Very quick! (Edit: so, I lied!)

First run was graded 1 & 2 jumping. Jet had a nice run but a disagreement at a pull through wasting us time. She did come 3rd though, only 0.5s off the winner – so very pleased with her!

Combined 1-3 agility, uncannily the only part Jet and I were in the same as Leanne and Dylan. They both did a huge turn around a box at the beginning, both looking to go up the aframe. Somehow Jet ended up 10th though, 2secs off the fabulous Helen and Lucy, who won into grade 4. Yey! Top grade 2 though…

Combined 1-3 jumping was a VERY fast, very easy course. She flew around clipping a pole, but her time of 18.7s would have put her 4th, the winner having done it in 18.1s, so I was very pleased with that.

Graded 1-2 agility was a nice course, Jet did all of it brilliantly, fab weaves – everything. They just put a bl*ody wishing well in – she’s never seen one in her life before, so she ran around it – as did 70% of the rest of the class. A real shame as she was great.

Sunday

Graded 1-2 agility was quite tricky as far as G2 goes. Jet did all the worst bits really well, I just didn’t pull her away from a jump in a box enough and she went left rather than straight over.

Combined 1-3 agility (part 1) was an ok course, but a pull through. I decided to handle it differently to everyone else, which made sure we got a clear but lost about 2secs at least. There was a pull through which I handled from the other side. I waited for her too long, meaning I got a titanic sized turn, nearly out of the ring. Shockingly she ended up 11th with such a messy run! Again, top grade 2, clearly we do in fact needed graded 1-3 classes!

Graded 1-2 jumping. She flew around but knocked the stretch. I don’t know what happened really, I think she just misjudged it? She’s seeing Kath on Wednesday anyway, so if it is anything with her being a bit uncomfortable we’ll find out. Her time would have won the class though which is frustrating.

Combined 1-3 jumping. Let’s not even discuss this run. Ok then, I will. After doing the first 7 obstacles brilliantly, I think she was just having too *much* fun, stopped listening and started taking her own path. I tried getting her back on course a few times, and then at the end she pretended she had no idea what the tyre was! (They were huge framed ones, but she had done them in other classes). I suppose she was fab for 7 runs, I can’t complain too much.

I suppose the very positive things to look at this weekend are
- She got her weave entries in EVERY class (both left/right hand)
- Her contacts were much, much, much faster than Otley
- She was actually listening to me
- I felt much calmer and more confident running her
- She passed her 100 AW points – yey!

The things to improve
- Need to reinforce her contact position. A few times she flew over so quick she stopped just after the contact, and in some cases on the floor! She was remembering to stop though. Yey
- Pull throughs! If I have a wing and tell her right-in, she knows what I mean, but on a course it goes to pot!

So overall a much better performance, I can’t wait to go to Dashin Dogs!

Firstly, well done to the a4p gang who were brilliant (secretly quite pleased no firsts this weekend, cake at training is doing my non-existent diet no good!)….
Emma & Bails for a 2nd in Medium G4 agility and some fab runs, looking much more like the Bailey we see at training!
Leanne & Kim for a 3rd, a 4th and a 5th in various medium classes, Kim’s way of telling her she doesn’t want retiring just yet
Leanne & Dyl finally getting towards the places we know they can with 2 x 8th place and a 12th in the grade 3 classes

Also well done to Helen and the fab Lucy for not only winning combined 1-3 agility and going grade 4, but also getting a 6th in jumping too. Super Luce

Well, very busy few days, but here goes!

Rotherham ‘Owlers took 5 teams, 4 on Saturday and 1 Sunday. Jet was in Ghost ‘Owlers (aka Barney ‘Owlers) in div.1 with Norah, Murphy, Floss and George. We ended up a fantastic 2nd in div.1 with a new time of 18.12s (with room – yey!) with a line up of Floss, Jet, Murphy, George. Jet ran well, a bit wide on a couple of turns, but mostly her box was brill!

We’ve got 4 day EMDAC this week, which I’m looking forward to. Trained Jet on Tuesday and she was surprisingly good. I intended just to do contacts with her, but ended up putting in a few other obstacles and she was listening so well. She did some fabulous dog walks, Leanne gave me a hand to get her driving right to the end (helped out by a pocket full of Fish4Dogs), but by the end of the session she was still driving and Leanne didn’t need to do a thing. Let’s hope she can keep it up this weekend!

Finally, a few weeks ago, I filled out a short survery for the Kennel Club on dog walking on their website, thinking nothing of it. I got a phone call on Monday to say we were down to the shortlist and would we be willing to take part in a more detailed study. The study involved the new “Walk With Me” game for the Nintendo DSi, and the pedometers that come with it. Very lucky for me, they send you the console and the game, both of which I get to keep at the end of the 7 day long survey! All I have to do is put the motion sensor in my pocket (not much bigger than a 50p) from when I get up to when I go to bed, and Jet has to have hers on her collar. It is designed for dogs too – she even gets a Wii Mii on the DSi! We took them to the playing fields this morning, partly to test how well it stays on her collar – much easier to find on there than in the woods! Thus far it has stayed on well though, just 6 more days to go!

Absolutely shattered so not much energy left to post lol!

Dogs Unleashed was a huge dog event held at Newark Showground, must admit it was better than I was expecting it to be. There was so much to look at, just enough stalls not to be too overfaced and loads to have a go at!

Saturday was flyball, hosted by Sheffield Speeders. Jet was in Barneys with Norah, Floss and George. It was a hot day, and we didn’t think we had a shot against a few of the teams so held off a bit and hopefully got a good amount of points towards their next awards. We did come an unexpected 4th in division 1 though, so we were dead pleased.

Jet also had a go at the 60 weave (and 2 jumps!) challenge where she came 7th, but had a time to put her 2nd (just popped the last pole – argh!) which would have left her 0.7s behind Lucy Osbourne and Ben. The scribe said she was at 12secs about 4 poles from the end (having done a jump too), and we’d have been even faster if I’d had the confidence to push her more in the final few poles. I was just shocked she did them all if I’m honest!!

Sunday we entered agility which was run under BAA rules by Midland Counties. Emma and Leanne had entered too, as had Jane and Sarah, and my Mum with Chip for his first ever show!

Intro agility was pretty straight forward, with an offset row of jumps for the end. Jet had a super round on the whole, her aframe could have been a lot quicker but she was listening to me. Yey! It ended up that she’d WON the class, by 2secs as well, to be the only dog under 30s.

Intro Wicked Weaves was a nice course, not too complicated, but we managed to mess it up! The first weave entry was a long way from the jump, and I honestly think Jet just didn’t see it as she’d clocked the following jump. Dyl and Bailey had fab runs though, coming 2nd and 7th!

Next up was intro jumping, lots of flick-flacks! It was a fast flowing course if you got it right, and I saw quite a few fast rounds and the sun was really beating down. Leanne told me to stay with Jet on my left to push her round the last bit, rather than crossing in front of her. I wasn’t sure, but we gave it a go. She didn’t seem her fastest, but she picked up the pace as we went around, and was so neat. I heard the results being read out and had missed the beginning, so assumed we’d not got anything. Went to check the results and she’d WON that too. She won by 1s this time, the only dog under 20s with a time of 19.57s.

In a sort of daze from the happenings of the day, we ran Intro Circular Jumping. You had to pull off a jump at the beginning, so didn’t think we’d do anything or even go clear. She had a HUGE turn mid way that I hadn’t planned for, but the rest was lovely. She ended up 2nd! Only 0.4s off the winner, not bad with such a big turn.

A bit of a shocking weekend, but it’s finally coming together for us!!

Well done to everyone else that weekend:

Leanne and Dyl with a 2nd in Wicked Weaves and a 7th in Jumping
Emma and Bail 7th in Wicked Weaves
Sarah and Floss 3rd in Veteran Agility
Vicki and Pippa on their Primary Jumping win
Mum and Chip with their first clear in Jumping
Jane and George showing them how it’s done in veterans
and Sarah, Skye and Sam for clear rounds after months out of agility!

Jet is a bit bemused with the pool!

(ignore my poor attempts at patching up the crack in the pool!)

Jet was off her head at training last night. Apologies to Sarah who got her a*se bitten not once but twice! Eeek! Perhaps a mixture of Leanne boxloading and being the last group to run. No Norah and Jane coming straight from work, so no George. Therefore Barneys were down to 2; Jet and Floss. Kamikaze Floss managed to bite her tongue, equally as mad as Jet that night, so we called it a day a bit earlier. I was dead pleased with Jet’s box though, all of her feet on it and not hanging. Yey! She wasn’t affected by the heat either, after my initial concerns.

Very excited for Dogs Unleashed this weekend. Flyball on Saturday, and we’ve got agility booked on Sunday, but there are also lots of other doggy activities going on; eg cleverdogs, scurries, 60weave challenge. Hmm. Should be good!

Thanks to Leanne, we appear to be back online! Not quite sure what happened there, eeek. Transferred the Doncaster/Otley posts from a while back…

In the meantime, no pics for a while. Here’s Jet having a well earned break after suffering the boring playing fields for a few days after my parents went away.

After a week of the ‘Owlers curse rearing its ugly head, we managed to just about get 5 teams together for this weekend. Poor Jane had the task of changing the teams around on a daily basis as we lost dog after dog due to disasters beyond anyone’s control. Doncaster is not a lucky place for us, evidently.

With my parents still away, we hitched a lift with Emma and Bailey (thanks v.much Ems!) and they came to crash our house Friday and Saturday night.

Next run was graded 1-3 agility. The course was really straight forward, a bit sick of pinwheels, having had one in every class so far that day, but the course started out with one. She ran it really nicely, excited the BL**DY AFRAME!! She stood on it for about 20minutes while she had a cup off tea and nipped off to the shop, I swear I was so frustrated. The dogwalk was a bit better though. Anyway, I thought I’d be lucky to get in the top 10 as I thought we’d wasted so much time, so didn’t even bother looking at the results. Then we heard the presentations walking across the field and OMG JET HAD WON! Good girly!

So Jet ended the weekend grade 2

Well everyone else has, and seeing as I got chance to see Jetly as I made a trip home for agility, I reckoned I might as well. I was getting a bit sick of my camera, but discovered the “natural light” mode and they came out pretty well!

I found a free day for an agility show (!) shocking isn’t it? I entered Newton Heath so felt I better come home and practice. Will write about agility some other time, she was super though and Chip’s dogwalk is amazing!!

Anyway, photos. This is my favourite one, and a couple of others. You can see the rest on Ruffdogs or Flyball Fever.

Jetly

Well, I haven’t got much to write about this week, but I’ll give it a go!

Sunday evening I decided to go back to Liverpool on the train (as opposed to Monday morning), which turned out to be a very wise idea due to the huge amount of snow that hit Huddersfield. We didn’t have very much here on the coast, but we did have a few inches which was better than nothing. My Mum kept telling me to go and buy wellies, so during a break from lectures Soph, Nic and I ventured down to TJHughes to get some bargain priced boots, amongst other things. Sadly my wellies never got to see the snow. I have my fingers crossed for more tonight.

A few weeks ago, Jess sent me some photos of Jet at training. She has a good box turn, but recently I have noticed she has a stray paw that just doesn’t get on the box sometimes. She seemed a bit slow off the box at training too, I don’t know if it was the mud, cold ground or me running too quickly…perhaps I’m too used to her at competitions. Anyway, I started to think about it and she has no rear end awareness at all – I think she just relies on her bum swinging around at the box lol. When I thought about it, I realised silly things like when I told her to get back on her lead, she’d have to do a little circle rather than shuffle backwards. I decided it would be good to try a few rear end awareness things with her.

We’ve decided to give the “Elephant trick” a go, as seen here, brilliantly demonstrated by Nat’s Asher. We took a clicker and a hat box, and went into our conservatory. When Jet touched the hat box she’d get click and treat. Then we’d c/t when she offered something else with it, for example she took to nosing it across the floor and eventually she gave it a paw – loads of praise for that. Then finally she stepped onto it which got her a huge reward, we shaped that a bit more until she had the command “step up”, which was performed with a lot of enthusiasm. I then encouraged her to move her back end around by walking around her with a treat. We gave it a command and eventually she was doing it within a few minutes. We had a break and did a couple more sessions – now she’s doing it brill!

Anyway, lots more uni work to be doing and when I get home I can see if a certain entry form that I sent in late has been returned. Oooer!

Well, finally back at uni and lecture time again. I realised how much money I was spending on my old phone (I had to top up so much to get unlimited texts) and then would waste the rest on phone calls and WAP. Anyway, paid a visit to the Orange shop this week and went on contract, and got myself a swish new phone. It’s the LG K910 Renoir with an 8M Camera, video camera, touch screen, satnav, wifi, MP3…anything you could want really.

Anway, ran at training, Jet was a good girl and Chip was really getting in to racing when he ran against Floss. I decided to give the new camera a bash after training and so got a few Jet and Skye photos. Really pleased with them, then again I’d expect them to be good from a phone that is meant to be £350+ (*gasp* no I didn’t pay that thank goodness).

Jet and Sarah’s lovely girl Skye