Lol

July 2nd, 2009

Jet is a bit bemused with the pool!

jetpool

(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!

…and we’re back!

July 1st, 2009

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.

jetfield

Doncaster flyball

July 1st, 2009

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.

Jet ran Sunday with Ghost ‘Owlers (aka Barneys), who came a very credible 1st in division 2! It was pretty close racing though we had no super Floss due to the latest disaster of her not being able to stand up on Saturday morning, thankfully she’s ok now.
Jet ran ok, she wasn’t as fast as I have seen her at some tournaments but she’s a black dog and it was a hot day. However, I had her Auntie Kath have a check over her, and she was quite sore on her shoulder, her back and her back leg so I can understand her not being too happy. She’s on rest until Wednesday now, bless her, she’s a bit confused at going into the garden on a lead rather than charging up it at 100mph!!

Otley Agility

July 1st, 2009

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.

Saturday
Neither me nor Emma were really “feeling” agility that day, we couldn’t really get into the right frame of mind and it didn’t seem like we were at a competition at all. It was really relaxed and none of the usual pre-run nerves!
First run was combined 1-2 Agility. It was a nice course, a few call offs and a tunnel-weave entry. The only bit I got a bit stuck on whilst walking was a pull through and tunnel call off. The trouble was, Jet would be so far ahead of me that I wouldn’t be able to get in position for what a lot of people were doing. Anyway, in the slight daze I was in, we gave it a bash and went clear! It was pretty messy on the pull through, and her contacts were SLOW SLOW SLOW – coming to a stop on the aframe down plank, even after charging up it. Arggghhhhh!! We had worked on the dogwalk at training too, but not the aframe. We really need to sort this out, and we WILL. She came 5th in the end, even with all that messing around, which gives me confidence that she can easily get out of grade 2!
The next run was graded 1-3 jumping. The course was ok, a bit of a twisty one, but she got a lovely weave entry. I moved off too quick and she popped them for the first time in ages, we finished the rest of it in a messy fashion and were a bit disheartened!
We also ran combined 1-3 agility, but I can’t remember what happened! I think she knocked the first pole which is very unusual for her.
Sunday
In a much better frame of mind that day and it seemed to go a bit better!
We started off with Pedigree Pairs, Jet seems to have been appointed the lead dog of our “pair”…and she was very excited at Leanne winding her up on the line. She set off like a rocket, doing the first 4 obstacles and it going rapidly downhill from there. I went into panic mode and there was a lot of “Jet, Jet, JET, JET” on the way around. It wasn’t our best run by a long shot! As part of Dylan and Jet’s secret pact never to go clear at the same time, Dylan put in a lovely clear.
Combined 1-3 Jumping was a fab course, I really liked it. It was really blasty but still technical enough. Jet flew around, having a little “spin” or half turn thing at one point as I didn’t get my left command in early enough, but she was such a good girl. The final 5 obstacles was a long line to finish. She flew ahead of me, racing each other to the end, but she knocked the second to last pole as it was downhill. Her time would have put her 5th or 6th (can’t quite remember), even with the little spin, so I was really pleased as it was a very fast running course.
The next combined 1-3 jumping was a bit of a disaster! Talking to Suzanne afterwards, Jet made the same mistake as Bailey by charging ahead after the weaves and taking the wrong jump. My fault really, as always!
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! :D Good girly!
The last run of the day was the ABC Olympia qualifier. We’d watched Emma and Bails run the same course in the morning, and thought it was a toughie. I walked it thinking we’d never get anywhere in a million years chatting with Em we decided I should just concentrate on her contacts as we’d never get anything – think Jet heard that! After getting very wound up with a pointer in front of her, she set off like a ROCKET. She flew up the dogwalk and straight down, we had a near disaster at the top as she nearly didn’t do the pull through, but we got her back. She had a lovely angled right hand weave entry that was throwing loads of dogs off and she did the best seesaw I have seen her do in ages. (I even heard someone say at the side of the ring “bloody hell that can shift! Made me laugh!). She hung on the aframe for a little bit, but not as bad as before. I finally had the Jet I have at training! I was so pleased. She ended up 11th in the end, 0.2s off a grade 6 dog, and 1.6s off the winner (not bad with the pull through issue and the aframe hang either!). The only ones to beat her were G6 and G7, and she beat a load of G3-6 dogs in the process. That was our best run of the weekend, though not foot perfect. It gave me a lot of hope for what we can achieve one day.
So Jet ended the weekend grade 2 :D
Good points – weaves were fab, all entries all weekend from everywhere! She was a speedy girl even in the heat and we had fun!
Bad points – Contacts, pull throughs. We need to work on these majorly!

Snow pics

February 11th, 2009

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

Jetly

 

Not much to report…

February 4th, 2009

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!

New phone pics

February 1st, 2009

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

p31-01-09_1206

jetandskye

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Tagged

February 1st, 2009

Suppose I should get around to doing this, was tagged by Leanne.

The instructions were …
Open a document or file folder
Click on the fifth folder and then the fifth photo
Post the photo and describe it
Then tag 5 other bloggers

dsc00143

This is a bit rubbish as it was from my old phone. This is Taffy, the welsh sheepdog from the dairy farm I did my placement on over Christmas. He’d follow me around all day, hoping he’d either get his ball or be able to help me move some cows. He’s a really sweetie, if only I could get him flyballing! Speaking of dogs recruited into flyballing whilst on placement, Basil got his flyball dog award at Doncaster at the end of January and helped the team he was running with get a brand new personal best! Go Basil!

Now I have to try and find 5 people who haven’t already been tagged. So, I tag:
http://kye-and-pepper.blogspot.com/
http://k9fly.wordpress.com/
http://natsdogs.blogspot.com/
http://collieblog.wordpress.com/
http://discodogs.blogspot.com/

Agility

January 20th, 2009

We finally managed to make it to agility last night (for the first time since October!!) as I’m still at home for exams (*lalalala-that-word-doesn’t-exist*) and I was pleasantly surprised by Jet! She ran with Kim and Bailey, and we did a full primary & novice plus course from EMDAC, and tested out some of the new things Leanne learnt at the weekend – which worked amazingly well for Jet and I shockingly managed them pretty quickly. I think a lot of it was getting commands/signals in early, which I have found is vital with Jet as she can pick up so much speed.

We had the aframe and the seesaw out, she is doing really well with her 2o2o position, she was really driving for it – especially on the first few runs at the aframe. She listened really well to me, and she was focused – none of this adding her own bits in or jumping wrong jumps. Her lefts/rights/ins were super, I was really pleased!

We’re still having weaving woes. :( We have channel weaves, and when they are straightened she goes through at such a speed that she sends them flying. She has bent a few out of shape, so now any that aren’t in line she will skip out of. She also decided to run alongside a few of them without the action  of weaving (ie swimming and waggling her bum) but not actually going through the poles. Hopefully this will be better when we get proper competition weaves or I might just have to cry.

On the whole though she was very speedy, we might just have to risk some shows!

Training

January 18th, 2009

Well flyball training seemed to come around again rather quickly! Anyway, we had a full cohort of Barneys so I managed to practice my changeovers and learn a new one. Jet was really flying, maybe something to do with breaking her way into the back seat and eating Pemmikan. She was mad from the beginning until the end, more so than usual and getting several comments. Andrea said she was “wild” and what was going on. Eeeep! I like crazy Jet, life is more fun. (No videos as everyone was doing something!). All a little complicated but in the end, Jane watched the line and Mum ran George.

Chip ran with Marsh ‘Owlers, and in the first session was absolutely storming. I don’t think I have ever seen him go so quick. However, sod’s law, by the second session he was ok, but having a few turning issues on the box (maybe because it was really muddy) and nowhere near as quick. Here’s a quick video of Chip and the team from training, he’s running lead – but it’s the second session so not as fast, but he’s still doing really well!

Also on there some random videos off my phone. The first one is Jet and Chip being “released” into the park (they’re MAD!) and we do make sure the park is clear – no kids getting trampled! There are just a couple of Jet demonstrating her perfected round command.

….and oh yes, the videos are a bit noisy, so turn the sound down (unless you want to hear my shameful boxloading!)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=qjcpVSfzIwo