McManigan Dogs

Happy Birthday Heidi!

2012-02-14T09:28:00.002Z

We would like to wish our Princess Heidi a very Happy 4th Birthday - Lots of love Mummy, Daddy, Brian and Kody x x x x

Snow Bother

2012-02-05T15:43:00.001Z

It began snowing here just before 6pm last night. It was very windy and the snow was actually coming down sideways, next thing we know, the electric went off. It's not unusual for us to have power cuts here so I left it 10 mins then phoned the power supplier to find out when it was going to be back on. When I phoned nobody else had reported it, only us and it was only us with none in our area. We would have to wait for an engineer, that would take 3-4 hours!

Obviously the heating had gone off too. I had got my mum and dad visiting so we all ended up sat on the sofa in a line, a blanket and dog each on our knees to keep warm and watched a film on my iPad which happened to be fully charged. Me and dad ventured to the barn to get the camping stove and gas so we could have a brew and that warmed us up.

After almost 3 hours the engineers arrived and discovered that the power cables had twisted over themselves in the wind and then cut off. They had to get up in their extendable bucket thing to the lines to unwrap them and then put in a new fuse in the electric pole. By this time the snow had been coming down for a while and was quite deep. Thankfully it all got sorted, not like us to have an adventure though :)

Today we took the doggies out to play in the snow, they all went a bit mad and got very excited. The River Ancholme which is outside our house is frozen. Mum and Dad decided to leave after lunch in the hope they would get home before dark, we did have to push my dads car a bit and then I went ahead of them in our 4x4 to the main road to make sure they got there ok. I don't think we are due any more thankfully, just need to wait for this lot to melt now!

Catch Up

2012-01-29T19:49:00.000Z

We have been doing a few bits and bobs to keep us busy lately. We made it to hydro on monday (3rd time lucky) although that wasn't totally without drama, halfway through Brian's swim the power went off (Anne thinks we are jinxed!) so him and Kody swam with no pump or lights on. For some reason Kody was much more relaxed than normal, don't know if it was swimming with no noise or maybe he thought we couldn't see him as the lights were off. Who knows what goes on in that boys mind :)

Yesterday Heidi was booked in to see the Chiropractor. I was a little worried at how she would react as she isn't overly keen on strangers but she was as good as gold, trotted in to see her, played ball and was nearly asleep when Christine massaged her. Her back was a bit out of line and her pelvis and her neck quite stiff and tense but she is back in good shape now. She isn't overly happy at being made to rest but she can go back to normal tomorrow.

Today we had a very early start as we headed over to Derby so that I could do the final part of my judges training. Good news, I passed. Despite it being freezing cold it was a good day and I am actually looking forward to doing a bit of judging. I have given my details to Adams agility to hopefully do one of their shows.

This week we had planned jump training but it seems the weather may have other plans for us as we have the dreaded white stuff forecast this week. After previous years I'm glad we have a 4x4 truck!

Are We Mad?

2012-01-19T21:07:00.001Z

Yes we are, yesterday we went to the BEACH! It wasn't planned, the dogs were meant to have hydro but they had problems with the pool and as I has things to do in the area we decided to take a walk on the beach too. As you can imagine, there was nobody there so the dogs had the whole place to themselves and considering it's January it wasn't that unpleasant.

We have been continuing with our training over the past couple of weeks, Kody is back at his club now although from the 1st Feb they are moving to a very posh new indoor venue in Newark (where Agility Nuts held their KC show), we are still planning to go though as I enjoy training with them, just means a bit further to travel. Last week Kody did well and we managed to get some sequences right that others struggled with but this week he was very clingy and I couldn't really get him to leave me so today we have worked on that a little.

Heidi is doing very well, we have completed our 2x2 training now and have begun to put our weaves into sequences and it's gong well. Her contacts are good too so that just leaves one thing now to try and improve, her pole knocking! She is going to the chiropractor in a couple of weeks time so we are going to tackle it after that. I doubt there is anything wrong with her to cause the pole knocking but a miracle cure would be good :)

Agility Nuts

2012-01-09T16:12:00.000Z

Yesterday we went to our first show of 2012. When we got there we quickly discovered there had been some issues with the venue being double booked so the show was outside. Thankfully the weather was nice all day although a bit chilly at times, certainly not what you'd expect for January though. We managed to catch up with Natalie, Reno & Kiros too which was nice :)

Heidi and Kody were running, Brian was socialising. He managed to find himself a girlfriend in the exercise area, a flat coated retriever who he would have happily flirted with all day if i'd let him!

Heidi had 2 runs, an agility first thing which went well except for taking the first pole and another later on. I held her contacts though which were spot on so I was pleased with that. (There were no weaves in the agility class) Her second run was TFO jumping. I had hoped that if she was going to get faulted it would be before the weaves so that we didn't have to do them as I didn't really want to have the possibility of ruining the training we have been doing. Thankfully she seemed to realise this and took a pole shortly before.

Kody had 3 good runs, good contacts and weaves but in every class I managed to pull him off a jump, I think by me trying to move ahead too quickly so something we need to work on. He got round the tricky bits in the jumping class very well though.

Thank you to Lyn for the photos of Heidi & Kody, not very often I get any as I'm usually taking them!

Today I got the contact equipment out as it's meant to be nice all week here and I did some A-Frame and See-Saw training, i'm pleased with how they are both working. Heidi has also continued with her weaves today and is now up to 6 poles with a jump although the first 2 are still 'open' a little bit.

The video is only a short clip, had some videoing issues today. (Flat battery, poor location of camera etc)

Weaving (Ups and Downs)

2012-01-06T14:22:00.001Z

After I last posted about Heidi's weave training and how well it was going it went a bit off track. On Wednesday we moved our training to the paddock for the first time (prior to that we had been in the house or around the farm). It didn't go well, Heidi went into 'mental mode' spinning, circling, not concentrating and looking like she had never seen weaves before in her life. I have no idea what caused it, maybe it was the move to the paddock, but I ended up having to open the weaves right back up, have a few 'easier' attempts, reward her and call it a day.

We couldn't train yesterday as we had winds of up to 70mph here so being outside was not an option! Today is lovely and calm and sunny though and I feel like we have made great progress. We continued where we left off on wednesday with 100% success from any entry so I began to slowly close up the poles. Over our 3 sessions today we have got to 4 totally straight poles with entries from anywhere. As she was on a role I decided to introduce the jump but to ensure we didn't lose our success I opened up the first two poles slightly making sure she got her entry.

I'm so pleased with how she has worked today, you can really see she is having to think and when she gets it wrong she is trying something different not just doing the same thing over and over. Tomorrow will be a rest day as i'm on earlies and then on Sunday we are off to Agility Nuts for a bit of a progress check.

Next week if the weather looks good i'm going to get all the contacts back out so we can get on with some proper training alongside our weave training.

Kody has had a few weeks rest, just with a little weave training session on Wednesday working on entries so it will be good to get back to doing something with him too.

2012

2012-01-02T16:18:00.002Z

It always seems like a good idea to look back over the past year and see if it went to plan. 2011 provided us with new challenges, we had lots of fun with our agility even if we didn't bring home many rosettes and it had motivated me to try harder next year!

Brian only actually ran once this year, that was at Dog Vegas in July and he did seem to enjoy himself and he was such fun to run, he does seem to prefer the social side to agility though, meeting his friends (dog and human) around the rings. He has continued to do well with his swimming, i'm sure he can't wait to get our pool up again in the summer.

Kody was my biggest challenge last year and one I was totally unprepared for. It hadn't been the plan for me to run him but I'm glad I did. Grade 6 was harder than I ever imagined. Most of the time we didn't get round a course, I just had no clue having been thrown into the deep end but I think it has helped me realise that I need to work on my handling to give him the best chance. Me and Kody joined a new club at the end of the season and although we have to miss every 3rd week due to work I think it is beginning to help us and helps me see different ways of doing things so I can work out what suits us best.

Obviously improving my handling and timing is going to help Heidi massively. Last season was a bit of an ongoing battle with Heidi, starting off with retraining her contacts to a stop after playing around with running ones. I think a stop for her at the moment is the best option, it gives me a second to get control again. Her weaves also required some work as they often caused us issues. She did have some very good runs though, more often than not with just an unlucky pole.

The dog that gave me the most enjoyment to run though had to be Megan. She was just so much fun. Even though she always broke her wait, got her eyes on any tunnel halfway across the ring and went for it and missed most contacts she always enjoyed herself. Coming 3rd in the team event with her brothers and getting placed in G3 jumping (despite me thinking she wasn't ready) were the moments i'll remember. I'm very thankful that she was a part of our lives, even just for a short time. She taught me a lot and will never be forgotten. I hope her and her litter sister Eva who passed away just a few months after Megan, are up to no good together somewhere. They are missed very much.

...So 2012...

I want Brian, Heidi and Kody to be happy and healthy and enjoy life as much as possible. I would love to get a clear round with Heidi (well more than 1 but we have to start somewhere) and to handle Kody in a way that helps him progress (and not confuse him).

We have been a bit slow on the training front with one thing and another but I resumed Heidi's 2x2 retraining yesterday and it is going very well. She was never trained using this method but you can see from the video she is making improvements. (The video really was for me to test the new editing software i've got-but i've posted it anyway).

Over the next few weeks i've only got 3 days at work so I'm hoping for some dry days so we can really get on now. Already the schedules for shows are coming out I'm beginning to worry-we're just not ready!!!

Anyway, Happy New Year! Have a MAD 2012!

Christmas Catch Up

2011-12-26T22:20:00.001Z

We had an enjoyable christmas day yesterday, we ate plenty and Santa bought us all some good presents (we must have been good) including an iPad for me to keep me entertained in the caravan at agility shows in the summer.

The dogs had some new toys and goodies. I think Brian gets the most excited about Christmas, once the presents were put under the tree he wouldn't move away from them and on Christmas morning he helped open every single present! He was soon asleep after all the excitement.

This morning it was time to get some fresh air, the dogs were full of energy so we took them for a nice walk along the river bank. There was nobody about at all so it was a good chance for the dogs to just run. We managed to keep them all out of the river too, although Brian did find a muddy puddle to lie down in. They all had another turkey diner for their tea tonight and have been munching on dinosaur bones for the past few hours so that has kept them quiet.

Tomorrow they are in for some more excitement as my mum and dad are coming up to look after them for a couple of days so that we can go and visit Conor's family in Kent.

Im sure my mum and dad will wear them out though with walks and playing in the paddock, no sure who will end up the most tired though, them or the dogs!

Merry Christmas Everybody!!!

2011-12-24T19:10:00.001Z

Adventures

2011-12-20T18:26:00.001Z

Since our last post we have all had a few adventures. Me and Conor have just spent a week in lovely sunny Mexico, although at times it was cloudy it was considerably warmer than here. We have relaxed and enjoyed the sun, sea and sand and done lots of shopping, been scuba diving, doing 2 dives from Playa Del Carmen before flying home today. How I am currently still awake I'm not sure, having been up now for more than 28 hours. I think we'll sleep well tonight!

The dogs have had some adventures of their own too while we have been away. They left us last Saturday and went to stay with Sandra who normally looks after them. They go with a company called Barking Mad who collect the dogs from you, take them to their host (Sandra) and then they get brought back to you at home. They all went off very happily and when Claire brought them back tonight she explained that on the second day of having them, Sandra went to the shop (without the dogs) and fell and broke her foot so the dogs have been to stay with a new family for the remainder of their holiday. They have been to a lady called Lisa who has two daughters. It seems the dogs have had a fab time though, walking in the park and the woods, Heidi has been hiding out under the bed (her favourite thing), Brian had enjoyed dozing on the sofa and Kody has been Lisa's shadow. They all look like they have eaten well for the last week too (think diets might be in order after christmas!) but all in all they adapted very well to the sudden change of families.

They were all so excited to come home, they have had a mad half an hour, had their tea and they all fast asleep. Don't think it will be long before I join them...

2011-12-09T09:35:00.001Z

When Brian was about six months old and a pretty naughty puppy we decided it was time to take him to training classes. After visiting a few we made contact with Stan Browning at Shrewton DTC, a retired MDP Dog handler. We joined the club and all of our dogs, with the exception of Kody, attended the puppy classes and Brian continued into the advanced class until we moved away.

We had some very enjoyable experiences with the club and made lots of new friends, in fact Stan was always organising something for us to do in order to raise money for charity. Brian and me we members of the dog display team, putting on shows during the summer at the local village shows and fairs, we took part in a pantomime - 'Snow White & the Seven Woofs', helped organise our club fun dog show each year (where our dogs always seemed to come home with loads of prizes) and Stan also got us into the competitive obedience world and showed us what to do at our first show (in torrential rain I might add!). Stan and Elaine always looked after Brian if we were away or going on holiday, and Brian also went to hydrotherapy at Stan's pool. Also not forgetting the Christmas parities and monthly walks on salisbury plain for club members.

You might wonder the point of this post, well yesterday we received the sad news that Stan had passed away earlier in the day. It was a shock, I saw him last about 18 months ago when we visited the club after attending an agility show in the area. He was always so fit and well and was preparing to take part in a canoe race next year.

Our thoughts are with Elaine, Marie and their dogs and family, and also to the members of Shrewton DTC past & present.

(The photos are some old club photo's of us and other members from over the years we were there)

(The dog display team in 2008)

Stan & Bouncer

Halfway There

2011-11-28T20:31:00.001Z

The good news is we are now all recovered from our illnesses and injuries :)

On Saturday I did the first part of the judges course ready to be an agility judge. It wasn't without a bad start to the day though, I had set my alarm and I woke up and it was light outside, odd I thought for the time of morning that it should be as the alarm hadn't gone off, when I looked at the clock, I should have left 20 mins ago! After a mad rush to get ready and get the dogs sorted I set off and made up quite a bit of time so was only half an hour late. I actually found the training it very useful, I had always been a bit confused with faults in the weaves, now I understand it.

I was planning to do the second bit in March but Lynne who ran it said if we could get on a sooner course design part then do, so I have managed to get myself on one at the end of January so a few months sooner than planned which is good.

Today the dogs have been swimming and I took some photos of a lovely Papillon called Buzz, he had lots of attitude! Only one more session left now for the dogs this year and that is next week. I can't believe Christmas is nearly upon us.

On the training front we have done very little lately. Kody will have his last class on Wednesday until after Christmas and Heidi isn't going back now until February to Lucy's as we are busy all of December and Lucy is away for January. We will really have to get our act together and get on with doing something. Im hoping the 2x2 weaves come this week or next so they are ready to start with Heidi over the holidays.

Illness and Injury Strike

2011-11-20T12:28:00.001Z

Last weekend I began to get a sore throat, not surprising though as there seems to be a lot of bugs going around at the moment. It didn't get any better as the week went on so on Thursday I headed off to the doctors. I've got Tonsillitis. I have had it before quite a few times and always been very poorly with it but I felt fine and only had a sore throat so decided to carry on as normal just taking my antibiotics. I worked Friday, no problem, yesterday though, I got there and the heat and humidity from the pool seemed to make me go downhill very quickly and after only 2 hours of being at work I was on my way back home. I have now got a duvet and the dogs on the sofa keeping me warm and think this is where ill be staying for the next few days. I hate being ill, its so boring!!!

Poor Kody hasn't had a good couple of days, in fact he was absolutely convinced his leg had fallen off. On Friday evening he curled up on the sofa with me but seemed to be sulking about something, I leaned over to give him a cuddle and he began screaming at me, I then noticed his dew claw was sticking out at a right angle to where it should be. (This has happened before and the vet trimmed it off). As it was late I thought 'ill trim it as short as I can so he doesn't catch it in the night then take him to the vet in the morning to get the rest of the broken bit taken off'. As I trimmed it though he pulled his leg away and it came off in one go anyway so no need for the vets but my god you'd think his i'd cut his leg off. He wouldn't speak to me at all until yesterday afternoon. I know it will have hurt him but why are boys such Drama Queens?!!!

Counting Down

2011-11-13T17:37:00.001Z

Well in our house we just seems to be wishing November away, we are all looking forward to enjoying December. Conor will be home, we are off on holiday and then it's Christmas.

Until this weekend I had been convinced it was far too early to think about Christmas but my mum and dad came up for the weekend and we ended up going Christmas shopping yesterday. I'm not all done yet but have made a start. Today we went to the garden centre and went to 'Christmas land', it was really nice to see all the trees and decorations and I have started to get a little bit excited!!! It's only 43 days :)

Even More Training

2011-11-06T20:21:00.000Z

We have had a bit of bad weather over the past week so it has limited the mount of training we have been doing. I took Kody to the Dave Munnings training day which was an enjoyable afternoon. Kody worked well and I came away knowing I need to work on my timing and think about where i'm pointing my arms and shoulders.

We didn't make it to club training on wednesday as I was working but I did take Heidi to training on Thursday. She coped well with doing 2 hours although she slept well once we got home! She listed well and had almost no screaming and the only poles were my fault (timing and shoulders!)

Yesterday we had a really enjoyable day. We were joined here by lots of other Mali's (and a few non mali's) to do some training. Jo bought Ronny, Keisha and Zippy, Natalie bought Kiros & Reno and Jackie bought Speedy, Leo, Jake and Brindle. We did a few hours training in the morning, where again I need to work on my timing and shoulders (reoccurring theme here?!) and with Heidi I need to not be in a hurry to rush off and keep quiet unless necessary. It is useful to train with people who have experience in the same breed as you as Mali's don't run like Collie's.

We had some lunch and then took our 12 dogs for a walk. Out of the 12 though, guess which 2 were the only to to get wet? That would have to be Brian and Heidi who were so smelly and muddy by the time we got home!

We don't have anything else booked now but tomorrow I plan to get back down to the paddock and do some more, I'm feeling a bit more motivated now. I have also ordered some new spacing 2x2 weaves as I plan to re train Heidi's weaves, probably over Christmas, she was the only one to never fully do 2x2 and having seen the others weaves improve loads I think she will benefit from it. Must chase up the see-saw too, it still hasn't arrived!

Starting Training

2011-10-24T18:14:00.002+01:00

We have managed to get down to the paddock and do some good training over the past couple of weeks. I want to get the things that I need to teach Heidi still out of the way first so that we can then practice over the winter. We started off with tunnel under the dog walk and A frame and have since done a fair bit of practice on both, she seems to understand it well, only being caught out on a couple of occasions. Kody also did the same training on this as we had major issues at shows with this, especially at agility nuts where he came down the a-frame and as I sent him to the tunnel he decided to squeeze between the a-frame and run alongside the tunnel! He isn't as confident with it as Heidi is but I intend to practice it loads.

Heidi has also been learning pull through's. I don't know why but she was never really taught this and although we might have got away with one at a show the chances are a pole would have been down so it was time to teach it. So far it's going well, the jumps are quite wide apart though, we will move them closer as she gets more confident with it.

Kody went back to club training last wednesday and Heidi goes back to hers next Thursday. This Thursday afternoon Kody and me are on a handling workshop with Dave Munnings and Lucy Osborne so that should be good fun.

Brian hasn't been left out of training, he is learning a recall to a whistle. Mainly because he goes so far ahead on a walk I cant shout loud enough to recall him and so he goes further and further... His training on this is going well and he comes back to it when he is alone in the paddock, i'm yet to test it when he has the distractions of the other dogs though or out somewhere else.

Today they have all been to hydro so are pretty tired, they have got a 3 week break now as we couldn't fit in another over the next few weeks.

Kronik Kidz Birthday

2011-10-24T18:14:00.001+01:00

Happy 3rd Birthday to Reno, Zippy, Speedy, Eva and Zippo.

Obviously not forgetting our special girl Megan. Happy Birthday Puppy x

Keeping Busy

2011-10-13T11:59:00.005+01:00

It is very quiet at home, the dogs seem to be adjusting though. We have been doing our best to keep busy as it seems the best way to cope. We have had an overnight stay at my mum and dads, I have had a couple of shifts at work and the dogs had hydro yesterday.

They were all super excited to go, Brian was his usual mad self, he always comes to life when water is around. Heidi seemed to have forgotten Rod for a few mins and barked at him but then was more than happy for him to wash her!

Anne is trying to get Kody stretching out more, although he is happy swimming he is quite tense and tucks up rather than stretching out. She had him pushing off the side though which seemed to be helping. I think it will just take him some time.

Bonvivant Wish Me Luck 24.10.08-6.10.11

2011-10-07T07:48:00.001+01:00

Megan,

Sleep tight baby girl, Mummy, Daddy, Brian, Heidi & Kody all miss you very much, we wont ever forget you x

We Are Back!

2011-09-30T20:27:00.000+01:00

Well we were offline for a fair bit longer than we had planned through no fault of our own. We have ended up with a very busy month though. We moved house at the beginning of September, we now have a nice house surrounded with nothing but fields, plenty of space for the dogs to run around, and most importantly, our own paddock at the bottom of the garden to do agility in! We have had no internet though until this week, hence our longer than planned absence.

We have spent the month settling in really, unpacking and doing lots and lots of grass cutting. The paddock is about ready to do training in now and we have our kit down there, we are just waiting for our new see-saw to arrive which I think will be ready in the next couple of weeks. The top picture is the paddock a few weeks ago, the one below is now that it has been mowed and has our kit in.

We did manage to get to the Agility Nuts KC show, it was a really good show and considering we were day parking it was an enjoyable one. Kody had a good few runs, 1 with just a pole and Meg also had a fab run, just getting a refusal in one for missing a tunnel entrance (not like her!). Heidi was a bit excitable.

The dogs have had a bit of a break from agility since, we haven't made it to any of our clubs for a while and Megan was spayed earlier this week so is now on rest (as much as you can make her to rest as she thinks she is fine now!) We plan to begin our winter training in a couple of weeks time and Meg can catch up once she is ready.

Pool Problems

2011-08-29T18:43:00.002+01:00

We have been using our pool quite a bit since we got it, a few times a week at least. On Wednesday last week I pulled back the cover to discover it looked like this...

...bright green like Shrek's Swamp!!! Not good news. The rest of the day was then spent trying to tackle the problem. I emptied out 2/3 of the water and gave it a good scrub, connected the filter and pump (which I should have done from the start) and then re filled it. Unfortunately it was still quite green. I ordered a load of chlorine and algaecide which thankfully arrived by 10am the next day. I put in the required dose, not expecting much to happen really, turned on the pump and went into town. When I got back I was amazed by the results...

...a sparkling clean pool! I have then this week been reading a pool water management manual that I got from work and the pool will next year from the start of the year be regularly treated with chlorine which should make the original water last the whole season.

I have returned to training for the past two weeks with the dogs. Heidi and Megan are continuing to train at Lucy's but as I cant really take all 3 to the same class on the same day (its just too much hard work) I have joined another club with Kody on a Wednesday and we are really enjoying it and it is certainly testing us.

This weekend we have had no weekend agility, instead I have been at work for 2 days then my mum and dad came up yesterday until today. We have walked the dogs on a couple of lovely long walks and they have had a splash in the pool too and are now pretty shattered. We have got a busy few weeks ahead of us now and we are likely to be offline for a while but we will update you with our news once things have settled down again.

A chilled weekend

2011-08-21T19:28:00.000+01:00

It was my weekend off this weekend and we have had a really nice chilled one. Yesterday I took the dogs for a really good long walk up their favourite muddy stream, as it was hot they all got very wet, muddy and smelly! (You can see by looking at Heidi's muddy legs in the photo) We got back and they all got shampooed before they were coming anywhere near the house. I then spent the rest of the day doing housework, ironing and baked the dogs a salmon cake (which the seemed to love!)

Today we have been to Agility Nuts. Its been forever since we went to a nice small show. It was really relaxed, lovely weather and I think me and all the dogs enjoyed themselves and...we had some good results!

Megan got a 10th place in jumping and had a pole in her Helter Skelter class. I also took the opportunity to do some dog walk training in the practice ring today too and she had about an 80% success rate, only failing when the tunnel was after it!

Heidi has been a good girl too, 3 poles in jumping and 3 poles in Helter Skelter but then a cracking run in agility, no poles! She did slip off the end of the dog walk though so I put her back on. She is really running so well in agility classes now, i'm so pleased with her.

Kody couldn't let the girls take all the glory though, he had a pole in jumping this morning and I got him eliminated in agility (too many tunnels confused me!) but he had a fab run in the Helter Skelter finishing 4th! What a clever boy. (I tried for ages to get his ears up for the photo but he insisted on having them flat to his head-he thinks the rosette is scary!)

Seaside Fun

2011-08-12T18:38:00.002+01:00

Today I have spent a good amount of time grooming the dogs. With the exception of Megan they are all losing their coat by the handful at the moment. Still a couple of carrier bags of hair later they should feel better.

This afternoon as we had no plans I decided to take them to the beach. It has been a little while since we last went and as i'm working all weekend I thought it would do them good to let off steam. The beach was actually quite busy compared to normal although we had our own section down by the sea and nobody bothered us, most people were up by the sand dunes. The dogs had a good game of ball down by the sea and splashed around until they were too tired to carry on then we had a slow walk back to the van and they are now all fast asleep.

Happy Birthday Kody Bear

2011-08-09T17:51:00.000+01:00

Today was Kody's 4th Birthday. He had some new toys, a giant space hopper that squeaks, a frisbee and a new ball, all of which he seems to enjoy playing with and hopefully he has had a good day.

Our new dog pool arrived yesterday and I set it up but as the dogs had been to hydro yesterday morning they couldn't test it out until today. I had built a ramp to help get them in and out but unfortunately it's too light and floats in the pool. Still getting them all in and out was easier than I thought, they all enjoy swimming so are quite happy for me to lift them in. They were even more chuffed when they realised I was getting in too!

It is currently filled with cold water but in about a month's time we plan to move it indoors for the winter and heat the water so we can continue to use it without injuring the dogs.

The video below is them today, its a bit messy at times as I was in the pool with them trying to hold a camera and throw a toy. Good job its an underwater digital camera as it got soaked and dropped a few times.

Must find a more boy coloured harness too, they all had to share a pink one today!

Scunthorpe Show

2011-08-06T17:37:00.000+01:00

Today we have been to Scunthorpe show and only one word can describe it really, pants. (could think of others but not suitable to post here!) Not the dogs fault at all though. Megan had 2 lovely runs, both had a wait at the start which I was so pleased with, in 1 she had a pole and missed weave entry, in the other she chose the tunnel over the weaves (no surprises there).

Heidi only managed 2 runs out of 4 and both of them she didn't get past halfway before being removed from the ring for not listening. Poor Kody I just couldn't get it right with him at all in his runs, in the first one it went well until I blocked his view to the weaves so he took them from the wrong side and had to re do them. In the second class I didn't help him with his entry and so missed it and then developed weave issues where he just couldn't complete them so I just ran him to the finish. I walked the ABC qualifier and was convinced I would end up taking my eye out on the long jump pole as there wasn't much space to turn, when it came to run where I had been so concerned about it, it obviously went wrong and I nearly ended up over it instead of the dog! It went very downhill after that and Kody's weave issue continued as he came out after 6.

Then came the thunder, lightening and heavy rain so I decided as my heart wasn't in it we would come home. The sun was shining lovely here so I decided to do do some Dog Walk training with Megan. I had hoped to put her over the one in the practice ring at the show but as it rained we didn't bother. I am keen to practice it in as many locations as possible over the winter months. Anyway the video below is from today's training, it is still a work in progress but at least there are no massive leaps into space which is what we had before!!!

Clear Kody

2011-07-31T20:39:00.000+01:00

We have just got back from a long weekend at Dog Vegas. The dogs have generally ran very well and I have been really pleased.

On Friday Heidi had 1 pole in her agility again, and a couple of 'wild' jumping runs. Megan, who is only doing jumping had 1 very good run but ran past the last but 1 jump. Kody had some nice runs including a lovely run in the Helter Skelter where he ran past the last jump which was right infront of him! I had Brian running in 2 Helter Skelter classes on Friday on small height, he really seemed to enjoy himself and flew round, just taking an off course jump in each class.

Yesterday the dogs ran well agin, Kody and me only having 1 mistake in each class, Megan just missing her weaves in one and jumping too wide in one meaning she missed a jump.

Today was a very hot day but the dogs still worked really hard. Heidi had 2 poles in her first agility, Kody had a nice agility run but slipped off the end of the dog walk and see saw (my fault) which I thought he had been faulted for, we finished the course but I sent him the wrong way over the last but 1 jump and I hadn't realised he'd been clear until that point! Bad mummy. We then did a very tricky jumping, managing the hard part but I gave him a terrible line onto the long jump meaning he jumped over it from the side. Very bad mummy! In his last jumping though I got my act together and we got round it clear although a bit messy. He was out of the places but I was so pleased with him. I had only been saying earlier in the day I haven't had a clear with any of my dogs since May!

Megan and Heidi did the G1-4 jumping and both only got faulted in the weaves. They flew round really well so I decided to check their times to see how far behind Heidi Megan had been. To my surprise Megan had been over 2 seconds quicker than Heidi! Clever puppy!

Massive congratulations to Jo and Keisha for their 2nd place in the First Contact Final yesterday and then winning into G7 today!

Birthday Boy

2011-07-24T19:04:00.000+01:00

Happy Birthday to Brian, who is 6 today! I think he has enjoyed his day and has been a bit spoiled, a new ball & frisbee a massive bone and lots of treats and he got to meet and greet plenty of people at the show this weekend.

This weekend we have been at Empingham. I have really enjoyed this show, I think it may be my favourite show and the sun has been shining today which made it much better.

Heidi and Kody have been really good dogs this weekend. Heidi has had no mad screaming, she has worked really well and listened and yesterday just had a pole in her jumping and a pole in agility and today she just had 2 poles in the agility and a missed weave entry but she has got EVERY contact this weekend so i'm really happy. She started the ABC qualifier off really well too but for a split second I lost concentration and forgot to get on the right hand side of the A-frame which then left me with nowhere to go and a very cross Heidi!

Kody has had some really good runs with only a little mistake here and there, we have had some issues with the dog walk though, he keeps falling off. All I can put it down too is that they were the rubber coated dog walks and where he would normally put the 'brakes' on for his stop on a wooden one it would just slow him down but with the rubber it means he stops suddenly and loses his balance and falls off! I took him the practice ring yesterday and out of 10 goes he fell off 4 times! He stayed on it today although I haven't pushed him too much on it and he did miss a contact on it this morning. Generally though he is running very well.

Megan...well she is only running in jumping at the moment and probably will for the remainder of the season now as I want to make sure we get this dog walk right this time before I compete with her. She has been a bit 'wild' this weekend, off doing her own thing and not listening although she did do her weaves very nicely in a class today so I cant complain too much!

Looking forward to 3 days at Vegas next weekend, lets hope the sunshine sticks around!

Brian is Magic!

2011-07-10T20:56:00.000+01:00

I am sure I have mentioned before Brian's ability to make footballs appear from hedges and other random places. Well this weekend was no exception. Me and my mum & dad took him for a walk along the stream last night and on the way stopped off at the sports field to let him have a quick blast. As soon as we got there he ran over to the hedge and began digging, he has got 2 footballs from this particular spot on 2 separate occasions before so I thought there is no way in the world he will find another. A few seconds later, you guessed it, Brian appeared with a football!

He was chuffed to bits with it and played in the stream for ages with it and pretty much carried it on his whole walk. Today he is absolutely shattered, we have not long got home and apart from wondering where the others are (they are back tomorrow lunch time) he has curled up in his bed already. Some company he is!

Relaxing Day

2011-07-07T19:35:00.000+01:00

Today has been a lovely relaxing day, It was my birthday earlier in the week so with my birthday money I decided to treat myself. I had my hair done this morning followed by an afternoon of having a manicure, pedicure and hot stones massage. It was lovely.

I've just finished packing the dogs stuff, the mali's for their holiday in the morning to Sandra's and Brian's stuff for coming with me so now its time to chill out in front of the tv for the evening :0)

Hormone Hell!!!

2011-07-05T20:48:00.000+01:00

The last few weeks have been an aboslue nightmare here and how I still have hair left is beyond me! With both the girls being in season there have been an awful lot of hormones raging in our house. Thankfully Heidi's are generally short and was over quite quickly, we are not so lucky with Megan.

Megan has turned into an absolutely horrible monster since her season started, she has become very aggressive towards Brian and Heidi, the only dog she is nice to is Kody. We had an unpleasant incident with Megan last week, she came out to the front of the house with me to the car (which is fenced in with a 4ft fence), as we were outside a lady walked past with her dog, Megan lept over the fence, ran accross the road and had a go at the other dog, resulting in the other dog having a bite on it's leg which although was small, needed veterinary treatment. The dog is ok however we are expecting to recieve a vet bill shortly.

Needless to say I have been at my wits end with her. Her season seems to be nearing its end now and her aggression is subsiding although she has had the occasional grumble at Brian but nothing compared to what it was. She has always been grumpy with her seasons but never anything like this. Thankfully it will be her last as we had already decided she would be spayed after this one although after the few weeks we have had it's likely that Heidi will be done too. (Mainly as having Brian neutered seems like a pointless exercise as Kody is neutered and has actually been worse than Brian with the girls, i've needed eyes in the back of my head as they have all turned into escape artists too, opening doors and jumping baby gates!)

I havent wanted to do any training with Megan at all since she has been so horrid so her dog walk training has taken a back seat although we did resume it yesterday and she hadn't forgotten what we had done so far.

As a result of the last few weeks and lack of training I have had a re think of the shows I had planned for the rest of the year, we are doing Empingham and Dog Vegas at Grantham and 1 day at Scunthorpe so I can enter the ABC qualifier with Kody & Heidi (I doubt Meg's dog walk will be ready) and I had entered the 5 day Vegas in August but I have now cancelled my entry and dont plan to do any more KC shows after Scunthorpe (I have entered Bromsgrove, havent decided whether to cancel it yet). I want to have fun with the dogs and lately it feels like we have lost sight of that so I plan to maybe do a couple of the smaller independant shows just to finish off the season and give the dogs some fun.

It's not all doom and gloom, the Mali's are off on holiday on Friday to stay with Sandra as im going to my cousins wedding (Brian is coming with me), Kody should be pleased about that, not sure what he did when he was with her last week but when he came back she said she'd happily keep him! Sorry Sandra-hands off!

Picture left is Kody in a 'cool coat' at the weekend, he wouldn't let me cool him down with the hose pipe like the others do but was happy to wear the jacket!

A Midnight Visitor

2011-06-26T18:16:00.003+01:00

Thursday night was a bit of a strange one for us. Me and Conor went to the cinema to a late showing and on our way back from Lincoln about midnight we had an unusual find. We have to pass Lincolnshire Rescue Kennels which is about 3 miles from home, about 100 meters passed the kennels we had to swerve to miss hitting something. We quickly realised it was a dog. We turned around and then pulled over and Conor got out to check. After a minute or two of whistling and calling he came out of the field carrying a Rottweiler. 'It' turned out to be a 'she' and she was only around 6 months old (if that). We assumed she must have got out from the kennels so we put her on our lap and drove her back there. Being midnight there was nobody around and us driving around didn't get anyones attention so we ended up having to take the puppy back home with us.

When we got home we let her out with Brian but she had clearly not seen other dogs before as she was very nervous of him and a bit snappy. After some deliberation what to do we decided it might be best if she slept in the van for the night as the Mali's might not take to a snappy visitor. We put her in the van and then let the others out so they could sniff her in the van but with her safely in a kennel. They didn't seem too bothered about her although Megan did have a little grumble at first but soon got over it.

Not happy with leaving her in the van for the night we opted to set up a crate in our room for her and she could sleep indoors. We also decided to let the others meet her properly too. Heidi was absolutely brilliant with her, she stood perfectly still and let the puppy (who we had named Xou (pronounced You)) sniff her and when Xou snapped Heidi did nothing at all, just waited for her to come back to her. After a very short time Heidi had her playing with her and running around. Megan and Kody wanted to sniff her and she pretty quickly got used to them all. (The name Xou came as Conor had said to her 'C'mon you' and she came!)

We gave her some food and a collar and then put her to bed, she didn't settle in the crate for a while and even managed to escape the metal crate but by about 3.30am she finally went to sleep. The next morning she was up at 7.30 and she played in the garden with them all, had her breakfast and helped herself to toys and bones and then I called the rescue centre who said she wasn't from there but had likely to have been dumped outside as they had already had about 4 this year. The lady then said she would come to collect Xou that morning (although I had to phone the council first).

(Heidi & 'Xou')

The lady from the rescue centre came for Xou at about 10am and scanned her and she wasn't microchipped. She did say though that she wouldn't be difficult to re home if nobody claimed her as she is a puppy and people always want puppies.

She was lucky that it was us driving along the road that night as i'm sure not everyone would have stopped and then taken her in for the night. She was a lovely puppy although she had clearly had no training at all and had we not already got 4 dogs we would have almost certainly have kept her if her owner hadn't appeared. I said i'd ring the kennels tomorrow to check if she had been claimed. Hopefully she has although i'm sure she will end up with a nice home whatever happens. It is so sad to think that people just abandon their dogs when they can't or don't want to look after them any more.

Keeping Busy

2011-06-22T21:08:00.003+01:00

As we are limited to our activities with the girls being in season we have managed to get some much needed jobs done at home. The weekend was spent clearing out the garage and taking a van load of junk to the tip so we now have a nice clear gagrage that even the car fits into. We have managed to give the van a good clean and tidy and today we have been to get some trellis to finish off the garden (which we will hopefully do tomorrow-weather permitting).

Heidi has been for her annual injections at the vets today too and Megan came along for the trip to give the boys a bit of time on their own, to be honest I bet they can't wait to go to stay with Sandra for a long weekend!

Below is a clip of Megan, she is a bit mad whenever you get the broom out to sweep up and barks at it and for some reason gets all excited. The video is what she did with the broom once she had a chance to steal it! I think I have a video clip somewhere of her doing the same thing when she was a tiny puppy, ill try and dig it out when I get chance and re post it.

Double Trouble

2011-06-17T20:20:00.000+01:00

This weekend we were supposed to be at Golden Valley with the girls competing in the Team Dash. As it happens Heidi came into season a few days ago but we still planned to go and use Kody as our reserve dog. Wednesday was spent cleaning the caravan and packing up ready to go (as well as hydro for Brian, Meg & Kody) but then yesterday Megan came into season too! We decided it wasnt a good idea to go to the show so we now have an unexpected weekend off.

We have booked the boys to go on a little holiday at the end of the week (to keep them away from the girls and give them a little break). We dont have any shows now until Empingham towards the end of July so I am going to be re training Megan's DW contact back to a 2 on 2 off. I had planned to stick with a running one until the end of the season but it just isnt working and we are only halfway through the season so im going to attempt to fix it now. We have been working on it just not on the contact for about the last 6 weeks but as we now have no shows we can begin to put it on the actual contact. Ill keep you updated with her progress.

North Derbyshire Show

2011-06-12T18:55:00.001+01:00

We have had a mixed weekend, the dogs have worked really well in some parts and not so good in other. Heidi had one fab run yesterday, just missing a weave pole and two not so great runs. Kody had a jumping class yesterday where he just knocked a pole and today took a jump from the wrong side in his agility. He did jump his DW contact yesterday though so I made sure I held it a little in his class today. Megan has had a couple of nice jumping runs with just one mistake too which prevented that clear.

Today it poured down with rain so after lunch we decided to pack up and come home, probably a wise choice as it didn't seem to be easing off at all and at least it meant we got back at a reasonable time and were able to get unpacked and dried off.

PADS

2011-06-06T21:27:00.000+01:00

We have just got back from a weekend at PADS. I think this weekend we have had a record number of E's, in fact I think Megan was the only dog not to get ALL E's. She didn't have any clears but she had a few runs where she only picked up 5 faults.

Kody's courses were all very tricky this weekend and I have struggled again with handling him around them, I think a lot of the problem is where there were so many runs at once I didn't really have enough time to walk his courses as well as i'd like. You can see in the video below where I get in a muddle!

Heidi was a bit crazy this weekend as she had her dad back, in one jumping class yesterday I think she had a record 7 poles! I ran her in the Adams Derby qualifier and we got through the contact bit to the jumping but I didnt handle it very well and we got a big E. I also ran her in a jumping class today where she ran lovely, just getting 1 pole and then jumped the last jump the wrong way. Next weekend is North Derbyshire show so hopefully we'll get in a bit more training this week.

What's With All The Rain?!

2011-05-30T17:57:00.000+01:00

We have just got back from our last weekend at Bakewell. I'm kind of glad as the weather for the past few weekends has really spoilt it a bit although I know there isn't much I can do about that! It rained really heavily all last night and continued this morning and by about 11 this morning the ground was just soaked through and I had seen several handers go flying in the ring and come out covered in mud so I decided to pack up and leave early for home. The dogs had had 1 run each and I was just getting worried they may hurt themselves as they don't slow down even when it's wet.

We have had a good weekend really though, yesterday my mum and dad came up and managed to see a couple of the girls runs and dad videoed 2 which are below, Kody had already had his runs by the time they arrived as they were early for once! He had 2 really good runs yesterday I just couldn't call him off a jump after the tunnel, it was just too temping and we got the wrong end of the tunnel in the other but I was pleased with him. (Picture was taken by Grace & Alex at Shuttleworth-thank you again, its lovely!)

They had a practice ring running this weekend so I decided to spend some time in there with Meg to work on her A Fame contact and I have discovered when she does it as a single obstacle she does it perfectly (which confused me at first) but when it is put into a sequence she has a lot more speed and so isn't putting in enough strides on the down so is missing it. I am going to persevere with it though as I think it will be better in the long run, it just needs a lot more time putting into it than we have been doing. Although she did actually get it yesterday in her agility class.

One thing is for sure, Meg is speeding up in the ring, she has caught me out a couple of time lately when i've not expected it and she has shot off and then gone off course, her weaves have come along well and she is much quicker through them too. She has had a lot of classes lately with only 5 faults for something minor so hopefully we'll iron out those faults soon!

Clever Puppies at Vegas!

2011-05-23T19:54:00.000+01:00

We have been at Bakewell again this weekend this time for Dog Vegas. It was a 3 day show but it felt so long and with the weather not being great I decided to come home this morning and i'm glad I did as the wind was so bad it made the journey back a very long one!

The dogs have had some good almost clears and some terrible messy runs too. One thing we need to put in our training plan is a tunnel under the A-Frame. they are all a bit tunnel mad and I expected them all to pick the tunnel yet to my surprise non of them did.

Meg and her brothers were in the team dash this weekend and they were fab, they all flew round brilliantly with just 5f for a pole down. We were so chuffed to come away in 3rd place!!! They really are clever puppies!

(The rosette she got was so big it wouldn't fit on her collar so I had to put her in an old flyball harness so she could show it off!)

Theddlethorpe

2011-05-17T17:27:00.002+01:00

Above is our team run at High Peak at the weekend. Thanks Jackie for sending it to me.

Today should have been hydro day for the doggies but anne called this morning to cancel as she was poorly so we headed off to Theddlethorpe for the morning instead. When we got there Brian, Heidi & Megan started screaming as loud as possible in the van as they knew where we were, poor Kody had no idea what was going on as he has only been there once before!

The dogs seemed to have a really great time, they all got very wet and it was interesting to see how Heidi's confidence in the water has improved since she learnt to swim, she wouldn't come out! They all had a really good run around on the sand then they all got dried off and we headed home. Need to clean the van out tomorrow afternoon now, it's full of sand!

When I asked Brian to move closer to the Mali's for his photo, this was his response ...

High Peak

2011-05-16T17:54:00.003+01:00

This weekend we were at High Peak Show in Bakewell. It was a lovely venue and apart from the weather was a lovely show too. (Good job as we are there for the next 2 weekends!)

The dogs tried hard this weekend but lots of bad handling by me let us down and we had some weave issues too.

Megan did have 1 clear which she saved for her run in the team dash with her brothers. It was brilliant fun and we are all excited to be doing it again next week! Megan had a very naughty agility run yesterday where she really just messed around and did her own thing but her main problem this week has been weaves from a straight on entry, she just isnt steadying herself enough so she gets the entry but then pops out so thats our thing to practice this week. (I guess a fault of practicing so many difficult entries and not many straight on ones)

Heidi was a good girl in all but 1 class where I ended up taking her out of the ring. After that she did have some nice runs, her common error this weekend was 3 poles but im sure a lot of that was down to me. Her run in the Adams derby qualifier was nice, she completed all her contacts and actually got to move onto the jumping so I was really chuffed but where the jumps were so very tightly placed she had 3 poles down.

Kody has continued to try hard too, we had a really horrid agility course on Saturday and got E'd by the 4th obstacle. He did have a nice agility run yesterday knocking a pole and I tried to rear cross his weaves which pulled him out (our homework this week!)

Brian spent most of his time hanging out in the caravan as it was raining alot although he did enjoy some walks, a cuddle with Jackie and a treat or two from the Pawstrading stand :)

Is 5 Days Going To Be Enough?

2011-05-11T17:11:00.000+01:00

This week I have been hard at work with Meg and her A-Frame contact. I had realised after doing a few shows that ours was too high so when she landed over the top she had enough time to get in her strides however at shows she was putting in the same amount of effort but landing much further down (usually just above the contact patch) and then jumping off. I lowered ours last week but didn't really have much time to train it but it did quickly become obvious that this was why she was missing as she instantly did at home.

I reverted back to putting the training aids back on on Monday and stuck with 2 for Monday and yesterday, today I have reduced it to 1 and we are having about 90% success. I am really hoping that by this weekend we have it sorted, I know she is still missing her dog walk a lot but at least if she is getting her A-Frame we can be trying it in various locations while we then concentrate on the Dog Walk. I guess though we'll have to wait and see. Below is a clip from today.

This weekend we are off to High Peak Show at Bakewell and I'm super excited as Megan is running in a team with her brothers, Zippy, Reno & Speedy. The team is 'The Kronik Kidz (I think), named after their dad Ronny (Bonvivant Kronik)

Godmanchester Good & Bad

2011-05-08T20:02:00.001+01:00

We have just got back from our first camping show of the year and I can honestly say I much prefer to camp! It is so much more relaxing, especially for the dogs who can spend time in the 'garden' rather than in the van all the time.

Well the good...that had to be the doggies, they have worked sooo hard this weekend and their runs have showed it. No clears (first show where we haven't had one though) but lots of positives. Heidi impresses me more every time she runs, she has only had 1 'mental' run this weekend and that was her first one yesterday where she fell off the dog walk, slipped in the weaves and fell after a jump. I stopped her and did tell her off or she would have hurt herself but after that she has been so good. Today she had a fab agility run just coming out of the weaves on the last one which was the obstacle before the end, so had been clear until that point. Im just pleased she is calming down and listening more. Good girly :)

Meg really does make me smile, she has tried really hard too this weekend. I had decided she wasn't going to run in any agility classes until I had sorted the A-frame problem (which I now know what it is and how to fix) but there were rubber contacts and both Heidi and Kody fell off the Dog Walk yesterday so I thought id let her have 1 run just for experience sake. As it happens she was fine. She ran the whole course well only picking up 10 faults for the two missed contacts. She had a great jumping class yesterday too just picking up 5 faults for running past the side of a jump where I had tried to cut a corner to get ahead (Bad mummy). Her weaves have been excellent all weekend, no faults in them at all!

Kody has tried so hard too, just went into the wrong end of the tunnel yesterday in a class, fell off the side of the dog walk in another and in his agility today when I went to run the course they had taken out the dog walk and put in a tunnel and changed it a bit and I hadn't realised so I think he sensed my lack of confidence in what we were doing so he got a bit frustrated and jumped a jump the wrong way, but he was a very good boy.

The bad...the only thing that spoilt the show was the venue, not the venue itself it was lovely with nice off site walks for the dogs to enjoy which weren't overcrowded with others from the show but the fact that it was used for a car boot sale this morning. That might not sound too bad but there were cars and people totally surrounding the caravan meaning every time I went to run a dog I had to lock the caravan and van and the dogs didn't settle in the garden at all. It was much quieter ringside. That ruined it for me and if it is at the same venue next year I won't be going.

All in all though a thumbs up for this weekend!

Kody's Swimming Video

2011-05-04T14:30:00.000+01:00

The dogs have all been to hydro again this morning and are now all shattered and sleeping soundly. Heidi has figured out that if Anne goes to grab the ball she doesn't have to swim to the end and turns around and waits for it to be thrown the other way, little madam is too clever for her own good.

Kody has improved loads again today, he really launches himself off the ramp into the water. I have put a quick clip of him below having a swim today, its not great as I still need to be quite close to him but you can see he isn't terrified any more!

This weekend is our first camping show, we are off to Godmanchester. I'm hoping its warmer than last year although it is at a different venue this time. The van is going to the garage tomorrow morning to get new brakes and the caravan is being serviced tomorrow afternoon so we should be all ready to head off early on Friday afternoon.

Weekend Walks & Weave Training

2011-05-02T19:32:00.000+01:00

This weekend we had a week off from agility shows, we didn't make it to club on Thursday either as I was feeling a bit under the weather. Instead we have had a nice chilled out few days at home. My mum and dad came up yesterday and stayed until today so we have been into Lincoln and went out for dinner at Brayford Wharf today which was nice.

We took the doggies out for a very long walk this morning and they are absolutely shattered. They just wanted to run and run! They all got pretty wet and muddy (Brian the most-he had to be hosed down when we got back!) and then they have chilled out in the garden for a while.

When my mum and dad left I decided to do a bit of weave training with them. I have been having trouble getting Megan to pick up her entry at shows lately, she only seems to be getting it first time about 1 run per day, she was spot on today with them although where she is so tired she didn't put much effort into getting any speed through them! She didn't come out at the end today either which is another problem we have been having, i'm guessing it's something i'm doing at shows that pulls her out but I just don't realise.

Kody needed some work on his entries too, not that he cant get them, they are very good but he just isn't confident enough in the ring with me to get the more difficult ones and I do find myself moving to make it easier on the second attempt so i'm going to try and stop doing that in the ring and let him work it out for himself as I know he can.

Heidi has had excellent weaves lately so just a bit of practice with her, you might wonder why she doesn't seem to have as many goes in the video below, she did actually have the same but I hadn't noticed the video had fallen over and also she did snap 4 poles today so we stopped before we had non left! This week I will hopefully sort us out some wooden ones.

Brian also had a quick go at the end as he does enjoy to weave if nothing else!

Saving Himself...

2011-04-26T17:39:00.001+01:00

Well we are back from our third day at Dog Vegas today and to be honest I thought i'd be coming home with nothing to write about!

Megan has been a bit of a madam at times, but has had some very good attempts in her jumping classes, usually with one mistake (often the weaves).

Heidi has been a good girl 90% of the time, she had a lovely agility run yesterday, got all her contacts, weaved perfectly and kept all the poles up but bad mummy couldn't get ahead enough to do a front cross after the weaves which just made her take the wrong jump. We have been working on a stop dog walk contact lately in addition to a running one and in her agility this morning she was flying round (borderline on not listening) she got to the dog walk and flew along it and I thought there is no way she is going to stop but she really surprised me and did so I was happy with that. There have been some fast jumping courses this weekend too which I hate for Heidi, we finished 1 with 5 poles down!!!

Silly me somehow managed to not enter Kody at all on Friday so he was only running yesterday and today. The courses yesterday were a bit tricky and we generally got in a muddle. Today was a bit better though, in agility we got round all the tricky bits but for some reason Kody wouldn't go over the jump in front of him so we ended up with several refusals. His jumping was his second to last run and he ran it lovely and clear, finishing 9th. The last run was the ABC Helter Skelter which was a really fast flowing course, perfect to help him gain his confidence and he worked really hard finishing 3rd, less than a tenth of a second off the winner so i'm really pleased with our clever boy!

Swimming x 4

2011-04-20T20:00:00.001+01:00

All the doggies have been to hydro today and they all enjoyed themselves and did very well. It has been 3 weeks since they last went, Heidi was happy to get in the pool but was a bit nervous jumping off the ramp until she had done it then she was more than happy. Kody improved today too, we had him swimming up and down and turning at either end, i'm fairly certain after a few more sessions he will be confident enough for me to be able to video him.

At the end of the week we are off to Dog Vegas, we are there on Friday, Monday and Tuesday as i'm working over the weekend, hopefully the sun will stay shining as Winterton is often a bit chilly.

Lincoln Agility Show

2011-04-17T19:53:00.000+01:00

Well it's been a lovely weekend, despite my very inaccurate weather forecast it was really lovely and sunny on both days and very warm.

The dogs are staring to run well in places and not in others. Yesterday Heidi was the better one, although she was very manic after being in the van for about 3 hours she did do some very nice runs where she just had poles down really. We even had ALL contacts and weaves! Today she missed her dog walk in both runs and to be honest her concentration had gone a bit and she was back to doing what she wanted but she did finish with a very fast jumping run just taking 1 pole.

Megan has been a bit up and down, she doesn't cope well with being at bigger shows with loads of people around so that hasn't helped. She has had some 'naughty' runs where she has done her own thing, she has had some good trys too. Her contacts have been terrible again missing every one. I understand the dog walk as I have only recently changed the criteria of what I want from her but I thought we had cracked the A-Frame. In the end I decided not to run her in her agility this afternoon.

Well Kody was our little star this weekend and earned himself a trip to the toy shop. Yesterday he had a good agility run, just missing the weaves on the first go and missing an 'in' which did result in an E. Today he did a lovely agility run and we went clear!!! I did hold his contacts for ages so I could get in the right place and he stopped a bit far up the dog walk so I had to get him to come further down onto the contact. We ended up finishing 44th which I know is a long way off but hey, plenty of room for improvement!

I dont think my dogs want to spoil me with too many clears, so far this year they have had 1 each, wonder who the next one will be from...

We jut have one massive well done to say for this weekend and that is to Jo & Zippy (Megan's brother) who won into G6 today! Not exactly what you had planned but really well done!

Megan & Kody Are Not Popular!

2011-04-13T18:37:00.000+01:00

Well Megan and Kody are well and truely in the bad books at the moment. Last night they all had their dinner and while I was in the kitchen the two of them started to play wrestling. It was getting a bit rough so I told them off (as they are supposed to relax after dinner) and Kody came and stood behind me legs, I gave him a fuss and then in a split second him and Megan had a go at each other (They do have their differences so it's quite normal, they sort it out in a second) but my hand was still in between them from stroking Kody. As a resuly one of them (I have no idea which) bit me.

There was a moment of mad panic and screaming and obviously they knew they had done wrong and went back to behaving, but my finger was badly cut. So last night I spend my evening at A & E in Lincoln getting my finger stitched back together!

I have had 4 stitches and a Tetanus injection and have some antibiotics to take and my finger looks like this:

I have decided to take the rest of the week off work as I have to get the dressing changed and stuff and with a bit of luck I should be ok for Lincoln at the weekend. I know it was an accident and I was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but they are both in the bad books today but to be honest they've been as good as gold!

Swimathon and Shuttleworth

2011-04-10T20:14:00.000+01:00

Yesterday I did my 5km swim. It was considerably harder had I had ever imagined it would be. (Having only done 80 lengths at once) I had to do 200 lengths and by the time I got to 130 my arms were like lead weights and my shoulders were killing me! Still I completed it successfully in 2 hrs, 10 mins and 57 secs so I was really pleased.

Today we have been at sunny Shuttleworth. It was a lovely venue but if I go again I will definitely be camping, the walk backwards and forwards between day parking and the rings felt like miles and when you have 12 runs to do its pretty exhausting!

Heidi was a good girl today, she had a clear in the BSD jumping this morning coming 9th but unfortunately they only placed to 8th :( She continued to be a really good girl all day with only 2 poles down for the whole day and she missed her DW contact and we did have weave issues in one class but on the whole she was very good and listened. It's when she is like this that I like to run her she drives me mad when she is mental so lets hope she stays a good girl.

Kody tried really hard for me today, he had plenty of opportunity to bark at me though for getting him confused, poor boy is probably thinking 'God I wish I had a mum who knew what she was doing!' I have found the G6 courses hard today, its such a big jump from running the girls in 1-3 classes last year as i've had no progression to it. Still it will be a steep learning curve and as long as Kody continues to have fun thats the main thing.

Meg was a bad egg today (we call her Meg the bad egg at home if she is naughty). I don't know what got into her really, its as though her and Heidi decided to swap places for a day and she be totally nuts! Her agility class was terrible, she broke her wait, she missed all 3 contacts by miles and in all but 1 class today she wouldn't weave (but when I called her back to me she did them from the wrong end towards me!), I ended up taking her out of one class for being such a madam. She can be so stubborn when she wants to be. It didn't help matters either when a dog ran into the ring while she was running and had a go at her, thankfully she came straight back to me rather than fight back but i'm sure that spooked her a bit.

For next weekend please can I have my normal Megan back?!

Bad Back Again

2011-04-04T19:59:00.000+01:00

I've not had the best weekend as I have hurt my back again. Last time I had 2 Chiropractor visits and 4 sessions to a sports injury clinic which sorted it out and I have had 6 weeks with no issues but now it's back to how it was before. Today I went to the doctor to get some pain killers and she has referred me to physio and i'm going to the sports injury clinic tomorrow. The doctor did say I have to keep moving and I am still able to swim, good news really as it's my sponsored swim on Saturday!

This weekend is a busy but exciting one, I have booked Saturday off work as I have my Swim at 5pm. I am doing 200 lengths (5km) which I think will take me between 2 and 2 and a half hours. Then on Sunday we are off to Spring at Shuttleworth. It is a good 2 hour drive from here and is quite a bit further than I would normally travel for a day show but I really wanted to go so we are, it will just be an early start. Our running orders are here as are the ones for Lincoln so i'm starting to get excited about the show season starting. Lets just hope my back gets better quick.

If you want to sponsor me for my swim you can do it online by following the link below

https://secure.artezglobal.com/registrant/search.aspx?EventID=17081&LangPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.swimathon.org%2fpage.php%3fpage%3dSponsor_a_swimmer

I am almost at my target of raising £100 so any small amount of sponsorship would be appreciated!

Kody Can Swim

2011-03-30T19:52:00.001+01:00

Today was only Kody's second hydrotherapy session and he was such a good boy. He was much better at getting showered this week when he got there and when he got out. He was very happy to play ball on the ramp and had a good few games of bobbing for the ball. We then got him actually swimming. His first couple of goes were a bit splashy but then it seemed to click in his head as to what he was supposed to do and by the end we had him jumping off the ramp and swimming around the edge of the pool nice and calmly and then back onto the ramp. (We however were not so calm, shouting and cheering at him for being a 'good boy') I cant believe the difference in him for only his second session. It took Heidi about 4 sessions to be that confident in the pool.

The other 3 all had a swim today too. Brian was totally mental, anybody would think he had never been swimming before! He just loves to go to hydro, I think it's his favourite activity. Megan was in second after Brian, she was much calmer, she tries really hard but she does have a much more 'relaxed' swim than the others do!

Heidi had another brilliant session, I got some photos of her swimming today she really does enjoy it. She was even barking for Anne to throw the ball for her into the pool! I only managed to get photos of Kody sitting on the ramp but i'm hoping after a few more sessions he will be less reliant on me being so close and ill be able to get some photos and a video clip of him swimming. (You can see he certainly isn't unhappy sitting in the pool!)

The dogs have got to wait 3 weeks for their next session now as either I couldn't take them or Anne couldn't fit them in but hopefully Kody wont have forgotten how to swim by then.

Jumping Today

2011-03-27T20:59:00.000+01:00

We have done plenty of jump training with the dogs today. We wanted to practice a couple of sequences that Conor had done with Kody last weekend at the Border Collie show that didn't go brilliantly. We both did them with Kody today and were able to see where it had gone wrong and we then did them with Heidi and Megan as well and they coped well with them.

Our major problem today was 'ins'. I couldn't do it with Kody, he knows what to do I just had terrible timing and wasn't getting into position quickly enough. Something we will need to practice I think.

Conor had trouble doing them with Heidi too but he broke it down to do a couple of jump at a time before progressing into a row of 3. Although it was a bit wide at times she was getting the idea, it's something again that will need some practice.

Megan's weaves have been very good today, her entries are so much better and I can confidently leave her in them and run on ahead, something i'm hoping to be able to do this year in competition. I did do a quick bit of contact training with her too today, she was naughty and jumped her dog walk a few times and missed her A frame on a couple so with only two weeks to go until our next competition that's what we'll be continuing to work on.

Brian joined in with some of our training today too, his weaves are still brilliant, they are definitely his favourite obstacle, for such a big dog he can really move through them and he is very bendy. Considering when he first learnt to do them he hated the poles touching his body he has come a long way. Brian isn't going to be competing at all this year, he will obviously be coming with us to shows as he loves to meet people but really he only seems to enjoy agility at home so we will just continue to let him join in to train as and when he wants to.

Kody's Turn

2011-03-25T20:15:00.000Z

This week it has been Kody's turn to do some activities. On Wednesday he had his first hydrotherapy session, he wasn't overly keen on being made to swim, he did a lot of panic swimming but on his last go he did calm down a little. I'm sure he will get used to it though, he has another session next wednesday.

After last weekend we decided it might be a good idea to take Kody to some agility training. I am going to be running him and I haven't done much with him really so it would be a good idea for us to get used to each other. As it happens Lucy had a space become available from this week in the class after Megan's so I took Kody last night and he was a good boy. He isn't very confident running with me at the moment and it took us a few goes to do thing but that is more my handling than him. He did do some nice sequences though and i'm sure we will improve in the coming weeks.

Kody isn't feeling well today although it is self inflicted, he has stolen a large amount of food from the food bin and now is sulking as he probably has belly ache.

Today we have had a busy day, we collected the caravan from storage and got some gas for it and brought it home as it is going to be staying here throughout the summer months. We have cleaned the outside so far but it really needs a good clean in and out before we go away in it. Our first camping show isn't until may though so I have got plenty of time to get it serviced and packed ready and I still need to get a few bits for it that we realised we needed from last year. (Spare battery being one of them) We have decided that this will probably be the caravans last year and we will hopefully have an upgrade next year.

This weekend I have the whole weekend off work and we don't have much planned so it will be nice to get some jobs done and we plan to try to get to the beach with the dogs if the weather stays nice.

Border Collie Club of GB

2011-03-20T18:32:00.002Z

Well thats our first show down, today we were at the BCC of GB show.

Heidi had some good runs today, in her jumping she just had a pole, in her C1-4 agility she did well until the weaves and then wouldn't do them and it went a bit downhill after that and she missed her contacts and in her last agility run she wasn't too bad, a bit mad but calmer than she can be!

Kody was a bit mixed, it was the first time Conor had ran him at all, in their first agility they had a few minor issues like taking the wrong jump and Kody getting a bit confused but nothing too bad. His second agility run wasn't until this afternoon but Kody completely lost all his confidence. I stood and qued with them but then moved away so I could get in position to take some photos and Kody really freaked out so I had to go back to him. His run wasn't great, he was very worried and Conor just couldn't get him to weave at all so he ended up bringing him out. We decided that I would give it go running him in the jumping and he was much better, we got E'd for going in the wrong end of the tunnel and we missed out a couple of jumps due to my handling but all the way round I told him he was a good boy and praised him loads and he ran much better.

Megan started the day off well with a lovely clear in the G3 Jumping which resulted in 16th place so I was really chuffed with that. Her first agility was a real mess, lately she seems to be turning into a proper Mali, a bit mad at times and thats exactly what she was in this class! She missed her DW contact by miles, didn't weave first time and then flew over the A-Frame into a handstand (not sure if she got the contact or not!). Her second agility was better, she got the A-Frame as she is supposed to but still missed the dog walk so we know we still have work to do on that. We have had that little bark in 2 out of 3 classes today too, it makes me laugh so much when she does it and I think she actually surprises herself when it happens!

It's a few weeks now until our next show, but already I can't wait!

Meg's Little Bark

2011-03-17T23:00:00.000Z

This week we have done loads of training with the dogs and I think it is starting to pay off. We have done loads at home and had 2 hours training with Lucy on Wednesday morning and club training tonight where we took Heidi as well as Megan.

Megan has worked on contacts and weaves, her contacts are coming along nicely now, we have done a lot on the dog walk and really pushed her to speed up and she has a very good success rate. We are still to test it without any training aids though. With her weaves I have been working on leaving her in them and running on ahead. It didn't go too well when we trained at Lucy's but we have had some success at home so it is a work in progress.

Heidi's contacts are an ongoing project, she is running them with some success at the moment but we seem to find a method that works then all of a sudden it stops working so it's something we are going to persevere with over the year. Her weaves have been good at times but also terrible at times too! At club tonight I think it took about 10 goes to get her through them as she just gets so wound up and excited.

Kody has trained his contacts and weaves and some jumping at home, he is starting to come off his contacts without being released so we are trying to nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem. He is generally a very good boy though.

This week Megan seems to have found a new level of enthusiasm, she is running so well and much quicker than she used to be and yesterday at Lucy's she developed an excited little woof as she jumped. I'm really pleased that she is starting to love doing agility, until now she has always tried hard but because she was asked to do it, now she is enjoying it more and i'm really looking forward to running her this year.

We have our first show this weekend, we still have some areas to work on with the dogs, Heidi is contacts, Megan it is box sequences as she sometimes runs under a jump but we still have a few weeks after this show until our next one so plenty of time.

The video below is some of our training this week, both at home and with Lucy. Our video ran out at Lucy's though so it doesn't actually show that much. (Check out Meg's ears as she weaves-they make me laugh as she holds them together in a point!)

Crufts & Agility Nuts

2011-03-13T22:00:00.001Z

We had a really good day out on Friday at Crufts. The dogs were spoiled with new beds, toys, dinosaur bones new tags for their collars and some other bits. The Mali's had a good day with Megan's brother Speedy taking the RDCC so well done Jackie and Speedy and Megan's mum Chamonix taking Best of Breed. We got to watch the ABC Jumping in the afternoon and saw Jo & Keisha finish 2nd so well done to you both too, great results all round!

Today we finally managed to get to an Agility Nuts show and we had a really good but very long day. We only had the girls running and although no clears lots of positives to come away with and only a few silly mistakes from Megan really.

I haven't ran her at a show since about October last year so I have had no way of knowing how our training has gone but she got her weaves today and got her A-Frame contact and we had a wait in every class so I have come away really pleased. (There wasn't a dog walk so I couldn't test that). She had a bit of a nervous moment on the see-saw but other than a couple of times at club it has probably been about 6 months since she did it. She had a lovely fast jumping run too and only had to clear the last jump when a woman entered the ring by the finish carrying a bucket which spooked Meg and made her run around the jump but other than that a very good day for us.

Heidi was a bit mad but did have a nice jumping run but knocked 3 poles and a good up and under class but silly daddy's handling made her miss a tunnel.

Lots to work on this week though ready for the season starting next Sunday at BCC of GB in Newark.

Crufts Tomorrow!!!

2011-03-10T21:02:00.004Z

Tomorrow we are off to Crufts for a day out and I'm quite excited. We are hoping to arrive in time to cheer on Jackie & Speedy in the breed ring and will hopefully get to watch the ABC Jumping too. We are mostly going on a shopping trip though, a good opportunity to spoil the doggies (not that they need it!)

This week when we have been training I decided to alter the stride pattern that I want Megan to take on the dog walk so that she does the down in 2 strides rather than 3. I think it will suit her better as she does have a very long stride. Training it has started off well and we tried it out at club tonight, still with the stride regulators in place and after some initial confusion of her thinking she needed to stop on the contact (something she never did when I wanted it!) she got it very well. We also had the opportunity to test her A Frame contact too without any training aids and that went well. We still need to work on our weaves though as we did have a couple of missed entries and she came out of them a couple of times but generally I'm pleased with how her training is going. We are at Agility Nuts on Sunday so that will be an opportunity to test things somewhere totally new.

Good luck to everyone we know competing at Crufts over the next few days and we'll see some of you tomorrow I'm sure!

Fake Ailments

2011-03-06T17:24:00.000Z

Well Kody's week didn't get much better resulting in him thinking he only had 2 working legs! Conor came home on Thusday and amongst all the dogs initial excitement at him being back Kody managed to catch his dew claw which snapped and was pointing at a right angle compared to where it should be. As a result Kody had to go and visit the vet who clipped off the offending nail. The vet did say the nail didn't seem 'normal' so we have to keep it as short as possible but if he catches it a lot it may have to be removed.

Megan hasn't been herself either so I spoke to the vet when we took Kody and the vet thinks it sounds like she is showing signs of having a phantom pregnancy. She isn't producing any milk and the vet thinks its only mild signs so she doesn't need anything for it and we are to carry on as normal.

Due to our vet trip on Thursday we managed to miss club training but will be back there this week and hopefully Meg will be feeling better anyway. We also plan to get some training in at home this week ready for Agility Nuts next weekend.

Kody's down to 3 legs

2011-02-27T18:57:00.000Z

I got home from work today to find Kody holding his left leg up and refusing to put any weight on it. I checked his paw and couldn't find anything but I did discover a small but quite deep puncture wound halfway up his leg.

I would imagine Megan is the culprit as they do play very rough and she is a known leg biter when she is play fighting with any of them.

I have cleaned it up and dressed it anyway and i'm sure it will be ok in a couple of days time. Kody thinks his leg is about to drop off at any moment though and is feeling very sorry for himself, throwing himself down and sighing loudly every couple of minutes. Hopefully he will cheer up when he realises its roast chicken for dinner tonight!

Not much has been happening really, I have had a good couple of swimming training sessions ready for my swimathon which is only about 6 weeks away now (scary!)

I did do 10 minutes contact and weave training with Megan and Heidi earlier (we are just trying to do a few mins a day at the moment in between rain showers and other plans) and all is good. I'll hopefully have a video of Megan and Heidi training by next weekend so I can post an update and if Kody's leg hasn't fallen off by then we should get one of him too :o)

Club Training

2011-02-25T18:14:00.000Z

Last night I took Megan back to club training with Lucy. We had a good class working mainly on jumping. We did a few weaves and see-saw training, I think Megan had forgotten the see-saw at first but she soon remembered. We didn't do any contacts so I couldn't test them but at least that gives us an extra week to practice before next week.

Im at work all weekend this weekend so not much happening for us really. I have entered a couple more shows as camping seems to be filling up really quickly on some of them and I don't want to miss out!

Her Enthusiasm is Back!

2011-02-21T19:14:00.002Z

For the past couple of weeks Megan has been a bit grumpy and not really all that keen on training, I put it down to her hormones after her season. Today however she seems to have a new lease of life and has been really enthusiastic when we have been training.

Her contacts are just brilliant, her A-Frame today has been 100% and her dog walk about 80% success. I have been thinking for a while about taking Megan back to club training and have decided now is the right time to do it so after contacting Lucy she is going back to AgilityBuds on Thursday night. I think she is ready to test those contacts in a new environment now so that hopefully we have still got time to iron out any issues before the season starts next month.

Kody did some good training today although he did only have a quick practice but I want to ensure he is remembering to stop on his contacts after we did try to get him running them earlier in the winter.

As for Heidi, I'm tearing my hair out a bit! She is such a difficult dog to train but I wont be beaten. Running her contacts isn't working, at speed it just doesn't enter her head that she needs to hit the contact point so we are going back to a stop and have done a little bit today before it rained! I think it will be an easier skill to train and reinforce in the time frame that we have.

Heidi is modelling her lovely new coat that she got for her birthday in the picture.

Happy 3rd Birthday Heidi!!!

2011-02-14T19:53:00.000Z

Swimathon 2011

2011-02-09T21:39:00.000Z

On 9th April 2011 at 5pm I am taking part in the worlds biggest swim, Swimathon 2011 to help raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care. I am going to attempt to swim 5k which is about 200 lengths of the pool where I work. I have never tried to swim this kind of distance before however have been training for a few weeks now and am up to 70 lengths.

I would be grateful if as many of you as possible could sponsor me, I apologise if you already have. It doesn't need to be a large amount, just whatever you can. I will be making a donation as well as doing the swim, I am putting £1 in a pot each time I go swimming training as I don't actually have to pay to use my pool.

My aim is to raise £100.

To sponsor me follow the link below and then put in my full name (Katie McManigan). You can do it securely with a debit/ credit card.

https://secure.artezglobal.com/registrant/search.aspx?EventID=17081&LangPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.swimathon.org%2fpage.php%3fpage%3dSponsor_a_swimmer

Thank you in advance and I will keep you all updated with how my training is going over the following months.

Windy Weather

2011-02-07T19:42:00.000Z

The wind here has just been terrible for the last week or so. It has prevented us doing any training really, the dogs would blow off the dog walk! Today it has been so bad when we got back from our walk I opened one of the van doors and it blew straight out of my hand and snapped the hinge. Not good, I managed to get it closed again but thats another thing that needs fixing now!

I had to collapse the A-Frame today too, its not the easiest thing to do on your own anyway but doing it in gale force winds is even harder but it had moved across the garden and I was worried it would blow over and smash a window.

Tomorrow i'm at work and then Wednesday the dogs have hydro and then its the start of a very busy fews days for us all. On Thursday the Mali's are off on their holidays to stay with Sandra, Im taking Brian to Kidderminster for a massage with Natalie then taking him to my mums. On Saturday i'm off to Kent and on Sunday have a family wedding where I am doing the photos. Monday I will be heading back here and collecting Brian on the way and then back to work on Tuesday for a rest!!!

Bad Back

2011-02-01T18:44:00.000Z

For the past few weeks I have had a back back but today I managed to get seen by a chiropractor. Its nothing too bad, my pelvis is just a little bit twisted which is what is causing the pain but the lady I saw was confident it can be fixed. I had a small amount of treatment today and am going back on Friday for another.

I have been quite busy lately with my photography, I haven't had a massive amount of jobs but the ones I have had are quite large, I got one wedding album complete and ordered last week but I have another wedding on the 13th and a wedding fayre on the 20th.

Me and the dogs have done very little training since Dog Vegas, only a few quick sessions on the weaves really, we have either been busy or when we are free the ground is just too wet. We have been on some really nice long walks though over the past few days where the dogs have been paddling in stream and generally getting as wet and muddy as they can. The usual 3 all went to hydro yesterday again too, Heidi has improved again, this time not being aided by Anne very much at all and jumping off the ramp to get the ball, i'm sue she will continue to improve over the coming weeks too.

(Megan watching Over the Hedge)

Dog Vegas

2011-01-23T19:43:00.000Z

Yesterday we were at Dog Vegas in Grantham. I only ended up running Heidi and Kody but that gave me 10 runs which was enough!

Heidi was absolutely manic, having not been to a show for a good while I hadn't expected anything else, she flew her contacts and took 2 attempts at her weaves every time. On the positive she didn't knock too many poles. She did have a fantastic run in the Helter Skelter but we had been eliminated before we started as she had broke her wait without me noticing and ran past the first jump into the tunnel, I took her back and then she ran it clear!

Kody was a very good boy, me forgetting the way and overcrowding him in the weaves, making him come out were the only real issues but it was the first time we had run together. His contacts were spot on which was good. We missed our Helter Skelter run though as I hadn't realised it had moved rings.

So we know what we still need to work on, contacts and weaves-the same as always!!!

Heidi at Hydro

2011-01-21T16:17:00.003Z

Today we have spent pretty much a full day at Dogwise Hydrotherapy. Brian, Megan and Heidi all had a swim and then I stayed to watch another six dogs swim so that I could photograph them for their new website. I will have a long night ahead of me tonight as I took over 900 photos and need to sort through them all, thats about as many as I take at a wedding!

In between taking all the photos I did manage to get a video of Heidi swimming, or rather Rod did. She has improved so much over the past couple of sessions, I still cannot believe that she is actually swimming. She is such a good girl when she goes and I think she soon may actually enjoy it. Not good news for Kody though as we said once Heidi was happy swimming we'd get him going too. (He'd better get his trunks ready at this rate!)

....

Training Continues...

2011-01-19T19:08:00.001Z

I have realised that re training 3 dogs to running contacts all in one go is probably a bit ambitious so I have had a bit of a re think and have decided to stop doing it with Kody at the moment. Thats not to say we wont try again (more than likely next winter) but I haven't got the time to do all 3 at the moment. Kody has quickly gone back to his stopping on the contacts so there is no harm done.

Megan is doing really well with her A-Frame and Dog walk, I am on a weeks holiday at the moment so we have got lots of practice in this week. I don't envisage any major problems with her although we are still to test them in the ring.

As for Heidi, by yesterday I was totally stuck and had tried everything I could possibly think of and she was just jumping everything. I videoed what we were doing as I usually do and emailed it to Conor for a second opinion and some advice (especially as she is his dog!). He came up with something to try and we have worked on it today and it has gone very well so we will continue our training tomorrow. I think with only having to maintain Kody and Megan's contacts it gives me more time to spend on teaching Heidi what I want.

We have also done some jumping today, teaching both the girls 'in', something we haven't done before and that went well so more on that tomorrow. We have also had the weaves out for the first time in a couple of months and it seems Megan has forgotten them too! This training seems never ending :)

On Saturday we are at Dog Vegas so i'm looking forward to that, it is the first time the girls will be running in Grade 3 (they had to move up when Kody joined us) and I have entered Kody too, I feel a bit sorry for him really, he has a major handicap before he starts, me! I'm not sure yet if Megan will be able to run, she is still in season so unless it comes to an end in the next day or so she will have to sit this one out.

Heidi Swims!

2011-01-10T20:39:00.000Z

Today I took Brian and Heidi to hydro (Meg cant go due to her season). It was the first time we had actually got Heidi into the pool and swimming. She wasn't too keen at first and did a few short 'panic swims' but by the end of the session we had got her stepping off the ramp into the water on her own and swimming calmly to her ball which was about half a metre away. She would panic once she had got her ball until she could see the ramp again but then swam calmly back to it. She did much better than I had ever expected considering she has such a fear of swimming (she likes water but with her feet on the floor!).

It certainly has tired her out though, I haven't heard a peep out of her all day apart from to eat her tea which she hoovered up in about 10 seconds (again not like her at all!)

Tonight we have some pretty bad weather here, it is raining really heavily and we have had some thunder and I think its due to continue like this until Saturday at least, not that I mind tonight as Glee starts again tonight so i'm quite excited :0)

It's All Gone Wrong!!!

2011-01-09T19:04:00.000Z

Today was more contact training for the dogs. I increased the height of the A-Frame which proved to be disastrous! Heidi and Kody both had about a 90% failure rate. Heidi was still trying to do the down in one stride but couldn't and so missed the contact and Kody started to leap off from almost the top. We quickly stopped and took a break and I then lowered it for them again but they still mostly missed so I need to come up with a plan of action for them both.

I had planned to start the dog walk today but due to the A Frame issues it made me re think how I was going to approach it with them both. I decided to try laying the plank on the ground and get them running to the end and off it to their toy. It worked really well with Kody and he had a 100% success so I was really pleased. Heidi had gone into one of her crazy moods which makes her pretty impossible to do anything with and so she was jumping the end about half of the time even with it flat on the floor!

I guess they like to keep me on my toes and thinking!

All was not lost today though, Megan has been a really good girl, no real issues with her A-Frame as I increased the height, she just needs a bit more confidence to know she is doing it right. I have started to mark her contact with a clicker and I think that will help. As her A Frame worked so well I decided to keep to my original plan and train her dog walk in the same way. She soon realised if she jumped the end (which so only actually did about 4 times anyway) there was no click or treat. I do need to adjust where I placed the first stride regulator today though so that we are getting it in 3 strides not 4 as I have a feeling when they are removed she will do it in 3 and miss the end but she seemed to be getting the idea today so it was a good start.

I have also done some wait training with Megan today, I have decided to shape the behaviour I want with a clicker instead of trying to make her do it. We did it outside today but not near any equipment and funnily enough it didn't take long for her to work out what I wanted and we had some great results so i'm going to continue with it now and we will have a wait this year!!!

I have added a video of Megan's training today, hopefully it will work (I have been having some issues with Windows Live Movie Maker for a while as it suddenly wont play .mov files from my video camera so I have decided to try out iMovie on my Mac instead).

Not Meant To Be?

2011-01-06T19:35:00.000Z

Over the past 12 months I have entered 4 of the Winter AgilityNuts shows and for every one there has been a reason for us not to go, last winter we were snowed in for 2, the one in December just gone we had just moved and it wasn't great timing and we were supposed to be going to the one on Sunday but Megan has come into season. I was planning to still go and just run Heidi but I had only entered her into 2 classes so I have decided to give it a miss and spend the day doing training with them all as I think this will be more beneficial. We have entered one more in March, if we don't make it to that one then i'll know not to enter any more in the future!

We have done some more work on the A Frame today and I think after one more session we will be ready to increase the height of it a little. (Especially as Heidi has been flying over it today and doing the down in 1 stride-still getting the contact but not really what I wanted!) On Sunday I plan to start dog walk training as well.

Megan is driving me mad with her wait, I spend more time trying to get her to sit than I do actually doing the exercise! (And getting a wait is even more of an effort) She seems to be getting worse and is just so stubborn. I tell her 'sit' and she looks at me as if she has no idea what im saying. Back to basics on that one I think.

A Good Start To 2011

2011-01-03T19:41:00.001Z

Today we finally managed to get a good amount of training in. The weather has been dry for a few days so the ground was in pretty good condition. We did some A-Frame training this morning and at the time I thought it went well but I videoed our session and when I looked back there were a few more misses than I had realised. Heidi had been the one with problems on the first day that we introduced the running contacts but today she was a star getting over an 80% success rate. Megan and Kody had quite a few misses but this afternoon on his second session Kody did much better, Megan was about the same. Still I hadn't expected it to be an easy thing to teach them and i'm sure we will get there with it. Brian joined in on the training today too and he had a 100% success rate, clever boy!

We also did some jumping sequences this morning and this afternoon and I'm glad to say there were hardly any knocked poles which is always good news. I must admit I am loving the opportunity to train at home, its so easy to just step out of the front or back door and get on with it (we should have no excuse for not doing any really!)

I have started to look at shows for next year and pretty much planned out which ones we will be going to although there is scope to change my mind on a few as i'd like to try some new ones that we haven't been to before. I'm getting quite excited though especially as some of the schedules are starting to come out, it will be time to enter them soon!

I also managed to get the van cleaned out today and wash all the dogs bedding from in it, something i've been meaning to do for ages, I hadn't realised just how hairy it had all got!

I took the christmas decorations and tree down yesterday, I'm always glad to see the back of them once Christmas is over. Unfortunately though it means back to work tomorrow afternoon.

I took the photo of the boys asleep last night, how cute are they sharing a bed?!

Happy New Year!

2010-12-31T19:59:00.001Z

Holiday Fun

2010-12-28T19:26:00.000Z

Well Santa came to our little monsters, he bought them plenty of toys, some of which have survived, some didn't last more than a few hours.

We have managed to get in our first contact training session working on the A-Frame and we were pleased with how it went although we have a lot of work still to do. Unfortunately it has rained all day for the past couple of days so the grass is too wet to train on at the moment.

Yesterday we took the dogs on a new walk and today Brian, Megan and Heidi have been swimming. Heidi didn't actually swim but she got in and sat on the ramp and got wet and played with her ball so it was certainly good progress. She let Ann & Katie shower her and dry her off with a towel and play ball with her afterwards too so we were very pleased with how the session went.

Tomorrow my mum and dad are visiting for a few days so there will be lots of dog walking I am sure!

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-24T19:18:00.002Z

Well its Christmas eve, there are 4 stockings hanging up waiting for Santa, I wonder what he will bring to our fury kids? And the big question is, does Santa think they have been good enough this year?...We shall see!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Christmas Tree Is Up!

2010-12-21T19:41:00.000Z

We Finally got round to putting our tree up this evening and it looks quite good now we actually have room for it! The dogs have also got a stocking each which has been put up. I had a clear out of broken and scruffy toys earlier and Kody looked a bit worried that they were going in the bin, I did tell him that if he has been good then Santa will replace them with nice new ones.

Our new contact equipment arrived over the weekend but it has been so cold here and I don't want the dogs getting an injury that we haven't had the chance to put it to any use yet but hopefully we will do over the christmas break. Tomorrow is my last day at work until the 4th of Jan so we should have plenty of opportunity.

Brian and Megan went swimming again today and they both did very well. We took Heidi in for a visit as we are hoping to get her swimming this year too. She was a very good girl and let Rod and Ann stroke her and give her treats. She has her first experience of the pool next tuesday although she will probably just get her legs wet for the first few trips as she doesn't like to swim but I know it will be good for her. If all goes well with Heidi and we can get her swimming we will then attempt to get Kody going too but that will be later next year.

I got my results for my teachers course too yesterday and i'm pleased to say I passed, I was beginning to think my results were never going to arrive, everyone else on the course got theirs a few weeks back but mine were delayed in the post.

Hope you like Heidi posing as a reindeer!

New Walks

2010-12-16T18:53:00.000Z

Yesterday me and the doggies went on the first new walk since we have moved here. Most of the snow has gone now so I braved taking them out and they loved it. They do enjoy having new areas to explore. Our walk was up a track that is about 100 meters from our house so not too far at all. They all came back extremely muddy and pretty tired.

Kody has been a bit under the weather this week, he didn't seem himself at all for the first few days but he has perked up last night and today so we are not too worried to be honest I caught him with his head in the dog food bin on Monday so I think his problem was that he had eaten too much and had a tummy ache!

I have added a few photos of Megan at Hydro on Monday, I'll add some more later on in the week.

Back Online

2010-12-13T20:53:00.003Z

Well the snow is finally going although the fields are all still covered. We managed to move house on Tuesday, only a day later than planned. The new house is lovely and despite some slight issues with no heating for the first few days it is all sorted now and we have settled in well and our internet was finally put on today!!! The dogs are loving the space both indoors and out, they have pretty much exhausted themselves each day with their new adventures.

Brian and Megan went to hydro today and so are shattered now. I got some really good photos of Megan swimming, I'll post some later on in the week when I get a bit more time.

After nearly 3 weeks off due to bad weather and then pre booked holiday I am back to work tomorrow, I'm so glad there are only a couple of weeks left until the Christmas holidays!

A Long Journey Home

2010-12-04T19:30:00.001Z

Conor made it home to us after a very long trip. He hired a car to get him back from the airport but got stuck in the snow about 3 miles from home and by this time it was 4am. I called to get him some recovery and by 9 am they hadn't arrived but a passing tractor helped him out. He then got stuck again half a mile away so walked the rest of the way and the recovery 4x4 originally booked, arrived at 11am so we then walked back down to the car. The hire car had to be left in the next village as we couldn't get it to ours!

Today we had a walk up to the next village to get some milk and check on the car and we were very pleased to see tarmac through the snow for the first time in a week! We decided to attempt to drive into Grimsby in the car to get a few supplies from Tesco. The main roads are not too bad at all but the B roads do still have quite a lot of snow on them.

We are still hoping to move on Monday but we need to dig the van out tomorrow as it is still abandoned outside our gate which is where the removal vehicle will need to go. I guess we are now just going to have to wait and see how thing go over the next 24 hours or so and hope for the rain we have been forecast as well as a bit of a thaw.

Megan seems to have an enjoyable afternoon, she has just been sat glued to Ice Age, she really seems to like all of the Ice Age films and doesn't move when they are on!

Stranded!!!

2010-11-30T19:35:00.000Z

Well it seems as though we are now stranded at home. Today has been constant snow, we have no electric (meaning no heating etc either) from about 8am until nearly 3 this afternoon and no mobile phone network either. This afternoon I took a walk up to the next village which is about a mile away to get some matches (so I could at least light the hob), but that didn't provide me with any enthusiasm that this might improve over the next few days. The roads up there are like here, pretty much unusable, cars are just abandoned in the roads where people are just getting stuck.

It really couldn't have come at a worse time though, Conor is due home on Thursday and flies into Birmingham, as it stands there isn't any chance of me getting out to get him. I think its the worse snow fall we have had here. As if that isn't bad enough, we are meant to be moving house on Monday but I'm not holding my breath as I doubt a removal lorry will get up here.

Anyway above are some pics of the doggies in the snow, they are enjoying it at least! (Brian has decided is a bit too deep now!)

Vans and Snow don't Go!

2010-11-28T16:07:00.004Z

Well today has turned out to be a really s**t day! The snow has continued to fall on and off this morning but as several cars had been in and out in our road I thought the outside world might not be so bad.

I was due to start work at 3 so decided to set off at 2 giving me an extra 35 mins travelling time. I got about 3 miles away from home (which took ages) and in that time got the van stuck twice, the second time it just wouldn't bugde so I had to reverse down the hill a bit and turn around to head back for home. My mobile phone signal has been a bit iffy today (probably due to the weather) but what a surprise, when I was stuck it had gone off. I made my way back home, getting stuck on a hill once more and the only way to move was to zig zag slowly up the hill. I got back into our road and got stuck about 2 metres from our house so had to be pushed a little way and the van is now abandoned outside our gate!

It won't be going anywhere for a few days until some of this snow has gone (and yes I know we are forecast it for the rest of the week but I'm happy being in denial over that one for now).

Me and Conor had been thinking about getting another 4x4 at some point as a second run around vehicle, it may be arriving sooner than we had planned!

Megan has found a good snow game to play, she runs as fast as she can, throws her front legs forward and back ones out behind and skids along in the snow like a sledge! It's quite amusing to watch.

The pictures are from last year, I'm not loving the snow enough to go out and photograph them today, maybe tomorrow when I have stopped being a grump!

First Lot of Snow

2010-11-28T09:49:00.000Z

Well yesterday morning we unfortunately woke up to a blanket of snow. Actually it didn't turn out to be too much of a problem, it provided a lovely back drop for some wedding photos it was just very very cold! It pleased the dogs to have the white stuff back, they do love it and are especially pleased to find its still there this morning.

We currently have a skip on our front garden so that we can get rid of some rubbish that we seem have accumulated and the malis think its the best game ever to play chase around it and with snow its even more fun! The video is of the girls playing in the snow yesterday, Kody had worn himself our playing chase with them earlier and Brian had as usual just woken up so wasn't really in the playing mood! (Sorry its poor quality, I only had my phone to hand)

Will It Be A Repeat Of Last Year?

2010-11-24T18:12:00.000Z

I'm led to believe according to the weather forcast that we may be in for some snow over the next few days. As much as I like the snow I dont think I could face another winter of it like last year, we ended up will almost 3 full months of it here so i'm really crossing my fingers that it doesn't happen over the next few days, especially as I have a wedding to photograph this weekend!

Course Complete

2010-11-21T18:54:00.003Z

On each Sunday throughout October and November I have been on my level 2 swimming teachers course. Today was our last day with both our 2 hour written exam and 2 hour practical assessment. I have passed the practical side as we got those results today but I have to wait another couple of weeks to get the results of the written exam. Whilst it was an enjoybale course and I learnt a lot, I am so glad its over!

On the Subject of Swimming, Brian and Megan both had good swims on Friday. Brian is now swimming with just a harness and not a jacket (Its only taken about 4 years to get to that stage!). Megan is getting more and more confident every time we go which is good, this week she even gave Ann a slobbery kiss! I am going to be taking some photos for Ann for her new website so this week I had a go at photographing our dogs swimming. It is much harder than it would seem as the lens steams up the second you get in the door. I did get a couple of good photos of our dogs and I have some new ideas to try when we next go. Hopefully after a few more sessions i'll be ready to photograph their own dogs in the pool.

Progress...

2010-11-18T19:09:00.001Z

After a successful day of weave training with Megan I thought I'd post a video of her progress so far. I have videoed every session we have done and it is clear to see how much of an improvement she has made. Her performance isn't perfect yet but at the moment she is about 1.5 seconds quicker through the weaves than she first was which is obviously a good thing!

I began some jump grids training with Heidi and Megan today too and it went well. Heidi did have a couple of poles (even though they were on small) but that is due to her getting over excited and not concentrating, when she concentrates she does really well, its a work in progress though!

Tomorrow Brian and Megan have hydrotherapy and this weekend I actually have Saturday off!!! I think I might go Christmas Shopping though as I haven't started yet and could do with getting a chunk of it out of the way as it is fast approaching yet again.

Training With Lucy

2010-11-17T20:11:00.000Z

I had been a bit conscious that we hadn't been to the field to do any training for nearly 2 weeks due to bad weather so on Monday we managed to squeeze in an hour before it got dark. I thought Meg might have forgotten her single stride weaves but she is doing it every time when the V's are open, its just closing them up now thats taking its time. Still we have all winter and i'm confident she will get there.

Today we had a couple of hours of 1-2-1 training with Lucy. Each dog had 40 mins each. With Heidi and Megan we mainly worked on tightening turns and my handling (which at times was poor!), and with Kody we did a bit on contacts and then some jumping and handling. It made a nice change to train with someone else as we no longer go to club. I think in the new year we may have a session every couple of weeks for a while.

Tomorrow all being well I plan to get to the field in the morning and start some jump grids training, mainly focusing on Heidi as she knocked a lot of poles today so it was a gentle reminder that we could do with attempting to sort it!

Wet & Windy At The Beach

2010-11-09T17:40:00.000Z

As I suspected the weather was terrible today meaning no training for the dogs. We did however have our beach trip. I am very glad I invested in waterproof trousers or I would have been soaked! We didn't go all the way down to the sea as it is quite a long way and looked very choppy today. There was a thin layer of water all the way up to the sand dunes so the dogs still got to get wet.

We walked a good way along the beach along the sand dunes so that I could have a little bit of shelter from the wind and rain. The dogs splashed around and ran up and down the sand dunes and generally had a good time. We had about 10 minutes of sunshine where there was a rainbow but then it was back to dark clouds and more rain. Needless to say, we didn't see anyone at all!

Not sure what's going on with Brian's ears, maybe he is trying to look like a Mali too!

Jumping Grids

2010-11-08T19:34:00.002Z

At the start of October Heidi was due to go on a jumping grids workshop but unfortunately Conor had to go away the same day and so we couldn't go. As we have had a pretty wet and miserable day I have begun watching Susan Salos jumping DVD so that I have some idea what to practice with Heidi to try and combat those knocked poles!!!

Tomorrow should be our training day at the field but having checked the weather I think it's due to be wet all week so the dogs may get a week off this week. Still it gives me the chance to plan what I want to do for next week should it be dry.

The dogs are full of beans at the moment, mainly I think from being indoors much earlier now as its dark and with it being cold I'm less inclined to leave the back door open all day for them to come and go while i'm in and they end up lazing around the house. Tomorrow I plan to wrap up and put on my wellies and waterproofs and take the dogs to the beach. They'd end up wet in the sea anyway so the rain wont make much difference to them!

Not Loving The Dark!!!

2010-11-04T16:16:00.003Z

I'm certainly not loving the change in the clocks this week! It's just so dark, I keep thinking its time for bed and its only 8pm! On the plus side it has been light when I have been walking the dogs before work but I know that wont last long.

Brian has finally been given the all clear by the vet which is great news and he celebrated by going to hydrotherapy yesterday. I took both Brian and Megan, Meg watched Brian swim and got very excited from watching him. I had to put Brian away though while Megan had her swim as he just whined to get back in!

We have managed to get some training in at the field on Tuesday morning but it was so windy I had to pet the jump wings in so decided to just work on flick flacks as it doesn't require too many jumps. Megan also did some weaves, I have decided to leave the first and last 2 poles quite open and we are currently working with the middle 4 totally upright (having been successful with the middle 2 and 3) and the others are at a slight V. She is struggling with the 4 though so we are not ready to move on yet, the good thing is she seems to always be entering with a single footed action now and I'm confident she will get it in the end.

We are without our van at the moment, last winter the heater packed up and it spent 5 days with a local garage while they played around with it but they didn't end up fixing it. now that we have got some cold mornings I'm struggling to get the scre

en cleared so it has gone to VW to be fixed. Good news is they have discovered the problem (2 hours labour at £60 an hour!) and tomorrow they will be replacing the broken part. I have got a hire van so I can go out but the dogs can't go far as we have no cages and I don't have enough crates for them all so they are having a lazy day today and tomorrow with just some walks to the field.

A Walk Along the River Bank

2010-10-28T18:45:00.004+01:00

As a change I decided to give the dogs a day off training today and take them for a nice walk along the river Ancholme. I work right next to the river and see people walking their dogs there all the time but didn't really realise what a nice walk it actually was. I popped into work and went for a swim whilst the dogs waited in the van then took them for their walk. They were not supposed to get wet, I thought the bank was quite steep so didn't think they'd get in...

...Well how wrong was I?! It evened out the further down you go and I only came back with 1 dry dog and that was Kody (although he did have wet legs). I couldn't keep Brian or Megan out, they are real swimmers and Heidi got soaked as she fell in trying to get to Brian! Still they seemed to enjoy themselves and have slept all afternoon although Megan and Kody are now full of beans and are back to their usual wrestling games, I dont think they believe in giving me 10 mins peace!
.

1 Paw At A Time

2010-10-27T17:19:00.001+01:00

We have had a couple of good sessions of training at the field this week so far and I'm pleased to say Megan is now doing the v-weaves with a single footed action. The plan now is to reduce the angle that they are at until she can do them upright. I' really pleased with how quickly she has picked it up so far, lets hope she continues with the same good progress. I am keeping a video diary of her training on this so I'll post it once we have completed the training.

We haven't really been up to much else lately. We have ordered our dog walk and A-Frame so we can start our contact training but they aren't due to arrive until mid December so we are currently working on jumping skills until then.

Brian has another check up at the vets on Friday and Kody is going too for his injections. I'm really hoping they give Brian the all clear this time (I seem to remember saying this before) but I really think he is the best he is going to be now and he is so much happier in himself and seems to have put a good bit of weight on too so fingers crossed!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Megan!

2010-10-24T16:10:00.001+01:00

I can't believe our puppy is 2 today, it doesn't seem like that long ago she was a tiny little puppy. She has of course has some presents, a mini space hopper like the big one she loves and another toy and some treats too. Her daddy has promised to get her a new teddy when he gets back so i'm sure she'll love that as she really does love teddys!

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Reno, Zippy, Speedy, Eva and Zippo. hope you all have a lovely birthday x

Dog Vegas

2010-10-23T16:58:00.003+01:00

Today we have been at the Dog Vegas show. I was running just the girls but the main idea today was to do some 'in the ring training' rather than competing as such. The aim was to ensure that Megan had a WAIT at the start of EVERY class and that they both got their weaves and would then be rewarded. Well it didn't go exactly to plan...
.

...Megan broke her wait in the first 3 classes which is really just down to naughtiness as she has a very solid wait at home so for the last 2 agility classes as there was no weaves in them (how annoying when that's what you want to train) I decided to run NFC and use the time to get our wait. We did have success but most of our course time was used up with me trying to win the battle but when she realised I could keep putting her back as often as I wanted until she did it, I won. I let her do 3 jumps as her reward for waiting. The second attempt at this was pretty much as the first was but to be honest I think it was worth while doing as she seems to know there are only so many times I can put her back at a normal show so sometimes the smaller shows are worth entering just for training things like that.

Only the jumping classes had weaves in and unfortunately both of the girls missed them on each time, Heidi chose the tunnel every time and Megan ran past them totally on one run and on the other went in about halfway down so obviously still more work to do on those.

Generally though not a bad day out, Heidi got quite stressed being indoors as it's very crowded and noisy but she coped with that by playing with her toy and being very focused on me whilst in the que and obviously getting lots of tasty treats for being such a good girl. I know she isn't happy in some situations but all I can ask of her really is be try to accept it and to be good and today she certainly did.

(The pictures are of the girls playing wrestling earlier in the week!)

Training Video

2010-10-18T17:28:00.000+01:00

We have continued to work on our 2x2's since last week and the girls have definitely upped their game (C'mon girls!) On Friday and today we have been on 6 poles and it has gone very well. The issues we had previously had with Heidi's right hand weaves seem to have gone and she is doing them well. I videoed today's session and I'm glad I did as one thing I have noticed that I always do with Heidi (and never with the others) is stop dead once she has completed the weaves to throw her toy instead of continuing to run with her until we have passed them so that is something I will stop doing from now on (Bad mummy!)

As they all did so well today I ended the session with a couple of goes on 12 poles which I may have rushed on to a bit too quickly. Heidi and Brian both came out at 10 almost every time, Kody slowed considerably once there were 12 and poor Meg, she tries so hard but she can't double step 12 poles and so she tries and then ends up strolling through them so from tomorrow we will be getting the V weaves out for them all-Kody to increase his speed, Meg to teach a single footed action and Heidi & Brian in the hope that it will keep them in until the end.

With the dark nights drawing in we have been doing some shaping and clicker training at home to teach the dogs some new tricks but also so that we can introduce some bits into our agility training later through the winter. I have to say Megan seems to be the brain box for this, she really seems to like shaping. Kody and Heidi are doing well with it too, I think I have found Brian the hardest, we have been working with a cone and it took forever for him to interact with it but when he finally did I clicked him a few too many times for some things and now he thinks the game is to kick it over! Not quite what I had in mind but its new to me too so we will all learn together I guess.

Quick Catch Up

2010-10-13T21:00:00.000+01:00

Well I thought it was about time we had a quick catch up although to be honest we haven't really done that much to be writing about. The dogs have had a good few sessions at the field and today I finally managed to move the remainder of our stuff up there. We have been working on our 2x2 training for the past few weeks on & off and bearing in mind all 4 dogs can already weave, today they should have been on 4 poles...

...The boys have both continued to do very well with no major issues at all but the girls have both been terrible today. Heidi just decided to not listen and do the first thing that popped into her head and then barked at me when it was wrong and Megan was more interested in what the people opposite the field were doing. Megan seems to be ok if she takes her time but when she gets some speed up before going into them she comes out. She isn't adjusting her stride prior to entry. I think they will both have to go back a stage tomorrow and i'm going to put today down to an 'off' day and begin again tomorrow. (We don't want the boys being better than the girls!!!)

Infact the dogs have all been pretty horrid today, I don't really know what has got into them, I decided it was about time the van had a good clean out so as we were back from the field earlier than planned I have hoovered it and cleaned out all inside and washed all the vetbed and blankets. While I was doing the massive project I noticed the dogs (well the Mali's-Brian was alseep) sitting in the front window barking. As they seemed to have far to much energy I put the 3 monsters out into the garden but I lost count of the amount of times I had to moan at them for barking. I hope they are not as mental tomorrow, they do make life hardwork when they are like that!

Kody has settled in really well with us, to be honest it is like he has always been here. Megan really loves him, they play constantly and they prefer to go on their daily walks together (although I do try and vary who each of them goes with). I have spent this evening repairing toys that he has broken (mainly the ones that are Megan's favorites-her teddy lost his leg again today and she was most upset) so if anyone can recommend some indestructable toys (I know not many are Mali proof) it would be much appricated as we are running low. Kongs seem to be the only toys to survive at the moment in our house!

Sick Day

2010-10-05T20:45:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we had some lovely warm sunshine so we made the most of it and spent a good few hours at the field doing some training with all 4 of the doggies. We still have 9 jumps to move but hopefully we will get them moved tomorrow.

Today I was supposed to be on earlies but last night I began to feel unwell with a headache and a bit of a sore throat. I opted for a hot bath and early night but didn't manage to fall asleep until after 4.30am so I didn't go to work this morning, instead i've spent the day curled up on the sofa covered in a duvet and dogs! They do seem to know when you don't feel well as they all want to curl up with you for a cuddle, only problem is you get squashed when all 4 want one at once!

Nearly Moved In...

2010-10-01T21:32:00.001+01:00

We got the majority of our agility kit moved up to the new field today, just got some of the bigger jumps and the A-Frame to move now but it has poured down all day today and we were thoroughly soaked after a few trips with the van so gave up. Hopefully it will be dry one afternoon over the weekend to get the rest moved once I'm in from work. The grass has been cut up there too so it is pretty much ready to go now and we are quite excited!

Great News

2010-09-29T12:59:00.001+01:00

Well our great news is that we have got our plot of land to train on, we can move our equipment into the storage on Friday and can use it from then on so we are very excited. It's typical that i'm working this weekend so it will be monday before we get to train so please rain, go away!!!

Yesterday the dogs seemed very full of beans so we took them for a good long walk, they all got covered in mud but it was really great to see Brian back to his cheerful self. There was a massive hay bale that was probably as high as my shoulders, the mali's jumped up onto it with no bother but I didn't think Brian could do it but he proved me wrong and got up there to have his picture taken with the others.

Today Megan has been swimming at the hydro pool, I managed to get her on video today so you can see how much she enjoys her swimming. She is absolutely shattered now and is fast asleep on my bed!

Let Down By The Weather

2010-09-24T14:11:00.002+01:00

Our training started off well this week, we have started our 2x2 training and done 2 sessions so far and all 4 dogs are doing it well (I still think Brian is the best at it though!). We have also managed to get in one good session where we worked on waits and recall starts, something which I have not really achieved with Megan this year and Heidi does often break her wait. Brian has really seemed to enjoy doing some training again although the jumps were set at very low height with the poles just resting on the jump feet. Unfortunately though, the weather has made a turn for the worse and we have had some pretty heavy rain so we haven't managed to do any training since!

Last night we went to club but even that was a bit of a disaster. Our main issue at club is that they never peg the weaves in and with some of the slower dogs it doesn't prove to be a problem but when you have a dog that tries to do them as quickly as possible it just doesn't work. Poor Heidi must have had about 15 attempts at the weaves and each time failed because she would do 2 or 3 then the base would move so they were nearly bent back on themselves. There was no way in the world she could possibly complete them and with each failed attempt she became more and more frustrated and wound up so Conor decided not to run her again. Megan had some issues too, mainly the see-saw. It's a much lighter one than we used to have and when the bigger dogs go over it the base moves (needs pegging in really) so she would end up jumping off the side as it moved and missing her contact which isn't great as her see-saw is her only reliable contact!

We have been today to see about hiring a plot of land with storage near to where we live so that we can train on our own with a bit more space than we currently have at York Road and we should know by the end of next week if we can have it so if we do we may stop going to club and just train on our own so fingers crossed.

Brian has been for a check up today with the vet had his booster jab which had been put off due to his illness. Good news is that he has put on 2kg since his last visit so we are really chuffed. He has to go back in another 2 weeks as they were not happy enough yet to wean him off his steroids so he is still on them for the next 2 weeks but they are pleased with his progress.

I'm on lates all weekend so the dogs will be on rest days now with just their daily walks, I'm hoping the weather improves for next week though so we can get on with our training again!

Bromsgrove Video

2010-09-21T12:30:00.000+01:00

Bromsgrove Weekend

2010-09-19T19:58:00.000+01:00

We have had a really good weekend this weekend and it has been a nice way to end our agility for this year. Me and Conor took all the dogs for a good long walk on Cannock chase on Friday evening so that they settled well for the night. They all really enjoyed themselves and found a water spot to have a swim/paddle in.

On Saturday at the show Natalie (The Lady who massage's Brian) was there with a stand so she gave Brian, Kody and Megan a check over. Brian was over the moon to see her and the good news is even with his head tilt he doesn't have any tight spots on his neck or anywhere else, in fact he is in good shape!

The girls have had some good runs this weekend, today was much better than yesterday for Heidi as she was a little bit mad! No clears but a good run from both girls in the C1-7 jumping today with Heidi just taking 1 pole. A couple of times this weekend Megan has come out of her weaves at the last one and I haven't noticed and so let her carry on so I think it's a good thing we are going to re-do our 2x2 training, starting this week.

Well that's it now for us, we have had a brilliant year and looking back at some of our video's from earlier in the year both Heidi and Megan have come on leaps and bounds and their confidence has grown (Megan so much so that she fell asleep ringside yesterday despite people stepping right by her and dogs passing by, something she would have been to terrified to do earlier this year). We now have a very exciting winter ahead getting ready for next year with just a few small shows thrown in where we can train in the ring and test the things we have learnt.

(I'm having some issues uploading our video from the weekend but i'll try again in the week)