Flyball was meant to be at Clumber Park Steam and Country Fair, however the venue changed last minute and it was near Goole, at Home Farm.

We had 4 teams in Saturday, and as Ju is still in hospital, I said I’d help Jane out as much as she needed and I ended up with a job in every div! I helped my Mum run Chip in starters (but these days she needs me less and less, which is great) and they came 3rd, and Alpha Dogz who hosted the events gave all the starters a keyring with their dog on and their placing on the back; such a lovely idea. Then me and my trusty vice, Emma, captained the Eagle ‘Owlers who although they won a few races ended up 5th. Then I took up my usual job of vice captain of Nights with Jane, who also ended up 5th. Finally I ran Jet in Barney ‘Owlers in div.1 with Norah, Floss and George. Although we knew we didn’t have much of a chance without Murphy, we clocked an 18.63s over 14″ which is really good. That will be our new seed time now, so if we still don’t have Murphy for the next one, we will be able to be competitive. Jet ran her socks off though so I was really pleased.

On Sunday the Barking ‘Owlers were in division 3, with a seedtime of 20.03s from Tabley with the terrible two: Jet and Flossy. Seeing as they were in Barneys for the weekend, Mollie and Stripe did a fabulous job coming up from Night Owlers and they managed a best of 20.71s. I was boxloading, not a job I usually do (apart from for little Miko for the opposition - eeeep!) and I really enjoyed it this time. I yelled my socks off and shouted “go go go” more times than I care to remember. They came 3rd, which was brilliant to say a few teams went sub-20.

Then we ring partied for division 2, I’m glad Barneys were in div.1 as it meant we could be far more competitive rather than winning div.2 with teams doing best times of about mid19s, bar one or two that were very late 18s. We left halfway through the afternoon ringparty to go and see Julie and then I stayed with Jane and was dropped off in Huddersfield in the morning.

It was a good weekend actually, I enjoyed myself on the most part.

Emma has posted a video on her blog of all the teams.

Well, to be honest, I have so much and so little to write.

On Saturday Julie was taken ill, very unexpectedly at flyball and is now ill in hospital. Jo, Craig and the rest of the ‘Owlers quick action probably made it a lot better. I won’t go into any details, but she needs all the good vibes she can get and we need to keep her in our thoughts. She gave me so much help and encouragement with both Jet and Poppy, and is probably best known in the flyball world (apart from her lovely personality) for her persistance with a certain black whippet that has gone onto great things.

We weren’t going to compete on Sunday, but Ju would hate it if we dropped out. Instead we asked Sarah to bring Floss and Barneys went with a 4 dog line up of Norah, Jet, Floss and George. They all ran well, but none of our hearts were really in it. For once I managed to get my changeovers right, but the winds were horrendous, meaning the dogs were running back against a brick wall essentially. We did manage an 18.71s which is pretty good considering the conditions and that we had no Murphy.

Just after the “morning”s racing (which ended up being about 2:30pm), judge Bob shouted for a member from each team, so me and Sarah obliged while I tried to get hold of Jane. The winds were blowing the gazebos down, skewing jumps (as Jet found out) and blowing litter and leaves into the rings. Bob’s first proposal was the do best of 3, run 3, but the majority of people decided it was in the dogs’ best interest to abandon racing altogether.

When I was flicking through the Wii Fit instruction book, it says you can use it to weigh your pets. To be honest, it’s just like normal scales and you hold your dog - then it says “Oh my god you’ve gained 3stone” for example lol!

Anyway, we gave it a bash with Chip, Jet and Whisky (Poppy would hate me for picking her up)! Last time we measured them was at vaccination time at Christmas, the results were as follows:

Jet 19.05kg (she was 21.05kg at Christmas)
Chip 21.10kg (he was 23kg at Christmas)
Whisky 10.25kg (he was 12kg at Christmas)

I out it down to lots of exercise and a controlled diet They look in top shape at the moment, I love taking Jet out as her coat is so shiny, she nice and slim as well. When people come into the vets with fat dogs, I just want to tell them how to sort it, when I’m a vet, I will do.

Donny this weekend! Chip is in starters tomorrow - I hope he runs how he did at training cos I bet he clocks some good sub-5 times hopefully. He was storming Wednesday night and my Mum was doing well with him.

Sunday sees Jet and Barneys running! Jet, Norah, Brooke, George and Murphy. It’s forecast heavy rain for the weekend so I’m not very excited yet.

I’m a bit gutted as pairs is only on Sunday and me and Sarah were going to put Jet and Floss in as a kick-ass pairs team! Instead we’re going to pair with the equally beautiful Brooke!

Well Jet and I went flyballing last night, she was flying I was so pleased! Her box looked fast and she was really pushing off it and chasing me.

That was all well and good for one run, and then I managed to pull a muscle in my leg! It kills like mad, I think it’s because I had a sore leg on Wednesday morning anyway, and was in such a rush to run that I didn’t warm up or anything. It kills like mad!

On the ear front, I spoke to Sarah and she also thinks that Jet’s ears are down to her genetics; if her Mum is a tri, there must be a red in her lines somewhere!

OK! Post #2 of today, but only a very quick one!

Jet went to agility tonight and I was so pleased with her! We started off just working at the side with two jumps and the aframe, to try and get her contacts solid again. She is getting rather excited about this “aframe fing” and sneaky little devil broke her wait once, which I’ve not known her do in a looong time. So I took her back and proofed it a bit, then she was back to her usual bombproof self.

I tried sending her on to the contact position and calling her towards it too. I won’t lie and say she got it every single time, but she is dramatically improving and is putting in 110% - she is trying to stop and acknowledges where the position is now too. When she misses it she gets put back on but I think she missed it once; after that she was spot on everytime. I keep giving lots of praise on the contact, and using the clicker too. She really enjoys it, so I’m happy!

Then we did a bit with the jumping exercise, she was really flying, I was so pleased and she was pretty fast too. The only hang up we have at the moment is to do with the weaves! She gets her entry spot on everytime, but just the last 2 weaves she cuts out early every so often. If I am keeping up with her, not too far behind, she won’t come out, but I have a hell of a job these days. Any ideas most welcome, well practically begged for :).

Finally we did a bit on the full course, and she flew around and even remembered her contact position without the target there. I was over the moon. She was my little star, can’t believe how much better/faster she is than last year.

Tomorrow my placements start! I’m being broken in easily with a 2 day stint at a Cattery and then Doncaster Flyball this weekend!

Over the last few months, Jet’s ears have continued to get more and more red.

This photo was taken last August at the BAA Finals Weekend:

(as you can see, she has perfectly black ears!)

Then this was taken by Cat at Drax in May 2008:

(Voila! Red ears!)

I don’t know if it’s just that she has matured and the red going to stay there.

I have commented on it in the blog a few times, but haven’t given it it’s own post up until now. Alison, dogaholic from RD,  posted on the Agility forum with a topic called “Dry/Rough Fur Supplements“. It interested me that someone mentioned about a black dog going redish in colour. Someone suggested a Tyrosine deficiency to Alison as a reason for fur turning red. I had a look online and major sources of the amino acid include: meat, eggs, dairy and bananas. Now they get a lot of meat as they are on the BARF diet, and Jet is a huge banana fan - she gets a few a week.

I was stumped so decided to post. For those of you that don’t know, Jet’s mum (Jenna) is a tri-colour border collie and her dad (Barney) is a very pale show golden retriever (ie he’s not a little, working deep orange GR). I said this, minus names and technicalities, and I also mentioned how old she is.

I had this reply from Sylie Van Autryve:
“you say that there’s a tri as parent… so probably there could be a red BC in the ancesters and a golden.. So her ears can go lighter, just genetically, but my first thought would be that those hairs are just “dead” ones, so (and here I don’t know the English word for it) you should “pluk” them…
A translator calls is “picking”???”

Now, I know that it’s not that those hairs are dead because I’ve tried pulling them out before, and unless I was pulling very hard, nothing would come of it. When you see her in real life, it’s like the fur is just red, no black in sight anywhere. I’m assuming that maybe it’s her parentage then? Sarah has also suggested this to me when I asked her, so I’m sticking with that as the solution for the minute, no deficiencies lol!

Any ideas more welcome

I haven’t posted for a few days, hopefully I will tomorrow after some agility.

Anyway! After all that stress about exams, I actually managed to pass I am so pleased, I think I got 3 distinctions and a merit, so I’m absolutely thrilled. Even the one I was convinced I’d failed I’d done fine on. Lady luck is on my side!

Woo!

Well, I’m dead tired so not posting much!

Jet was a super star tonight and was flying! Her and Floss were just running as a pair so that Sarah could get her changeovers right into her. Jane told me to wait until Jet was taking off for the second jump back before I ran, it took a lot of restraint not to bomb off straight away but it worked and turns out that Jet runs just like George.

Speaking of George, with Jane running the show tonight, and everyone else either running a dog or boxloading, I stepped in and ran the silver fox. We ran lead, so not lik there were any changeovers for me to mess up lol, but he was being such a good lad and I enjoyed myself too!

Jet got two sessions in and her stamina work looks to be paying off, she was as raring to go for the first as she was for the last. Maybe agility has this affect on her….I hope it stays lol!

Night

Well, I’m enjoying my week off before placements start next week (cattery, hmmm yey) and generally enjoying doing nothing!

Yesterday I had a rather productive day. I decided to go and sunbathe on the sun lounger on the patio. The dogs couldn’t quite understand what I was doing, so apart from trying to a) lie on me, b) lick my suncream off or c) try and climb on the lounger with me, they were generally quite confused. Jet took it upon herself to look after me and decided to lie at the side of me and join in the fun.The patio isn’t particularly comfy, so I went and brought her a bed out (ok, ok - she’s spoilt), Poppy promptly kicked her off the bed so she could lie down. Anyway, they both decided to settle down on the same bed while my Mum took Chip for a walk around to her friend’s house.

It got a bit breezy, so I decided to go inside and have a look on the internet in the conservatory. I was very excited as I have an email from Wii In Stock and it told me that GAME had Wii Fit in stock! The email had arrived about an hour before, so I thought they might have all sold out by and when I checked, they had. As I was sat there, another email arrived and Gamestation had them in stock, but only when bought with a Wii Console - fine by me as I needed one of those too. The website was being stupid and I assume it was overloaded. Finally I got to the payment page and managed to put my order in for a Wii, a Wii Fit, a memory card and Wii Sports. YYYYEEEEEYYY!! At last, so long have I waited for this moment.

I went to agility last night with Jet for the first time in forever. I only wanted to do the Aframe with her, and a jump or two. She was such a good girl, and was running to her target and stopping fantastically. She blew a couple of them at first, but I’m sure Emma will agree that when she was doing it she was great. I couldn’t have been more pleased. I can’t wait to try it again, she always puts so much in, I love that dog.

Here’s a pic Emma took, just before I released her! She did do her nose touch lol!