Agility Addicts Christmas Show

Yesterday we went to the Agility Addicts Christmas Show. Until the last minute I wasn't sure if we were going. It was so cold and getting up early when we are all off on holiday is not my favourite past time. But as Chadiga and I were awake anyway we thought we just do it then.
The roads were empty early in the morning and we managed to get there in 2.5 hours....
Though we missed the Fancy Dress competition and were not able to walk the jumping course, but at least we were in time for all our classes....

And what can I say, Max was on top form. We had 4 runs and 4 clear rounds. We got 2 places, a 12th in the jumping and a 9th in the Agility Christmas contacts.....
A clear round in the Agility and Max even managed to go clear in the pairs. Unfortunately our pair partner, Chadiga, got lost on the course and got eliminated ;)

The whole day was great fun and I didn't regret going. Though it was weird, when I go to shows down south, you always see the same familiar faces. Now I hardly knew anybody....

That was our last show for this year...
Max really came a long way this year and gvce me lots of fun when working with him.

Now I just have to figure out, how to speed him up. (There you go, ambition got me now ;-) )
We get placings, but are usually between 6 and 10 seconds slower than the winning dog.

Any ideas how to speed Max up??? It probably would help if I ran faster, but don't think that will happen any time soon.
He works ahead nicely, so no complains there either...

Any suggestions welcomed :)

Thanks and a happy new year to you all!

Merry Christmas and a happy new year everybody!

Just recovering from a very heavy flu, been in bed for 4 days (oh the joy!).

I hope that everybody will have some lovely days coming up.

Enjoy yourselves and I hope you all will have a peaceful and quiet time.

Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Today

It was cold, windy, rained an awful lot. The streets were flooded. Amazing how quickly roads can turn into streams.
Nevertheless I went to the Anju simulated Christmas show. Not that many people turned up, probably due to the weather.
Still, it was great fun. Max was good, but decided to run his contacts, so I had to let him do his A Frame again, which gave us an "E". The course was lovely. Not too easy, not too difficult.
As Chadiga was down with the flu, I decided to take Luke along for a little training. He is not doing Agility for so long so I really just wanted to put him in a different environment to practice.
And I was amazed. He approached the contact equipment on his own accord. Though his contacts are not very good at the moment, he didn't shy away from any of the equipment and did them all well, except for the weaves, which he doesn't know well enough to do them on his own. And he was running on medium height, s he doesn't do full height jumps yet.

In the jumping class Max was great in the first run. Luke was absolutely unfocused. Stopped and sniffed and said hello to the judge (Wendy).
So before the next run we did some focus work and he did really well. We managed a clear round! Yeah. Due to the lack of people we even managed to turn it into a 3rd place. Well done Luke. Your first ever place! And he even won a trophy, a cute squeaky toy.

In Max's second round I waited with him at the start to get him going a bit with a "ready, ready, ready". And off he went and was 2 seconds faster than before, unfortunately he knocked a pole. Never mind!

It was great fun, but I was happy when I could go home, very cold and wet.

Decided now to enter Luke in March's C Side show in the run for fun class. Let's see how it goes!

Halfway through December already, nearly.

I don't know where the year has gone. I can't believe it is nearly the new year already.
This year was quite mixed with ups and downs.
The dogs are doing fine. I decided to give Luke a break from sheepdog training, as he is just too full on and he gets worse. Think we need some more obedience before we continue. But he is doing very well at his Agilitytraining.
He is the sort of dog who is always everywhere with his nose and his brain, but never where he is suppose to be. So I have to really focus him on "work". Lately he started playing up a bit, obviously Testosterone is kicking in. This seems to be the time for the "snip". I have no intention to breed anyway, so why make life harder for him and myself. Particularly as Luke likes the girls sooo much ;-)
SO in 2 weeks time, just before Christmas he is booked in....

A few weeks ago Chadiga and I went to the simulated show from Anju. It was lots of fun and eventually Max managed a clear round... Well done MAx!
He is still too slow for placings though. He went to the vet this week for his rabies jab and weighed in with 20.7kg. So I think he has to loose a kilo or 2. Though he is quite leggy and doesn't look fat, rather muscled... Let's see how it goes.
Beside that, it is definitely my handling slowing him down.
Other than that I am very happy with him. He is responsive, keen and we have lots of fun together :)

Tomorrow we are at another Anju show, today is my last day of work for this year (doesn't that sound good??? ;-) )
and we aare heading for Christmas. So far I was able to avoid all the stressed shoppers and I hope I will continue to do so.

I am looking forward to a quiet time with the children and the dogs. Let's hope the weather stays dry....

Bits and bobs

Not much going on at the moment.... We went to the C-Side show last Sunday. I didn't really feel like going, but then the night before I had weird dream about Agility. So I got up early and we all went in the end. I offered the boys to run Jake. Though I know it is not always easy to run him, as he can be a bit of an "arse".... You have to be firm with him.

Anyway, we had Starters Agility and Jumping (Grade 1-3) and Open Agility and Jumping (Grade 1-7)

Max managed a 15th place in the Agility, unfortunately I lost the plot in the jumping and we got eliminated. But he ran beautifully.
The Open classes were really difficult. In the Agility I forgot to tell Max there was a snake and he back jumped the wrong jump. In the Jumping he missed his weave entry, which was a rather difficult one...

Junus first ran Jake in the jumping class and did really well. Jake didn't even think of coming back to me.... Unfortunately Junus forgot the course and got eliminated :)))

Then Noah tried Jake in the Agility class. JAke was a real handful and didn't want to move at all for him. Noah was really disheartened and was close to crying....
So I went into the ring and helped a bit, for which we got eliminated of course. ;-)

But at least Noah got him around the course, sort of....

I was very grateful to the judge who let Noah get on with it. In the end she gave Noah a "Judges Special" rosette, as he didn't give up and carried on.

Yesterday I took some picture while I walked the dogs. I like this of Luke.....


Might put the others on here as well :)

November already

Looks like the year is coming to an end quickly. Where has it gone?
Last night we resumed training. I went through with the decision to not keep on training Jake and Robbie. One need to save money somewhere..... :(
So I just had Max and Luke to take. It was difficult for me to get back into training again. Somehow all the enthusiasm of the summer is gone. I hope it is just an autumn/ winter thing.
Both dogs did very well. Luke is very clever and picking things up so quickly. I am really impressed. Max is just his usual enthusiastic self... :)

Went to sheepdog training as well and Jake did very well. He was promoted to work out in the field and it was a joy to work with him. So different to doing Agility with him. Luke is still a bit of a nut case and very hard to stop.

I am hoping that one day he will get there, but maybe not...

Today the dogs seem to want to create havoc today. They love to keep me on my toes :-S

Might post some sheepdog training pictures later.....

Jake the sheepdog

Last week I had the opportunity to "test" Jake on some more sheep than just 5 and in a huge field not a small paddock.
He worked very well in a small paddock and though Sarah said that she thinks he could move a bigger flock of sheep easily, I wasn't so sure.
Anyway, Jake didn't go to fetch the sheep, but once we reached the flock, he was amazing. He drove them behind me, so that I could walk leisurely in front of him. He did a cracking job. Though having no directionals as such ( comebye and away) he instinctively knew what to do.
I could send him to do anything, but he would be very happy to move a flock with sheep with me and keep them together.

I was in awe... He was amazing and really seemed to enjoy himself. He was lying down behind the sheep when asked and stopped when I told him to. Well done Jakey!

Luke was a bit more pushing and it took him about 10 minutes to settle down. In those 10 minutes he just ran circles around the sheep without doing anything else and without harming them.
Then he started driving them towards me. And though he was a bit fast, he was really good. Not as good as Jake though ;)

All in all a lovely experience seeing them enjoying themselves so much. I was overwhelmed to watch them.