Happy Christmas :-)

Elton never comes out well in indoor photos if the light isn't good - black dogs! Solei didn't want to partake in my photo exploits :-P

Ria's first Christmas! Safe to say she thought it was great and got thoroughly spoiled. New toys, treats and various bits for me for her (if you follow lol). Of course the boys weren't left out either - but Ria is just that bit easier to buy for!

Had a quiet Christmas, but it was nice - the dogs were just like overexcited children on Christmas morning, which was quite funny. They made it so good, really.

And I have weaves! That was my Christmas present, so I've already started them with Elton, and to a lesser extent Solei (that is going to be a veerry long process) and am looking forward to starting with Ria in around a month.

Went to the last big champ show of the year on 10th, with some trepidation. Ria was fine, though didn't stand very well. I admit I overhandled her! Especially when I stood her for the judge and just as he was coming over she went to put her head on the floor. I got her back ok but that was enough to send me into a panic :-P You'd never know she and her sister were sisters - they are so different, and Ria is an awful lot less mature - which has held her back ever since she started showing. But hopefully we'll have the last laugh :-)

On Wednesday I took her and Elton to Ria's agility class Christmas party. Elton pretty much just watched, he was a little overwhelmed, but I had him out briefly and he made everyone laugh as I'd been saying how fast he potentially was, and brought him out for one of the games - run with your dog down an alley of balls, turn round and run back through it. As I turned to come back I'd only gone about a step and Elton took off and just RAN back up the alley! Everybody was laughing at him, he stood at the end and looked at me with a "well? Where are you? Hurry up!" expression :-P

Ria...well, what can I say! She was amazing.

The evening started with one individual game - Snoopy (Simon) Says - which to my amazement Ria won! Then we did team games.....and considering I think the most she's ever sequenced is two tunnels, one jump and one tunnel or three jumps (all reference to jumps is pole on ground)...

One of the games was four jumps down, tunnel (u shape) then the same four jumps back up....and she did it SO well <3 she was working ahead and everything, considering she's never done anything like that before I was so impressed.

Then the other agility game was 4 jumps down, 3 tunnels, 4 jumps back (not straight) and she was just awesome <3 I think (hope!) she is actually going to be quite good given time. She also coped really well with the dogs that she's kinda met but aren't in her class (for the first half hour of her class they have two groups, one at each end of the hall)...stupidly the only dog she really didn't like was a 10wk cocker puppy :-P That said, she does seem to have settled back down a bit - less stupid than she was a month ago.

Better few days :-) Match night at ringcraft on Tuesday. Took Ria with slight trepidation! She was absolutely fine, and even managed Reserve Best Puppy in Match :-)

Agility I thought was going to be a disaster, well the first bit was! She went through the collapsible tunnel once and then refused to go through again (held open) and then refused to have anything to do with the rigid tunnel either. I think because we were working with someone who was right at the entrance with a toy hanging down right outside and she just wasn't happy about it! I also always have some trouble getting her nose off the floor there (equestrian centre - tastes really good :-P) but I guess some of it could also be a stress response for her.

So I took her off for some 2o2o work which was good, then we went back to the tunnel minus person at the end! And got some nice work then :-)

We finished off with some wrap arounds and Ria was doing some gorgeous figure eights with me standing completely still, just off my arm movements :-) am well chuffed with how fab she was! So what started off really badly actually ended really well.

Onwards and upwards?

Sigh! Solei mated a bitch on Tuesday 22nd and managed to come back on three legs. Not sure what he's done, but obviously no agility for him on Thursday....am hoping we can avoid the chiropractor again! He's seen the vet who could find nothing wrong and said his pelvis was ok, but not sure if he'd be able to detect it or not? Either way although he's much improved he's not right enough for me to feel comfortable about him doing agility, so that's that til next year & probably another Chiro visit :-(

Shows the other weekend were good. On Saturday Ria had a 3rd of 6 in AVNSC Junior, and Sunday we FINALLY did it!! She was in AVNSC Puppy, which happened to be her and 3 Spinones, so I didn't think we stood a chance of even getting through the class. Well...Ria won the class and Best AVNSC Puppy, beaten by another Spinone for Best AVNSC, and then PUPPY GROUP 2! Over the moon :-D finally conquered the puppy group!

Then had an "interesting" agility session with Ria on Wednesday 30th. Her focus is still crap, really need to work on it and I want to try and get hold of Control Unleashed. We started work on the see-saw - letting her bang the end down, which she actually got comfortable with much more quickly than I thought she might. She's still all over the shop in general, had a very uncharacteristic moment where she ran off to another dog and just stood there barking at it - barking at dogs is nothing new, but she's usually the one running away from them! Never in her life has she run TO a dog before. She is a bit unpredictable with other dogs (nervous, fine with dogs she knows but will air snap at dogs she's unsure of) so I hope that's just a one off cos she's being weird in general atm (or maybe the agility just totally blew her mind and she'll learn to deal with it without doing that!)

So after disgracing herself in lots of other areas, Ria then impressed everyone with her tunnel prowess. Including me, actually! I had a tunnel at home for a month back in the summer (see August posts) and did quite a bit of work with her, including sending her to the tunnel from funny angles and blind entrances, but she's done so little since I was impressed at how much she remembered! She was doing some lovely blind entrances :-)

Then after the high of last weekend, this one was just a disaster. On Saturday we didn't get in the ring til gone 5pm (and I thought 4 was bad :-P) and the rings were completely covered in blue carpet - Ria was being a little sod and wouldn't stand and wouldn't get her head up off the floor - though moved quite well. She also shoe away from the judge when she got near her bum. She got a 2nd of 2, but the IWS that beat her went on to win the puppy group under the same judge, so we probably wouldn't have had much chance even if she had behaved!

Sunday was worse. There was food all over the ring floor, thought it was because of the Labs but actually I'm not so sure the bit that caused the main problem wasn't grated cheese and given we were by the stewards table and they hadn't stopped for lunch...
Anyway, Ria wasn't concentrating, all she wanted to do was get her nose down on the floor and eventually the judge came in as soon as she paused...she wasn't ready, and she barked and backed off. Judge didn't get to go over her so needless to say she was last! Judge had been looking at her before we started so that was frustrating, but I was mortified - I think from ringside it would've looked as if she'd tried to bite the judge. Really not good.

In other news I also have Ria working for a ball at home - excitedly. Whether this is novelty or not not sure (tried a ball before and she wasn't interested) - but I hope its not XD