Catch up!

We are saying it with photo's today.
My last couple of posts have been all over the place and not quite how I planned them, but I ran out of time and lost my train of thought, so that was it and I couldn't just stop and not post it once I started it...so be it!

Anyway over the moon with little Miss Mindy who did her first 2 anysize runs and loved every minute, although I did see her look around for her Dad, which is why poor Ian cant come and watch her usually, as she leaves the ring to go and find him, but this show she couldn't leave....such a Daddies girl! anyway she got a clear round in the second run and I ran her without out watching her..no video for that run, just one wide turn, she was 5th behind the large dogs....So if you stop and watch her in the anysize classes I'd love a video of her, I wont ask you, but if you see us just video away...PLEASE, THANK YOU xxx

Been teaching Harry to hold things for longer periods of time, as he hates things in his mouth, he's doing really well. Well, well enough for me to take a picture with my little cheap camera that when you press the button a couple of seconds later it takes the photo...sigh...
He is celebrating having lived for over 5 years in Cornwall......Love his ears.

Well and here's Sennen taking it all in her stride! hummm a tired moment...Rejoyce xx

"Mindy" so here she is...

Remember to play the music from the video below at the same time!

Mindy!

This short clip was taken Monday after Thames DTC where bless her, she couldn't do any seesaws in the ring. Auntie Elaine came up with a couple of ideas after seeing this video, of which one is practical, this seesaw is weighted by 4 weights, so this morning I took two off and ran her over it, she didn't run right to the end this time, so a result, that I was able to help her with her clicker and treats as a reward, and the second attempt was a lot better and by the 4th and final attempt was perfect, so I will do the same tomorrow and Friday take all of the weights off and see what happens......

It's looking like she will be in season shortly, as she is flirting with Buzz (the boss) and he with her! sooner than I liked, I really wanted her G7 to help sell the pups, but as I have a few people already starting to ask questions, I don't think I should worry about finding homes for them, they will all be powder puff's as "Cookie" is a puff too ....

So I had better get reading the "Book of the bitch" again!

and get my "birthing partner" sorted!...any volunteer's?
Starting to get scary and exciting all at once......

Just a quick catch up!

Look what arrived in my inbox...two days later!

Ian took me out for a bite to eat last night....not unusual, but for Ian to have a pudding/sweet is.

I think he is stocking up on his reserves, as he goes away on Thursday to help marshall at the Grand Prix at Silverstone!

I did have a photo of this "ultimate SHARING sundae" which he ordered all for himself, before he started on it, but for some reason I cant send it too my computer...Phones!

and for the agility folk.........a few, well actually two video's, one of old lady Red running in any size at Lansdown and Mindy beating her stable mate Harry, in 5-7 Jumping! Bless her she struggled to do the seesaw again, but that's another story!

and Mindy's

Miss Mindy

will be two tomorrow, so now she's allowed a grown up name, rather than her "silly" name, for some reason, Muppet kept coming out and she's no Muppet I can assure you........and then it came to me via the dreaded Face book lot!

Thank you Sorcha you used it one time and I thought yes that sounds nice and I can remember it, so now she's known as "Miss Mindy"

Bless her.....





From this wee girlie (how could she be smaller than Harry!)









...She loves watching anything "Dog" related on the TV!










...and the occasional cuddle!


Happy Birthday "Miss Mindy"

Video Post's say so much more!...

Here's a few video's from over the weekend, the good, the bad handler and the really distracted!

Just shows how much work I have to do, that why I like videos, although when Ian wasn't there Mindy was a lot more focused, but she has to get used to that and I have to show her it's much more fun being with ME....Honest Mind'ars
I'm still struggling with setting her up, I have to have her with a halti on as she rather "excitable" in the queue and she seems to not focus when I first take it off, so this weeks homework is to go out down in the garden and do start lines, play and take off her halti, quick exercise, play and put halti back on, so this morning we did it three times, I used her lead as a tug toy............
But we did get it right twice over the wekend and Mindy won 1-3 agility and 2nd in 3-4 jumping (when Ian wasn't there!)

Red had a great time she coped really well, she had Anysize and two veteran classes and came home with 2 x 1sts and 2nd, here's one run that she came 2nd in with the spin after the tunnel, I was rather worried with the start as she had to turn really sharp into the tunnel and I had seen a lovely old lady hit the side so hard she fell over in the tunnel.......

Harry - I tried to be clever and do some different handling in places, so found out lots of what I need to work on, so we had 3 E's and then I played it safe in his last jumping class which we won....

Buzz - Well Buzz needs no introductions, he had a cracking E, and a 5 fs

I worked him down in the garden this week and he was amazing and we won the "Pit" Dog Agility championships! Bless him.

Here's his 5f run with Nick.

Dog Tired!

This is Harry after going to Wye Valley on Saturday and doing a training session with Dawn on the Sunday!

....at least I hadn't ironed anything! Ha ha

Our runs on Saturday where dreadful, my handling sent him through tunnels and pulled him off jumps, what a difference a week makes having had 2 x first and 2nd at K9 Kernow, in the mud and rain, to glorious sunshine and just a clear with a spin the wrong way and two E's.......

...any way, this was Mindy's first outdoor show, with loads of distractions, she was a good girl and stayed almost focused and each run she did she improved on (except the teams!)

She gets upset with dogs playing with their toys and then struggles to play with her own, unless no one is playing with theirs then she can tug hard!.....Yes I need to practice more.

If Ian had been with me I would have taken her out the queue, but I had loaded Lara's van with so much stuff, let alone adding another crate!

It was great that both dogs coped with travelling in a strange van with dogs that they didn't really know, although may be that's why Harry wasn't firing on all four cylinders, I hadn't thought of that one, as although Harry looks like a confident dog he is actually a little shy in new situations, he always seems better the second day at a weekend show, unless of course he knows the ground......

Anyway back to Mindy, she was a bit clingy and not running at her usual speed which we had seen in training, circular jumping was clear, I hate these courses same as Helter skelter, I never know why I enter them, I always get lost and feel really slow, she was half second behind Harry who wasn't fast and then turned the wrong way........

2nd run was agility, she was distracted by a black terrier trying to kill it's toy at the side of the ring, so we didn't do a start line wait and off we went, she bubbled in the weaves, I think they where third obstacle and she was still thinking about the toy tugging dog, but I took her back and then she perked up and off we went, beautiful running "A" frame, stopped dog walk contact, the seesaw she ran to the top and waited for it to move, she then got bored and launched off the top, so we re-did it and finished the last three jumps nicely.

3rd run was jumping, nice flowy course just right to get her confidence up except I had to do two cross behinds and knew she needed to be driving forward for them to work, but she did them, still not training speed, but much better and she was able to focus more, she was clear and came 2nd, winning a plate.

Her fourth run was teams, haha, where to put her in the team, knowing she would be hard to catch as she would want to chase the dog in front as it was a baton change....I think it was all a little too much for her (and me), but once I got her facing the right way and under control she was off and having fun....

Then I just have to remind myself she has had 4 weeks of training, due to her accident and we went to this show, with only getting her to jump a circle of jumps on the Thursday previous!

...Here's a strange thing, I remembered when being driven home, Red's first ever KC trophy was a second at supadogs in a jumping class and she won a plate!

Quick update (whilst Mum's having a snooze)

Start with Mindy - At the weekend I went away which I think did her the world of good, forced resting at home with Ian watching the six nations!

It was great seeing Elaine again, we managed to cram a huge amount of agility/dog talk in and even a little bit of training, she dragged out her folder of G7 champ courses and forced me to sit down and go through them as if I was running them.
I couldn't train Harry as I thought he might be too flat for Sunday, but I recon we might have a go the next time I'm up staying with them.....Bless Bethany she invited me out for her birthday meal with Elaine, Andy and her Tom her Hunk!....I'm sure Elaine's telling me porkies she cant possible be 17 years old all ready, she was only running Red yesterday! Driving lessons soon.....

Chippenham Mini/Midi show, Harry's first Championship show, I only entered the champ and one other class as we all know how tired Harry gets!
It was great meeting everyone after the winter break and actually meeting in person all the "Blogger's" well some of them! I wish Mindy had been with us, but in a way, I was glad she wasn't, so I could watch some of the championship dogs and chat.....

Anyway, Harry did great, considering how nervous I was, how silly is that, but he coped and worked well, it was just ME, I couldn't work out how to make the jumping course part work smooth and actually I only saw one person that made it look smooth and easy and that was Bernadette in the medium class with Zen, there may have been more I just didn't see them! a few people had their dogs spinning in circles before jumps, even just to get the weave entry and I personally was really surprised they weren't faulted for that, as it was a champ class!....anyway we where e'd in the jumping and I remember Dawn saying to me a while ago, to try and find a nice flowy way home, once you'd been e'd, but I couldn't even do that I was so nervous!
anyway the agility was much better although yet again lots of errors on my part and some scary detours! but we managed a clear round....unfortunately I couldn't watch the final as my other run with Harry was up and ready for walking and starting, but I did manage to see where it went and really fancied ago at that.......
Harry's 3rd run was another agility one, and as I had run the contact in the Champ agility I thought I had better train this one, so did......So home I trundled at 1pm and was home before 4pm.

Mindy looked sound, which was great news, but when I walked her on the lead on the Monday, I could still see a slight nod, when on uneven ground....But you know what it's like, you watch and watch and sometimes see things that aren't there! but hey, plenty of time and lots of shows booked, ready for when she's ready.

Mum drove from Dorset down for a few days break, she's staying at the B&B in the village, she arrived earlier than I thought having driven all over Cornwall by the sounds of it, not that she knew where she went!....after having a walk around the garden, she helped me train Harry with his seesaw, after the weekend he scared himself with the heavy seesaw and wanted to bail out, so we are experimenting with trying to over come his fear of it. I'll let you know if it works.......
Anyway today I took Mum to the Eden project we had a fun 4 hours there, we only managed one of the biome thingys, so we will leave that till the next time.....



Here's Mum's Lemon for her GIN!

I think Mum has enjoyed herself so far!

She has taken what I'd call as lots of photos with two of her posh camera's, but I loved this picture the best with my £69.00 one!

Tomorrow if she's up for it, I'm taking her for a walk on a beach with the dogs, I keep forgetting she's 75 ish!

Lets hope it's not raining like it has been today.

I had planned to take her to see Jaimie in his Castle, well it's not really his, he's "just"!!!!! the "Head gardener" there, but that will have to wait until next time.

Oh and here's what to do with your left over "Cats!"

Goal Setting!

hummmmm
.....Yes I'm a "Goal Setter" and a "List" writing person. See that's something else you now know about me!

Funny how when you write a "jobs to do list" the most important one gets left till last, even if it's at the top!
and you even do things that weren't on the list, to avoid doing that important one at the top.
....always makes me smile.....I always do "it" in the end!

Anyway, I set a Goal, for myself and Mindy to achieve before the end of 2009, I personally thought it was achievable and to be honest I thought we would have achieved it, way before we did......
We just weren't ready, "be patient Angela" (now where have I heard that before !???) and I can see that now, yes she was ready to get "ring" experience, but not ready to pull it all together in one round.
That's what I find so very exciting about agility, it's not just you out there competing, your a team with your buddy, it'll happen when it happens!
...I love the excitement of finding that bond between you and your dog, it's just so exciting and personally when I walk out to that start line without that fire in my belly ...I'll quit.

We had 5 events, mixture of match's, limits, UKA and one KC show from beginning of November to the end of 2009, with at least 3/4 runs at each, but hey we left it until the last two runs of the year...Yes you've guessed it, we not only got one but two clear rounds, on the same day!
My camera lady-Sue, managed to get her first one on Video..........
Yes I know it's was only one ring, so she had no distraction, but Hell's teeth ...IT WAS CLEAR



(so where did that saying come from? Hell's teeth...or did I just make it up?)

anyway:
Here's Harry, on the same course, apparently she was less than half a second behind him!

Sunday's Show....

.....Left Mums, early Sunday morning to head for Taunton and Blackdown Limit Agility Show, I must admit I don’t normally do limits or any indoor shows (apart from local match’s) but as Mindy was up and ready to go I thought I aught to make the most of fenced in areas and the practice ready for the start of her agility career in 2010. So here we where driving to Taunton along small country lanes in the dark with the wind howling around us and the floods. Now, Ian had reminded me that he hadn’t moved the air box of the “Berlingo” higher up, so to be careful driving through any water!

Apparently they are really low to the ground and could easily pick up water from a shallow puddle, silly me didn’t check to see how high I could go………so I drove very slowly through many floods and so far we’ve been lucky.

We (Mindy and I) arrived at the venue early enough to get a hard edge to park on! As the yard was already full and people where beginning to have to park in the field!!!!

God I do hate muddy car parks, especially with an almost white dog!

Anyway on with the agility which started on time and ran very smoothly (I thought) all day, they had enough judges so they didn’t have to stop for lunch, even better……..

Mindy was still a little on edge, having spent the weekend without the others and at Mums, she was worried by people and dogs coming too close to her, People that knew her wouldn’t have noticed, but I did…….. Start line sits, where a little all over the place and on one set up she actually turned completely round to check on the young lad picking up the leads, before charging up the line after me….but we had no “chasing” whether that was because she was rather on the clingy side and didn’t start to enjoy the agility until after her second run. We had 4 class’s one agility and the rest jumping classes.

Her agility round was really clingy and she bailed out of the seesaw (at training on the previous Wednesday she lost a bit of confidence on that, so I need to get that back and this was her first time doing a seesaw in competition……it doesn’t look as bad as it felt, but when you know normally she runs to end and rides it down, you know it’s not quite right) so bailing out meant she couldn’t get her self back on line for the next obstacle and with being clingy the next bit went a little haywire, anyway I got her back by the end, still not her normal speed.

……..Round two - jumping, she was a lot happier, it was lovely round apart from her not liking the lead picker upper! and me getting in her way for the weaves and then trying to turn her too tight after the long jump, but hey, we can now do a round with ne not being worried about her running off, so I can now actually work her!

........Round 3 - that was a strange one, as we only did 5 jumps, she tried taking off for jump 2 way to far away (Picture to follow) and clouted it, but she ran a further three jumps then went real slow and went under jump five and pulled up lame, so that was it….any way she is booked in to see the chiropractor today, just to make sure, she's okay, although she walked out of the ring on 4 feet and has had 3 days of being sound……

May be we need to do more grid work?

When you look, closely in slow motion at the video, you can see, she only just hits this pole with her front foot, so whether it was a delayed reaction to the knock, that it took until futher on the course for her to pull up lame, I don't know.

So here are the videos from the day, and an extra one, as I was lucky enough to get offered a lovely Collie called Purdy (just gone G4) to run in the Helter Skelter, as poor Sue had pulled her hamstring…How could I say no! She is lovely and so willing……………

...and Here's Purdy's

...Oh and here's

.......A couple more short clips of Mindy's training sessions this week, just in case your interested!

Weaving Mindy!

Here is an update video, of Mindy weaving yesterday when the sun was shining - unlike today!

Now we just have to put everything together, contacts, weaving and jumping, easy really! HA ha

That's Dog training and I love it..................

She's a LADY!

....Mindy - The Blonde one - started her first season yesterday!

She's all grown up now, well almost, she is 11 months today.

Bless.

"Go On" Mindy !

Just a short video of Mindy who's rapidly heading for her 1st Birthday!

We have three toys she loves, her tuggy, a tennis ball, and a holey latticey ball thingy! really though when we go training we take all three for Harry, as he goes off toys quite quickly, so it depends on what he is doing to what toy is the higher value for him, as for Mindy, well she is just a "give me the darn toy" dog! Bless.

Ian's Home and I haven't cooked tea!

...So It's a quick one!





Here is the finished Small dog table.
Just in case your interested!






I got a bit carried away and decided to make a wobble board too, I made Mindy a cardboard one as a pup, using a cardboard box and a baked bean tin! but as I had some wood left over, I thought I'd make a bigger one, I couldn't work out what to use underneath it to make it wobble, so used an old blue ball!
It's sitting on Ian's wood chopping thingy, as I've been painting it! but you can see the bomber ball screwed to the underside.













...and Thanks to Nancy, for the idea, I can now train my seesaw on my own with Mindy.
She is coming along nicely.

Mindy was 5 months yesterday!

Well I gave my 50th pint of blood, which personally is an achievement, as I don’t like needles! I got a badge and a nice pen thou! For my 75th pint (if I make it that far) they take you and your partner out for a meal.

The washing machine decided after 18 month of use and out of its warranty to shear a few bolts and send the concert block thingy through the side of the machine! So we bought another one, after which, one of my dearly beloved friends tells me of a very good site to get them from and she had just bought one delivered to her house for £80 Check it out www.clearance-comet.co.uk she says, decide what you want, don’t bid on the first few pages and work your way back a few pages and find what your after and put a bid in. Anyway it was too late for us, we bought it from John Lewis on line. Luckily we’ve had a few days of lovely sun to catch up on all the washing and drying.

Agility wise

Well we’ve won some and lost some!
Harry did some amazing runs and then the sun came out and he just plodded around! Well I assuming it was because it was so hot, I have taken him to the chiropractor and been given the all clear. Yes I know he is breed as a “Lap Dog” and not a working breed, so you can’t just go out and train…train. I am used to that with big Buzz. So anyway he is having two weeks off, from agility and just focus on playing together and learning some new tricks. Lifting diagonal legs!

Buzz, we are still waiting for our fourth clear round of the year.

Red seems okay if I get her warmed up before hand, but on the evening time she doesn’t look so good, mind you it doesn’t matter if she has done some agility or been for a long walk, she still struggles to get up from the floor/her bed.

Mindy has just had her 5th month birthday! and has been attending obedience classes on a Thursday, ummmmmm she struggles with dogs looking at her, especially Boxers and barks at them, but if I can keep her focused on me, then she is great! She also goes up to Roseland for a social on a Saturday and gets to walk around the field with various dogs of all ages, which is fab. Here she is showing of her skateboarding skills, still needs improvement, but this is only her second attempt.

So what have I been up to with Mindy?

Lots of Play, Socialisation and Clicker training.

She has learnt a lot quicker than Harry, that to play tuggy and fetch the ball is fun, it took me around 6 months before I could say that Harry would play with me almost anywhere, Mindy loves to tug!

We have Clicker trained the:
Sit, down, touch a target, lie down on her target, run to her bed/cage and sit in it.
Turn/spin, to the right and left.
Give a paw-whilst sitting and standing.
Jump onto my lap.
Stand on a home made wooble board!
Figure of eight, through my legs.
She sits in a washing up bowl, stands on the top of it too. Not sure why I taught her that!
And we are learning how to push the skate board along the floor, which I did try to video, but it is hard to do this at the same time as helping her. Have to wait until Ian is around to video.

She has just started to learn the “Elephant” trick.

We are both learning to run around in circles with her on the inside and outside of me, not for long as I’m too fat and unfit.
More Play

She is experiencing:
Standing and walking on/across different surfaces-wood, plastic and metal, sand chippings mud, puddles, water!
She is learning to swim-in Harry’s Hot tub (when it’s warm enough)
More play

She has been handled by, lots of agility strangers and left with them whilst I’ve walked courses! Met the Vet, young kids, old people and walking sticks, people with umbrellas, big hats and cameras and she has taken this all in her stride, she loves people – so far.

Things that I’ve noticed!
She is quite “Yappy” and around her mouth area is very tight, she doesn’t like you touching that area either.
Its great, my friend who is a ttouch practitioner is helping me with lots of tips and she is getting a lot better, although not yet totally relaxed about it, work in progress.

She gets worried if dogs appear from nowhere whilst out and about, she doesn’t cower, but barks at them!
I can help her with this, as long as the person whose dog she is barking at, is willing to help me, I ask them to walk with me, “dog, person, person, Mindy” just for a min or so and then she is fine with them.
I was talking to Lisa about this “thing that Mindy is doing” and she sent me a passage from a book, which made a lot of sense about when they are teething things that where fine one day become the scariest thing the next day and to keep up the socialization, well I think this seems to be whats happening to Mindy.
I took her to Bovey Tracey Dog show and she was fine although she was cheering the dogs on doing agility, she met lots of dogs, all shapes and sizes, got left with various people no problem, then the following week, whilst out socializing she started to bark and lunge at dogs.

This morning I noticed her bottom front teeth missing, she is well and truly teething now, cant wait till this stage is over, she must be so soar, she is picking up and sucking on socks ETC! and cardboard.
She doesn’t enjoy her grooming session yet, but we are getting there and if I want to try and keep her coat longish! Then we need to keep at it!

Otherwise she could end up looking like Harry – he is not a PARTI POODLE


Here she is targeting her "Pringles" lid.

More Pictures!

We caught Red in action this week! She is a naughty dog, she loves to roll on the bed - I really should just shut the door and stop them from going in there, Ian doesn't seem to mind, as he took the picture!!








...and how could you resit these two, cuddled up together on the sofa aaahhhh!