What a weekend with highs and lows! Did a combined obedience (Solei & Elton) & breed (Elton & Ria) show on Saturday and an agility show on Sunday (yes, I am insane. It was my birthday on Friday, this was what I decided I'd like to do.) Nothing major results wise, but some really positive aspects to take from every discipline. All 3 dogs have given me at least one fantastic moment this weekend in different ways, very proud of them.

Breed show - Elton got BOB, Ria was the baby and unplaced in her AVNSC Post Grad class but won Best Rare Breed under a different judge. The positives - both Elton & Ria showed well, and Ria stood like a rock to be gone over. The negatives - Ria's AVNSC (lack of) placement, and the fact the toy group judge saw fit to not move a single dog again!

Obedience show / Solei - It was quite cold and windy and I was based miles from the obedience ground but Solei was drawn 10th and you don't know if they're all going to turn up, so I thought I'd better be ringside for 9:30am, when judging started. It was gone 10am when we got in the ring and Solei had been waiting, too long for him! His brain wasn't switched on for HOL, his recall was lovely and his HF was...not. I started off and he sat there and stared at me. I did 3/4 of the HF on my own, then he thought he'd join me for the last leg and finished quite well!
He also did a special class in which we were given a list of exercises worth either 5, 10 (the majority) or 15pts, and could pick whatever we liked as long as they added up to 100pts. You needed the majority of the list to make the points and I struggled to find enough, particularly as I wanted to avoid retrieve if possible, which counted for 3 of the options. In the end I opted for heelwork (10pts), recall (5pts), recall over 1 hurdle (10pts), recall over 2 hurdles (15pts), recall through tunnel (10pts), stand stay (10pts), down stay (5pts), questions (5pts), send away (10pts), temp test (10pts), A Recall (10pts).

Well...what can I say, other than he devised a new method for the A Recall and it went downhill from there :-) The A Recall (leave dog as normal but keep walking and call dog into heel position when told, then continue for a short stretch of hw before halting) was on a diagonal towards the tunnel. I called him, he ran straight past me, through the tunnel and then back to heel! He had the judge and steward in hysterics. That set the tone for the class really - he decided to see how many of the exercises he could incorporate the tunnel into, and a couple between exercises just because! Everything he did "correctly" was sloppy (except the recall through tunnel - strangely enough he did that very well :-)), but that was just because he was excited, he had so much fun which was the point!

Send away took a couple of attempts, but he did a quite nice one in the end. He went over all the hurdles, and did the stays ok. Positives - he made everyone laugh, had a lot of fun, and did the special class quite well except for all the tunnel deviations and general excitement! Negatives - the heelwork, esp HF in that first class!


Obedience show / Elton - Very much an "if only" day! He wasn't concentrating properly for HOL, his recall was fine til I tried to finish him when he refused to because there was a group of dogs (inc whippet) standing outside the ring (quite a few metres away) and he was worried and didn't want to turn his back. Then his HF was not his usual standard and, for him, especially laggy on turns. The recall made the difference between a place or not :-(

For the special class with him I picked largely the same as Solei - substitued distant control for send away, and more heelwork for the recall through tunnel (he doesn't like tunnels atm, they remind him of being attacked). So that left heelwork (10pts), recall (5pts), recall over 1 hurdle (10pts), recall over 2 hurdles (15pts), heelwork weaving through cones (10pts), stand stay (10pts), down stay (5pts), questions (5pts), distant control (10pts), temp test (10pts), A Recall (10pts).

I wasn't entirely happy with the list, but I had no options left without falling back on retrieve - which I didn't want to do in his current lack of confidence state.

Normal heelwork was the first exercise and improved as he tuned in. Then the weaving through the cones had to be done twice - first time at normal pace, then again at slow pace. Apparently that was stunning, though I was terrified I'd run him over cos I couldn't see him!! A Recall was lovely except I had to call him multiple times cos we haven't practiced that particular approach (when I've done A Recall practice with him I've made it harder!) and he didn't believe me! Normal recall just had a slightly crooked present, 1 hurdle recall was perfect, then he totally buggered up the 2 hurdle recall by going round them both :-(

Stand stay was clear, down stay wasn't - it had poured with rain and he decided he couldn't possibly stay lying in the wet :-P quite funny, he broke (sat up) and when I told him to go back down he sort of stretched his front legs out whilst trying to keep his body off the ground (think cartoon cat when they've got all four legs outstretched trying not to go in a bath or something). Temp test & questions clear.

His Distant Control was stunning....so, so proud. It's something I've practiced at home but never taken it "on the road" and he often misses the down position - I'd chosen it purely cos I'd run out of alternatives, without choosing a retrieve! Can't remember the order of the positions, it was leave in a sit then I think it was down, stand, sit, stand, down, sit? It was definitely 6 positions - 2 of each. He missed the first position (down) but did it on the second command, then the rest was faultless...he hardly crept forward either.

Final marks (gained, not lost) was 8.5/10 HW, 10/10 weave, 8/10 A Recall, 9.5/10 Distant Control, 4.5/5 recall, 10/10 1 hurdle, 4/15 2 hurdles, 10/10 stand stay, 10/10 temp test, 1/5 down stay, 5/5 questions - even allowing for the down "stay", without that 2 hurdle recall he'd have been comfortably in 2nd, and definitely in the placings. (Without the broken down he'd have won) - if only! He did seem more comfortable in the class (it had run very late, everyone else had gone home!) and seemed to enjoy it, so was well worth doing.

Finally - Agility Show - Took all 3 dogs but had nobody entered, I just wanted to play..etc round the rings, and I was intending to get Ria measured - that didn't work as they decided to measure really early, but luckily it wasn't important :-P Will get her done another time.

Nothing major to report, except they had a practice ring - fully fenced, slightly out of the way, food & toys allowed with a short tunnel, jumps, aframe, teeter. Pay £1 a minute and use it how you like :-)

So I took Ria in. I did jump, tunnel and she was really switched on so I decided she could cope with more....there was a pin wheel in front of the jump, and she used to love them, but recently (prior to season so a couple months ago now) I was finding she was going round at least one (usually the middle). So I put her in front of this first jump....and she did the 3 jumps of the pin wheel, tunnel, jump! I only had the poles on small but she was fast, accurate, confident and I wasn't "baby sitting" her - and she drove into the tunnel beautifully from a distance :-) It felt amazing, if this is what she's gonna feel like to run when we get that far I can't wait :-X

Let the fun commence!

Ria has just finished her season, she's back with the boys (well, Solei - Elton still isn't totally convinced :-P) and her first trip out for 3 1/2 weeks ended up being to an agility show this past weekend...I wasn't quite sure how great an idea that was, but she was actually really good :-) It was over two days and just half a mile from home, so both days I took Solei & Elton up in the morning and then went home, had some lunch and took Ria and Elton in the afternoon.

She will be back at agility class on Wednesday. I have (amazingly) stuck to my resolution and have done absolutely no agility (not even been tempted by weaves haha - well, that's not true. I've been tempted, but resisted) with her for a whole month, hoping the break would do us both good - so we'll see if it has or not! She's back to once a week classes for a bit as I have no free Saturdays til late July.

It's kinda scary - she has most definitely matured physically, and there are going to be mental changes too....the unknown, I'm not entirely sure what dog I have now! Hopefully the changes will be for the better :-P

She shows for the first time in two months this weekend, so I will pop her up to ringcraft tomorrow to get some people going over her and see how she is. Hope we can both remember how ;-)

It's Solei's birthday in 4 weeks, he's having a new toy and some massage! I took him for a free evaluation 2 weeks ago and she found a spot he was reacting to that fits with where I feel he is often sensitive, so we're currently waiting for my vet to sort the paperwork out and then he'll be going for 1-4 sessions to see if it helps him! I don't feel the chiro can do any more at this point (though will continue taking him for maintenance) so I have everything crossed this will help. He was on metacam for a short time which I never felt did much, so I'm hopeful that this may be the problem as if it were skeletal/arthritis I'd have expected the metacam to make more of an impact...fingers crossed.

Finally, Elton. I didn't mention it here because I was somewhat upset at the time :-P but he was attacked by a whippet at training three weeks ago. He was utterly traumatised but seemingly unhurt (thank god for a profuse coat and an interfering Border Collie that distracted the whippet), I was furious, not least because the timing really sucked - Elton is somewhat "sticky" to me and adores toys but gets bored fairly quickly, this was less than 5 minutes into the class and I was sending him away from me over a jump to a dead toy....he was pounced on just as he reached the toy. He's not the most confident of dogs and he'd got to the point now where he was really loving it, I was getting so much speed and enthusiasm.

Solei got to do the rest of the class that week as I wasn't going to get any sense out of him. The following week I took Elton (no whippet in sight) and he was fine as long as he was on lead, went to pieces as soon as he was off. Even basic circle work he wasn't happy if he was off lead. I gave last week a miss, because I just didn't feel I could deal with it...he has also been a little off the last couple of weeks anyway because of Ria. After sailing through the first two weeks of her season he suddenly decided she was very interesting and his brain would have to take a holiday! He really worried me because he was displaying similar behaviour (but less severe) as he did when he had that horrendous adolescence that was made 100x worse by a bitch in season and then took the best part of a year til I had my dog back. I could not go through that again! However, he has since been used, is older and (hopefully) wiser and the last couple of days he has been much more his old self :-) which'll help!

So on Wednesday he will be going to class again, we will take things very slowly and see what happens. Fingers crossed.

As I'm twiddling my thumbs cos I should be at a show with Ria today but can't because she is very much in full season and it's now June (I can't believe that, but still - the calendar assures me it is!) I thought it would be good to review the 2012 goals I made at the beginning of the year, and see how we're doing...and how things have changed.

Starting with Solei...apparently this hasn't been so productive. This was the list (with current status in brackets after each point) -

Achieve his P-Beg-Ex title in obedience. At the very least get a few more points towards it! (No. Though we've only had 2 attempts towards more points, and there is time yet this year.)
Overcome the scary cavern that is the chute (I haven't had any access to a chute, so that's been a non starter)
Learn to weave (He does not (yet) get 2x2s, not sure if that's gonna work for him or not. I've been encouraging shaping with other things and I'll probably try again at some point. He will just happily stand and stare and wait for instructions, he's not good at using his own initiative. But channel weaves were a disaster with him too, V weaves may be worth a try...but I don't have access to those.)
Get a Best Veteran Dog and/or a Best Veteran in Show (Not yet...but he has only done two shows and he came close at one (2nd to the Best Veteran Dog)

So...umm...yeah, none of the above! But I suppose I was relatively ambitious with him, given this is Solei and half those things have been on my list for ages. I would still keep all the same points on that list, and also add play - I want to be able to "turn on" his tug desire (which is awesome in the right situation) in any situation and with less effort from me to get it started. So this summer I plan to take toy and try and instigate short play in lots of different situations. Still not sure what I want to do with him re agility.

Elton...oh this is looking better.
Start the journey to his P-Beg Ex title and have achieved at least a couple of points by the end of the year. (Check! He gained his first 2 points at his very first attempt. 8 to go.)
Start agility classes (Check :-) Started foundation classes in April)
Be competent at every piece of equipment by the end of this year (Having now started with him I think this was ambitious - he is very uncomfortable with the seesaw, haven't got to the other contact equipment yet. I also can't teach him to weave til I figure out how to solve my problem (can't use food, need to stop him doing victory laps with thrown toy and relatively quickly losing interest! Though we do still have 6 months.)
The retrieve. :-P (Semi-check! He now has a very passable retrieve, I just still need to generalize it more and want more confidence)
Achieve his ShCM title this year (ok this is unlikely, but I'd like at least 5 more points towards it please!) (No...but I've hardly shown him at shows where he can achieve points towards it)

Very pleased with that! #2 can come off, the rest can stay - more points to his P-Beg Ex would be all good, the retrieve still needs some more work for it to be solid and ShCM will never come off until he gets it! I will revise #3 - from the above, to for him to be more confident with each piece of equipment by the end of the year than he was when he started.

and finally Ria.

Start her obedience show career properly, and for her to enjoy it
Hold at least a 1 minute stay in competition by the end of the season (not tried this yet so not sure, but think she may worry depending on what happens around her, so will be taking it very slowly)
To not run out of the ring when she starts competing in agility later this year
(These first 3 are covered by the same point - she's been much, much slower to mature than I thought she would be and I'm not going to rush her...so we haven't even attempted the first three items on the list, and I doubt we will this year.)
Dramatically improve her reactivity to other dogs (Yes :-) Still a work in progress, but much improved)
Improve toy drive (I think so...she's never going to be totally tuggy obsessed, but she *can* do so and she loves her ball - when I have money am hoping to buy a new toy to try and combine ball and tug)
Be generally awesome at everything she does <3 (I hope so ;-))

So I suppose that could be worse! I need to rethink her list entirely, but maybe that'll be for 2013 :-P