Ant Clarke, Vegas & BCCoGB...

Last weekend was rather hectic as, in my usual style, I crammed in as much as possible and as a result was completely exhausted by the end of it.

Friday we were up in Scunthorpe for a training day with Ant Clarke, organised by Bob Sharpe. Si and Blaze were in the morning session and I was working D in the afternoon. Blaze did really well and coped really well with the environment, strange people and dogs. Its been great seeing the confidence in this team develop; Si has become more confident as a handler, he has become more confident in Blaze and his ability and Blaze has become more confident in himself and is really coming along in leaps and bounds. The afternoon session was about our body positioning and making sure the dog took the cleanest line for the course. We walked a set course and ran it how we thought best. We then critiqued ourselves before running it again. Ant then broke the course down into several shorter separate sequences and tailored the advice depending on the issues each individual dog & handler were having.


Vegas

Saturday we had Dog Vegas at Grantham. Si had Blaze in the Grade 0 classes and somehow I found my excitement and attention all on Blaze, just as I felt all Ds first shows were all about him…except I don’t run Blaze lol. We took Pip and Blaze up to the practice ring whilst on small first. Pip was completely full of it but I made sure she got and stopped on her contacts…eventually. Si took the ball in for blaze and did all the contacts, a few jumps and a full set of full weaves. He was a little star and certainly up a gear; his weaves were so quick!

The G4-7 jumping was rather naggy and despite two attempts with each I didn’t manage to get either round clear – more about my bad handling than the dogs lol. Thankfully the agility made up for it. I ran the first NFC to train contacts. Both got them so I ran the next one. D had lovely contacts but at the end of the flick flack, 4 from the end, he took a detour to sniff at a big lump of horse poo losing a lot of time. Inca did a lovely run ending up 2nd and winning some money. Tea was on her ;-) In the HS I had a pole with D but he ran it really well and I really pushed him on. Incas course should have been right up her street but she was too distracted by a little dog tied up to the next ring. No idea who she thought it was, lol.

Blaze was a bit all or nothing. In both his agility runs he was determined to cut behind Si to do the a-frame. I can only assume Si stepped in to release him and then went right of the dog walk which pulled him towards the a-frame but its not clear in the videos so who knows. For some reason while we were queuing he spooked at some kids that were running around the rings. He then decided to woof and howl randomly at random people and random things. Si got him focused, or so he thought, and set him up for his jumping run. He did a lovely wait and was halfway round the course when he decided to howl at the judge, Kath Norton (who had also been at the training day with Ant also). Blaze then carried on and finished the rest of the course. So everyone laughed especially when Sam Chapman pointed out that I’d recorded the whole thing on camera. Welcome to the world of public humiliation ;-)



BCCoGB

Sunday we had The Border Collie Club of GB agility show at Newark. This year it was just for Large dogs only and I was actually rather looking forward to it being rather less hectic than the previous day. I had a couple classes to walk first thing but it was a while before I was actually in the ring which gave us a chance to take the others for a nice amble around the exercise area. I do appreciate having a decent sized area to walk the dogs away from the rings.

Inca was first in for her G4-5 agility. Unfortunately she self released her a-frame into the wrong end of the tunnel but she was really up for it, happy and fast so I couldn’t really ask for much more. She got all her contacts, did her weaves and generally just had a blast. She continued this enthusiasm in both Andrews courses; the C1-4 agility and the G4-5 Jumping. She ended up 7th in both despite the agility being out of 313 dogs!

Diesels only clear of the day was in the G4-5 agility and was a bit messy. The middle section towards the dog walk was fairly tight and there were several other jumps which I knew he could take. So I left him on the flick-flack and ran to beat him but he eyed up the start and I managed to call him off it, just. We got round clear and he ended up 2nd (by 0.3!) behind Jayne and Dolly. Sadly that was it for us in terms of clears. I handled the C5-7 Agility badly, after getting lost, and tried to cross behind on the weaves before he was committed into them so pulled him off. And in the jumping I pulled him off a jump and caused him to knock a pole. Oops!

So, that was Ds last G5 show. Our next is LAE where he is G6. I have mixed feelings for this season but I’m hoping Inca keeps her enthusiasm as its entirely possible this season could become all about her =)


Toni Dawkins Training

Our mad agility weekend didn’t end there as on Monday we had another training day with Toni Dawkins at Racingredd.

Si was in the 9-11am group so I dropped him off. Evidently the dogs in the group were at a more basic level than Blaze and both Toni & Wendy agreed that Blaze wasn’t pushed to his full potential so he was invited back later to the group with D and me. Although this was aimed at G4-7 the sequences could be broken down to make it easier if need be. That said Blaze coped really well and I think it did him good to be pushed that little bit more, especially in a group environment. We focused on turns, weaves & contacts and as usual I really enjoyed it. I didn’t come back with quite the lengthy notes that I did last time but I certainly came back with lots of food for thought. Although I have a lot of areas I want to improve with the dogs I must admit that the main area is me. I’ve picked up some bad habits (like funny things I do with me hands) and I really need to sort these out!