Chafford dogs blog

Many Tears X factor

2011-11-10T02:48:00.000-08:00

Many Tears X Factor

2011-11-09T09:33:00.000-08:00

New web site!

2011-10-13T09:26:00.001-07:00

I have finally got round to doing a new web site for Anju Agility and all my training.... http://anjuagility.co.uk/ I am really pleased with it and would like to say a huge thank you to Jay and Mike for all their help! Jay has been busily teaching me how to use photoshop and Mike has showed me how to build a web site, THANK YOU BOYS!!! Now got to keep both this and that updated!

More training dates

2011-10-12T07:21:00.000-07:00

Saturday November 19th

Training day at Chafford Farm (indoor school)

9am-11am-Puppies under 1 yr-working on Control, drive and pre-agility foundations. Limited to 7 dogs. £25 per space

11.15-1.15-Puppies under 1 yr-working on Control, drive and pre-agility foundations. Limited to 7 dogs. £25 per space

1.30pm-4.30pm-European style courses and handling-Dogs must be able to do all equipment. This will be working on tricky courses and is best suited to more experienced dogs. Looking at how to handle a tougher course and working through Ob' discrimination and traps!- Limited to 8 dogs. £35 per space.

For more details call Leah on 07814 562996 or email leah@anjuagility.co.uk

The paddock

2011-10-10T15:06:00.000-07:00

Ups, Downs, Fresh start and dates!

2011-10-06T06:58:00.000-07:00

Well 2011 has been one of ups and downs!

The ups...

Herbie has been a super star making two world teams this year. He ran fantastically at both, but it wasn't our year. He has got in to all but one of the champ finals that we have done and has been flying in each, my handling in two and faster, better dogs and handlers in the others.
Hex too has been a star and now only needs 1 more win to be grade 7. His last win (grade 6 jumping) he blitzed by over 2 secs on second place WOW!
Theory is now out and about, he is extremely cheeky, and has taken a while to settle into working in the ring, but is now really starting to do some nice stuff.

Both Jay with Stihl and Myself and Herbie have qualified for Olympia in December, I can not wait, this will be Herbies 6th consecutive year at Olympia and Stihls second......roll on December!

The downs...

August was a sad month for Jay and me (as it was for many!) loosing Don Nunn, a truly kind and funny man. He was always so helpful and kind to both of us! The following week my gran was rushed to hospital, she fought so hard, but sadly lost her fight on the 2nd of September. Anybody who knows me well will know how hard this has been for me. I have seen my gran every week of my life, other than when I lived in America. She came to my house every Tuesday, and we would walk, garden and talk together. She was an extremely dear friend and I will miss her more than I can ever say!
Then to my utter shock 22nd September my Grandad from the other side of my family suddenly died. He too was a great man, kind, funny and loving. I can honestly say I don't remember him EVER being angry or cross with Hannah or myself. He too will be sorely missed.
Many new stars shining bright

The fresh start....

In April Jay and I moved. We have stayed within the area as we like it so much, so are able to keep in contact with all our friends easily.
The new house is great!!!!!! I am certainly very lucky. The house is much bigger down stairs, but upstairs the rooms are smaller, but there is planning permission to extend, but the best bit is we have a lovely big garden for the dogs and even better a paddock for all the equipment!
So I can now train my dogs at home as well as doing a few private lessons, which is great! I have got a lovely set of rubber contacts to help in the wet, so I am all set for some serious "Theory" training! lol (photo's to follow, blogger not playing ball!)
So with our new house I am looking forward to a fresh start, life has been testing to say the least this year and can only hope things are all getting better, not only for Jay and myself, but family and also dear friends who have also lost people/pets and have had a generally hard time.....Thinking of you all! x

The dates.....(more to follow)

So onto dates, I am in the process of arranging some training dates individually and with Nancy Hudson, I am also hoping to have Shaun Hunt in for some guest training. Here is the first, only a couple of spaces remaining......

Sunday October 30th 2011

9am-11am Puppies-Under 1yr. Working on Control, motivation, pre-agility exercises. This will run for 2 hours and costs £25. limited to 7 spaces

11.15am-1.15pm Grades 1-3. Working on general handling, course running, sequencing. This is suitable for non competing dogs but that do all equipment... Channel weaves will be available. This will run for 2 hours, costs £25 and is limited to 7 spaces.

1.30pm-3.30pm Grades 5-7. Will be working on advanced sequences and turns, directionals and exiting different equipment IE weaves...tunnels etc. This will run for 2 hours, costs £25 and is limited to 7 spaces.

PLEASE NOTE: Grade 4's will be allocated as per experience.

Held at Chafford Farm, Chafford Lane, Fordcombe, Kent, TN3 0SP. Indoor venue.

please call Leah on 07814 562996 or email leah@anjuagility.co.uk for more details or to book a space.

jay and stihl olympia semi final september 2011.MOV

2011-10-06T06:32:00.000-07:00

Leah and Herbie Olympia final 2010

2011-03-31T03:35:00.000-07:00

Leah and |Herbie at Olympia 2010

2011-03-31T03:34:00.000-07:00

Chaffords Herbal Illusion World Open Agility Try outs 2011

2011-03-31T03:32:00.000-07:00

theorys first agility clips 21 03 11

2011-03-24T08:43:00.000-07:00

Start of the new season....

2011-03-24T07:40:00.000-07:00

Mr Oakley went off to his new home on Sunday, it was sad to see him go, but at the same time nice that he didn't even look back, just jumped in the car with the kids like he'd always lived with them! Today Lena sent me this lovely letter........

Dear Leah

I am so sorry, I have kept meaning to email you, It was very rude of me and I hope you will accept my apology, I wanted to send you some pictures and I took some yesterday when we were out and then my battery went and then I could not find my charger.

Oakley, Oakley Oakley... Well when we left yours he was as good as gold, he sat all the way and he was just great, When we got home we took him for a walk at Lawns and he loved it, he did so well considering he was in a new place with new people. We did as we were told about the food and we have also got him to sit, he is such a clever boy.

We took Oakley up to Lydiard on Tuesday and discovered what an amazing jumper he is, Wow he is so fantastic and just amazing with the kids and other animals he is just great. Yesterday when went to Coate water for his evening walk there where also three of my other nieces who were dying to meet him and we walked for three hours, it was great, he just herded all the children around him and tired them all out... what a dog, Annabel also fell asleep on the sofa which was a first. I have to say he is so well behaved after his morning walk, we come home and he has a drink and he lets me get on with my work, he is just the best company ever and we just love him, We feel so lucky to have him and so I thank you very much.

Oakley is also great during the night, we bought him a basket, he has slept in it once, but he seems to prefer to stretch out on the carpet.

Really looking forward to Saturday when Annabel and I take him to agility, he is so clever and just such an enjoyment, he just great with my girls and all of us could not be happier, he is the best.

I am so sorry for being so rubbish at getting back to you, but Annabel talks of you often and has drawn a picture of you and Oakley, she thinks you and Jay are just great and I do agree with her.

When I sort my charger I will send you the pictures and I will keep you in touch with Oakley. I will also send you the lead back as I am getting Oakley a new one on Saturday. xxx

Loads of Love

Lena Megan Annabel

It's so nice hearing about your foster dogs as they become part of your family........ Have a happy life Mr oaks!

So finally thought i'd get some good training time with Theory and started doing some more with him, only to be hit with really bad flu! Poor Nancy and Bernadette have had it a lot worse than me, but mine was bad enough so god knows how they feel! So maybe it can all start again next week! lol

Oakley......

2011-01-24T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well this is my accidental foster dog, he is just so lovely, if anybody knows of a good home for him please get in contact.....Oakley is a bit of a super star, he is badly emaciated, his face has wire scars across it yet he still totally loves and adores everybody and everything. He walked into my house and greeted all my dogs so beautifully. It is very clear that he has NEVER been in a house before and at first was terrified by the TV but now is sitting watching it. He is super quick to learn thing with a clicker and is very trainable. His recall is already starting to come and if he is treated as a puppy and let out on regular intervals he is perfect. He is only 3 years old and is ready and willing to learn. Unlike most of the Kelpies I meet he is very trainable and eager to learn but without the manicness. He is currently living with a mixture of dogs and bitches, young and old, large and small and is perfect with all. I am fostering him for Many Tears Rescue..... if anybody wanted to rescue him (and everybody should as he is so cool!) they should go on to www.manytears.co.uk and fill in the form under his posting.

2011-Nearly a Year late in posting....

2011-01-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

Well all I can say is what a weired year!

HERBIE:
In April an incident happened that scarred Herbie so much that I could not get him back in the ring. Seeing my dog so terrified and his whole life collapsed around him just broke my heart.... to cut a long story short when it was getting no better by July I decided to retire Herbie, and with that died my enthusiasm for agility! After a long talk with my mum and a sever arse kicking she suggested that I go and see an acupuncturist with Herb-she was amazing after 4 sessions and a lot of help from my friends, Herb started to want to do agility again....................... the year for me and him then went as follows
August: 2 x3rd places in champs and 2nd in the Olympia qualifier
Sept:2nd in the eo qualifier and qualifying for Olympia
Dec: double clear at Olympia finishing 6th in an extremely fast line up to say I'm thrilled is an understatement!

This month we tried out for the World Open Agility to represent England and I'm very pleased to say that Herbie and I won the Pentathlon so will be representing England again in May!

LINK:
Link continues to do agility and still loves it, although now at the grand age of 11.5 years i think he is slowing a tiny bit. This year I will monitor how it goes and probably drop him to one run a show....... we will see

HEX:
Honestly Hex and I had a fretful year, my heart wasn't in it because of Herbie, and Hex needs 110% commitment, but despite all that he won his first grade 6 agility and also won rescue dog of the year which is nice as Herb had won it the previous 3 years. So I'm looking forward to a happy 2011 with Mr Merle!

THEORY:
Well the little man is now 14mths! Where the hell did that go? I have just started his training, he is great fun, if not a little tiring!!!! He has a huge chase drive so I have to work really hard at keeping his focus, but so far what he is doing is great. Seeing as I only have a photo from when he was 4mths old I thought I'd better upload a few more.......

learning to interact with objects

My stunning boy in the snow in Dec 2010

This mornings picture!

So from here on in I will try and be back up dating the blog, and keeping it up to date with how Theory's training is coming along!

Beach.....

2010-02-16T08:21:00.001-08:00

When I got off the plane Jay was ready and waiting so we jumped in the car and hauled arse to Wales to pick up my dogs! Firstly thank you Nat for having all of them and doing such a great job with them! (and Sam I should say or I get told off!!!!)
The Next day Nat's mum and sister were down so we all went to the beach. Here are so pics off our lovely walk......Please note how photo genic Teek is and how non photo genic Theory is!!!!!

Holiday

2010-02-16T06:11:00.000-08:00

What can I say, I was so lucky to go on this holiday. I went with my mum, my sister and my gran. The reason we went was to take my gran to see her sisters who she thought she'd never get to see again. So once we got to Palm Springs we dropped her off with her sisters and then mum, Hannah and I got up to the following! Thank you mum it really was a I once in a life time experience!!!!!

Whale watching in San Diego:
We saw Grey whales, it was sooooo cool! Also saw dolphins and sea lions as well as lots of pelicans!

An Indian reservation we walked round:

Going up the Mountain on the Tram:

Palm Springs Aerial Tramway Home : extremely scary!!!!! (Mum and Hannah did not make the snow man, they just found it and pretended it was thiers!) So that day it was 68 c in the desert and -2.2 c up the mountain with 4 1/2 ft of snow!

Springs: These pictures are from the morning walks that mum and I would take:

This is a house in the foothills that I fell in love with......

We went to a Grand Prix show jumping, and managed to blag VIP passes.

A national park we went for a walk in morongo Valley:

Mum, Hannah and myself.

The wolf sanctuary:

The Wolf Mountain Sanctuary, Lucerne Valley, Calif.

We were very lucky to be taken in with some of the packs of wolves. The young black wolf took a real shinning to be and made a huge fuss about being petted.

Ribble- a weekend of nearlys!

2010-01-18T08:23:00.000-08:00

So I keep going with the blog here is the Ribble update: sadly no pics or vid's as i forgot the camera!

Herbie was a great boy putting 110% into everything he did. He got 6th in the Olympia qualifier (sadly it's only the top 5 who get through now!) He the went onto the win the grade 7 agility. He worked so well and did one of the best dogwalks i've ever seen him do, pity it eluded him at Olympia! he he he

Hexy was also a star. This year I want to concentrate on giving him more ring experience, he has been a little tricky, but so much fun and such a great learning curve, so all confidence boosts are great for us both. So I went with a steady clear in mind and came away with 18thin the Olympia qualifier (trained round), 5th in the 6 agility (again a trained round) and 2nd in the 6 jumping (which i was so lazy about that I cost him time!) I thought he might scrap a place in the jumping, so was very shocked at 2nd, but very proud as it is only his 2nd show at grade 6.

Linky had a run with Nat and was his normal unpredictable self, but had great fun. It is so amazing watching him work, he is now 10 and a half and i honestly don't think he has slowed up!

So loads of people have asked me how i'm doing Theory's contacts, properly is the only answer I can give, he s only 8 weeks and I really have not decided or really thought about it! But he does do quite a nice left and right...... he he he

Exciting news:

Oh and I forgot my exciting news. I now have a paddock to train from, so although I will still have the indoor school for class lessons, I now have somewhere to do privates lessons from and train my own dogs! Yippie
Once it is set up I will put some pictures on.

No excuses!!!

2010-01-10T13:27:00.000-08:00

I'm not even going to try and get out of the fact that I have been terribly laps in updating the blog.

All of my 9 beautiful babies have now gone to new homes, i think i'm getting soft at fostering, it igetting harder and harder to let them go. Almost feels like they take a small part of me away with them. I suppose at this point I will introduce "Theory" (much to many peoples disgust on the name! Mainly MrsHudson and my mum!! he he he). Yes another failed foster. I had 4 of them come to me at 4weeks, they were born under a shed in Ireland. They were unhandled, more wormy than any puppy I have ever seen and had very low immune systems. Sadly I lost the little girl, she was such a fighter and tried so hard! Taz has been in at the vets for over a week now, but seems to be turning a courner. Teek Nat adopted and theory is here.......

Theory

I think that he will loose his white spot on his head. This is him at 4 weeks old, the day he came.

Tosh (Rest In peace beautiful girl! x)

Taz

Teek (at 7 weeks)

Snow and snow dogs:

Just liked the gate shotShy a rare pic with her ears up!Nat looking over the snow hole!Snow ball TiaStihl

mr Slink and the others

Snow puppy-very unimpressed with the coats!

Stunning boy-Herbie a lovely walk we had a week ago with Nancy, Karen, Bernadette and Elspeth. I only took the naughtiest three as there were so many of us!

I don't have any pictures of just Hex as he oesn't sit still long enough!!!! Any way getting late.....More later x x x

Im sorry!!

2009-10-24T02:01:00.001-07:00

Im so sorry to everyone that keeps moaning on at me for updating my blog (cough cough..).. I have been leading an extra busy life recently!!

As some of you will know for the last 3 weeks, I have been taken over by more little puppies, who from hours old I have hand raised, some who have been very strong fighters and a couple who have been a big fight to keep going. My little girl who is now called gift, broke her leg or what I think her other bruiser sibblings did, and from then on it has been a nightmare to keep a secure splint, support on her. One of my other girls also has a mystery deformety of what our vet thinks is a fungal infection to her nose, but with the medication she is now on we hope this will improve. Here

re are some pictures of, Gift, Goose, Gander, Gosh, Giddy and Gamble

This is my little girl, Gift!

This is my little white girl with the mystery nose, gamble!

This is the bruiser boy, once called Barry now called Goose.. specially for a certain someone! ;)

This is the little boy, who is now called Gosh!

This is our bruiser girl, now called Gander!

The girl to the right is our little pink spot girl, now called Giddy!

So there you go, they are the reason of my lack of postings recently.

Our agility season has finally come to the end bar the couple of winter day shows, Hex is now grade 6 and working really well, just a few things to work on over winter, Herbs has Olympia to train towards, and Linky ended the season with two grade 6 wins! wohoooo!!

I am up at Mums at the moment, whilst she is on holiday in America. The rescue is always a busy but VERY enjoyable place!!

I have Natalie up keeping me company and helping me with puppies and the rescue at the moment, and we have been playing agility so here are a couple of random pics we caught.

Good boy weave entries...

Kai and her crazzzzzy ears!!

We have been working on Hex's dog walk this week, and seeing different things that he enjoys using these to try imporve his speed over the dog walk especially the down plank, we have used stride regulators which has been helping to break his stride alot... and Also we have been trying to get him to play tuggy in his 2on2off position which previously he has found very difficult to do and hold his position, but we are getting there and just with this week, and dropping the dogwalk height down it has helped lots.

Barry came down to visit us for a lesson on Friday, and after his lesson very kindly as he stated 'coached' myself, Natalie and Liza for a good hour, which we all thoroughly enjoyed and it was so nice to finally have someone tell us what, how and why whilst we are up here!!

At the last show, whilst running herbie twisted his pelvis out, and after a very worrying time and been seen by Kate who did a brilliant job and Thank You soooo much Kate, he has had a 3 week rest and we brought him back out to work this week.. Natalie gave him a good run whilst I was running Hexy and he seems back right and fit. We have been doing general training with him but as Olympia bells ring, all focus is on the build up to olympia!

Wont leave it as long next time I promise!!!

Leah xxx

Mammoth catch up!!!

2009-06-22T03:27:00.000-07:00

Right the mammoth catch up...............................

OMG, what a bad blogger........so much to catch up on.
Right starting at Nottingham (it's as far back as I remember!!! lol) Herbie and I got reserve Champion there for the second year running. I have to say I so want to get a championship now, and to get another 2nd as well as a load of 3rds now it is feeling a bit more like we could achieve it. The only problem is that now it's a bit more realistic I'm so nervous when I get in the Championship Que, so I'm going to have to find away to settle my nerves. Any way somewhere there is a video of this but I've got to find which tape it went on to!

Next to Hinckley....New venue this year. It was nice except half way through Sat they started a lot of shooting. My dogs are normally fine with shooting as living in the country side there seems to be a lot, but this was in such quick succession that it was like fire works! Herbie went to pieces in the Champ Que, and I had to work really hard at keeping him with me, but still some how we made it to the final again. This was a big fast flowing course, not ideally suited to Herb, but we had a good crack at it and Stuart who was judging it later told me that I came 3rd (again!), but actually I was dead pleased with that as it was such a fast course.
Hexy was also a good boy coming second in a 3-5 Dog Vegas Agility (which is a qualifier for the dog vegas final in August), the top two qualify so that earnt us a place there, which I'm really pleased about as it was quite a tricky course, having to pull off tunnels and even having a "go round" to a flat weave entry. Any way here is the video of Hinckley......

Next on to Boot Camp:

I've had this idea banging around in my head for ages, it was some thing that I really wanted to do, so one day I approached Nancy about it and it took off from there!

We wanted everybody to go home tiered, for filled and happy and hopefully they did! Everybody told us how much they loved it and in fact everybody re-booked for next year (which is really nice!)
We were really lucky with the venue as it had showers, toilets, a club house and fantastic walking (for those who could still move at the end of the day!) see link below for pictures........

http://s242.photobucket.com/albums/ff84/anjuagility/?action=view&current=26666eda.pbw

Thames was a weekend of nearlys! First I screwed up the champ cutting poor Herbie up so badly that he had no where to go but round the jump!!! Then Hex did a storming round in the Novice qualifier, the third to last obstacle was the see saw which he hearded..... it was gutting as I knew it was a great round. Hex did get a 5th in the 4-5 jumping which was quite a technical course....what a good boy! Then Kai and Hex did two stonking rounds in the pedigree pairs to come 2nd! Whoopie

On to the rescue dog finals 2009:
Herbie won this last year, which I'm really proud of as I work so hard to help the rescue dogs.....so here is what happened this year..........

Newton Heath: well I can honestly say I've never been more worried as Jay had his ABC semi finals in the evening. Sadly Stihl missed her weave entry meaning no ABC this year! They'll have to go for the senior instead!
Any way Charley was judging the champ, so i knew it would be fast and flowing (which it was), I, well Herbie and me both prefer twisty courses, they are much more up our street! But any way we produced 3 out of 3 clears and ended up 4th which I was really pleased with!

Hexy was amazing he came 2nd in the novice Olympia qualifier, which qualifies us for the semi in august/sept, and then he got 3rd in the 4-5 jumping and then won the 4-5 agility!!!!! What a good boy!!!!!

So until all the rest uploads here you go!

Naughty Blogger!!!!!!

2009-05-14T02:56:00.000-07:00

Well it has been quite a while.........

The babies have all grown up and flown the nest as such. I cried, no actually I sobbed when Alice left (quite uncontrollably!!!!! USELESS!!!!) They have all gone to amazing homes, and Ham and Alice I will see regularly, in fact I saw them both this weekend.

Ham has the most beautiful video that Nat made him......

and here are some updated picture of Alice...... Sadly I don't yet have an updated picture of Vixen.

Agility wise we're all ticking along....... Jay qualified Stihl for the ABC Olympia semi finals..... I can't tell you how proud of him I am. I know how much he wanted it, and they both did the most phenomenal round, beating two agility champions!!!!!

Herbie has now qualified for two days at the Olympia semi's as well, so that's great.

Hexy got a 2nd in 4 jumping and a 6th in 4-5 agility last week, which was brill, especially as he worked soooooo well (well on Sat any way).
On Sunday we had a slight melt down day, they still come! The grade 4 jumping was a series of horrible angles, and as soon as you put your dog over one thing you were fighting them off another, well needless to say this blew the little mans head (as it did quite a few!) after that his confidence was lost, so we worked on keeping him happy the rest of the day.

Other than this poor Wendy fell and smashed the cartilage i n her knee and is in a lot of pain. Therefore all our classes are off for the next few weeks. We all wish Wendy a speedy recovery!

Well done to all my friends who had an amazing weekend..... too many to remember, but especially, Karen and Todd, Bernadette and Zen, Andy and Kizzy, Elspeth and Jack, Dan and Tigg and not to mention the amazing Nat who not only got 4th in 7 jumping with Herbie, but also got Link round the most impossible 6-7 agility ever!!!! You go girl!!!!!!!

The kids.......

2009-04-09T06:19:00.000-07:00

From one to three!

2009-04-01T07:15:00.000-07:00

Well Halo (Alice) is now extremely busy with her TWO new friends, Ham and Vixen. Vixen is apparently a pedigree GSD. Any way what ever she is she is extremely under weight and under sized. She is 5 weeks (Alice and Ham are 4 weeks) and she is the smallest! When I bathed her today she muck that came off her was amazing.........a bath and 1 hours grooming latter and she is looking and smelling a lot better. (Sorry the pics aren't great but they are from my phone!)

What a great weekend!

2009-03-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

Halo is turning into a little dog now, and on Tuesday we will be getting a friend for her. He is the brother of my sweet little boy I lost. He is a swimmer pup which means his legs splay at the momenet. It can come right, but will need a lot of work. Any way he is the same age as halo, so that will be nice as she is starting to try and play.

This is Ham, Halo's new friend

This weekend we went to our first UKA show. I have to say I really enjoyed it!!!!! It was one of the nicest atmospheres at a show that I have ever been to.
All our dogs were really good this weekend.....I don't often mention Link and Shy as they are 9 1/2 years old, and we are slowly winding them down, but linky was a star, having a lot of fun on his terms he he he. Shy won senoir agility, so not so bad for an old girl! Sadly on the second day she hit a wing very hard and is still a bit sore on her hind leg. Stihl pulled off a second in a jumping class.
Herbie had a good weekend....1 st champ agility, 1st gamblers, 2nd champ steeplecahse, 3rd Snnoker and 4th champ steeplechase, and little old Hex won Begginers jumping (which I thought was really hard!) and came 4th in the steeplechase. He had stonking rounds on every round, but he seems to have found a new gear, which ment he hit a pole most rounds (I think it just was mis judging rather than lazyness!)
Below is the video of all Hexy's runs and some amazing photos that Dennis kindly took!!!!! xxxx Thank you !

The Video...........

Hellish night

2009-03-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

What a horrendous night!!!!!
Halo (as she is now named, although is affectionately called Alice!!!don't ask) decided to crash on me. She started to take a turn for the worse at about 12pm and then did a big plummet DOWN! By 3 we were in the vets, who felt we needed to just ride it out. At 6 she was extremely lifeless and her third eyelids had come across (for anybody with puppy experience you'll know this is BAD!!!!) We both kept fighting on, and I syringed fluids into her every 30 Min's all through the night. This morning she is looking a little brighter.

She did't move all night until she heard Jay come in, when she sat up and whinned, made a fuss of him then layed down again......She did the same when he left for work this morning, sitting up (at 5am I might add) then screaming from the moment he left!!! I think somebody has a crush!!!

So here comes the reason for Halo........(which we named her last Friday)

Halo arrived with my mum at a time of deep dispare for her. She was at a major low....she was my mums guardian angel of sorts, helping her to focus again!
She then came to me where her and her adopted brother bumped my life back into focus. She has fought hard to be here with us, and must have somebody watching over her, therefor Halo seemed fitting.

Today mum is picking up another of the same litter, apparently s/he has a front leg that doesn't look right.
It is a sad world, and sometimes the smallest thing can bring happiness! I guess don't over look the little things in life!!!!

Training

2009-03-24T06:34:00.001-07:00

What a great weekend.......The sun was shinning, Jay was actually with me and not working, and I got to do training both days!
On Sat I had a training day with Tasha, this is the second one I've done, and yet again I loved every second of it! Even Jay did!!! So that was really nice training in the sun.

On Sunday I was teaching (which I equally love)I had been asked to do a training session for a small group. It was a really fun day, we worked on Jump grids, weave entries and contacts.....Below is the set we used:

It's amazing how 2 sets of small weaves (ie 6 and 7) trough the dogs and handlers, it gave less time to get into position, and with the tunnel draws and blind entrances it was very interesting.

I also used this patteren at class on Thurs as I liked it so much and oneof my groups dogs cut fromone set of weaves to the next not really seeing the first set..........Bless.

Any way that was my weekend in short.

Hex's runs

2009-03-16T09:20:00.001-07:00

Dark Days......

2009-03-16T07:49:00.000-07:00

My sweet little boy gave up his fight on Friday night, to say that this has broken my heart would be an understatement. He fought so hard! It's always hard rearing hand raises, but somehow he got to me, I could not and still cannot imagine my life without him. As I write this tears flow down my face......... life can be so cruel!

I have been a mess due to this. We we're booked into Mid Downs show, I was not going to go as I was too upset, and honestly in a state, BUT, I decided to go, to be with people like minded, who would understand. At this point I want to say thank you to my friends, it was really hard, and I'm sorry I spent most of the morning in tears. I ran my dogs poorly and frankly in a daze, but it was better than being at home (I just couldn't face it!). My last run was grade 3 jumping, Hexy was great and won this (which was nice as it was our last grade 3)...........This was a tiny ray of sunshine for me, in a horrendous 48 hours (not to mention at this point I had not been to bed since Weds), sadly my sunshine was very short lived due to some things that were said, which quite honestly hurt and blackened an already crappy day.
I was going to go to WAG on the Sunday, but suddenly didn't want to be with the people I craved the day before, sad how that can happen.

I truly feel there is so much more to life than agility, it isn't the be all and end all, no matter how much you love it, (and believe me I love it but today I would trade all to have my special boy back!!!). One positive thing has come out of my experience at the weekend and that is that next time I feel compelled to say something to somebody I will: 1) make sure it really needs to be said 2) make sure that it is totally just and most importantly 3) consider that perhaps the person I’m about to speak to might just have sad or difficult things going on in their life that I don’t know about.

I now just pray for "Alice" (as she has been nick named), I still will not name her properly as Thursday night I decided on names for them, then I lost my baby the following day, it feels like I'm jinxed, so I will still hold off.

Alice looks like she is going to have Queen Anne legs and a very under shot jaw, bless her

An emotional and tiring evening

2009-03-13T05:50:00.000-07:00

Sorry the pictures are so bad but they are from my phone........

It has been an extremely emotional night!!! At this moment I have been awake for31 hours straight!!!!! My sweet little tan boy suddenly plummeted late last night and it has been a horrendous fight to keep him alive.
The problem with hand raises is that they generally have a very low immune system (as they don't get the colostrum from their mum)...........Any way it has been a night of injecting fluids under his skin, and keeping him warm. We have been to the emergency vet who can't give a reason why he crashed, but has given him some antibiotics and a pain killer. He has spent the night looking like he is in a coma.................Half an hour ago he lifted his head, and just a few min's ago he had the tiniest of drinks. I'm doing everything I can for him, I just hope it's enough.

The little girl is doing extremely well (in fact she is a little porker!!!!!!!) Their eyes are just starting to crack open the tiniest amount, so soon they will see the big wide world.

Herbie baby sitting....

Miss porker.........

Cuddles xxxxxx

Agility Boot Camp

2009-03-11T06:52:00.000-07:00

Please click on the image to read more.......

Crufts

2009-03-11T04:14:00.000-07:00

Well Herbie was a star, my handling not so good!!!!! We were having a great round and 2nd to last jump I had a panic and couldn't decide which wing to pull him round!!! Sadly this cost us a lot of time and put us in 10th (only the top 8 go through!) On the upside, Herbie started a new career as a PAT dog, and me as a pack horse for Nancy and her pink shopping obsession! ha ha
So that was that..........

Well done to Debbie and scooby for winning te starters jumping, Bernadette and Zen for reserve in the champ and Wendy and Cruise for winning the circular knock out!

My new alarm clocks.........

2009-03-11T03:46:00.000-07:00

They may be defunked though as they go off every two hours!!!!!!!

The black girl is a cocker x poodle and the golden boy is a cocker. They were given to mum by a breeder as each bitch had 10 in each litter and these two were the runts and she felt they wouldn't make it. They are 8 days old today, mum picked them up at 5 hours old and hand raised them for the first 5 days (she did an amazing job, as it very hard hand raising!) I have now taken them as she has all the rescue to do as well. As yet they don't have names as I want to make sure they are dong well first. But judging on their lungs they are not doing badly!

We are currently on 2 hourly feeds and yes that extends all through the night as well.

Agility Zone is here.......

2009-03-04T10:25:00.001-08:00

A quick one...

2009-03-04T04:02:00.000-08:00

Well a really busy week a head...... On Friday I am at Crufts with Herbie in the senior singles (uping the credit of the rescue dogs.....HOPEFULLY!!!) At this point I would like to thank Nancy and Vicky for coming along with me xxxx
Then Sat back to Crufts to support Jan in the Novice.....
Then Sun back to Crufts AGAIN to be a groom for Sian in the champ!!!!

So just a quick good luck to members of my class............

Jan and Teasel in the Novice
Debbie and Scooby in the starters
Nancy and Andy in the mini maxi pairs
Wendy and Cruise on the 4 or 5 days you are competing!!!!!!
Anne in the rescue dog agility.

And good luck to my friends...........
Bernadette and Zen
Dave and Dobby
Sian and Jazz
as well as all the others that are competing!

Other news..........

I believe I have a spot in a new agility mag........ http://www.agilityzone.co.uk (Have a look it's promising to be good!!!!!) There is a question and answers section in the first mag..... but more exciting I may be writing a permanent article.......Watch out Bob Sharpe and Lee windy!!!!!! (not really) Mine will be a training article/courses.... I am really looking forward to this as I don't believe our English mags have this! So wish me luck he he he........

So that was grade 3 then..........

2009-02-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

So off we went to Newton Heath, I have to say with no expectations, as the naughty marble bum tends to choose still if he will go on to the contacts first time, but any way......We had two agility classes (potentially an awful day.......)

Hexy was first up, with what I thought was quite a tricky little grade 3 agility, but I went in as posatively as I could. Because Hexy still isn't always sure on his contacts I don't make him wait to long on them, but he does have to see through the criteria I have for them, which is front feet to the floor, back feet on, the seesaw is pretty much please go up it!!!!!!! The reason I don't make him hold them too long is because he is the sort of dog who wants to do it right, so will creep to make sure it is perfect, rather than try it fast and get it wrong, therefor if you hold them, he will go slower and slower to try and please you. We are working hard on this and by letting him do a stop go method he is getting more confident.

So with this in mind off we set. We ran 10th and apparently went straight into the lead by 2.5 seconds and that is where we stayed! To say I was shocked would be an under statement, but there were plastic pole, which a lot of dogs knocked, and it was quite tight, but he took it all in his stride. He was such a good boy!!

Nat and Kai also had their first class ever and came 6th!! Well done......
Jay got 2nd and 9th with shy in grade 6 agility and 4th with Stihl in grade 6 agility, and Herbie won grade 7 agility..... so not too shabby!!

Here is the proof.......

Valentines day.....well training days!

2009-02-14T09:05:00.000-08:00

Well today I had two training sessions, the first was a 6-7 group. I had fantastic dogs on this with already very talented handlers so this was a tweaking and refining session.

We started off walking the course to the right, everybody ran the course as they would normally handle it, we then went back and re-assessed the course and handling techniques.

Firstly a couple of people tried 1-3 as push throughs to varying degrees of success (those who didn't wanted to but had not done it before), This was defiantly how I would have done it as I believe done well it is the quickest and smoothest way to handle it, as it allows you to progress up the course.

So we spent some time on breaking down how to teach a push through. After 3 go's everybody was able to complete all three as push throughs.

The next difficulty came tunnel to dog walk, a few understood the difference, but generally this needed a little work, so we spent the next exercise breaking this down, and lavishly rewarding the right choice. From the dog walk was a VERY hard 90 degree weave entry which required the handler to stay very straight allowing the dog to find the entry, anybody trying to "shape" this ended up putting their dog over jump 13.

The rest of the course was more straight forward with just a couple of handling choices. 9-11 worked best for those who stayed the seesaw side of 10 and 11 to enable a push through on 11, and allowing the handler to progress past the seesaw, to help pull through the dogwalk/weaves channel through to jump 13. The only choice left after this was which way to turn on 14. On the first run everybody went right (it was quite close to the wall, so people felt it was hard to push the other way). I personally felt that you achieved a quicker, neater and more powerful line by turning left on this. Then it was the line of jumps, some on angles, some very tight bounces and others with very long strides, every bodies dogs coped really well with this.

Once we had broken the course down, handled the tricky bits, and re-assessed, they gave it a second shot! EVERYBODY ran it a second time so well! All achieved the push throughs and tunnel dogwalk with ease! I had a great time training everybody, they were a fun group that listened and worked really hard. I think everybody went home tiered!!!!!!

Next I had a 3-5 group. It was made up of very capable handlers, a couple with their youngsters.
We spent the first section of the lesson on "driving" over contacts and reward on the contact at the bottom. I love doing this (sometimes end up going home more tiered than the handlers!!!!) next we played around with some jump channels. I believe this is an extremely important exercise, for agility a dog needs to jump, but quite often this is as far as people go when teaching it. Many dogs that I see have no comprehension of how to
1) Extend
2) Collect
and 3) Most importantly how to use their back ends!!!
So we spent quite a bit of time on jumps 13-9. Firstly we had them open and spread out and drove them on ahead of their handlers, next I put 12 and 11 into a tighter stride (a bounce for most dogs), a couple did bounce but not as many as I would expect. The next time I moved it in a bit again as well as the same stride on 11-10, this worked well, encouraging all the dogs to bounce both jumps. The last lane we did was to make all 5 into bounces. Every dog achieved it really well. For the couple of very driven, naturally long striding dogs this was very good as they really had to engage the rear quarters, sit back and check their strides, where as the slightly less confident dogs were able to bounce multiple jumps in a row without feeling phased. When we opened these jumps back out a bit it was amazing, just from that little bit of jump training how many more dog were prepared to try a bounce, and achieve it!
We then played a bit on the drive across the seesaw, having a great game of tuggy or a really nice treat at the end.

After this we had a walk of the course, and then had a bash at running it! Everybody worked really well, all running the course excellently.

I deliberately left time near the end to have a look at tunnel under dogwalk. Everybody except 2 were astonished that we would be doing this with "Baby" dogs and absolutely convinced they would never able to do it!
I don't personally feel that this is too hard for a baby, as I feel the younger (in a dogs agility life/career) you teach obstacle discrimination the easier it is and quicker it goes in, not to mention "those lessons learnt first are learnt best!" So off we set teaching this firstly straight up the dogwalk. 3 achieved this straight off, very well done!!!! the others quickly shared their success. We then began to sequence it as follows.....7 wing wrap dogwalk, then 9,8 (from their backsides) pull through left side of the tunnel, 7 wing wrap dogwalk and lastly 9,8,7 (all from the backside of the jumps), right hand side of the tunnel, 9,8 (wrong side) pull through dog walk. Everybody achieved this, some better than the 6/7 dogs! It was really great to see people achieve something they were so sure was an impossibility!

So any way I had a great day, loved training everybody and hope they enjoyed it too. Every soul, human and canine looked shattered at the end!!!!

So on to my Valentines day.... well it can't be that great as I am sitting here updating my blog!!! ha ha
I am waiting for Jay to get home, and then I will cook him a special dinner, and watch a "chick flick!"

Update on Riot

2009-02-13T07:23:00.001-08:00

I was delighted last night to receive a lovely e-mail about my little man Ri. It seems he is doing well, for all of you who knew him and still ask how he is doing here he is for you, with Helen's letter..........
Hi
Our flyball team are all busy planning for Crufts and that reminded me that I have not sent you a Riot update.
As you can see from the photos he is as handsome as ever.
Agility training so far has been a bit hit or miss with him.
He started off quite well apart from being totally obsessed by the other dogs running.
For some reason he started to lose a bit of confidence and unfortunately due to the weather I have been unable to do any work with him at home on my own.
He loves his contacts and he knows exactly what is required of him, but really was not confident when it came to jumping.
Levenhall club have been great and we simply spent a few weeks getting his enthusiasm back up and it seems to be working.
I don't know if he will be out this year but once the better weather comes along we can really start doing little bits and pieces on our own.
As soon as Crufts is over I will start his flyball training. Judging by some of the new dogs I have trained this winter it really increases the dog's confidence for working away from the handler.
We have had a few reluctant agility dogs transformed after a few sessions of flyball.
I have started doing a little free shaping with the clicker and he absolutely adores this.
He will go and do something and then give you his cheeky look, the one with one ear pricked and the other not, and dare you not to click him.
He is getting on great with my cat Gizz but I would still not trust them unsupervised.
For some reason Kyle, my 13 year old BC adores him. I have not seem him play so much in years.
I don't know if it is a Kelpie thing but he certainly is different kettle of fish to my other dogs.
What day are you and the wonderful Herbie competing at Crufts as I would love to see you run?
If I do miss you I will no doubt see you at the trials for the European Open.
I am not sure why I am bothering to go down to the trials but it is an experience and it is great to see some of the brilliant handlers, yourself included of course.
I have been following Hex's progress on your blog. You must be very proud of him.
I will better go now I hope you like the photos, as you can see from the second one he is still very vocal.

It was really wonderful getting this, and the picture of him barking made me laugh so much as that is just how I remember him!!!!!

Any way on to this weekend.......
My dogs have the weekend off, but tomorrow I have 2 training day sessions, the first a 6-7 group and then a 3-5 group. I am really looking forward to training everybody who is coming along, and seeing how dogs that I have taught before have progressed and also seeing some up and coming youngsters. I will post the courses next time as I don't want anybody to get a sneak preview!

Another great weekend...what's happening!

2009-02-09T06:59:00.000-08:00

Well all week I have been struggling with the flue, so I've been taking every remedy to try and kick it before the weekend as I had things booked that I really wanted to do. So when I got up Sat morning still coughing and sneezing was not best pleased, apparently nore was Jay who gave me the full lecture on "if you don't give yourself a chance to get better you will get worse!!!!", I smiled, gave him a kiss and proceeded out the door to my training day i had booked.
For ages and ages I have been waiting to do a Tasha wise training day, and finally I got to do oneIt was every bit as good as I would have hoped! First I had Hex. Tasha was great at building both of our confidence, she had Hexy driving down the contacts to his toy (which we will carry doing), she also helped me with Ideas about Hex's herding tendancies. Next I had Herbie. Sometimes I find on training days that people don't give me much input with Herbie, because he is generally smooth, and we kind of know where we are at, I think some people feel that's it, but Tasha really picked up little things that would help me, and general handling issues I have. Any way I went away with a lot to think about, tiered, coughing but very happy!

Sunday morning I woke Jay up at the crack of dawn to go to WAG (much at his disgust!!), but this time it was my turn for the lectures. Jay really wants to get Stihl to Olympia this year, she is more than capable and nearly did it last year, any way the first qualifier is in two weeks, for which we are driving a long way, so the least he could do is to train his dog a bit!!!!!!!
Vicky and Molly also came with us....they seem tohave the BUG now! :)
So here are all the video's.......by the way Hex got 5th in the 3-7 agility less than 0.5 off Jay and Stihls time that won!!!!! I'm very pleased!!!!!

Mr Hex....

Vicky and Molly....

Jay and Stihl and Shy....

Link and Herbie...

Snow day...

2009-02-03T06:32:00.000-08:00

Well I think everybody got a good amount of snow, but we normally don't get what everybody else does, so for once it was nice to have proper snow! For many of my dogs it was the first time they had seen proper snow and they loved it......except poor tia who ended up looking like a snow ball!

Well I popped mine into their lovely new Hurta coats that we got from http://www.camddwrcanine.co.uk/ they stayed toasty and dry!!!!

Welcome

2009-02-02T11:02:00.000-08:00

Just wanted to put a quick welcome to Ann (http://camddwrcanine.blogspot.com/) to blogging! Stuart and Ann recently took on a long term stayer at Many Tears.....On their blog you can read how she is getting on.

A good weekend.....

2009-02-01T10:09:00.000-08:00

Well I had one of those weekends that made me feel we "can do this!" Hex was brilliant this weekend. I have the onsets of flue so nearly didn't go to any of my booked events, but decided to suck it up instead!
We did C-side on sat and he was great. got no videos as there was no body there to video me (you will just have to take my word!) Hex was much more confident and very slightly off his rocker due to all the noise!!!! But for the first time ever he went straight onto unknown contacts.....we have had an issue with this after a"flying see saw!" To say I was pleased would be an under-statement.

Then today we did a training day with Andy and Nancy Hudson. I do train weekly with them, but as this was a new venue, new equipment I thought it would be a good opportunity to keep working with Hex's hiccup! Again he was very good. We worked on snakes (see the out come) and lots of see saws which really helped me (thank you Nancy!!!!!) Jay kindly came and videoed me and Hex so here you are.......

Video diary

2009-01-30T04:57:00.000-08:00

I have spent today (well a bit of it) going through Hex's training videos so I could clearly see where he is progressing, where I needed to work on etc..... I found this really useful as I often don't feel I get what I could out of him (and yes I know it's early days yet), but there are obvious areas I must put a bit more into (lots actually!), the problem is I am only getting once a week for 1 hour to train him, my classes are packed and so only get to do any agility with him on Tuesday nights at Nancy's (and don't get me wrong this is great, but just feel I need to put a bit more in). The areas that are showing up a lot (to me) at the moment are.....

Contacts- all three are not (I would say quick enough but it is more than that) confident enough. He scuttles rather than strides across.

Snakes-did the second one ever last week......NOT PRETTY!

distance work

Well that is more than enough to be getting on with! As well as that there is the general training, weave entries etc. Whilst doing all that I also want to make sure I don't let down Herbie, we have Crufts and the Europeans qualifiers soon, and I'm determined to get "a tune" out of Murphy this year!!!!! So a lot to work on.

Any way after watching all those vids I decided to make a compilation of bits so I could compare them quickly, it seems he is coming on OK, I'm sure we will get there (just maybe slowly!)

Here goes.....

This Video is of a friend and her dog Molly (she is a fantastic working lab). This was their first fun show, and since this (4 days ago) she has gone away worked on her weaves (which she now does) and taught her a nose target to help her contacts.....WELL DONE x

Lastly I wanted to mention my new puppy group I'm teaching. I felt very honoured when Nancy asked me to take their new puppy class (as she is training Zeki in it).... It is a great group that comprises of.....

Mist-BC
Breeze-WSD
Indi-WSD
Shadow-BC
Zeki-Sheltie

and soon to have Sara and Poppy the boxer as well (get your running legs on!)

We work on all the foundation work for agility IE balance, control and coordination (see Nancy's blog for clips. They are a great group, extremely motivated, fun and willing. Keep it up!

ha ha...

2009-01-28T05:05:00.001-08:00

Lisa just informed me she "CAN NOT" use the 5th folders, 5th picture (very unsuitable!!!!!) ha ha ha ha........

Any way here are a couple more pictures of things that I like....or mean a lot to me.

This is the first oil painting i ever did (just quite like it).....

These are things that my mum made me..... The first is a wire work sculpture of a cowboy roping a cow, it is set on a cactus arm that is over 100 years old......

The next things are 2 stones that mum found on a beach she could see what they should be.......here is what she made them into.......

This is our house name plate that I made.....

oops now i have to tag?

2009-01-27T07:54:00.000-08:00

So I guess i tag....
Char.... http://summerick.blogspot.com/
Grace...http://my-malinois.blogspot.com/
Lisa...http://zindelijkbsds.blogspot.com/
paula...http://whichwaynowtomtom.blogspot.com/
amanda....http://mandsmutts.blogspot.com/

Sorry you lot... hereis what you need to do.....
Open a document or file folderClick on the fifth folder and then the fifth photoPost the photo and describe itThen tag 5 other bloggers

So the tagging got me thinking!

2009-01-27T05:41:00.001-08:00

Well at least it got me looking! I found some pics that i really love or hold special memories for me.... so purely from a self indulgence point of view here they are!

This is our bedroom before Jay and my dad ripped it out.......

this is our bedroom after!!!! I LOVE IT!!!!!!

This is the jetty on to Lankayan Island where we spent some of our honeymoon.

This picture is the whole of Lankayan Island........

Although this is a little hard to see if you open it up to it's full size you can see the sharks swimming in sea surrounding the island......Yes we did swim with them!!!!

This was the first night of our honeymoon, we had just arrived in Borneo and were both sooo tiered after the long flight!

This is my favorite wedding picture...It has all our families in it and we had bubbles not confetti, i think it looks so great!

Getting tagged???!!!

2009-01-27T05:28:00.001-08:00

So Nancy tagged me (and i didn't know what she was on about!!!! But found out...)

This is our picture...Stihl at 8 weeks. Firstly it made me laugh as everybody else has old pictures or ones of family, me I have a dog! what a surprise!!!!

Any way what a cute picture it is, she almost looks good in this picture, but even in that she has a slight devilish look!

The First show!!!!!

2009-01-19T04:48:00.000-08:00

Was really not sure how this would go, or even to do it as we are still having very off days....but anyway we went and we tried and this is what happened........

Nugget the killer cat!

2008-12-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

Just because I haven't put anything on here about her for a long time, you might remember on the 1st of May 2008 I got given 4 ginger kittens to hand raise, at only approx 6 hours old, very cold and half dead I didn't fancy my chances. Initially they were on hourly feeds for about the first 2 1/2 weeks, but slowly the time increased! Sadly I lost one of the girls at 1 week old, it totally broke my heart. But I am pleased to say that the other 3 fought on and are now 8mths old on New years day! Karen has Delilah, and a friend of Toni Dawkins has Sebastian, and we are the proud (but very battered) owners of Nugget the attack cat! so here are a couple of pics of the gang.......

At approx 1 week old

approx 4 weeks old... Left to right Sebastian, Nugget, Delilah

Delilah then and now

Sebastian then and Now.......

And the snugget!!!!!! Then and now.........

Day 3

the baby sitter

Ever the lady!

So that is the story so far.............oh and yes Nugget can be seen most weekends in the caravan at our agility shows (there is nothing she likes more than caravaning, except maybe custard creams!)

About time!!!!!!!!!!

2008-12-29T07:49:00.000-08:00

I know it's about time I did the Olympia update etc............
So to do this in order.....

WAG at the beggining of Dec... Here are the videos of both Hex and Kai at WAG, nothing to exciting to report other than I was proud of how they both did in the big boys class! And a vid of the georgous Herb doing his thing!

Kai

Hex

Herbie

Next to Olympia........

Firstly WELL DONE NANCY AND NIAMH!!!!!!!!

I felt soooo pleased when Nancy got through to the final and loved watching every second of it.... best of all she really ran! and I got it on tape!!!!

Not sure why I had my glitch, going to put it down to sods law! Herbie was fantastic, I really feel at one with him ( wiered as that souds) I trust him to do his job, and yes we had a glitch, but that is life......So anyway we got to experience the other side of Olympia and ran i the pairs with Ian Dobbinson. We won the final by over 3 seconds which I don't think is any mean feat!

Here are the vids..........

Herbie at Olympia

Nancy and Niamh.....

Then this weekend I went training on a Toni and Amanda training day......got loads of really good advice and helpful tips, but have to say I was a bit gutted as Hexy went into total herding mode. He is still a little unsure of the see saw and Hex's copping mechanisim is to totally melt down and herd... sadly the see saw was literally the 2nd obsticle we did.... so it took quite a while toget his head back out of that mode. He also had been fab on his weaves, but didn't get one set right yesterday. Obviously I'm not fed up with him, I have been concentrating on Herb so much with Olympia that Hex has gone a little bit back as the babies do, but he had been so good I was not really expecting it......Saying that the weave enteries were hard.
So here is a little vid, crud and all.........

Last nights training

2008-12-19T04:44:00.000-08:00

So here is last nights course (well one of them). The dotted line is the ideal handlers path (note the little circle by 6, 7, 8, 9 is a front cross not a blind turn). Needless to say everybody did a great job of it (even Nancy! he he, after a lot of complaining! (not naughty Niamh, Naughty Nancy! )

No body got away with coming inside the jump between 13 and 14, the layering was very successful a great confidence boost.

We had a lot of fun with this course, and then did........(keep up with this....)

(south) Tunnel

Dog walk

wrong end of tunnel (North tunnel)

Dog walk

wrong end of tunnel (South T)

Dog walk

(north) tunnel

A frame

Then sending into...

(south) tunnel

This was a really good for some quick releases on contacts, and quick directionals to get them into the right end of the tunnel. We mixed the contacts up IE wide contacts, quick releases, stops etc which kept the dogs focused on what the handler was asking.

So that was the last lesson of 2008.......Roll on 2009

I would like to take this opportunity to say how proud I am of all my clubs members.....Many of them are doing agility for a bit of fun, and then I have the real die hards, but ALL of them are helpful, willing and a really nice bunch. Many of them have achieved their personal goals for this year (which Wendy and I'm very proud about) and a few have done better than that......

I believe we have

at Olympia:

Nancy and Niamh

Leah and Herbie

at Crufts:

Wendy and Cruise

Jan and Teasel

Debbie and Scooby

Leah and Herbie

Not so shabby for a small club. Thanks to all that make it happen x

AAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHH!

2008-12-18T04:24:00.000-08:00

OK so I have to admit I am "bricking it" now, never am good with finals, but hope that this is a good thing that will help??? My back is so painful today it is untrue and I've got 5 straight hours of teaching to do tonight! Oh well, can at least look forward to making Nancy RUN!!!!!!!

Tonight we are going for some FUN! Hopefully working on drive to and from contacts, really looking forward to teaching this.

Last weekend was great. I had my good friend Nat come and stay with her dog Kai..... We did a lot of training with the babies and took them out to their first full height shows.
Nancy very kindly let us go training with her at her house on Friday, we did some great exercises and I was very pleased with Hexy, he is such a different dog now days.
Many people who know me and Hex from day 1 will know how hard this little dog has been for me. He has had MANY aggression problems with both dogs and people, and has been very unpredictable. I think if he had gone to a different home, he may not be here today, as there had been many horrible incidents. Any way the up shot of this is that both me and the merley boy have finally created the "bond" that I am used to with my dogs. I do believe that agility has helped this a lot, but mainly I would like to thank Nancy who has NEVER stopped believing in me and him, and always remembers to tell me just what I need to hear when the times have been down..... So thank you Nancy!!! x

Anyway on Sat I ran Hex at my little show we held, he was really good....still isn't sure on the seesaw but it is coming!
Sunday we went to WAG and I suppose that this really was Hex's first big boy show. He was fantastic, the courses were really big (and I have to admit this scares me a bit as I loose touch with Hex), but he was amazing and just did it! No clears but I was so pleased with how he went!!
I will update with Videos soon. Nat's youngster Kai is amazing, she is soooooo fast and her contacts are stunning, can't wait to see her next year! We are also lucky enough to pairs with her in the new year, so the naughty babies will have a lot of fun.

Any way hopefully Nat will come and visit again soon, and we will see her at Ribble as she is running Link.

Back to the matter in hand then.......... I had a really nice e-mail from Ann Harmes yesterday saying good luck team! (woow I'm included in with Toni, Dave and Stuart, have to say that feels nice. Hope I don't let them down!) We will be leaving early on sat as I like to have a lot of time to panic properly in the morning :) and will pick up the Hudsons on the way through......from there on in it's anybodies guess?

So good luck to everybody at Olympia but especially Nancy and the NSNN (Not so Naughty Niamh (still not sure that is spelt right!))

My Collar

2008-11-25T07:13:00.000-08:00

Well Sunday came and I set off to judge WAG in the freezing cold. Ended up Judging for 10 hours with a very quick lunch.....to say my back hurt was an understatement! Many people came and said how much they enjoyed the courses etc, so on the whole people were happy, although it is very apparent that you will NEVER please everybody! Amanda was great and came and helped nearly all day even though she was not even running a dog (THANK YOU!)

Yesterday my collar came (yippie), I love it, and it looks great on Herbie (who loves it!) so here are the pic's........

Mum did me this lovely tag for it as well, with a black and white Border collie on it (she painted!) you can't see it very well on the photo, but it is really nice...........

Any way off to training now.......

Training day, Crufts, CSJ and the cold!!!!!!

2008-11-22T14:22:00.000-08:00

Had a really good training session on Thursday night as well, I'm very lucky to have a really great and talented lot, who I can stretch (and they hopefully enjoy it?!)Below is that course we did...We mainly worked on running past things ie straight through the box long ways, from the weaves....It was good fun to teach, and was a good opportunity to really reinforce the dogs coming into their handler when called, so lots of play which keeps the mood light too.

The circled numbers is the course we did and the squared numbers are part of a sequence we did.....

Then on Friday I was very proud to be offered a sponsorship from CSJ, and so have now become part of the "CSJ Team". I'm very excited for the future!

Today has been a great day as far as I am concerned. Had a grade 5-7 agility training day, which I really enjoyed teaching. Had some FANTASTIC dogs on it, can't wait to watch them next year! Have posted my course up so you can see what we did....(it is a take on the WC 2008 large final) We finished with the whole course which everybody achieved really well......Mental note to self...Better watch out for that lot next year!!!!

The post man had finally been when I got home, and to my great surprise Herbie and I have qualified for Crufts, I'm so excited as I have never been before. So got a lot coming up!

So finally to tom (sun), currently it is -2.5 c at ours (well outside) and tomorrow I am off to Herne Bay to Judge a lot of dogs in the bitter cold, and possibly in the snow.... we will see, got some nice courses ( well my sort of nice anyway!)........Catch up soon.

C-side.....

2008-11-17T08:42:00.000-08:00

Well we've done it.... Hex's first run in public. I have to say I felt so scarred!!!!
Hex was brill, we got E'd but it was very much my fault... The two problems we had wouldn't have occurred had I used my "Steady", but honestly I was so nervous I panicked and forgot. He sent on nicely and even put in a bounce or two. Hex was completely unfazed, and tried to go and set up for a second turn.

After that we did a tricky 5-7 agility course with the other 4, Paula ran Shy as I was too tiered after a very late night before!!!!!!!

Mac was winning the agility, first I ran Link (Mr no clears!) and surprise, surprise he did a stonking clear and went into second OMG!!!! Then I ran Herbie, and I have to admit right up to the line I thought I would throw him back and "go" for it, but luckily I found my sensible head and stopped all his contacts, he was fantastic, really listening which was great and he went into second place, lastly I ran Stihl (as jay is still doing building stuff) She was amazing, she is soooo fast, how I would love to run her normally, she did an amazing run knocking a whole second off Herbie and only loosing out to Mac and Spud ( a grade 7 dog) by 0.01 of a sec!!!! She flew! So at the end we had 2nd, 3rd and 4th and the people in 1st and 5th were also Anju agility members, so all in all a good day!

So nothing with Hex now 'till Dec when I have a WAG show oh unless I run him at our Anju show on the 30th?

Any way thank you to Paula for Videoing Hex at C-Side (the video went on to stand by soshe missed the first jump, but you'll get the jist!!!!....

New Video

2008-11-12T05:51:00.000-08:00

Well finally I have had a chance to get a bit of Video of Hex at training....I'm really pleased how he is coming on. His contacts are still slower than i would like, but that is only because he is so keen to get it right. In the video you will see that sometimes I will quick release him so that hopefully it will encourage him through it quicker. He is starting to look happier on his seesaw, which I'm really pleased about, and as far as I'm concerned his weaves are fab!!!!! I've never had a dog who one foots through his weaves, so I just love watching Hex do them.

Herbie has found an extra gear (which is great!) probably 'cause i told him about his new collar! He is really fun to train at the moment. So only around 4 weeks 'till Olympia aaaarrrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!

Poor link (who at 9 years YOUNG went round training last night like a 2 year old!) some how tweaked his shoulder and looked a little sore so had watch from the side line......I don't know what i will do when he is retired, I don't think he will ever be ready to stop (bless him).

Well the house is coming along now, and finally I can sleep in my own bed now (after 2 weeks on the sofa) there is still a lot of mess, but there is light at the end of the tunnel. If I could find the camera I would post a picture, but it looks like it maybe lost forever in the abundance of MESS!

So any way here is the latest video.......

Busy, busy, busy!

2008-11-07T08:04:00.000-08:00

Well I've been at my mum's for the last month working at manytears It was sooo busy but I loved every moment of it, I truly felt like I had done something great with my month!
Haven't had much time to train as i was so busy, but Nat came and stayed for a week (and was my salvation in the hard times!) and we did a couple of bits with Hex and Kai.
Hex is going really well, I'm very proud of him, although need to do a lot more work on his contacts, but they are coming as well. He picked up his weaves so quickly, and has a really nice action through them (will try and get a vid at some point!)
Entered his first show today aarrrrggghhhh!!!!! It will be Ribble in Jan 09, only one jumping class and the pairs, so I thought it would be quite a nice one for him.

On to Herbie....I'm really training hard for Olympia, being much more disciplined with myself and putting 110% into every run I do at training. I'm going to start jogging again with Herbie as well.
Now traditionally (well the two times we've been) I've bought Herbie or Link a "Special" Olympia collar, this year is no different, but I have found the most beautiful unique collar (that is being customised for my special boy!)...It can be seen here.....
hollyandlill
The way in which it is being customised is as follows.....Silver Stars to show all what a Star he is? And we will create a unique mix of Turquoise (for good health), Goldstone beads (for vitality), Aventurine (for success), Carnelian (for courage) and maybe the odd dash of Lapis Lazuli (confidence)? And a little mother of pearl so he brings home the prize??

My mum gave me some birthday money back in March and I could never find something I liked enough to buy, but this is what I will use it for.

I will try and get some vids and pictures asap, but at the moment I am living in world war three (well the after marth of it!!!!) still a lot of building work going on!!!!!!

A sad time......

2008-09-26T05:15:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago was a year since I lost My sweet Reaga, I was struggling with this day as I never have quite come to terms with it. The next day the unthinkable happened, my beautiful cat, who has lived here 15 years, was hit by a car and left dead. This has hit both me and Jay very hard, and I only now feel able to post something about it because of Bernadette's horrendous pain and sadness she is going through. I found this poem and want to post it in memory of Queenie, Reaga and the beautiful Hex....I know that god had more important things for you to all do, but we all miss you terribly.... Run free and be happy

I'm Still Here

Friend, please don't mourn for me
I'm still here, though you don't see.
I'm right by your side each night and day
and within your heart I long to stay.

My body is gone but I'm always near.
I'm everything you feel, see or hear.
My spirit is free, but I'll never depart
as long as you keep me alive in your heart.

I'll never wander out of your sight-
I'm the brightest star on a summer night.
I'll never be beyond your reach-
I'm the warm moist sand when you're at the beach.

I'm the colorful leaves when fall comes around
and the pure white snow that blankets the ground.
I'm the beautiful flowers of which you're so fond,
The clear cool water in a quiet pond.

I'm the first bright blossom you'll see in the spring,
The first warm raindrop that April will bring.
I'm the first ray of light when the sun starts to shine,
and you'll see that the face in the moon is mine.

When you start thinking there's no one to love you,
you can talk to me through the Lord above you.
I'll whisper my answer through the leaves on the trees,
and you'll feel my presence in the soft summer breeze.

I'm the hot salty tears that flow when you weep
and the beautiful dreams that come while you sleep.
I'm the smile you see on a baby's face.
Just look for me, friend, I'm everyplace!

Author Unknown

Mr Macaroon

2008-09-23T07:31:00.000-07:00

This is my pony, with my friends kid riding....

Quick update...

2008-09-23T06:36:00.000-07:00

Here is a little Vid of Hex and Herb...

A few pics of Hex

2008-09-09T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pics of Hex that Jay took at Mum's this weekend......

Doing my bit and trying to help make a difference...

2008-09-09T06:46:00.000-07:00

Got e-mailed this today, and think that it is a really worth while cause...so decided to put it on here in hope that anybody who reads this blog will take the time to watch it and write a letter! Not much to ask to try and help save these poor dogs!

Some pic's from our weeks away......

2008-09-02T04:10:00.000-07:00

My handsome boy!!
Herb and Kai.....

Zola flying.....

The handsome Herbie doing a frog impression......

I love this photo of Stihl weaving.....
Traci and Dave in the fancy dress pairs.....Gladiators and Show Girls (I'm sure they dressed up the wrong way round!)

Mr Murph......Look at the "MAD" face (he got 5th in this run!)

Herbie in the Champ agility.......
Ant and Magic showing you how they got through to the Champ final!!! BAD SEE SAW!!!!!! Don't let Andy catch you do one like that!

Fallen off the edge of the world!!!!

2008-09-01T05:40:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the lack of posts!
Well we've been away nearly the whole of August at various shows (I will post videos, pictures and results later!)
We've had a great time away, the dogs have been great, and we've had A LOT of laughs!
Now I have to actually do some hard work to make up for the time off....so here are the next few months plans....

I'm away in Wales looking after my mum's over October, so from the 7th Oct - 30th Oct I will be available for private agility lessons up there.

The following will be held at Many Tears Animal Rescue can be found at
Cwmlogin House
Cefniethin
Llanelli
Carmarthenshire
SA14 7HB

11th October-training day covering course handling and analysing, motivation, contacts, weaves (entries) and obstacle discrimination.

12th October-Pre-competition training. For dogs who are almost at the competition age. Covering weaves (channel available), contacts, motivation etc

the following will be held at Indoor sand school. Chafford Farm,
Chafford Lane,
Fordcombe,
Kent,
TN3 0SH

22nd November-grade 5-7 training day. Covering course walking/handling, contacts, weave entries and motivation

29th November-Taster Day, for people and dogs who have never done agility.

30th November-Anju Agility Simulated show.......This is a fun and friendly show open to all abilities……at our show we encourage training in the ring, and will allow you to use food and toys!

The way it works:
You will get 2 goes at the same agility course and 2 goes at the same jumping course, which means you can train one round and go for the next if you wish. All the courses will be set at a “nice” level.

If you use toy’s or treats in one round that will be classed as a “not for competition round”, if you do it without aids then there are rosettes and prizes to be won!

If you wish to run your large dog over small or medium that is fine (we are very chilled out!), but to keep it fair on the smalls and mediums competing you will be not for competition.
It will be judged as grades 1-4 small, medium and large and then 5-7 small, medium and large.

Open to dogs 16 mths and above.

There will be tea, coffee and cakes available.

£10 per dog (four runs) 10am start.

13th December-Anju Agility Christmas show-As before

4th January 2009-Anju Agility New year show-as before

If anybody would like more info please call me or e-mail me on leah@anjuagility.co.uk
01892 740777

Will post more later.

European Opens

2008-07-22T08:18:00.000-07:00

Well it all came round so quickly.... Thursday arrived and Jay, Herbie and I set off to Dover to catch the bus. We caught the Ferry and then started to drive to Germany. We had a great laugh on the way there, and got to know everybody. On Friday we had a practice session at the venue. On the way there (as we were at a hotel 1 hour and 15 mins away!)the bus driver got lost a few times, and we arrived 2 hours later....
All the dogs worked so well in the practice session, and Andy and Greg helped format it, which was very useful! Later that day we did a parade of the countries.

Sat.....
The big day. The Individuals.....
The way they worked is a bit like a Champ class, an agility round and a jumping round, and then the top 3 from each country goes through to the final.
Herb did a fantastic jumping round and was one of two clears, but then we got E'd in the agility! I thought we had no hope of going through to the final, but due to the courses catching out a few people, and our first good round we scraped in!
Like a Champ you run in reverse order of how you qualify, I was running 3rd out of everybody!!!!

Herb ran brilliantly and then we waited........At the end we found out we came 2nd and had won the silver for Britain!!!!!!!!! Bernadette and Hex got Bronze in the smalls as well!!!!

Here is a video of the day....

Sunday.....Teams

Here is a Video of how it went....We ended up 16th overall (not too bad i think!)

Well done to Marc, Ant, Katie and Lee for winning Bronze in the teams!!!!!!

Here are some other peoples runs....
Ant and magic

Marc and dash

Katie and rocky

Lee and Jack

Dave and Dobby

Catch up.....

2008-06-30T09:09:00.000-07:00

Firstly to run or not to run that is the question.........?

I've been really thinking hard as to whether running contacts are the right thing for Hex and myself, and the answer I came up with is I really don't know! Hex is and always will be a very strong dog, mentally and physically and therefore will always push it a step too far! But there is no denighing that running contacts will alwaysbe faster than a stop. My problem is or should i say are...1) I don't have a garden, therefore can not train at home. So Hex gets his running contact training twice a week. He gets maybe 4 to 5 repetitions each class, as opposed to 20 to 30 a day that it probably realistically needs to train a proper running contact, And there lies the next issue..
2) I love training my dogs, BUT I would not want to, or really could be arsed to (if honest) do it that much. Hex loves it as it is a treat, and i wouldn't like for that to change.

So here is where I am at......
Dogwalk- I am plugging away with the running contacts, have changed my approach slightly as Hex has a naturally HUGE stride (especially for his size), so doesn't naturally run through the contact, so I am having to teach himto target the area instead, I'm not sure this will produce the ideal runnning contact ie No break of stride, but at the moment (for the few rep's his done really)I am pleased.

A-Frame and See-Saw- Both of these have progressed to a stop at the moment....
The See-Saw was always going to be a stop, but the A-frame was running, the problem I was having was that hewas jumping from contact to contact!!!!! Yes, this is super quick, but extremly bad for him and my nerves, so for nowhe is learning some control, and does understand the difference if I tell him just to run instead of stop.

So there you are all obsticals in Hex's training so far, well you can watch the video and come to your own conclusions (sorry about the videoing, Jay looks like he had been on the beer all day!!!)

Here are some Videos of the Champ class at Thames that I never got round to uploading!

Sharon and Chip

Herbie and Me

Other stuff

What a great weekend Anju agility had.........

Nancy and Niamh for qualifying for Olympia semi
Mac and Spud for qualifying for Olympia semi and Power and speed final
Jason and Shy for qualifying for the Connect final
Jan and Cally for qualifying for Olympia semi and winning 6 agility!!! (and loads of great places with Teazel)
Jason and Stihl for coming 16th in the Olympia qualifier (one of her first grade 6 runs)
Louise and Shady for three great clears and a good place
Gill and Rosie for a really nice clear round and a place
Linda and Yanny for a great clear round
Chaz for a win with Gracie and multiple places with both Gracie and Clyve
Me and Herbie for qualifying for Olympia semi and the Power and Speed final

and any others I may have forgotten or do not yet know about (sorry! )

Also well done my freinds who did well.....
Elaine and Pi on more good results
Sharon and Chip for qualifying for the Power and Speed final
Karen and Todd for a few wins and other places
David and Rusty for winning grade 7 jumping
Amanda and twix for more wins
Kevin and Casper (the Many Tears pup) for their first clear round!
Elsbeth and jack for winning the power and speed and qualifying for the final!

So an amazing weekend really!

And onto this week.........

On Tuesday we are off to Ant's to do some EO training, then I have Olympia semi finals on Friday and Sunday........Fingers crossed x

A mixed weekend

2008-06-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

A really weird weekend.....
Starting Friday at the Rescue dog of the year finals.

Herbie was his normal brilliant self, not only working really well, but also winning the grade 6-7 Rescue Agility Dog of the Year!!! Yippee. Below is a video of our run...

Sat (Newton Heath)

We had a Champ here. Firstly being my normal self, I didn't read the schedule, so didn't realise it all kicked off at 8.15am, so merrily walked down to the rings at 8.10am only to be faced with the hardest Champ jumping I have ever done!!!! Anyway walked it quickly, studied it a bit and then ran. I ran 45 (i think) and a went clear, and at that time was the only person to go clear inside the 35 sec time! At the end of the class I ended up in 4th place. I was really pleased as sooooo many people had been E'd. Next came the agility, again really tough, the main issue being off the A-Frame, over a wall (with very large pillars, which I don't think the dogs could differentiate where the wall went, many dogs mis-jumping it!) so you had to push them out and then try and get them through a gap it on a tunnel under the dog walk! We got round with only 5 faults, which we got as Herbie wanted to go back up the dog walk and not into the tunnel!!!! Any way at the end it transpired only 8 dogs out of 80 odd got round without being E'd, so we made the final!

We ran 7th out of 8 and at that point only 1 clear, so went out to get a nice round from him (which he did really well!), BUT stupid me slipped as he went to the weaves and pulled him past the first weave! I am so gutted, I really feel we had a good chance. Needless to say I will be investing in some decent running shoes!

Here is the video of the agility round and Final (jay forgot to tape the jumping ooooppps!!!)

After this Jay had his ABC Semi finals, sadly he got given 5 faults on the A-Frame (not sure this was correct?!) so didn't get through.

Sunday

Sunday was a better day, Herbie and I came 4th in the Crufts singles, so got a couple more points.

Back to real life now.
Kittens are off to their homes next week, but Nugget still needs a home so she will keep attending agility shows with us. I will feel really lost without them! x

More pics....

2008-06-04T07:16:00.000-07:00

I felt bad that there were only pictures of Delila, so here are some quick shots of Nugget and Sebastian......

Left to Right.... Sebastian, Nugget and Delila (who wont sit still!)

Herb and the kit's.....

Sebastian

Nugget

Photo's....

2008-06-04T06:34:00.000-07:00

Here are some great photo's that Dennis kindly took....

Delila (aka Cuddles, for Karen)

And a couple of Herbie......

Oh and in my "proud" state I forgot to add that Herbie has also just got through confirmation of Two Semi's days and the pairs final with Mac and Spud! What a great boy!!!!!!

So nearly there.....

2008-06-04T03:24:00.000-07:00

Chaffords Herbal Illusion-Reserve Champion, Nottingham 2008

Herbie was such a star, coming reserve in the Champ final at Nottingham. I am so proud, he has already achieved so much this year!

Other news

2008-05-13T04:30:00.000-07:00

Jay has decided to re-name the other kittens.....
So the ginger and white boy is now Sebastian, the twins are now Nugget and Cuddles. I will up date their pictures soon.

This weekend....

Jay and Stihl came 3rd in the Olympia qualifier, sadly only the top two get through, oh well here's to the next time.

I didn't really have my head on agility, which may explain my runs! But I believe that Herb and I got a Chum day (here's hoping).

A hard weekend

2008-05-13T04:23:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a tough one. On Sunday I sadly lost Keith the kitten, she fought really hard, and we for her, but it wasn't to be. It felt like I had my heart pulled out and stomped on! It's really hard to loose your hand raises, as you spend so much time with them.

When I told my friend what had happened she text me back and said.......

"Please try not to cry, she was so special that god needed her back!" I thought that this was a very sweet way to put it.
I would like to say a special thank you to Jay, Jan, Nancy and Karren who spent a lot of time helping and comforting me this weekend, I really appreciate how special you all are!

Rest in peace my sweet girl.......(second from the left)

Catch up time......

2008-05-06T06:21:00.000-07:00

Well it's been a busy week, I've been at my mum's rescue helping.......Needless to say I didn't come away empty handed! So without any further a do let me introduce "The Prodigy" AKA Keith, Liam, Leeroy and Maxim (only problem being that we now think that the three completely ginger ones are GIRLS!!!!!) oh, well.
Left to right.... Liam, Leeroy, Keith and Maxim

So anyway the "band" have me up every two hours feeding, so to say I'm tiered is an understatement! They were between 6-12 hours old when they were brought into the rescue, and are now 6 days old. They were found on a builders merchants, under a pile of bricks they were moving. One was dead and the others were very cold! Sadly I don't know what happened to mum.

Next...

An enormous well done to Jay and Stihl who BLITZED grade 5 agility, and won by 2.5 seconds!! So into Grade 6 they go! xxx well done xxx

And just because I hadn't got a group shot of the dogs, I took one today.......

(Note the two naughties who have to be tied in position!! he he Hex and Stihl!)

This weeks Hex video

2008-04-14T06:51:00.001-07:00

My little mate Riot....

2008-04-14T05:53:00.000-07:00

Sadly still no home for Riot, not even much interest.....

He is a really nice dog, but has quite a few quirks at the mo, but even with these I would be really sad to see him go! Anyway to try and help find him the right person I have made him a video.......

The Europeans and last week...

2008-04-14T01:04:00.000-07:00

Oh my god, what a week! Well last Sat' I went to Scunthorpe, drove for hours only to blow out at obstacle number 6 in the Champ! But I did get to run Jay's Kelpie, "Stihl", who was very good and got a 3rd in 5 Agility, and Herbie pulled off a nice 2nd in 7 Jumping, so not a totally bad day! The next day Nancy, Andy and Jan came over to the school and we tried out some FCI style courses (as I had the Europeans try outs this weekend), these were very hard, but we all got some great stuff, and it was good training for me. I had a great morning and it was really good fun. I then spent some time with them teaching push throughs (as I love doing them!). Monday I had a great training session with Herbie, and Tuesday he was even better. Thursday was Hex's lesson. He is coming on really well! I have a video that I need to upload, and will try and do later...... The contacts (truthfully are only about 75% accurate at the mo', but have made a few discoveries with him, IE DON'T SAY GO!!! as he just extends his stride too much!) Then to

Saturday.......

We got up early (4am) and left by 5am as I wanted time to relax and do all the necessary paper work etc. When we arrived the sun was shinning, BUT it was bitterly cold. The course plans were up on a wall, so i had a look (then wished hadn't, as they were suttley trappy!) I love a good twisty course, and just hoped I could hold it together for four rounds?
I have asked Nancy to e-mail me to courses so I can put them on here......

Well first was the jumping, it was quite a small ring so you came up against the next obstacle quite quickly (including the wrong one!). Herbie produced a lovely clear.

Round 1-Jumping

The next three classes were agility, and only if you were in the top 30 dogs after 3 rounds (on points), could you do the last round.

Round 2-Agility

Round 3-Agility

Round 4-Agility

Herbie did two more great agility rounds and at the end of the third round we were in 6th over all.

The last round I just desperately wanted to do with another clear, and we did. Herbie was absolutely fantastic all day, despite his mum's nerves! In the end we qualified 2nd over all as one of the few dogs to do 4/4 clear rounds.

They are taking the top ten dogs (in the large) and an extra 5 wild cards, so we were picked!! YIPPIE!!!!!!!! I am so proud!

This is our team......

Big dogs:
Sarah Osbourne
Leah Gardner
Lee Gibson
Lee Windeatt (Bold)
Greg Derrett
Marc Saunders
Anthony Clarke
Nigel Staines
Alan Bray (Skylar)
Nic and Caleb

Medium:
Gary Cumming
Andrew Sandercock
A lady with a schnauzer (sorry, forgot your name)

Little:
Wendy Fairlamb
Bernadette Bay
Helen Davey-Smith

I also know a couple of the wild cards.....
Dave and Dobby
Katie mitchell
Lisa and Chi

Well done to everybody, I think we're sending some great dogs (but I would say that!)

Any way, this all finished at 6.30pm, and I was meant to be in Carmarthen (for my Grans surprise birthday party, at 7pm!!! NOT A CHANCE!!!!!)At 9.15pm we rolled in to dinner, very hungry (not good at eating when I'm competing!), and tiered.

The next day Jay took some lovely photo's of Herbie (as my mum wanted some on her site) So here they are......

A long awaited Hex Vid!!!!

2008-04-01T15:04:00.001-07:00

Bad weather, rescue dogs and life......

2008-04-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Well I hate to say it, but i whimped out on an agility show!!!! SHOCK HORROR!
The rain was just too much this weekend, and half way to Spring at Shuttleworth Jay and I decided to detour to my mums. I'm really glad I did as she is extremely busy, and fed up at the mo! She has soooo many dogs in. Well the good thing is that I homed 2 dogs to friends this weekend, so at least that is 2 less.
Whilst at my mums, Liza was running a new dogs agility class which was the same things as hex is doing, so we joined in. Well there are two things to note from this (for me!)
1)I hate doing agility in the p*ssing rain!!!!!!
2)my running contacts are cr*p! This one is harsh, but, I thought we just about had it (early days still, but consistent with what I wanted), but this was the first time that Hex has played out doors, and although he was not at all fazed with all the noise of the rescue, new dogs or the rain, he does/did do a different behavior on his contacts than normal. He offered a longer extended stride which meant 3 out of 5 times he either didn't hit the criteria area on the contact, or strode straight over it (ooops). It is something that I'm not hugely worried about, but I will watch as he progresses.
His turns off his contacts are coming on really well, and I'm very pleased with those. His straight line drive is great, and he has a huge love for tunnels!
In class he was introduced to the channel weaves set really far apart, he took this all in his mad stride, and galloped down them to his tuggy!

So back to this week, yet another busy one. On Monday I spent a lot of my day trying to help somebody with a rescue dog they are having problems with. They were very nice, and a very sweet dog, just a case of wrong dog for them, BUT, we spent nearly 4 hours doing stuff, like I taught them how to clicker train etc to try and save the dog it's home. It's now a waiting game, but I dog hope they stick with her, because I do think that they could make it work!
Then I ran Herbie at club, normally I would work Link as well, but as I have the European qualifiers in two weeks, I thought it best to concentrate on Herbie. He was extremly head strong last night, and I felt that I was fighting with him all the time, so we will see how it goes tonight?

Got a couple of private lessons, lots of normal classes, and then Sunny Scunny on Sat. Hopefully the weather will be good.

Hex Pictures

2008-03-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures that I took of Hex today....... Note how he is holding his tail! GOOD BOY!

My birthday!

2008-03-19T08:21:00.000-07:00

Well yesterday was my birthday. It was fairly uneventful, oh except Jason waking me up at 5.45am to open pressy's (he is a big kid about things like that!!!!)

Hex bought me a new set of channel weaves (what a smart puppy!!!!) oh a nd a lovely card of a stunning Black and white collie, and inside it said something along the lines of..... Happy Birthday mum, as you've guessed it is me Hex! This card was meant to have a picture of me on the front, but because I am so ugly I kept breaking the camera! VERY FUNNY JASON!!!! Jay and my family got me a load of art stuff! My dad got me a tripod for my video camera, so I'm going to attempt to tape Hex this week at class (all on my own!) The rest of the day consisted of work, then cleaning the house, training, and then cooking dinner! Luck me!!!!

Jay has said I need to be ready to go out tonight though, so we will see what happens!

Well back to the puppies.......

Link and Herbie both competed at Mid Downs, it felt sooooooo amazing to have them back (then Herbie promptly cut his pad Sunday!!! BLESS HIM!), Link worked at his normal erratic pace, but is jumping better! Herbie was a star as normal, I need to get back into the groove with him, as I lost him on a turn or two! I also ran Mr Murphy at Mid Downs. We had 2/2 eliminations, BUT, he did get all his contacts nicely and he did two great waits! I had real fun with him (thanks Andy), but will really miss running him. Stihl was a star (even with my poor handling!) she came hme with a couple of good places.

Hex worked well in his lesson, but decided to "sheep" his tuggy instead of doing a wait, naughty boy. He is really nice as you can switch him from food to a toy and visa verse, which is much easier than having a dog that will only work for one or the other!

At Mid Downs I gave Karen her picture that she ordered of the lovely "Tinkerbell" (a kitten I hand raised, and she adopted!), it was really nice as she seemed very pleased with it! So anyway here it is........

Well as for the rest of the week, it's filled with teaching and cold weather I think.

Was meant to be camping this weekend, but it all looks too cold now! Hope that Herbie's foot is OK (touch wood it is looking good at the mo!)

The week....

2008-03-10T06:05:00.000-07:00

Well as predicted it was a very busy week! Firstly my boys are up and running!!!!!! It is so great having them back! Scarily Link is just as silly and mad, and Herbie now squeals round an agility course (I do hope it was just initial excitement and not how he intends doing agility!!!)
Hex is still doing great! His wait has improved a lot, especially from doing the new set up, it stops all the fight to get him on side. His dog walk is coming on and is not bad considering he only does it once a week at his class, and on a rare occasion at Nancy's if we have a lesson. It is obviously still set at about 6 inches off the floor so there is a tiny slope in which he can run along. Still no video as Jay is so busy at work, which is a real pain as it is great to have a visual record of what he is doing. Will try and get one this week......

Murphy is still being a good boy, although gets more excited each week, and likes to test what he can get away with (which is NOTHING!) Really looking forward to Mid Downs now, hope I don't let him down!

Saturday I went to Crufts, mainly to watch Nancy (who was absolutely FAB!!!!)Did some shopping, bought Riot a really nice new collar (blingy!) and a couple of tops, it was a really nice day, but very long!

Sunday I had a grade 5-7 training day. I have posted below the course that I set....
We got lots done, they firstly ran the course, then we analysed problem areas, re-did the course a couple of times, worked on weave entries, obstacle discrimination, grid work, pull throughs and course walking! Everybody went home knackered, but with smiles on there faces!

The course.......

FUN, FUN, FUN!!!!!!!!

2008-03-03T05:46:00.000-08:00

Firstly fixed my camera! YIPPIE! Apparently you have to clean these things! oops.
So now I have video evidence of Mr Murphy being really quite good! I went to c-side on Sunday, took Murph and my dogs (to watch). Murphy was really good. I decided to do quite a lot of heal work and bits and bobs to "try" and keep him calm (well as much as he does calm), I was a bit worried he might look for mum and dad, but he didn't (Sorry Andy!)......so here he is. Oh and I would like to add i released him each time!!!!!

Murphy jumping......

Murphy Agility......

Stihl agility (4th).........

Shy agility (6th).......

Sharon and Chip (4th)

Link and Herbie

My boys are doing really well (although it scares me to say incase I'm jinxed), they are getting back into jumping fitness and are loving being able to do agility again. Link appears to have NO wait now, not that it was good before. Herbie appears to be a lot noisier, although I' hoping that this will stop once he believs he will get to do agility again!

Riot

Continues to be naughty, but does show improvment each day! Loved watching agility yesterday, although poor Tiggs nose stuffered (sorry Sharon!)

Hex

Hex is fab! I love doing bits with him so much. So he was not exactly what I envisaged owning (looks wise as i'm a black and white, long coat person!), but he exceeds my expectations daily! He is so smart and loves to play, so will try, and learn anything for his toy! I think he will be a very head strong dog if i'm not careful (he already is!).
There will be a new Vid shortly, as soon as I can get somebody to film him, as sadly Jay is stuck at work at the mo' because it is his busy period at work!

It'll be a busy week as I have a lot of work on at the mo', also a few private lessons. This weekend will be Crufts Sat, so Jay will be left holding the baby (well dogs) GOD HELP US ALL!
And Sunday I have a training day that I'm holding.
Then the following weekend the show season kicks off yippie! I'm really looking forward to seeing everybody, it seems like such a long time ago when I saw them all last.

My poxy camera!

2008-02-26T02:24:00.000-08:00

Well my video camera has died! I'm really fed up as I haven't had it for that long. I will have to take it to somebody and see if they can fix it for me.
Hex has been a great boy this week, his set up rountine is coming along, and his wait is slowly getting more solid. Him and Riot have been NUTS this week, they seem to have found a warp drive. Ri ate through not one but TWO live wires this week. Obviously didn't learn anything as he still tries it if you don't watch him very closely.
We went to the Ashdown forest yesterday, and although it was windy and cold, it was a really nice walk. Hex and Ri did huge circles round us, and Link and Herbie galloped like their lives depended on it. It was so nice to see them all able to gallop freely!

Herbie and Link

Both my boys are at pretty much the same level of returning to agility. They are both now jumping the height below full height, and are doing lots of reps to get them back jumping fit.
They were booked into C-Side this weekend but obviously are not going yet, so I have asked Andy if I can please steal Mr Murph and take him (so it could be very amuzing to watch!!)

Anyway my sister is due round soon, with her mad boxer (who Herbie hates as he sucks up to him all day!) so we will be off for a walk with all the dogs.

Why?

2008-02-19T08:17:00.001-08:00

Today has been very sad at mums rescue, and it gets to me so much when there are so many litters of pups every where. Now this is only my view, and everybody is entitled to there own views, but below are a very small snap shot of the dogs my mum has in at the moment, many are puppy farm dogs that did not get sold, and had a very grim outlook. They didn't get sold because there are not enough homes around. Many people will argue this point and say they didn't get homed because they were puppy farm dogs (not all were!), but I wonder how many people conclusively know where their dog came from? (And what makes a puppy farmer? somebody who who is cruel and keeps their dogs in squalor OR somebody who excessively breeds?) To me it is the later!
Hopefully people wont get too p*ssed off with me, and I'm not anti everybody who breeds, I just think too often it isn't totally thought through. I think there are some wonderful people who do it brilliantly, but on the whole there are too many dogs out there. My vent has mainly been irritated by this poor dog my mum took in today.... Here name is Breeze, and she has come from Ireland, she is only very young, and yet she has already endured so much cruelty!

So anyway I feel I should do my bit so i'm going to add just a couple of agility super stars waiting to be discovered!

14-02-08 "Jump" is one hell of a collie. He has had a rough ride. In November he was at a pound and a rescue picked him up to home. They castrated and tried to home him. Owing to his very busy disposition and his car chasing habits amazingly the rescue returned him to the pound! The pound owners are lovely and just hoped we would come and give him a chance. And of course we did. Jump's behaviour is loving and busy as hell - manic yet desperate to please. He needs to chill out. If he were a person you would swear he was on speed!!! He is way too clever busy and active for most and sadly top agility people choose pups but this guy has the edge of a winner. He has the speed, the desire to play, run and work more than any dog I have met. So I challenge top agility people to take him on. Take him to the top, help train and home him, just give time as a thank you to the dog for all the pleasure he will give you!
To adopt a dog from Many Tears Animal Rescue you will be home checked, you and all members of your family and any dogs who will be living with the dog MUST come to meet the new dog. If you are interest in adopting please call the rescue centre between 10am and 4pm on 01269 843084. We are unable to return phone calls so please try again if your call is not answered or email us at sw.vanatta@virgin.net.

14-02-08 Juxta is an 8 month old extremely friendly and busy collie. He is slate grey in colour and white. An agility home would be right up his street. I don't know if he has ever been a pet before but he would love the chance. He has come from the pound.

So here are a couple and if you feel you could help (even by making a poster for some of the dogs) then please look at the Many Tears web site www.manytears.co.uk

Hex

2008-02-19T07:36:00.000-08:00

Whilst training with Nancy yesterday, we discussed start lines. Hex has always hated been handled too much, and although he is loads better it does set him on edge a bit. Because he likes to face me all the time, to get him in to position for my start line I have to handle him, but then he fidgets, so Nancy suggested a routine which would hopefully work two fold. One it would get his head into a working mind set, and two he would get himself into position, therfore eliminating the hands on stuff. i really liked this idea, for the reasons stated before, but also because Hex loves to work, and becomes fixated very easily so this gets him working with me and having fun from the off!
I have attached a vidoe of what we are working on..... He picked it up really quickly, worked on it for about 10 mins before this vid.

Mad dogs and English men!

2008-02-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Well at least Mad Kelpies and English Women

A few bits to write about firstly the title..... Yesterday I took a very short video of my foster pup "Riot", he is very sweet, but quite a wired little dog to figure out. He is extremely scared in some circumstances, yet completely over the top and manic in mostly everything else!
He loves to play with the other dogs, so here is a clip...... (sorry about 1) the phone ringing and me having a conversation with Jay and 2) how dark it is and how bad I am at videoing, but if I went in the kitchen he stopped!).........

Training and stuff..

2008-02-15T06:50:00.000-08:00

Well no training video this week (booooo!), but poor Jay has been sick in bed for 5 days now. To start I thought it was man flue, but now he has a temp' etc, so it seems he is properly ill!
Hex was really good, continued on with the norm in his puppy class, and today we went to Nancy's today and did some really cool stuuf!
We worked on "Charging" the clicker, this is very important for Hex as he is totally toy motivated, and i'm struggling to get him to focus on anything else when we are not using it! Like everything (oh except behaving!) Hex got this very quickly, and it reminded me how much I should be doing with the clicker as it works so well!
We then worked on him straightening himself up to get on the dogwalk. This was really good, and i'm ashamed to say i've never done this with my other dogs, but whilst thinking through the praticalities of running contacts, it occured to me that 99% of the time he will be doing them on his own, so must be able to get on safely if approaching from an angle.
We did this by placing wings at the bottom of the dogwalk, Nancy held Hex at a slight angle, and I stood astride the dogwalk. I then told him to "walk" and rewarded him for straightening up onto it. We then increased the angles. He was great and got the idea really quickly.

After Nancy tried to kill me (too much running!!!!!) I worked Murphey for 20 mins. He was really good. I worked hard at some of his quirks! I did some steadies, contacts, weave entries and grid work. I used the clicker for most of the lesson, and he responded really well, and did some really nice bits, and some extremly tight turns! I adore running him, and I love the "challenge" of getting consistancy out of him!............ Talking of which, last night was Herbie and Links first step back to agility, they both did 4 mini jumps in a straight. All went well so this will be repeated and slowly up'd. It's really exciting to be able to start doing stuff with them, so fingers crossed.

Sunday I have a training day with Dawn Weaver and Murphey. I'm really looking forward to this...... I will let you know how it goes.

Week 5 and the weekend...

2008-02-12T06:27:00.001-08:00

Well firstly it's been so nice to have some lovely weather finally!

Hex's agility training is coming on so well. He is full of confidence and seems very bright, will normally pick something up after the first go! (Scarry for me as I quite often get it wrong until the 3rd go!) I have included week 5 training below.......

On friday I went for a lovely long walk with Nancy and her dogs. The sun was shining all was great in the world!

On Sat I had a relativly quiet day, catching up on stuff, drawing portraits etc.....

Sunday I was judging at WAG, again it was a beautiful, fairly cold, but the brightest sun shine. Jay and I decided to get up really early and go to the beach before I judged. We walked on the beach for about 45 mins, and the dogs had a great time!

Amanda wanted some footage of her dogs, so her and jay took it in turns to Video each other in the agility, so here are the results.......
Twix

Stihl

Jag

Here are my courses for Sunday.......

Agility

Helter Skelter

Jumping

Shameless!

2008-02-07T02:34:00.001-08:00

Well today I thought that I would go for some shameless advertising! (will scan some other examples to put on asap)

Chafford Pawtraits:

All my drawings are done from your pictures. They can be either pencil or pastel.

I draw all animals not just dogs......

Below are a small selection of what I do. These are all on a black background, but can be done on any colour. These are all in pencil, either white or coloured.....

Costs (for one pictre, unframed):One pet £110, two pets £195, three pets £280

(£10 from every drawing will go to Many Tears Rescue www.freewebs.com/manytearsrescue , where Hex came from)

Please feel free to call 01892 740777 or e-mail leah@anjuagility.co.uk to discuss further requirements.

A hetic weekend.......

2008-02-04T04:55:00.000-08:00

Today I need a rest! I have such a busy weekend.
Saturday morning I was holding a training morning, it went really well and we all had fun, but god it was cold. Then Liza (a friend of mine) and I hot footedit to Nancy's for a lesson. Hex was just brill! I had such good fun, but still I was more tiered than he was at the end. Liza's spaniel went really well, she is a fantastic little dog who was given in to my mums rescue as she is aggresive (so they said!) Actually she smiles!!! (she is the sweetest, most submisive little dog ever!)Below is a vid of Hex working.....

From there I had promised to take out a friend of mine's kids, so we went bowling, at this point I would like to add i won!!!!! (I never win bowling, and Jay loves to remind me)

By the time we got home, we crashed in front of the fire and watched rubbish on TV.

Sunday morning I had part 2 of my training morning (again very cold), from there we piled the dogs into the van and rushed off to an FCI training day, held by Dartford agility club, and trained by Anday and Nancy Hudson. I was lucky enough to run Murphey who was fantastic. Jay ran Stihl who was a star! She was absolutly fabulous on her weave entries!
Murphey tried to test me more this time, and is starting to try and get the measure of me, I think I held my nerve though?

When we got back we were shattered (as i'm sure Andy and Nancy were!)so lit the fire and died on the sofa watching "So you think you can dance?" cringingly funny!! Most can't!!!!

Any way today is a bit quieter, and then teaching tonight. This week shouldn't be too bad, and then i'm judging WAG on Sunday (got to think of a siutably horrible course for Mand! (only joking, my courses are always nice ;)

Holes in my plan!

2008-01-30T08:06:00.000-08:00

Well no sooner do I post my plan, do I find substantial holes in it!

I went training with Hex at Nancy's today. Firstly he was brill, but already there are holes, well grey areas in my training plan.....

1) Do I name the hoop? Not so easy! When Hex runs through it away from the contacts I had been saying "Go", but as Nancy so rightly pointed out does go now mean duck under a hoop? NO, that was not the idea, so from that I have decided not to call the hoop anything, and instead just have it at the bottom of the contact to stop him from jumping or bailing.

2)For my turns off the contacts do I want left and right, or do I want more acute angles, therefore would different words be best? I think I will stick to left and right.

So already that's the training plan amended! (I knew this was a bad idea!).
It was funny when I got to Nancy's as she had already read my blog so knew and remembered more of what I'd said than I did!

Any way back to his lesson.....
We did lots of new stuff, and like a pleb I forgot my Video camera. We focused on straight lines as Nancy observed that Hex is looking at me too much, and not powering forward. We also did the see saw and a really low dog walk. I love going to Nancy as she always can give me something to think about, actually normally loads!...

The see-saw:
Nancy propped either end on a stool so that it didn't move too far. Needless to say Hex didn't think it was at all scary and hit it pretty fast the first few times, and then pretty much full wack the last. We targeted to a blob of squirty cheese at the end, and like a true male, Hex's stomach ruled his head, and he just kept going back round!

The Dogwalk:
I'm especially pleased with the dog walk as Hex (up to now) has only done 1/2 a down plank.
First we started on the down plank propped on a caravan step. We placed the hoop at the bottom, and targeted him to his toy set 4 ft (ish) back. This he did with huge gusto!
Next we put the up ramp onto the stool to effectively create an A-Frame, and we got him running happily over that. Then we put the whole thing up on a baby trellis, and back chained it back.
The first couple of times (from the start) Hex wasn't sure that was the quickest way and bailed out by galloping down the side. But very quickly he got the idea. I was thrilled because he maintained his stride throughout and ran through with a nice low head position.

Well he did a whole hour and I was stupidly hoping he may be tiered, instead he is galloping around with Riot as I write this, oh well here's to hoping!

I have booked another lesson on Sat with Nancy, so will look forward to that (I have also roped in Jay to film it, so especially for Sarah you can see him work in the light!) 'Till then I'd better asses my Criteria again!

Week three training and other stuff...

2008-01-29T07:46:00.000-08:00

Well time seems to be galloping by when it comes to Hex, but standing very still with Link and Herbie. Well maybe that is unfair, they are progressing well, but it just has been such a long time!

We have already had our third agility lesson, and scarily Hex just gets faster. He is quick to learn (must add to training notes!), therefore if I don't have a clear cut idea in my head things could go tit's up very quickly, so I have decided I will put my training plan (if that's what you want to call it) this way it will make me stick to it.

Here is week three's video (will try and get Jay to film contacts from the front next time)

So to the training plan/ideas:

What do I want eventually?

1) A confident, happy dog (excellent already there! he he )
2) Independent obstacle performances IE can complete the weaves on his own, or do the contacts to the criteria set.
3) Speed (another tick!)
4) Control (This maybe harder)
5) Excellent directional commands
6) Tight turns
7) A good understanding of jumping (not like Link)
8) Obstacle discrimination

Super loads of work.......

Criteria:

This is harder.... I have decided (after much to-ing and fro-ing) that I want to teach Hex a running contact ( I'm sure I will live to regret this!), so I guess the first step is to set criteria?

what I will aim for.......

1) A low head position
2) Not to break stride across the contacts (although I will teach a stop see-saw)
3) A set hit zone (IE where on the contact he must hit)
4) Front feet hit. I decided this as I feel if he is allowed to hit with any foot on any point of the contact it will be very hit and miss, where as if he has to hit within a hit zone, with his front feet only, it should create a much more accurate behavior (hopefully).
5) Tight turns off contacts, or a good send on

So to be able to run (and not get eliminated constantly) I must teach Hex good obstacle discrimination and accurate left and rights.

I plan to do a lot of grid work with him, so he understands how to jump, and can see a stride.

Well I've probably forgotten loads, but if I have I will update it later!

So back to today. I went for a lovely walk this morning, it's really nice as Link and Herbie are able to come again, even though they can't go mad. It was beautiful and sunny, and by the time I got back I was boiling. The dogs had a great time playing chase, and delving through the under growth. By the time we got in they were all pooped, and have been flat out.
I have had to wait in all afternoon for the chimney sweep (who still hasn't been!) as yesterday Jay kindly lit the fire in the morning (as this is the only heating for the whole house), and by the time I got back from work the house was filled with smoke, so anyway I hope they turn up soon, as it is getting cold and I can't light the fire!
Tonight we have training with Nancy and Andy, I can't wait as I get to run the wonderful Murph. Then tomorrow I have the dentist (yuck!) and then a lesson with Hex at Nancy's, so we are looking forward to that. Thurs and Fri are full of agility lessons and then Sat and Sun morning I have an agility clinic, which I am holding, after that on Sunday afternoon I have an FCI training day, which will be great, so all in all a pretty busy week!

Thanks a lot Bernadette!

2008-01-24T06:01:00.000-08:00

Well it was back to training with Nancy and Andy on Tues. Had a great lesson! "You have no dogs!" I hear you all cry. Well thanks to Andy's generosity I got to run the wonderful Murph! Oh my god, I love running him, he is like a finner build Link. He is great fun, and so quick I have no time to think, I dare say that Nancy will tell me off for saying such wonderful things about the "wig"!

Any way back to the thanks a lot Bernadette.......

When people put up on their blogs puke inducing exercises, they should bear in mind us poor mortals, especially those who are borrowing very quick dogs!
After about 2 attempts of the "wing spin", my legs were like jelly and the sick was rising quickly. (he he he) No really this was actually a hard exercise, especially to get tight and tidy. I'm sure that had I done it with Herbie, he would flick out to the opposite wing as he always likes to turn away from me. So as soon as we are back training this will be a great exercise to try. I dare say my lot will have to try this tonight and tomorrow.

In all seriousness I love looking at courses and exercises, therefore can you all put more on please? :)

Hex has got his 3rd lesson tonight, can't wait. I am really enjoying running/training him. Was thinking I should really write down a training plan for him... all the things I didn't do/teach to my others. Now the question is should I be a fool and post it on here, so in a years time you can all say "you said you were going to teach him that" etc, or should I wimp out and keep it to myself? (I know what I should do and what I want to do, they are very different!!!)

Past times

2008-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

(left to right.... Herbie, Link, Shy and Reaga)

I was just adding some bits when I found this lovely photo of my collies (before I lost Reaga, and before Hex came), just had to share it even though it makes me sad and happy at the same time!

Week 2 of hex's lessons and other stuff.

2008-01-22T07:53:00.000-08:00

Well already we have done our 2nd lesson. Hex has now found a new enthusiasm for agility (if that is possible with an already MAD merle!). We are having great fun in our lessons, although I can see that my "wait" could slip fairly quickly, so as you can see in the vid, I do not allow the slightest foot movement, hopefully it will sink in?

At the weekend we went to Ribble. I really like this show, but have to admit I found it quite hard not to run a dog (as my two are still off). Jay did well, he handled Stihl really nicely, and finally didn't allow any creeping on the start line, subsequently he had brill waits all day!
Shy found a new speed (not bad for an 8yr old dog!), and got placed in each of her classes.
I spent my time getting Hex to focus on me whilst there is a lot going on (which he did really well!) and doing some waits outside the rings (again he was very good!).

Whilst we were at Ribble I got a lot of comments like "what's happened to your dog, he is so ugly now!", quite harsh I feel, I know I'm the first to say he is an ugly duckling, but he is my dog so that is OK, felt quite bad for him by the end of the day, if his tail would stay down he'd look great, oh well.

So anyway we are back to training at Hilders Farm tonight, I will take Hex and work some more on his waits whilst I watch.

Link and Herbie's feet seem to be getting better, we even got to go for a beautiful walk on the Ashdown forest on Sun, they both had to stay on the lead, but it was nice seeing them out again! If they continue to do well hopefully they will be back competing around March time.

Bloody rain!!!!!!!!!

2008-01-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

After all this rain (which is coming in through my door!!!!), the river outside our house is just about to completely flood!It isn't as bad as poor Andy and Nancy Hudson, it is just about to come into thier house! Any way i have attached a quick Vid, but whilst making it, it has completly flooded!

Good and Bad!

2008-01-11T14:14:00.001-08:00

Well it's been a really mixed week......
Firstly the bad,
Herbie injured his toe a while ago, thankfully it healed really well and we were back working, all going well etc. I decided that before the agility season kicked off I would re-x ray his toe just for piece of mind, to know it healed correctly. Well it had, BUT the problem now was that he was developing chronic arthritis, so the only thing to do was to take away the problem, which was a tiny piece of bone. So the long and short of it is that Herbie is off work now until the end of Feb (boooooo).
The good,
Hex had his first pre-agility puppy class. He was fantastic! He is so fast and so quick; I already struggle to keep up (oops!)
Any way it is really nice as 3 out of the 6 pups in the class are Many Tears Rescue dogs! They all look like they are going to be great as well, a good reason to get a rescue puppy/dog.

Jason kindly recorded the class, so I have put together a vid. Hope you enjoy!

Hex at 5 1/2 mths

2008-01-06T03:40:00.000-08:00

Here is a little video of how Hex is coming along.....

Two blogs in two days......

2008-01-05T14:25:00.000-08:00

A few people have asked me for a video of Hex so here goes...... I will do an updated one tom'.......

Olympia and stuff.......

2008-01-04T04:49:00.000-08:00

Well yet again I've managed to let my blog slip! But I do have good reason, I have had really bad flue for a week and a half now, which has now progressed in to Bronchitis (great!)
Well the dogs are great, Herbie recovered and we went to Olympia (see below), and Link has now had his pins removed and is starting to use his foot again. The vet seemed very pleased with his progress, and hoped he will be able to do agility again some time soonish!!!

Olympia

Well we got there despite many problems along the way. It is obviously a very special place to get to and the atmosphere is second to none, but I was especially lucky that my mum took time out of her extremely busy rescue to come and watch me, I also had Jay, my gran, my sister and her boyfriend and one of my best friends, who could ask for better supporters?

Well the morning started with my normal "I want to throw up!", that didn't really stop, but I did slowly calm down once I saw Sharon and other friends.
Once we got going I started to feel better, for me Olympia's running order was a who's who of agility, and then there was me!!! I had no expectations of getting through to the evening, but was just thrilled to be there.
This year if you managed to get through to the top ten in Olympia then you get an invite to try out for the European Opens (which I would love to do!), so that would have been my ultimate goal, but I had resided my self to not going!

Any way Herbie and I ran 6th, personally I didn't like this running order, as you have no idea what you need to do, so you have to go all out, so that is what we did. I have to say that I think that this first run was possibly one of the best that Herbie and I have ever done, it just felt great!
When we ran we were the first to go clear, and 24 dogs latter we only dropped 3 places. I was ecstatic!!!!! Not only did we get to the final, but we also got an invite to the European Opens!

Well the final maybe didn't go as well, I let Herbie getaway with a bit of a creep at the start, and he knocked the first jump (which is totally unlike him!), I also under worked my dogwalk, and he left it a little early, BUT, I have to say that I had an amazing day no matter what!

Below is the video of the day, kindly taken by Jay. x

Other stuff

We still have Riot my foster pup, he is quite mad, and very noisy! I enjoy having him, but not quite as much as Hex!

Hex starts his agility lessons next week (well pre-pup training!) I can't wait. He is an extremely smart pup and just loves to learn, whatever I ask of him he soaks up! Sadly he still looks like an over grown JR, but maybe his like the ugly duckling? We can only hope!
I will get some more photos of him soon.
Well I think I'll get back to dying for now........

Was never good at keeping a Diary!

2007-12-13T04:33:00.000-08:00

Well as stated I have never been good at keeping a diary so i'm going to do a mass update........ Mainly because Sharon always moans she has nothing to read durring the day!!!!!!

Hex is now 19 weeks and looks more like a JR than ever!

This is him last week......

Here is a slide show of how he is growing up......

Hex went through a stage of being extremly aggresive to me, other people, dogs, pretty much anything he could get his teath into! He seems to have stopped this now, but it has taken a lot of work to get here.

Here he is with his DEVIL ears on!!

As far as the rest of my dogs, i'm going through a bad stage........ Link had a table fall on his back foot and has totally smashed it, he is pinned and bandaged and has an extremly long road ahead of him!

Herbie is recovering froman injury sustained at home some how, so fingers crossed will be ok!

Olympia is a week and half away so it'll be a tense time..........