It can be frustrating when your dog cannot go for walks, perhaps due to injury or recovering from an operation such as castration, or perhaps you have a bitch in season and are therefore keeping her to on lead walks … Continue reading
So today I sit here with a cup of tea, watching videos of WAO on youtube and thinking about what a fabulous day I had there on Friday. World Agility Opens in England?! How could I miss on the opportunity to go. … Continue reading
For a while now there have been calls and campaigns for a 4th height to be added to Kennel Club (KC) agility. To briefly explain, at the moment there are three jump heights in KC agility; Small, Medium & Large. … Continue reading
This weekend we made our proper Kennel Club return, 8 runs across two days, we were officially back since the injury. Saturday started off amazing! I won’t go in to too much detail as if you’ve watched my vlog from … Continue reading
I sit here, at 8.30pm, waiting for Ash to arrive back from Belgium. As the ferry has only just landed in Dover, it’s going to be a long night!
Today was TAG at Uttoxeter Racecourse. 40 minute journey away? Luxury!
Out of the house late (a bad habit I must get out of) but we still arrived on time. Entry numbers looked low and there were 5 rings, but as I pulled through the gates the view that greeted me was amazing! Floods of caravans as far as I could see. Surely there could not be this many people entered?! I later found out that they were here for another event. We had great fun trying to identify all of the different countries flags on display!
First up, Grade 1-2 Agility. It was simple enough with front cross/rear cross opportunities, but then towards the end, tunnel – long jump – 12 weaves. A mere four to five paces from the long jump to the weaves. Crap. Yes he should get it surely, but it certainly wasn’t “easy” for newbies.
As I headed to fetch Guinness, walking towards me were two lovely friends from Dig It, Gwynneth and Diane! They haven’t been to a show for a long time and it was lovely to see them. We spent most of the day together.
I’d opted for a new tactic today, keep calm, feed in the queue for stillness, and go into the ring off lead. The start line nicely reached outside of the ring so I was able to get Guinness into position and treat. Technically not breaking rules (I hope). My plan is to fade out the need for treats. Into a calm wait I stepped a few paces away, looked at Guinness, and released. We went well, rear crossing the aframe and the tunnel. I tried my best to show him the weaves but he blasted out of the tunnel and over the long jump and was halfway past the weaves before he noticed. Three failed attempts and we never completed them.
Our next runs weren’t until after lunch and I enjoyed the morning watching agility and chatting with friends. The exercise arena was huge, following the curve of the racecourse, and we had a lovely group walk with four dogs between three of us.
As lunch came to a close I found myself with three courses to walk! Collie mania, all rings were on large!
We ran G1-3 Agility first. A nice course with some little bits of gentle handling. I decided to rear cross the weaves, we can do it and sometimes it actually helps Guinness to push on through them. He didn’t see the weaves and instead headed for the seesaw and then we were too close. I brought him back and sent him in. Nailed it! Only 5R. A lovely run! A little relaxed on my behalf, but we felt calm and smooth and connected! This is what we need! Speed and difficulty can come later. Plus it’s not like he’s a slug.
As we came out of the ring, Combined 1-4 Jumping was calling to the end so we ran up there, back into the same ring as this mornings Agility. Just as I was getting Guinness on the line the lady scriming said “Ruth will you please please please try to get the weaves, we’re so bored of watching dogs fail”. “Remember what Grade this is!” I chuckled back. The comment hadn’t offended me at all, but I wouldn’t wish it on a nervous competitor about to do their first run of their first show. We nailed our weave entry but popped out at about 9 and Guinness was over a jump and into the tunnel before I had even said “whoopsie”. We tried again, no good. “That’s your fault” I shouted at the scrimer jokingly. As I told my friends and heard their reaction I realised how thoughtless the comment had been, plus the fact that the G1-2 Agility from this morning had produced a grand total of zero clear runs.
Last up, Combined 1-3 Jumping. The start line had loads of room and again I was able to set Guinness up and treat outside of the ring and then shuffle him off lead into the ring. I felt cool, relaxed and confident and slowly walked out right up to Jump 3. Lets rock n roll. What a wait!! Plus a fantastic front cross. Then it all ended at the weaves. A straight entry with room but Guinness went in at pole 2. I took him right back, wrong entry again. Back again and into a down. 2nd pole again. Last attempt, a tight wrap around my leg, wrong entry. What is going on Guinness?! My thoughts raced from potential injuries to eyesight issues to discomfort to lack of entry training. Hmmmmm.
But what a wait! Woo I’ll take that over weaves (for now). “You were so cool and confident” I was told. I do seem to be walking with Swag on the video haha. Love it. Now that is the wait I have dreamt of! Today I started to make it a reality.
I hung around for a little while after the G1-3 Agility had finished, wanting to check if there was any chance of placement despite faults. After almost an hour it was time to go home.
I’m feeling much more positive! A little concerned about our weaves, we definitely need to go and look at that. But what great waits! Yes they are something that we should have had from the beginning and something we should have never lost. But by gum the joy from working through a problem and making progress is far more satisfying than having them from the start.
Onto Adams next Saturday and Sunday. That’s gonna be a busy show!
10.30pm now, only 4 more hours or so to go!
My first trip to Catton Hall! (Does that make me a proper agility competitor now). It was a wet one! I had a late night and then was up from 2am to 3am with the HUMONGOUS thunder-storm, and then up at 6am for the show.
Waterproofs on! Today I discovered that my football boots are not waterproof, and it wasn’t until I reached the show that I remembered I had some sealskin waterproof socks at home! Numpty.
First up was Combined 1-3 Agility. I’d already decided I was going to run start and off we went. A lovely stop dog walk and then a nice wing wrap with the pole still intact. I pushed him for a distance send into the tunnel while moving into position but he pulled back towards me and then started straying toward the wrong end! Oh no. I pulled him back further and re-sent him in and saw the Judge mark a refusal. Darn. Nice six weaves and finished! My mistake, I should have watched and made sure he was committed before moving away, plus one more step forward would have been all the difference. Never mind.
I was all alone so there are no videos of any of my runs this time.
Back to the car to chill out and I popped Adam FM on the radio. I wasn’t sure what it was and there was some music playing and then all of a sudden an announcement came through the radio!! OH MY GOD!! I may be easily impressed, but I think this is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING! I could sit in my car and keep track with what each ring is doing. People can be in their caravans and know where their ring is up to. WOW. Mega impressed. Just as I was starting to worry I’d need a push start to get home I remembered my wind up radio/torch that I always have in my car. Voila! I knew it’d come in useful one day.
Onto Combined Jumping 1-2 and I stood at the start line looking up a line of 6 jumps across the diagonals. All with just about 4 metres in between.
Looking from number 7, the tunnel, to the start line.
This song popped into my head straight away! I think I know what the soundtrack to my next agility video will be!
There was a nice big start area and only me in the queue when I arrived so I got Guinness happily tugging. The scrimer gave some tickets out to the next few people who had arrived before sitting down to mark my run which gave me more time to tug and get Guinness really revved up. I left him in a down and set off. He waited. I only took a few steps and then released. Brilliant! I raced ahead and didn’t watch him but we had no poles down on the first stretch! I wish I could have filmed it to have looked at his jumping. We fluffed a front cross and the pole dropped and then onto weaves and he made a beeline for the tunnel after only 5! Let’s try again… no out at 5 again. Third and final time, out at 5!! Time to get out of the ring.
With the rain still bucketing down Grade 1-4 Jumping was soon ready for walking, today was going great with hardly any waiting around! As I walked it there was a lot of murmurs. “Ooh that’s hard”. “This isn’t very nice for Grade 1s!”. “More like Grade 5”. I liked it! I liked it from the moment I started walking it. Yes it had tricky bits, but do-able tricky bits. Maybe because I’ve been training way out of my grade at Dig It. Ironic as we couldn’t even win out of Grade 1 until last month, but it certainly has helped with our confidence and Guinness’ drive and ability. I walked it with a Ketchup (Ketschker) turn in mind. I’ve done them in training but not for a while. I think they have their place. But I’m still not sure why I was even considering doing it. I thought it would help create a tight wing wrap and open up the weave entry as I wouldn’t be blocking his sight of the weaves. However only the other day I had decided to be consistent and work on basic foundation handling skills with Guinness; building up our drive, flow and smoothness around courses rather than adding in new manoeuvres and new rules.
We started with a wait. He wasn’t tugging but went down and I felt more confident that he was going to wait. As I took a few steps forward he stood up and stalked forward and then went down again on command and waited. I don’t mind so much if he is breaking to run over the jump, it’s when he breaks to circle and bark at me that is frustrating. From the wait I was in the perfect position for the ketchup…. I stopped by the wing with my “correct” arm sending him over… he stopped and looked at me. Why was I stood still at the wing with my back to the jump! After what felt like a minute Guinness took the jump, wing wrapped correctly and then missed his weave entry, getting in at the second gap. So much for opening up the weaves! I was kicking myself. 11 weaves and sod it I’d had enough. We went on to do the tricky section nicely and I’m generally pleased with my handling. But what a stupid decision to make.
With only one class left I was listening to the ring waiting for them to announce that the course would be walked and would restart after lunch (it was already 1pm). To my surprise they said the ring would not stop for lunch. I walked it, a little unsure about some sections but pleased with my choices. I went for another run start and sprinted after Guinness as he powered over the dog walk. A quick front cross at the tunnel to a sharp turn and a sudden jump and he ran past the wing for a refusal. ARGH. I think I’d babied the turn from the tunnel and was in his way. Dammit. 12 weaves and he pushed right to the end beautifully. Typical. The rest was great!
I came out and saw Vanessa and she complemented our run. It had been good, just bitterly disappointing. That would have been our ticket to Grade 3! I decided to wait for the results as all of the classes were coming to a close and I sat with Guinness ringside and chatted to Vanessa and her husband. She is a new Dig It Instructor that has moved from America. She’s amazing! It was so lovely to get to know her a little bit better.
The results came and I hadn’t been placed which was expected. Grade 2 Agility only had 2 placements.
It was only 3.30pm and time to go home! This car parked near to me did make me chuckle… a little over-optimistic I think!! (Although the sun broke through for about 20 minutes and was directly on the windscreen).
Muddy, damp and absolutely knacked I pressed the wrong button on the Sat Nav and before I had chance to realise I was on the M6 Toll. Bye bye £4.80! Never mind, it was a nice quick blast down the M6 rather than the windy lanes and the bumpy A50.
Home for half 4 and enough time for a lovely bubble bath before tea. It’s been a great day with some fantastic runs! What an improvement to Dog Vegas! I look forward to being back at Catton Hall soon.
Success. The topic of this Dog Agility Blogger Action Day. Success is broad, it covers so much. Success that your dog is fit and healthy. Success that your dog managed to queue without being upset by another dog. Success that your dog came out of that run safely, free from injury. Success that you remembered the course!
The first thing I think about when I think of success, is taking a success from every run. Whenever I write blogs about our shows, (especially when I write about our many Eliminations), I always try to find a positive from every run. Something that we did well. Something that was an improvement. That is my success. It was a success to complete 12 weaves poles. It was a success to get a good stop dog walk contact. It was a success that Guinness waited on the start line. It was a success that we did a nice tight wing wrap. It was a success that we queued calmly.
But success proceeds much further than each individual run. Each show. Each result. Success comes in training. What is your success rate?! How many times was that behaviour completed correctly? It’s an important tool for dog training programs. Did your dog sit when asked 9/10 times. A success rate of 90%!
Dog agility is a human-selfish sport. If we never did agility again and instead allowed our dogs a good run through the woods twice a day, would they miss the agility? I reckon not. Although agility gives us the drive to train our dogs and the means to physically and mentally stimulate them, that can be done without agility. Therefore the biggest success for me is that my dog is fit, healthy and happy. Every time we do a training session, every show we visit and every run we do, I have succeeded if Guinness is happy.
However winning is definitely a very favourable success as well!
Read about what other agility bloggers consider Success as they upload their posts throughout the day: http://dogagilityblogevents.wordpress.com/success/
This weekend I sacrificed a day at Sutton Weaves UKA to work on my APDT assignments, a good decision as it needs to be done soon, plus I had Dig It’s Club Competition on Friday night and Can You Dig It today.
I offered to Judge as they were struggling to find people and got off lightly, only needing to do Intermediate and Advanced Agility, which ran the same course.
I was judging in the afternoon so we started the morning straight away with Intermediate Jumping. I had plenty of time to get Guinness warmed up and we were the first to the ring, Guinness tugging nicely. It turned out there were only three of us entered in Large Intermediate so I had no worries with queuing. Into the ring with some great tugging and I unclipped his lead and he kept tugging.
We’re struggling with letting go of the toy once he is tugging at the moment, which makes a change! I love Guinness, when we “solve” one “problem” he always throws something else at me. Never a dull moment!
He went into a down and release the toy and then I moved into the start position I wanted and called him to in between my feet. My perfect start line! (Although a quicker drop of the toy would be better). It was a nice simple Jumping course with only 8 jumps and some tight handling as well as blasty sections. The first 3 jumps to the tunnel were a tricky spacing and angle and Guinness bombed over number 3 and knocked the wing and jump flying. Unfortunately we had to go back over that jump twice more so I just aimed Guinness at the pole and he found his way in between the wings. What I should have done is popped Guinness in a down, stood the jump back up and then carried on quickly towards the finish, rather than aiming him at a skew-whiff wing and pole just for the sake of continuing the course. Onto the weaves and Guinness missed him entry a few times and then popped out at number 11. He is turning and looking towards me at 11 and not finding the final gap! Ahh, more training needed on 14+ poles! We had some nice distance pivot work and a tight front cross on a 180 though. And let’s not forget about our fabulous wait!
Our second run went in a similar fashion, same weave issue.
At this point the sun was really beating down and I was very pleased that I had recently bought a second hand cool coat, it was a life safer today.
We jumped into Beginners Agility for a couple of NFC runs. The queue was fairly small again and Guinness was happily tugging once we were inside the ring and then I unclipped his lead and he continued tugging. For one run I held his collar, revved him up and then asked for a down as I let go. Nailed it! This is our back up for when he wont tug or choose to come around my legs to a down.
He had a fast run, avoiding contacts with some wing wraps and straight line blasts.
(I’ve stepped away from contacts completely while we work more on our foundation behaviours at home such as nose touch and back foot target).
Time for brunch and to get ready for judging.
I loved my course on paper and it set out in real life quite nicely, taking a little bit of small tweaking before I was finally happy. We got cracking and quickly moved through the heights. With low entries there were only a handful of clears, the biggest problem being 17-18, avoiding the dog walk. However I received some nice comments and I think the course was suitable for the level.
I was due to follow on with Steeplechase for Medium-Small dogs, and I was looking forward to laying out a fun steeplechase course, however as we were heading for an early finish and a lot of people had gone home we decided to do all heights in Ring 2. Hurrah I was finished!
I grabbed Guinness and ran him around my agility course (very naughty as we did the contacts) and met the same issue at the weaves. We managed all 12 on a third attempt and the course ran smoothly. We struggled a little with the flick flack and I hung back at 14, sending him from behind and over the wing and then the rest ran well.
Into Steeplechase and Guinness wasn’t quite right, I think he was hot and still feeling a little rushed. I should have taken him for a walk and a real warm up before running him around my agility course. He ran off at the start line and I eventually got him back. I don’t think the Judge marked a refusal and I left him for a nice long wait. We set off fast around a speedy steeplechase course, knocked a pole or two and then were caught out, Guinness went off over a jump to the side instead of heading to the tunnel. A bit of deja vu from Anglesey again, this time Guinness peeling off to the side away from me rather than coming across me to turn.
Eliminations galore! Oh well, what a fun show. What great waits!! Argh. Why can’t we have that confidence and attitude at other shows. I feel like we are taking a step in the right direction however. I’ve been doing lot of games with Guinness from Absolute Dogs training and it is helping, plus the work we’ve been doing with collar grabs is also making the whole start line experience much better.
Next show is Oswestry in a few weeks! Eek!
The first of the Dig It Summer Shows is finally here! Time to start earning some points!
As it turned out this was one of those shows where we had so much fun the results did not matter at all, although it was still a slightly disappointing day.
Bright and early Ash and I rocked up just past 8am. Straight away we got set to work helping, pegging weaves and putting up the shelter, and before I knew it I’d walked the course and they were calling for the first dogs. I was straight in and with only 10 dogs in the class I gave Guinness a quick warm up and we rushed into the ring. Into a down, lead off and he broke his wait. I put him back and we set off for a messy run. One of those typical first runs of the day. Never mind.
Off into the exercise field across the lane and he had a poo. I knew it, I’d rushed him in. Scooping the poop, I looked up and he had gone. Vanished! Sh*t! (Quite literally). It was a huge field but I couldn’t see him anywhere, calling and whistling, I rushed back to the Dig It field, looking up and down the lane, and breathed a huge sigh of relief to see Ash putting him into the car. Phew. What a numpty. Luckily the little lane is quiet and he’d just run straight off to find Ash.
Time to chill out and have some breakfast.
I left Ash in charge of my camera which resulted in some rare (and extremely unattractive) photos of me! Doing what I do best and stuffing my face.
Quickly onto Jumping and it begun jump to 6 weaves. C’mon Guinness, we can do 6 poles easy, we have them set up in the garden. I ran start him to really drive him into the weaves “Go weave weave weave”…. he Go’d too much and entered at the 2nd gap. D’oh, come back, get in the weaves, lovely, off we go. It was quite a tight, tricky course with some knocked poles here and there but some pleasing rear crosses. Another Elimination picked up along the way.
While taking photos and watching the course later on I realised I had completely missed out a jump! I hadn’t even noticed it when I walked it. Oops! Not like me at all.
A bit of a break before steeplechase and Ash had long since abandoned me for Nick, pleased to finally have someone else at shows who was interested in something other than dogs!
Onto Steeplechase and me and Gaz set a good example of how to walk a course… stand on the edge of the ring with arms crossed. Everyone was starting to get a little silly and carrot cake for lunch was certainly boosting up my happiness scale.
A nice but tricky steeplechase course, I decided to test my wait and ran off three jumps ahead. Guinness jumped up and then stopped just short of the first jump but set the timer off with him nose. I released him and he ducked under. The rest of the course was so smooth and clear! Absolutely gutted!!
Power & Speed came next, my first ever games class. A great opportunity to test our contacts plus it started with a spread jump. I ran start again to help him over and he cleared it nicely. A-frame quickly to weaves was going to be tricky so I held his stop A-frame then sent him in. Yes! Nailed the entrance but popped out around pole 9. Second attempt, fail, time to get out of the ring and try to get 12 weaves out at training more often.
Second Steeplechase, another nice course with some different handling options but some tight turns. I was really pleased with my choices and Lydia and Audra both decided to handle the same way. We hadn’t even passed each other while walking the course so I was mega chuffed with myself. Onto the course and 1 pole flew, followed by another, then 3 more, a terrible rear cross and over the line.
What a shamble. However he did manage to keep up three poles in a row of tricky spacing, with a bounce in the middle. If you listen closely he lets of a “huff” noise as he bounces which makes me chuckle (amongst all of the barking of course). As I came out Avril and Katie said they’d decided his downfall is that he can’t bark and jump.
5 out of 5 glorious eliminations! The end of the show was spent filming and scribing and generally larking around while we brought the Steeplechase ring to a close.
Still finding victories somewhere, I was so chuffed with how our waits have progressed and I’m starting to feel more confident, plus I’m a lot happier with taking him back to the start if he does break.
Most importantly this show was so fun it really didn’t matter how we did in the ring, the point was that Guinness was having fun and I was having fun!
This video really sums up the atmosphere of Dig It Shows and particularly the Dig It Instructors, some of my best friends.
The first show of 2014 started with Dig It Winter Series.
January
Lydia was away so I helped to run the show with a few other Dig It guys. I had a lot of fun but I was very busy in between runs. Amanda Hampson judged the Advanced and Intermediate Jumping and it was a pleasure to see and try her courses! I am continuing with NFC runs and chose to do a 9 obstacle sequence from her course. There was a flick flack/serp that didn’t quite go to plan with a tunnel drawing them away from the third jump, I couldn’t get it even with two tries. However weaves we managed 12 poles once but 3/4 times popped out at pole 10.
Amanda Hampson – Intermediate Jumping
(Numbers not correct to full course)
In Agility I made my own course but included a nice 3 jump sequence from the judges course. Again we popped out on 10 weaves so I didn’t attempt them again. The sequence didn’t go to plan either however our contacts were good.
Watching a friend run I saw them make a handling choice different to mine that worked much better! I watched and immediately thought “of course, why didn’t I do that!”. It seemed like such an obvious option yet I’d missed it. The same with the Jumping!
I am failing to see all of the handling options. I look with blinkers on and see one or two options, make a decision and then go for it. It’s something that I need to work on and also an ability that I want to pass to my students, so I best get better at it myself! Perhaps more time walking the course?! Or at least concentrate more while walking and broaden my mind.
Steeplechase I blasted for a run but I’d got my Dublin boots on and I tried to lazy handle/push Guinness out and i left him too far. We didn’t train track! I went off the rails.
February
This show was a lot of fun! I had a bit of a lazy start (I was there by 8.30am nonetheless!) and had a wait until first run so I got my camera out and did some photos and filming for Dig It. There were three rings with two clubs providing ring parties so everything was well run and the rings moved quickly. Agility first and a tricky handling section with lots of options got quite a few people pondering while walking it. I made my choice and was really pleased as it worked well, flowing smoothly into the tunnel! (Hurrah my course choices are getting better perhaps). I ran for training but stuck to the course as it allowed everything I wanted to work on.
I filmed the worst of my two training runs so be open-minded when watching this, it went much better the first time…
[There is a lot to analyse and take away from that video but I wont bore you with it in this post! Important thing is the fecking weaves! Epic Guinness!]
6 weaves and we nailed the entries plus Guinness powered through them so fast he got stuck! Really impressed! Contacts were good although he released on my movement more than he should, however he had stopped so promising for competition.
Jumping was a nice up and down blasty run with 6 weaves from the tunnel. Again amazing weaves and only missed 1 out of 5.
I pushed our waits aiming to leave Guinness closer to the edge of the ring. As you can see from the video he doesn’t even think about it in the agility, as soon as the lead is off he goes. However our other runs were better with some nicer waits. I’m struggling to see how we will bridge the training-competition gap! At the moment it looks like a huge, bottomless valley.
Steeplechase was a fun course from Becky Sargent with two tunnels next to each other. Although some say this tests nothing, as it is not obstacle discrimination, I had a lot of fun! I didn’t guide Guinness enough nor judge how long his jump is (partly due to not walking it) and and we got Eliminated when he took the furthest tunnel rather than the one closest to me. Never mind still a fun run with some good distance work and rear crosses.
Only two more shows to go and competition season is creeping closer and closer! I am hopeful that our waits outdoors will be better as Guinness was always happier on grass last year. The Dig It Club Comps start in March so I’ll be out there as soon as possible, pushing and testing our waits!
An hours drive up the A50 and I arrived on time to walk my first course. What a lovely venue! At Broomfield College Equestrian Centre, the Derby Show is very minimal with a small car park, generous exercise field, indoor equestrian centre big enough for two large rings, a secretary room and heated toilets. No viewing gallery and no cafe.
I was amazed at how quiet the show was. There must have been very low entries and the show was quickly flowing through, finishing at a reasonable time of 5pm. There was at most 20 dogs in a height which gave everyone a good chance.
First up was Agility. I was pleased to see Jump -> Dog Walk, which allowed for a good running start as we are still working on our waits. There were only 2 others queuing in front of me and we set off nicely. Jump into weaves was minimum spacing and Guinness knocked the pole but got the weave entry, and then popped out at about pole 4. It certainly wasn’t a comfortable entry. Never mind, our contacts were good and he didn’t falter on the aluminium.
A few hours break and it was time for beginners Jumping. A nice fast course similar to a Steeplechase (well what else can you give to Beginners). It started off in a big spacious corner away from queuing dogs and I was able to play around with Guinness’ waits a little on the lead while the previous dog cleared the ring. I unclipped his lead, stood up and released. A wait! Hurrah. I have already decided I am going to start to push the waits at Dig It shows now. Off we went on a lovely run and then Guinness went into the less-obvious end of the tunnel and I didn’t front cross very well and he ran past a few jumps. The rest went well and the best(?) option for us at the end was to rear cross the weaves after the tunnel. First attempt he turned back to me away from weaves. Second go and all 12 weaves perfectly while I rear crossed. YES YES YES!
Time for lunch and a long wait for the final class of the day. I didn’t enter the games class, Gamblers, as I didn’t know how it worked. I didn’t know how it worked as I hadn’t tried to learn. Silly reason I know, but I decided to save the money and just do 3 runs.
Watching Gamblers was great and I happily understood it after listening to the judges briefing, talking to people and watching. I must start entering the games classes and having a go! Plus once into Novice you have to gain games points to progress.
Time for Steeplechase. The start fence was backing onto the queue ringside and with 1 crazy Collie and 1 staring male dog either side of us in the queue, Guinness was not happy. We ran start across a box and Guinness veered off and took a side jump. Gutted. Even more so as the rest of the run was amazing! Guinness ran ahead lovely and I front crossed in some fantastic places to take the best line.
That was it! As the sun set it was time to pack up and go home. Everything was muddy from the exercise field and it was just like going home from a Scout camp. A great venue and a great show. It was nice and quiet with lovely big spacious rings. My only slight gripe was that the rings were so big that the start jumps could have been a little further into the ring rather than right on the edge. It’s certainly something that I am going to think about more when Judging. However there was generous space and its all part of agility.
That’s it folks. The last proper show of 2013 season. Not that we do many proper shows, but this is it for competition runs as I’m going to control myself and keep Dig It Winter Series for training. This is … Continue reading
After barely being home from a week away in Cornwall today I trundled off to Dig It for their final Summer Can You Dig It Show. It was going to be a relaxing day focusing on Guinness (didn’t I say … Continue reading
So after 5 months of training, and about a month of being told we should start competing, Guinness and I went along to our first ever UK Agility competition today! My training club, Dig It Dogs, were hosting a UKA … Continue reading
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