Hot hot hot!!!

Today has been so hot! The first really hot day of the year. Far too hot to start mowing the lawn unfortunately so it is still looking like a jungle, but that is top of my list for tomorrow!! We actually waited to walk the dogs until the evening as it was cooler.

I must admit it is nice having a weekend off!!

May GSD

Wow what a fantastic weekend of agility we had weather wise! It was a scorcher!! But there was a nice breeze for the dogs, meaning I wasn't worrying too much about them overheating. All in all perfect agility conditions!! This was one of the nicest shows I have done. Not because of the agility, or the actual show itself, but just due to the company we had whilst we were there. Each day we set up a little camp in the corner, right near the ring so we could watch :) We took our gas cooker up with us and made bacon and egg rolls for lunch each day! Sitting in the sun watching agility, followed by a bacon rolls and ice cream. Bliss!

Agility wise we didn't have the best weekend. Smudge had some good places in Small G1-7 jumping classes. But results aside I didn’t feel any of our runs were our personal best and I didn’t feel any of them did us justice. They were pretty messy and some turns were ridiculously wide, and I just didn't feel we were our usual team. I didn't do much videoing (really must get in the habit) but I did get this jumping. I was soooooo annoyed with myself over this, as I pulled him around that jump by curving away too soon. He is so responsive to my body language that of course he came with me, just as I would want! The rest of it was ok, although i'm not keen on my handling in places!

The agility runs were a different story altogether and were truly awful in my opinion. Unfortunately I seem to have let what happened last weekend get to me. I really tried not to, but I was so nervous that trying to maintain my criteria on the contacts would be seen as training that Smudge was given licence to comletely fly them. Then the briefing stated no training in the ring please, so that made me even worse!! By the third day I was getting really stressed about it all, and ended up doing the sensible thing and not running in the agility. I didn't see the point of running feeling the way I did and knowing I was just compounding the problem.

So I have a fresh challenge!! I think Smudge still releases slightly on my body language and not on verbal alone. So I have decided to go back to basics for a bit and am going to start working with the target on the flat again, and trying to really challenge him to stay holding that target come hell or high water! I am disappointed as I really thought the work we had done throughout the winter would hold in the ring, but it clearly isn’t. I have also decided that I need to toughen up slightly. I am annoyed that I let other people make me feel like that, which in turn I allowed to affect my dog and our partnership. Big lesson learnt over this I feel.

Paul did much better and was fairly consistent over the weekend. His highest placing was a 2nd in the Large G1-7 Jumping, so he was pleased with that. He also won the club trophy for best crossbreed which he was pleased with (very dodgy trophy though - think the see saw is an exact replica of how it looked after he had ran it with Georgia - basically in bits :) - see post below!)

A special mention must also go to Georgia and Obi who won the trophy for the best Starter Dog. As I mentioned in a previous post they haven't been doing agility for very long, but I can see great things ahead for them. They work so hard, and take on board absolutely everything that they are told. I love seeing people getting the recognition they deserve and Georgia's face was a picture when they called her name!! A massive difference considering at the start of the year she was considering giving up agility and taking up knitting as she never thought she would be any good! :)

So now we have two weekends off before Thames. Going to use them to finally tackle the jungle that is supposedly a garden and start sorting out the mountain of things that pile up whilst you are away from the real world doing agilty!!

Oooops!!

A full update of the events from today will follow, but for now I just had to put this on. Our friend Georgia normally runs a lovely spaniel called Obi. Today she ran Scooby in the gamblers - and this was the very hilarious result!!



You can't hear it on the video, but Georgia actually apologised to Scooby as she got up! Haha! And as she came across the finish all she could say was "oh my god he is fun" :) I think Scooby had the time of his life, he was airborn off that see saw!

I should point out that Georgia hasn't been doing agility for very long, so I think she did brilliantly to get him round as well as she did!! Despite the unexpected flight they came 5th. The judge found it really quite funny that Scooby carried on collecting points whilst Georgia was lying on the floor :)

Thanks Georgia for running him! Thank god you were ok! I bet Obi feels positively calm now! And thanks to her brother Frankie for editing the video - no brotherly loyalty shown there then!

Power Harness!!

And now for something far nicer!

So far I have been very restrained and had resisted succumbing to 'power harness fever'. But this week my resolve waned and I am afraid that the Macfarlane Dogs are now the proud owners of some very fetching new harnesses, as modelled below.

My justification for this purchase came from the fact that Smudges previous fleecy harness was the sad victim of a Mannix attack and didn't live to tell the tale! So obviously a new harness was required, and I felt an upgrade was warranted.

And if I was buying one, may as well make it worthwhile and buy three!!

I really love them!! They are so nice and light, and seem to be very comfortable to wear. Scooby and Mannix even have their own torch holders on the side (will come in very handy when they go on their late night relief missions at shows! No more fumbling for a bag and torch!) Smudges doesn’t have a torch holder as he is a bit on the small side and would have been walking like a hunchback I fear!! Maisie doesn’t have one at all, as she really isn't keen on harnesses full stop and has only just really accepted that her nice pink fleecy one isn’t going to kill her. So I'm not rocking the boat. She likes it, so we will stick with it!!

This weekend

So another full weekend of agility. First the good....Smudge was a fab boy as usual and got four 1st places over the course of the weekend. Little Maisie was also running well and managed to get a 2nd! I was so pleased for her. The (not so) old girl still has it at times!

Warning - moaning post is coming so please stop reading right now if you want to avoid it!

And now the bad.........firstly in my opinion (and I may have been wrong so please don't shoot me down in flames those who ran them well) there were a few questionable tyre positions on a couple of the courses. One this morning in particular. The tyre had been placed directly after a sharp turn, and most of the big dogs were finding it almost impossible to straighten up to take it safely. Scared the life out of me watching that class! I was contemplating how to run it with Smudge, and was considering stopping at that point, but I didn't even get that far anyway! The reason why I will move on to in a minute. Tyres scare me at the best of times, but when they are in certain positions it makes it even worse!

Secondly, why do people bother to have dogs when they are so flipping impatient and quite frankly horrible to them!? Surely no one enjoys screaming, shouting, and generally moaning at them all the time? It really upsets me to see it and I find it very difficult to hold my tongue! On more than one occasion this weekend I witnessed less than desirable behaviour from handlers both in and out of the ring. I saw people visibly blaming their dogs for faults when they left the ring (ummm have they ever considered that perhaps it was their training? Heavens no, how dare I suggest that? They are obviously perfect and the dogs are clearly stupid ;-) Not!!) I also saw one person 'correcting' their dog for pulling, with a nice yank of the lead that almost had the poor dog off all four paws. How pleasant. And this was all just the tip of the iceberg really. For some reason this weekend seemed to be particularly bad for it, and as the show was fairly small it was all the more visible so noticing it was almost unavoidable. I'm not stupid, I know there are many people that train like this, but so many incidents in two days made it very sad to see :-(

And lastly, the reason I did not make it to the tyre! I had already left the ring by that point. I was not allowed to replace my dog on a contact, even if I left the ring directly afterwards. So I left anyway and decided not to run my other agility run that day. I had absolutely no problem with this, it is complete judges discretion which I fully respect and appreciate. What upset me was that I was the only one not allowed to!!!! I asked politely (as I always do) if I could replace my dog and leave the ring and was told in no uncertain terms no. Up to that point I had run as normal and had not done any other obstacle more than once. But people that ran after me were allowed to do exactly that and did the obstacle twice with their dogs!?! The reason I was given was that it would have taken too much time. Ok so why were others allowed to do it then? And why were dogs who struggled to jump full height allowed to run again at a lower height, taking extra time? And why were dogs allowed to run NFC with a toy? And dogs running out of order? None of that was in the show rules so why do the rules apply so stringently to me, but not to everyone else? And not replacing your dog on a contact isn't even technically a 'rule' per se. The one thing that I can't stand is unfairness, and today it really seemed that I was being treated differently. I was also told 'well this judge is a championship judge' - I don't care who they are, judging should be consistent throughout a class regardless shouldn't it? And it is NOT a championship class, it is a flamin local show! Fine if they want to apply those rules so strictly, but do it to everyone!! I have never been so upset or mad. Wish I hadn't even bothered to ask now and had just done it, but I'm too polite! Incidentally I have no problem with the people who did get to do different things, I think that was great, just couldn't understand why I couldn't do something so tiny!

Eventually I came to the conclusion that some people just let power go to their head. Very sad, but there it is. Just because someone judges to a certain standard it does not make them better than anyone else and rather than being angry, I just felt quite sorry for them really. I already had my reservations about this person after they gave some less than positive advice to Paul once, and this just confirmed my opinion. What a shame they felt the need to be like that. I'm sure they have a different version of events, but I couldn't see it any other way.

So all in all, not an enjoyable weekend for me. And no video because I was too mad!

P.S Have just read my post back - hmmm think everyone might just sense I was upset :-) I have vented.......so now, onwards and upwards.

Liberation Day

The 9th of May is always a public holiday in Jersey, as it is the anniversary of the liberation of the island from occupying forces in WW2, after 5 years of occupation. Every year there are all sorts of activities going on to celebrate the event. This year we decided to go to the steam fair and took Smudge along with us for a day out. Its a lovely place to visit as they have an old working steam engine that you can ride on (yes even dogs!). They also have a museam that is a real trip down memory lane, full of all sorts of toys, household items, and literally every nostalgic item you can think of! Its a real hotch potch collection!! (although I drew the line at the agricultural machinery! There are only so many tractor parts a girl can take) So here are the pictures.


This is my young cousin - who just loves Smudge!


Waiting for the steam train (notice Smudge was sporting his very patriotic red, white and blue lead for the occasion)


My gran and I, from whom I inherited my love of animals.

We also had a good find on one of the stalls there - a perfect wobble board!! I have looked at the proper excercise wobble boards before, but I refuse to pay full price for them. Up until now we have been using a home made one, carefully crafted by Paul. But we found a great one today, with adjustable height settings and a non slip surface, for 2 pounds. I can use this for my puppy class now! Bargain!

Finally, just because he doesn't get much blog coverage, here is our handsome cat Vinny.

Vinny and Mannix love to play together, and we got some fantastic pictures earlier today in the garden.





This was our last free Saturday for a while, as we go into pretty much full on agility shows every weekend after this. Can't wait! Unfortunately the injury to his foot that Paul had has turned out to be a torn tendon :-( He has been told it could take two weeks, or two months to heal. We are hoping for the two weeks!! Such a shame that he is taken out of action right now. Looks like he definetely won't be running next weekend, and after that he will have to take it day by day. What bad timing!! Looks like I might be running Scooby more than I thought!

Jersey Agility Festival 2009

What a fabulous weekend of agility we have had!! This is one of my favourite shows of the year. May is a good month for agility in the island, as we have three of our biggest shows, the Agility Festival being the first. Lots of UK and European handlers come over and stay for a few of them. This is great as it gives us excellent competition on our home turf!!

I was really pleased with Smudge. He performed consistently well against some very tough competition, as all the small classes were Grades 1-7 and there were some really good dogs in there! Overall Smudge had five first places, and gathered enough points to qualify for the Jersey Agility Dog of the Year final. Not bad considering he is still so young. So here are the videos. Some good - and some not so good!!

First the pairs. Smudge was paired with an excellent little sheltie called Troy from Holland. On paper it was a dream team but unfortunately it wasn't meant to be!



Small G1-7 Jumping - 2nd in this class. Something bizarre happening on the start line here, didn't feel I had his full attention.



Small G1-7 Helter Skelter. A nice, easy, fast blast which finished off the weekend well! 1st!



And lastly the final. I'm happy that we went clear, but that enormously wide turn on no 2 cost us dearly! I didn't cue in time and the result is that Smudge turned like a tanker. I also pushed those contacts WAY too much :-/. They had been great all weekend, but I released so early in the final it was BAD!! Pleased with the weaves though - very fast! We finished in 2nd, with a time very close to the winner, who was a fantastic European dog that I just loved to watch! If only that turn had been just a bit tighter! :-) It has given me great renewed enthusiasm for the future!



All in all I have been so pleased with Smudge. He has done everything that I have asked of him and more. Wish I had more on video really! An excellent start to the season. Roll on next weekend and the Paws show!

Maisie did a couple of runs, and I'm pleased to say that she is seeming to be feeling much better again. She had the time of her life, mainly doing tunnels when she wasn't supposed to!! All that mattered was that she enjoyed herself and seemed healthy - and she did!

Paul is suffering with an injury to the tendon in his foot, and so running Scooby was not really very sensible. He did run yesterday (against all the advice :-/) and had a few 'nearly' runs, with just a pole in each, and then a 1st in his agility.

Here is a short photo montage of our dogs, and some of friends at the weekend. Enjoy!

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