Lune Valley, Barrow and the Lake District ... oh and clever Kizzle!

What a wonderful time we have had. I can honestly say that Lune Valley, the bit in the middle and Barrow combined is possibly the best agility experience ever!

We tootled up on the Friday and got set up in our rather lovely camping spot. We were very lucky to be camped backing onto a hedge in the middle field. We got this nice spot due to the fact that I was standing in for someone and doing one of the mid week training sessions. More of that later.

The journey up was quite long but uneventful and the first task was to take the dogs to the exercise area and let them have a good run before we set up our camp. Later we took them along the canal walk which is really lovely:

View of the camping area from the canal walk

Poppy enjoying a swim with Zeki looking on

The view under one of the many lovely bridges spanning the canal

Zeki surveying the scene from her chair

The show format is brilliant as you have three days of agility then three days off followed by another three days of agility. During the 'bit in the middle' there are lots of activities you can participate in including training sessions or fun classes etc. or you can just choose to chill or go off sight seeing. We did a bit of each as I was involved in the training which is all done for charity. It was very very hot on the training day so I couldn't really do much of what I had planned as it was too much for the poor dogs. It seemed to go well and people understood my strange southern accent and the different terminology we use for different sequences etc!

The sightseeing bit:

During our days off we did some sight seeing and got to visit Buttermere Lake, Coniston Lake, Cartmel and a drive through some of the wonderful mountains. We got to see two of the highest mountains in England: Skiddaw as we drove past Keswick and Helvellyn as we drove through Honister Pass on our way to Buttermere. The journey through Honister Pass is quite spectacular and scary as the road is very narrow and at times runs on a gradient of 25% which is quite steep!

Stopping to admire the view half way through Honister Pass

Honister Pass

On our walk around Lake Buttermere

Lake Buttermere

The path around Lake Buttermere

Poppy enjoying a paddle in a stream at Honister Pass

On our second day off we took ourselves off to Cartmel Racecourse and had a walk in the woods which was nice for the dogs as it kept them out of the heat and then we had lunch at a lovely pub in the village.

The doglets enjoying a paddle in a stream in the woods at Cartmel Racecourse

Andy returning to the car after checking out the pubs!

The doglets having a rest after their walk at the racecourse

The view of Cartmel village from the pub where we had our lunch

After our walk at Cartmel we split from Karen and took our dogs off to Coniston. You can't actually walk round Coniston Lake but you can find yourself a little beach and that's what we did. The dogs had a wonderful time swimming and playing. As usual Becky drank gallons and so we had to stop twice on the journey home to let her out for a wee! Below is a selection of photos from our visit to Coniston.








The agility bit:

The agility was just brilliant. Without exception I loved all the courses and some of them were really tricky, right up my street.

The only thing I'm disappointed about is that Naughty Niamh should really be grade 7 now. We had too many near misses and all were down to my making one error which cost us dear. We did however manage one first place in grade 6 agility so we are half way towards our goal of grade 7. We also had two second places in jumping classes which is unusual as I don't normally get good placing in jumping.

I finally managed to execute a perfect push through which made me very happy, I think we could have won the class due to this sequence but sadly Niamh picked up the second weave; it was my fault it was a blind weave entry from a collapsible tunnel and I didn't pause for her to find the entry. Hey ho! She was a good girl and we certainly enjoyed ourselves even though we skulked around in the shadow of Karen with Jess and Todd and Andy with Kizzy both of whom had AMAZING results! Well done guys!

Here is the naughty one with her rather small haul of rosettes that is compared with certain other people :o)

The Naughty Niamh with her prizes - she was fantastic and these rosettes really don't reflect how well she worked. Yet again she was let down by her partner!

The same cannot be said for Princess Kizzle. Her week started off well with a win at Lune Valley followed by some lower placings. Then things went a little wrong partly due to Andy putting too much pressure on himself and partly due to Kizzy really disliking the heat wave. Once the weather had cooled and Barrow show arrived they got into their stride. On one day Kizzy won all three of her classes and in total she managed a total of seven wins, two second placings and numerous other top five placings. What a clever little sheltie. Here she is proudly sitting amongst her haul! The trophies from Barrow are lovely. Locally made slate coasters. So nice to have something you can use. Kizzy has quite a collection!

Princess with her winnings from Lune and Barrow 2009

Below are some pictures of our doglets chilling in their garden at the show:

Poppy requesting that we keep the noise down as she's trying to get some sleep!

Zeki in her favourite bed .... erm my chair that is!

Just chilling!

Zeki joining in with the conversation!

Niamh worn out after a good day out!

Pops enjoying the evening sunshine!

Zeki now bored with the conversation nods off!

We had the best time, great company, great agility, great walks and some excellent results. Well done to Andy and Kizzy for winning into Grade 7 in style and also to Karen and Todd for doing the same and even better for Karen and Jess. The long awaited agility wins. Like a no. 7 bus, you wait for ages and then two come along together! Well done and well deserved. Can't wait to go back next year!

The journey home was pretty good and we arrived just before 10.00 pm. The dogs had a play outside and we fell into bed exhausted. Need to get some energy from somewhere fast as we're off to Denmark in three days. OMG, how will we get ready in time.

Today I bathed Murphy and Becky as they're off to stay with Bernadette; Niamh and Kizzy also got bathed ready for their big adventure. Poppy and Zeki escaped as they were both bathed a couple of weeks back. Pops is off to stay with Dan and Mac. The other three are coming with us and it's quite scary as I've never travelled my dogs abroad before. I am dreading leaving the other three but I know they're in good hands and will be loved and looked after.

Think that's it for now otherwise I'll never be ready for Denmark!

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.