My poxy camera!

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?

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

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!

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..

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...

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!

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.......

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 ;)