then Zeki and last but not least in the back row the original and best - Princess Kizzle. Note the excavation efforts of the youngest sister immediately to her left hand side!

Naughty Niamh after a tiring day's competition. Not sure where Andy is supposed to sleep!

Zeki Training

Thanks to Leah for the great photographs!

Well, our training is progressing nicely. I am thoroughly enjoying training Zeki as she is such a willing partner and is happy to try anything I ask of her. I think we have good communication between us. Most of our training is done on a positive note but she understands failure and how to try harder if something isn't quite right. She takes negative feedback in a positive way which is really useful when teaching new behaviours.

I am still teaching the running A-Frame and so far am happy with our progress. I have decided to do a sort of running seesaw in that Zeki's main cue to leave the seesaw is as it hits the ground. That said I am cheating a bit and trying to coincide a release word with the hit on the ground. Not sure if this is a good idea or not, will have to see if we can maintain our performance.

I had become a bit stuck with my dog walk but had some help today from a very good teacher which has set me back on course. We were not as behind with this obstacle as I had thought; in fact it seems like I've been holding Zeki back too much when she was actually ready to move on. I have just the dog walk and long jump to finish in terms of teaching the obstacles so we are pretty well there in this respect.

I have started to teach pull throughs/push throughs/snakes but we are only drilling these from a stationary position. Our lefts and rights are pretty good. I've been practising as hard as Zeki on these (anyone who knows me well will understand why!)

Now we have to start some sequence training which I'm looking forward to. She is such happy dog.

Catch up

Oops, haven't updated the blog in over a week. Have been really busy as the garden seems to be growing like some kind of monster right now!

We had a good time at Tunbridge Wells show. We took a bit of a break and went down on the Wednesday evening so that Andy could get the rings marked out first thing on Thursday morning. Jackie and Terry arrived late morning and got their camp set up just in time for the equipment to arrive. We did our usual task of putting on jump feet, making up tyres and A-Frames etc.

Bernadette came for a visit and we did some puppy training and then took the shelties for a nice walk on the cross-country course. My bad sheltie led everyone astray by running up and down the hedge to see off some horse riders. I had just been explaining to Gran'Ma how much her recalls had improved. Grrrhhhh ... bad little monster. The annoying thing was that she took both puppies with her and also her mother, Zen. Poppy and Kizzy stayed with us and couldn't understand what all the fuss was about. She did come back after a short battle and her reward was to be told off. Not good dog training I know but made me feel better. So the rest of the weekend we did a lot of recalls all 100%. Truthfully she is much better but I need to be on my guard when different things appear, e.g. horses or children on bikes. If I call her in before they take her eye she is good, if I miss that moment then she will chase and then it's 50/50 whether I can get her back immediately. Depends on how "rewarding" the prey is versus her reward from me. More work required.

On the Friday we had some courses to set up and a few of us took our young dogs with us. I was so pleased with Zeki as she carried her toy nearly the whole time and just kept coming to me to throw it for her. She didn't once run away, she was happy to interact with me whilst we set up the courses. We had a little play on the tunnels, and when Terry did some little bits with his new puppy, Meadow, Zeki didn't once chase her. Progress on that front. She was out there with me for nearly two hours so was very tired when we got back to camp. She still managed to drag herself out for an hour round the cross country course though!

Agility-wise I had a pretty rubbish weekend really. I managed just one clear round and that was far from perfect. On the positive side though, Niamh's contacts were brilliant and her drive is still increasing. I was very tired during the whole weekend and just didn't put my best mental effort into each round. I get so frustrated with myself when I feel like this as my dog deserves much more from me.

Andy had competition only on the Sunday as there are no small classes at Tunbridge Wells on the Saturday. He had a nearly round in the Crufts singles (a fabulous course set by Lee Gibson) just flicking Kizzy over the wall after the dog walk instead of straight into the tunnel. Their Olympia round wasn't very good and they got E'd in their G6-7 jumping which was a very difficult and strange course. They saved their one clear round of the day for the Crufts team and it was worth it as the sheltie team won the class and qualified for Crufts.

We were really happy for my brother Dan and his collie Tig for winning G3 agility on the Sunday at Tunbridge Wells. A great result. Well done as well to Bernadette and the wonderful Zen for qualifying for the medium KC Olympia semi final. Karen and Todd nearly did it, next time guys! I think the most stunning run of the weekend though was Elspeth and Jack in the large Olympia qualifier. It was a really clever and unusual course set by Jo Frazer with two really tricky weave entries. Elspeth and Jack just glided round, it was just the most amazing round I've seen them do.

This last week has flown by and we decided not to go to BATS show. Kizzy was a little lame during the week. It was very strange as it was so intermittent. I think she must have had something in her foot as one minute she was limping and the next minute totally sound. We looked at her foot with a magnifying glass and could find nothing. She was sound by Friday but Andy decided not to risk running her just in case. I had only one serious class and really couldn't face travelling all that way to a venue I don't particularly like just for that class.

So instead we had a day at home. I cleaned out the caravan from Tunbridge Wells so that it's all ready for Nottingham next weekend. Andy cleaned both cars and also got his car organised now that Mac has finished the cages. The dogs have less space than I would ideally like but I don't mind too much as our dogs don't stay in Andy's car at shows, they are either in our little garden or in the caravan. That said their quarters are perfectly acceptable for travelling but I wouldn't want them shut in the car all day. Poppy has a new bed on the back seat and will be wearing a harness. I've ordered a special seat belt clip for her harness from e-Bay.

Next we moved onto the garden. We had spent one evening in the week clearing the agility equipment so that we could mow the grass and do the strimming. I had my first go with the mower whilst Andy did the strimming. The lines are not as straight as Andy does them but the grass is cut so there you go! Yesterday it was time to tackle the hedges. We managed to do 2/3rds of the back hedges, I cleared up whilst Andy did the cutting. If it stops raining today we have two more areas out back to trim and then the front hedges. I really hope we can get finished and set light to our massive bonfire this evening!

Right now it's time for a cup of coffee and fifteen minutes with my book!

Dordale, Vyne and the new caravan

Gosh we're only just into the season and already I'm exhausted!

We had a great time at Dordale and Vyne. The new caravan was brilliant. It was so nice just being able to fall into bed last thing without making up the benches. So much easier with all the dogs. They were very approving of their new quarters. Some of them sleep on our beds when we're sitting in the caravan and then when we go to bed we swap places.

At night Niamh, Murphy and Becky occupy the front benches. Poppy has her little furry bed down between our beds and we each have a sheltie sleeping on the end of our bed. Very satisfactory.

Who are you looking at?

Princess Perfect Paws

Poppy in her new sitting room

Murphy and Becky lounging on Andy's new bed

Naughty Niamh with Mr Prongo her suckle toy

This is bliss

Agility-wise, well it was another mixed weekend. First off Andy and Kizzy. They had some great runs and bagged their first win towards Grade 7. They won the G1-7 agility at Dordale and also got a 3rd and 4th. At Vyne they got 2nd in G5-6 agility and 3rd in G6-7 jumping. All in all pretty good. Andy was just behind Amy and Fudge's time in the G5-6 agility which is really encouraging as Amy really went for it in this round. It paid off as it was her fourth win and into G7.

Niamh was brilliant all weekend; sadly her partner was not. We achieved 3rd in G6 agility on Sunday at Dordale but that was it (not that I'm disappointed with that place!) We had several nearly runs with me making one stupid error in each run. This continued at Vyne so I am hoping my brain is working better for Tunbridge Wells!

Zeki had some good training sessions around the rings and we practised queueing for Andy and Kizzy. All in all pretty good. She is much better than she was as long as I pay attention and work with her. If I stop to chat then that's it, she entertains herself by barking and bouncing ringside. It must be me because Niamh is like this as well, Poppy is a handful and so was Bess. The only dog that behaved was Abbey, she just had no interest in watching other dogs at all. She was a bit like Kizzy really, fell asleep ringside and then woke up on the start line! I do miss Abbey so much, she was like my little shadow.

We were so tired after Vyne. I had decided to do very little training with Niamh but was looking forward to training Zeki. That wasn't to be as Zeki got stung (again) and I had to wizz her off to the vet for a jab. Her nose was very fat by the time we got there but she is fine now, thankfully. I didn't go training so Andy and Leah shared taking the classes. Hardly anyone came so it was a very early finish.

We're off to Ardingly early so that Andy can mark out the rings. I am looking forward to another weekend in the new caravan and also to seeing Jackie and Terry who are coming for their first trip out in the caravan.