Very Late Lydiard Park Update!

Here are some clips from our weekend at the UKA competition at Lydiard Park :) The only run I am really sad I managed not to get on camera was one of the steeplechase's where he only knocked the last pole (because I looked behind me to see if he had knocked any!). Our main issue all weekend (as can be seen in the vid) was poles but his contact success was slightly mixed too!

Since then we have been to a Sport's Psychotherapy day with Louise Ellis which was really interesting and will have hopefully helped me to try and control some of the nerves I am competing!! We have also had a lesson with Anthony Clarke which demonstrated that pretty much all our issues are due to Elliot (and I) being confused by my body language and therefore he often chooses to ignore it! Our first KC show next weekend, wish me luck!

First Agility Competition in nearly 18 months!!!

Here is how our first agility show in 18months went;

Jemma just had the one jumping class over small - it had the weaves in which I wasn't expecting and was a really widely spaced flowin course. Jem missed her weave entry and came out before the end but I carried on anyway as she hasn't trained them for a while and I didn't really want her twisting about too much. She did run around about 2 jumps where I took short cuts to try and keep up but we carried on regardless and she had fun :)

Elliot;
Agility (I ran this as a training round)
His seesaw was brilliant, he missed the dog walk (it was after the tunnel and I carried on without making sure he had seen it). He then seemed a little bit cautious about the surface of the dog walk once he was on it (apparently there were quite a few dogs reacting oddly to it) and he crept into position and then self released. He wasn't worried about going on the a-frame but walked into position (he didnt self release though). He finished the round by completing the 12 weaves first time :)

Steeplechase 1
There was one part of the course I spent ages trying to decide which way out of two to run it and ended up handling it a third way. This meant I couldn't get a front cross in later in the course and had to do a back cross which left me too far behind him for later in the course - I was hoping 18months off would have stopped me doing silly things like this but apparently not!! There was also two wing wrap situations where he bottled out of taking the jump.

Steeplechase 2
He knocked a pole and then the one bit of the course where I couldn't decide on how to handle it went a little pear shaped - I get the feeling I need more course experience so I am more confident in how to handle particular situations

Jumping (I ran this as a training round)
He did the 12 weaves (which were at an angle straight after a tunnel) perfectly first time :) and then it was the same open flowing course Jem had done so we just ran hell for leather (mainly to train myself not to just dawdle!) and he did really well - knocked one pole and then bottled out of one jump which he needed to wing wrap.

So all in all I was really pleased with both of them - the bits that went wrong with Elliot were all things I already knew we had problems with so now I just need to try and fix them!!!

A little bit behind!!

Wow, I appear to have got quite behind on blogging (although not as behind as some people...)! Here is a rough outline on how Elliot's training has been going;

Flyball
I have been doing some wall work with him to try and improve his box and it has really worked - last week his box turns were consistently good until he got tired and then they were consistently bad (he used to do good turns mixed in with bad) and this week they were all good (except one). However, he is still not taking an extra stride between the box and first jump without a guide in so we shall probably still have to use this in warm ups at competitions! So, the main things to work on now is his fitness, fine tuning his wall turns and "ingraining" the extra stride into him.

Agility
Since Jan I have had another lesson with Lel and been to an Anthony Clarke session at A-SIT, both of which have pushed me to get my act in gear and I have since been training sequences (rather than one obstacles) with him when I hire the equpiment. I am still putting the target at the bottom of his contacts to start with and they are getting much better but are still not as fast as I would like! His weaves are brill and I CANNOT wait for our first competition in nearly 18months next weekend!!!

Jemma
Jem went back to doing a little bit of training  in Jan but then had to have surgery at the beginning of Feb to remove parts of a squeaky toy from her stomach and has been out of action since then due to all her muscles tightening up. She was finally let off the lead this week and got to do 5 run backs at flyball and 2 lots of five widely spaced jumps at agility this weekend. She was very happy to be allowed to do something but at flyball she was very confused as to why there were no other dogs out, why no one was chearing and why I wasn't running away and at agility she was getting very frustrated that I wasn't keeping up! She is entered in the UKA show next weekend over small but I am yet to decided if she will get to run!

Doing my homework like a good girl!

After last weeks lesson Lel gave me four homework exercises;
1) Fans/Stars - I missed this one off my list from last weeks blog!
2) Wing wraps
3) Deceleration
4) Out

So, like a good girl I set to work on my homework, and did some contact & weave work too:

Sat
Weaves were really good - I worked on really pushing him and also on peeling off and leaving him to do them - he was much better with me on his right but he got there with me on his left too :)

Contacts were awful, he was really creepy (especially when going towards other equipment) and no matter what I did (wind him up, only reward him for the faster ones etc) he still crept :(

Wing wraps - weren't great - he kept stopping and spinning round as soon as I commanded him, rather than taking the jump and wing wrapping, he was also loads better going to the right and not to the left but I was using the same command and relying on him using my body language to know which way to go.

Stars - we did the susan salo one jump exercise and he was a really good boy, bouncing even when the middle jump was on full height :) Just need to increase the angle between the jumps :)

Sun
Contacts - I thought I would see what happened if I used a target at the bottom again and it was like I had a different dog!! He ran to the bottom of the dog walk and stopped in the perfect position and he slid down the a-frame into position :) This gives me a great starting point and I can now work on keeping the speed and fading out the target :)

Wing wraps - he really improved and with him going to the right I managed to get to about six foot and give him his wing wrap command and he would take the jump and wing wrap :) I also started introducing the new command for going to the left and got to about 3 foot away - need to get these a bit better before we can work on deceleration.

Weaves were again good - I really really pushed him through them and on the whole he got them right :)

I then tried doing some left/right distinction with him coming out of a tunnel and he was appalling - best get working on him distinguishing these!!

I then started working on "out" and he was just getting confused - too many new things in one day for his little brain :)

So, still lots to work on but we are heading in the right direction and its nice to have specific things to work on :)

2012 so far!

I didnt post about Elliot's flyball or agility training last weekend (Jem is still too stiff to train) as I wasn't overly pleased with how the sessions had gone. However, he has been much better this week :)

Last week at flyball Elliot's box was shocking - his back feet were really low and consequently he wasn't really driving back very well. Nat says she thinks he was approaching the box with more drive and therefore maybe it was this that wasn't helping him prepare for the box, on the other hand though when I did the box on its own he was just as bad. This week his box was much better, he even apparently managed one perfect turn :) His striding back was ok and he only messed it up a couple of times!


Last week was my first lesson back with Lel at A-SIT since I broke my ankle (on an all weather surface though - I still havn't had to brave "THE" field yet!). It was definately the shove I needed to start getting Elliot ready for competition and stop faffing about!! I discovered my timing really needs sorting out again, Elliot struggled with the weaves (although it was the first time he had done the new distance) and he was not really driving on very well! On the plus side though my ankle was fine and Elliot was doing some really nice bouncing between jumps which shows the grid work has been paying off :)

This week with Lel he was soooo much better and I came away feeling really proud of him. Mainly because his weaves were AMAZING!!! They were set at a slight angle as he came out of the tunnel and he got the entrance every time but once (when he wasnt meant to be doing them anyway!!) and he did all 12 without popping out at all AND he even stayed in when I peeled off and left him doing them :) His jumping wasn't however quite so great, the same problem as last week was really highlighted - he is not driving on, if I stop he stops (even if he is just about to take off for a jump!)! He also needs work on his wing wraps whilst I am moving!! Another plus is that I ran like I used to, I didn't even think about my ankle once, and more importantly it was fine and doesn't ache today :)

Two very frustrating but informative lessons for both Lel and I (and just what I needed!) as we just kept picking up issues with Elliot and running out of time to fix any of them! I have however been set homework and hopefully we will be much better in two weeks time when we are back with Lel and then she can work on perfecting us even more, so we can atually go do some competitions :)