Olympia "Q" at Worcester May 2011

So this was the Olympia "Q" run...Harry's was wide and I was late in telling him what was happening next again...so we lost around 4/5 seconds straight away and when we checked the times, you could see we would have been easily in the top 3 places, but hey, I didn't get it right, Harry didn't know or care, he is really working confidently now and who would have thought a Chinese Crested could do agility!

Mindy as you can see looked great apart form the dreaded First Contact Seesaw...AGAIN

No words needed!!

...always know what your "Pup" is up too!

three wise MONKEYS!

When we lived in Bristol

We used to spend most weekend in the summer(BA ...Before Agility) collecting, scrounging wood from skips, FTC, etc. We didn't have any heating except storage heaters and a wood burner, even when Ian put in the central heating we couldn't just walk past skips etc, we would still heat the house as much as we could with free wood (we did ask the skip owners by the way) I was rather OCD about it all and would start to panic if we got below half way on the log box and off we would go again with the trailer and landrover...

We have a wood burner here too, but it is only dinky one and really doesn't heat the house like the last one, but hey it's so nice to watch the glow.....
Anyway thanks to a friend who chopped down a huge tree the other day, our log box is now FULL for the first time since we have been in Cornwall and we are about to start on a pile outside, some of the larger bits Ian's recons he is going to make into a table, yes this is Ian we are talking about who hates making anything of WOOD, you should of heard him when I said I needed a dogwalk please can you help me make one......
So my Saturday at home was spent, watching Ian with the chainsaw and chopper, I did help by filling the log box and tea making........

Tomorrow is a local dog show, for the "Smalls" and "Red", she is nearing her end of anysize now, she's almost 12 and some nights we see her struggle to jump on the sofa, then I spend most of the time whilst running her worrying whether she is going to hurt her self in the ring, the trouble is she is not the type of dog that would enjoy wondering around the rings socialising as all she really wants to do is agility, I keep getting told she looks great and I then I spend the time crying about it all, we have had such a great 10 plus years competing together and a few special people have had the pleasure at running her at full height and anysize and each one has enjoyed it as much as me, so may be tomorrow will be her last run.............

Sennen's learnt to play the drums!

Sennen is well and truly part of our family, we have gone a whole week now with the loo roll left on it's holder and the flannel only move when we move them, thankfully she's not so mouthy with us, BUT she still jumps 5 foot in the air to get your attention landing on you, which is a night mare, she will even do it to strangers, Ian's learning slowly to ignore her, when he comes in in the evening but he adores her, mind you it's hard not too, she's drop dead yummy! She's been measured, she's large just a little taller than Red, but way smaller than Buzz, thank goodness.

Anyway "agility" wise what's she been up to...not a lot, as underneath it all I didn't know whether she would do it and I wanted her to mature a bit, although she has been learning lots of tricks and balancing on alsorts of things and tugging and playing with lots of different toys, reminds me I must ask Lisa of www.bungeedogs.com whether I can buy a bungee handle as I need another one.......

I have just put together a game plan now for us and Sue with Holly have joined in too, for 20-30 min's of training now and again, they both have done, tunnels with go-on's through wings, seesaw "bang it" game and run to the end whilst it's up in the air and stay there whilst it lowered to the floor (taking the bang out of it) and walking on dog walk planks on the floor, with end postion, I'm doing it slightly different to Sue, but we can proof it all together so that's fine too, the famous wing wraps, that I keep hearing about till I'm sick of hearing, like it's something new!!

I am trying to teach myself different words for left and right wraps, but I have always found it hard as I don't always get my left and right right, let alone adding more words.... but I'm trying to get better and just maybe we will get to get it right on a course...... wont start the weaves for another few months or so, I am going to teach 2 x 2 like Mindy was taught, although I only had the book at the time and the dvd is well worth a look to see if it's for you. Personally I dont think anyway is wrong way to teach a dog agility, just different and I feel as long as your happy with how your teaching it, then carry on, but I do think you should be open minded enough to look at other methods, so you can make the right choice for you and your dogs, I love trying new ways of doing things, some work and some dont....

So I'm off to go and teach Sennen to empty the washing machine now!

Buzzy Bear's last stand!

This is Buzz at 9 years old running his last agility run with Nick, his mate.....He is still sound and fit and will enjoy his retirement at home with Ian (who taught him agility from the beginning) you may get to see him around the rings he's the HUGE, powerful collie that barks a lot...

I made the decision to retire him whilst he is still looking okay jumping, whilst he is still sound and happy, I hate seeing dogs competing who IMO should be doing any size or even nothing at all, unfortunately I have seen these people dragging their dogs over full height course over the last two weekends of shows...

Happy Retirement Buzzy Bear....I Love you xx

Mindy and mine's first "Zone" run.

Clay Pit Paddling