The Mad Merles

Everything is looking good

2011-01-23T10:50:00.000-08:00

Well ive made some changes and have decided to just train on my own for a while rather than attending an agility club. I do like the dogs to get experience working around other dogs but for the time being we are happier just doing our own thing.

I have finally decided its time to start training Roxy for agility. Ive left it far longer then i ever meant too but she matured very slowly mentally so i just never felt the time was right till now. Also i already have 2 good competing dogs and one who can do the odd run when in the mood so I'm in no rush for anymore right now. Im just working on straight lines, wing wraps , go ons and lefts and rights. She is so sharp and picks up things so quickly so i really have to make an effort to show her the right way first time as any errors i make she remembers and then works the same way next time. Thankfully we really seem to be in tune with each other which is a surprise to me as Ive never really bonded with a bitch in the same way in the past and would normally always choose a dog out of a mixed litter. She also loves what we have done so far and screams in the van if i don't get her out first to train. So far things are looking very promising and she doesn't seem to have the same long out of control stride Cai has, so is much neater and tighter.

The others are all showing some improvement too. Cai's weaves are starting to look quite good and he is now managing to slow to make the entry 90% of the time. Ive also being doing a lot of work on making his turns tighter and we may be getting somewhere. Cant wait to get out and do a few shows now to see where we are at.

Maidstone Flyball Tournament

2011-01-16T21:12:00.000-08:00

What a day! we made Power Paws history by running 3 teams in open compertition for the first time. Im very lucky to have such a lovely bunch of people and dogs to train and i always feel so proud of them regardless of how they do as the dogs always do their best and never let us down.

First up we had our brand new dogs running under the 'Power Paws Triers' name for the first time. We knew they probably wouldnt get placed highly as two dogs were at thier first ever show not even having done starters. One of them has only been training with us about 3 months and only turned 18 months 2 days ago. The other has been training with us for about 18 months but was terrified of the box until a few weeks ago. The other two running were Meg and Skye with Maddie as reserve.

They put in a good performance but just coudnt match the times of the other teams in the division and finished 5th. But they all ran well and gained thier first ever flyball points so no one went away disaopinted.

Next up we had 'Power Paws Flyers' consisting on Poppy, Barney, Storm and Campbell. We were feeling positive after some good training sessions over the winter. We had declared faster as our seed time was 23.64 seconds which we knew we would beat even though we were running the same dogs and over 14" as our height dog had moved down to help the Triers. Apart from loosing our first race we won all the rest to finish 2nd gaining a new best time ever of 21.22 seconds.

Last up were the 'Power Paws'. We had gained a new dog Harry over the winter from another team and he fitted in really well with Jess, Alfie and Charlie. Again we won all our races except one to finish 2nd with a new fastest time ever of 20.18 seconds. Im hoping we can sort our changes and starts out and go sub 20 at the next tournament as we are so close now.

Quite a few dogs got certificates today which was a nice end to the day Alfie got his Flyball Dog, Jess got her Flyball Dog, Ben got his Flyball Dog and Barney got his FD Intermediate. All in all a great day spent with lots of great people and dogs.

Changes

2010-12-18T06:25:00.000-08:00

Well this year has had some amazing ups and some very disappointing downs. Ive got a lot to think about regarding the future. I have really struggled with motivating myself towards the end of this year and have realised i need to ignore the negative people in my life and train my dogs in a way that makes us both happy. Lots of changes need to be made me thinks!

I have found agility very frustrating as its not easy training a dog with issues and i have more than one! i find other people can be so thoughtless and just because their dog can walk through a gap an inch wide with lots of dogs barking at them doesn't mean every ones can. Please next time you are maybe blocking an entry into the ring at a show or the entry into a venue think about how someone Else's dog may struggle with the pressure of passing yours as such close range.

Flyball has been great and its been horrible! I've really enjoyed training and developing all the dogs at Power Paws regardless of their speed and all the handlers are lovely people who i enjoy spending time with. We have been unlucky and not really managed to have stable teams this year so our times have been a bit up and down but i am very excited for the future as we now have 3 open teams who all seem keen to get out there and compete in 2011. We have grown a lot during 2010 and I'm not sure we will be able to take on many more dogs which is a shame. The British Champs was a bit of a disappointment as none of the 3 teams my dogs are in did very well but there is always next year. I'm looking forward to Crufts in March and feel we have improved so much this year that we really have a chance of doing well but that all depends on the draw so I'm keeping my fingers crossed we get a good one in the first round.

Saying that Campbell, Cai and Chico have all done better than i ever hoped. Chico ran at the British Champs and gained his first every flyball points. OK hes not going to set the world on fire with his 6 second times but at least hes giving it a go.

Campbell's flyball times have really improved this year and he very close to those magic 4 second times but im struggling with his focus as he has started crossing and chasing the dog in the other lane if i run him from more than 5 foot back from the start. I'm not sure this is ever something ill correct as he has such strong eye. The few agility shows he has done have been good. He won the Jumping at Eastbourne agility show and moved into Senior at UKA. Nearly every placing hes had this year has been top 5 so hopefully we can fit a bit more agility in next year.

Cai has turned a corner this year and is now out and competing in agility with no sign that i ever had a problem once he is working (although actually getting into the ring is still a challenge!) He has been placed top 5 every time he has gone clear which I'm so pleased with. Hes been an amazing flyball dog as always and pulled off some 3.8 second times over 11" and ran under 17 seconds with the Dream Team. I have also signed him up for a training day with Kelly Robbins-Walt & Aaron Robbins from Rocket Relay in Canada to see what they think we can improve on.

Roxy and Rayne have had an easy year just being pups... well OK Roxy is quite an old pup but as i already have 3 dogs competing i don't feel the need to push her to quickly! Roxy has now started flyball training and is showing promise and Rayne is now working lovely with the clicker and offering all sorts of cute and odd behaviours! She is so different from the collies and I'm enjoying the challenge.

Dream Team Tournament... We did it!!!

2010-09-05T20:09:00.000-07:00

16.98!!! woohoo we did it!!! What a weekend. The dogs just felt ready (well apart from Tess who has never been to a flyball tournament let alone competed in one) They were all on top form which is lucky as looking at the video afterwards our changes were horrendous! Who knows what we can run if we actually manage to tighten up our changes.... british record next? ha ha ha. All the dogs were turning nicely on the box though so we dont need much work there.

We finished 2nd which really didnt matter as i still had goose bumps from earlier. The racing was so exciting and it really felt like all the teams were pushing themselves to their limit.

Crufts 2011 Qualifier

2010-09-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

The Dream Team haven't managed to make it to any of the other qualifiers this year as they were either too far away (Scotland!) or on the weekend of our own shows so this was really our last chance to qualify. We made the journey up to Prestbury Park again which is where we qualified last year. We left a heavily pregnant Michelle back at home running the Dream Team Tournament and thankfully she managed not to go into labour. Prestbury park is a lovely show and part of me would have liked to stay for the weekend and do the agility too. Maybe next year.

For the first time ever we had a lucky draw and got an easy team in the first round and only had to win two races to qualify. We coasted in the first round with 20 foot late changes winning 3 - 0. The second round didn't really push us much either and we won that 3 - 0 too qualifying for Crufts 2011!! We then raced Sheffield for 1st & 2nd place and again won 3 - 0 to finish 1st. I had really wanted to qualify for Crufts again and would have been gutted if we hadn't managed it so I'm glad the pressure is now off and we can relax till March next year. The dogs really feel like a team now. Cant wait for tomorrow as i can feel best ever time coming. Sub 17 seconds? maybe.

Dream Team Tournament

2010-09-04T22:50:00.000-07:00

Saturday

Just Chico running today with the Dream Team Maddogz. After his promising start at the Champs i was looking forward to running him... hmmm.... shouldn't have bothered! he was so naughty. He refused to run in the red lane and kept stopping and cowering like someone was about to hit him and sniffing the floor. it turned out a fox had pooed in the ring the night before and he was scared of the smell! He ran ok in the blue lane though. Annoyingly we took a second off our seed time but lost quite a few races due to Chico being a wally and ended up 5th out of 7. I'm really not sure if i should keep racing him as i don't know if he is enjoying himself or not, hes such an odd dog.

Shooting Stars Flyball Tournament

2010-08-29T21:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday

Power Paws were seeded 4th in Div 5. After being disappointed with the dogs (and handlers!) at the champs i was hoping we could get it together this weekend. We always seem to loose our first few races then win the rest. I think this is partly down to nerves (handlers) and inexperience on the dogs part as 3 of the dogs have only raced in open this year at less than 5 shows. Well as normal we lost the first race! we then seemed to gel better as a team and ran some really good races with consistent times rather than slowing by 1 - 2 seconds in the afternoon. We ended up running the best time of the division and winning the race against the eventual winners so not a disappointing day. We also ran our best time ever of 20.23 seconds. We finished 3rd so improved on where we were seeded too.

Cai and flea entered the pairs and finished 2nd. It was run over 11" which obviously suits Cai and quite a few people came up to me after and said he had been running 3.8 seconds which i think is down to us going back onto the boomerang box. On the combi box i could really see him sticking to the box but he is not able to do this with the boomerang and his turns have really sped up.

Sunday

Our open debut for Power Paws Flyers today. only one dog had run in open before and kept dropping the ball so i had no idea (or expectations) on how we would do. All the dogs ran very well. Charlie our start dog ended up running some of the best times of the weekend earning himself a promotion into the top team. His average was well under 5 seconds and his starts were 0.00 - 0.06 so as near to perfect as we will get! The other dogs did well although both height dogs slowed considerably but Skye didn't drop the ball so very pleased with her progress. Storm who has only been out of netting for one week ran perfect all day with some respectable times.

Dream Team Supreme were seeded in division 1 as normal. It was an interesting division as there were some different teams than we usually race but all with the potential to do well. Breeze was missing from the lineup this week due to injury and Flo was back from injury taking her place! We had to go up one inch to 13 so i expected some slower times as the dogs adjusted. Well how wrong was I! Cai ran 6 legs in a row under 4 seconds and stayed under 4.1 all day. Flash and Skye ran some cracking times too and Flo was back to running 4.2. We went on to win the division and get a new best time ever of 17.32 which I'm so happy about as we have had a disappointing year getting a few 2nd and lots of 3rds and 4ths. We also ran 16.99 with a light that was only just a light so next weekend we are really going to push to go sub 17 seconds... things are getting exciting!

GT Agility Show

2010-06-28T22:22:00.000-07:00

Well i found i had a free weekend so decided last minute to go along to GT Agility as its only a couple of hours away from me and i really wanted to get Campbell into senior this year. He only needed 4 agility points so i felt confident i could do that in a weekend. I love going to UKA shows as you get a good choice of classes and can choose to train in the ring which is always helpful. I went up early Saturday morning and arrived when it wasn't too hot although it quickly heated up to a level that i almost didn't want to run my dogs in.

Saturday

First up Campbell had Novice Agility. Quite a sensible straight forward course (some of the novice courses i did last year were horrendous!)that i knew would run quite fast. I wasn't looking to get a place as i was happy with 2 points from a clear so didn't really mind that the faster dogs would probably beat us. Well to my surprise Campbell did a lovely round to come 4th, although i was far from happy with his contacts but that was my fault for handling him differently than how i do in training. That gave him his final 4 points and moved him into senior which i was really really happy about. He's such and honest dog and tries so hard for me and i really enjoy working him. He might not be the fastest but he is tight and accurate.

Next up he had Novice jumping and did a nice but slow round due to the heat to finish clear. I didn't want to do anything more with him as it was far too hot and he had worked really well in the first two classes. He also came 3rd in the 'Tough Enough' qualifier as he had a double clear in the agility and jumping but only the first two qualify so he didn't quite make it this time.

Cai had Beginners Agility first. It was the same as the Novice course but i didn't feel it was too much for him. He did a good round that was pretty slow for him as he still doesn't have the confidence in the ring that he has in training but there were lots of nice bits. His contacts were lovely and he got his weaves on the first go. He just had 1 pole down and ran past one jump. He also waited on the start line which really surprised me as he usually buggers off the minute i let go of his collar and i have to make a mad dash to catch up with him! I still cant believe when i finish a round that ive actually done it with him. I never would have believed even last year he would be out competing.

Next he had beginners steeplechase. Again a nice round but had 1 pole down and missed one jump! i hope this doesn't become habit! The annoying thing is it not always in the same situation he misses a jump sometimes he still just starts cutting across me for no reason although a lot of the time its his massive stride that causes him to land almost past the next jump so doesn't give him time to adjust to take off and forces him to run past.

Chico got two runs today. Beginners agility was actually not that bad! just came off the seesaw a bit early so he finished on 5f. He was a bit slow generally and his weaves were painfully slow and creepy but at least he actually did them. Beginners Steeplechase was ok and a fairly good speed but he had the first pole down so again finished on 5f. Sometimes i wonder why i both with him as he really doesn't put any effort in and can get quite stressed if he has to queue but screams if i leave him in the van without a go!

Sunday

Campbells first day at senior. I decided to train one round and do one for competition. First up he had senior snooker which i decided to run as he usually does well in games classes as its not all down to speed. I walked the course and almost changed my mind as it was horrendous! We both did our best although i did hesitate at one point as i was sure we had been eliminated but the judge didn't seem sure of the rules so i carried on going and he finished 3rd so now has his first 6 senior points. I decided to train his agility round as i wanted to know i could put him back on the contacts if he didn't stop. I was in two minds while walking the course though as it was a lovely course with a good mixture of handling required. I decided i really need to sort his contacts out before we loose them again so did a training round. He didn't stop on the seesaw which was the second obstacle so i put him back over after and that he stopped in a perfect position on the dog walk and A frame exactly like he does in training so hopefully that has helped to remind him that i expect a stop at shows as well as in training.

Cai had 3 runs. 2 nearly runs in the Agility and steeplechase and a cracking round in the jumping to finish clear in 3rd place. That's his first clear round and place outdoors on grass so i finally feel we are getting somewhere.

Chico just had beginners jumping and decided he couldn't weave again! little bugger.

Had i known how hot it was going to be id never have gone but i was really pleased with how they all did in the heat.

Dream Team Starters Tournament

2010-05-31T22:19:00.000-07:00

We had one team in today. Not quite the line up i'd planned but due to as few broken dogs and a handler unable to come we ended up running Charlie, Barney, Onyx, Alfie, Florrie and Campbell. After a bit of messing around we actually got Charlie running. We have discovered he can only go first as he needs time to focus or looses the plot. Laura was handling him and did very well considdering she had never been to a flyball show before. She pulled off two perfect starts a 0.01 amd a 0.02 in the afternoon. You cant get much better than that! Onyx was a bit distracted but ran well the times she compleated. Barney and Campbell were obviously tired and Alfie run without any problems. Florrie who just refuses to run in training was a little star and managed 4 good legs with not bad times so there is hope for her yet. We managed a few 23 second times but only won one race. We ended up in a 3 way tie for 3rd and for once won as we had the best time so ended up 3rd. I think most of these dogs are ready for open now so maybe ill be brave and enter two teams next time.

Dream Teams first Flyball Tournament

2010-05-30T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well what a weekend! i arrived home exhausted and felt like i needed a week off work to recover. I turned up at Frimley at 7pm on friday night, i got the tent and garden set up quickly then went to help Michelle and Roland with the set up which was mostly done as they had been onsite since 9am that morning. The ground look superb and probably as good as you will get. The arena was almost perfectly level and the grass was short and thick. I couldnt wait to get out there and race our dogs. On Saturday i just had the Power Paws in. It was there first time in open under our own name as we have only run in Multibreed and under the Dream Team name up till now.

I really had no clue what times we would run so submitted 23.80.... Michelle thought i was mad and put us down for 23.20 which was exactly the right thing to do as we ended up running a 22.44 in our first leg of the last race against the Terriorists and would have broken out quite a few other times on 23.80. I didnt realise till that evening that no one on the line noticed we had broken out so although we were actually awarded the win for that leg we shouldn't have been given it. We ended up winning 4 out of 5 races just being beaten by the Terriorists who we couldn't match on speed without breaking out. This put us into 2nd and bettered our time from Wimbledon by 1 second.

We had our usual team of Barney, Poppy, Ben and Campbell running with Maddie as reserve. I also decided a few days before to give Alfie a go as he has been doing so well in training. I felt we would never get a better chance to test him than running against the Terriorists as they know staffies and would be happy to grab him if he ran into their runback area... and probably forgive him if he ran out into there lane! I went and spoke to them before to make sure they were happy for us to run him and they were lovely and said im worrying too much and just to get on and run him. Well that told me! We did run backs with him in a few of the races before and he was so focused so i started to get quite excited. I decided to run Barney, Poppy, Maddie (as she was fresh not having raced all day) and Alfie in the final race. The did a fantastic first leg and got our best time of the day. In the second leg maddie slowed right down and we lost that leg. In the third leg she lay down at the box and just refused to move so i had to pull her and run Ben who by now was quite tired. They managed to pull things back and win the third leg with out second best time of the day. So now it was 2 all and getting quite exciting! Sadly the Terriorists just found that extra bit of speed and beat us on the fifth leg by 0.01 seconds. They were lovely though and came over and gave me a hug and said how well Alfie had done.

On Sunday it was just Cai running. We were in Division 1 as usual. For once i was looking forward to it as we were set to race the Jolly Jumpers who had come over from Belgium. They are the current European record holders and their dogs all have lovely box turns and their changes are just to die for. They were so friendly and i spent quite a bit of time chatting to them about training and managed to get quite a few tips. Lots of them were things i was already doing with our new dogs so feel like we are heading in the right direction. They came to watch Cai run and thought he looked good but feel i can get more out of him so im going to work on some of the things they suggested. They felt i could get 0.2 - 0.3 off his times with work so that would take him down to 3.7 & 3.8's which ive always felt he had in him. Ill just have to wait and see now!

In the first race of the day we managed to pull off a 17.64 which is our best time this year. Unfortunatly for us there was a problem with the lights and they made us re run the whole race so we lost the time and didnt manage anything quite as good all day. We ended up 4th with a best time of 17.77 seconds.

Wimbledon Flyball Tournament

2010-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Power Paws had 1 team entered today in division 8 although we ran under the Dream Team Babes name as i am still planning on running Campbell with them for a while. We were on a declared time of 23.80 which i didn't think we would manage but couldn't declare slower as we needed to race on Sunday and anything slower would have put us on Saturday. Thankfully this actually turned out to be a good time for us as we managed a best time of 23.31 only 0.02 seconds off breaking out! I was very pleased with how the team ran as it was the first time out for Ben and Skye and Poppy ran out every leg at Maidstone which was her first show so i wasn't sure what she would do. Barney was really keen today and crosses so well with Poppy. It took us a while to sort Barneys starts out on the lights because although he is a fast dog the first 15 feet after release he is not consistent so was either very late or very early! Shelly did very well handling Poppy and did quite a few changes that made me flinch but she didn't get a light all day so really impressed me. Also we seem to have fixed Poppy's running out problem as she didn't even think about doing it today.

Ben was running for the first time and although he is slow he is reliable and easy to cross into. Lucy was handling him today and he doesn't run as well for her so was often 20 foot late on his changes but for a first show never having done starters i didn't think that was too bad. Skye got a few runs but has started ball dropping again so i had to pull her out of most of the races. Campbell ran last and has really gone up a gear and is starting to enjoy himself. He hasn't crossed into the other lane for quite a while so hopefully that problem is fixed. We had a couple of dropped balls but much better than the last few shows. He actually managed a 5.19 second run and averaged 5.4 so he is improving! We ended up 5th.

Cai was running with Dream Team Supreme as normal we ended up seeded in division 2 which made a nice change from div 1. He was on top form, i really think the effort i have made to get him fit is paying off. His best time was 3.95 from what i could see but i didn't get most of his times this weekend. We finished in 2nd on a best time of 17.78 which i know we can improve on.

Eastbourne Agility Show

2010-05-15T19:05:00.000-07:00

This is our main club show for the year so I knew id be running around very busy helping and would probably not run my dogs very well. Cai was entered in all 3 classes, Campbell in 2 and Chico just in Agility. I decided to get Cai’s classes out the way first. We started in the grade 1 – 4 Helterskelter. This was the perfect course for Cai. Spread out and flowing, I knew I had a chance of getting him round clear. He broke his wait and was the other end of the ring before I even had chance to take a breath. Thankfully he was heading the right way so I just cut across the ring to catch up with him. Sadly he went to go in the wrong end of the tunnel and although I managed to call him back he had just put his nose in getting an E. I’m not sure why he did this as it wasn’t the obvious entrance. In grade 1 – 2 Agility he was ok but had lots of poles and was a bit all over the place. Grade 1 – 2 Jumping was last. It wasn’t the easiest course but ran well. He missed his weaves but that didn’t surprise me and went wide on a few jumps but listened so I know with a bit more training we can get it together.

Campbell was up next. I decided to run his Agility first as he is so close to winning out now and if he does I’m guessing it will be in Agility as he has always placed higher in agility as he just can’t match the speed of some collies on the jumping courses. He started off really well with perfect contacts and lovely tight wing wraps but sadly decided to miss his weave entry getting us 5 faults. I was quite disappointed as we have very few agility shows this year as we are concentrating on flyball so have much less chance to win out. I decided to just take him straight into the jumping even though he was puffing as I wasn’t expecting much. Well as usual Campbell proved me wrong. He did a blazing round that felt fairly fast and finished clear. We were one of the first few to go so I didn’t get excited when that put us in 1st. Well my boy did me proud staying in 1st until the end and winning our huge Agility club trophy for highest placed member.

Chico had fun but fell off the dog walk while checking everyone was watching him from outside the ring. I put him back over and he was fine and finished the course in typical Chico Style. Thankfully I have a sense on humor when it comes to this dog!

Mad Mutts Flyball Tournament

2010-05-02T23:21:00.000-07:00

Campbell was running with the Dream Team on Saturday in division 8. He didn’t run very well at his last tournament as he was running 3rd with a dog crossing into him who gets very hyped up and ran from the line barking and screaming. Campbell doesn’t like crossing into a dog he doesn’t know especially one like this and he starts to drop the ball. Sadly he obviously remembered and dropped the ball quite a few times we also had many of the other dogs running out and generally messing around so did well to actually take home a rosette. They finished 4th but it didn’t feel like they deserved it! He did manage a 5.35 second time though and finished on an average of 5.54 seconds which is his best to date. Slow but to be honest better than I ever expected from him

Cai was running in Division 1 which to be honest is starting to get me down a bit. We are now too fast for Division 2 but don’t really stand a chance in division 1 as we just don’t have the dogs. We tried our best all day and even managed to beat the Bassett Hotdogs who are the current British record holders. We didn’t realize how well we were doing though until someone said if we win our last race we will come 1st. Our dogs ran there best but it wasn’t quite good enough and we lost our last race to the top seed in the division. There was a 3 way tie for second which we ended up loosing on time and finally finished 4th. Annoying but on the right day it shows we could pull off something special.

Crufts 2010

2010-03-11T21:38:00.000-08:00

Well it came and went in a flash but we had a great time! We arrived on Thursday and settled the dogs in, thankfully the flyball benching was out of the way so it was less stressful for the dogs as it was fairly quiet with not may of the public walking through. Cai surprised me and coped really well. He just got in his crate and went to sleep like he’s been doing it for years! We had hours to wait as we weren’t going in till after lunch so I went off and did far too much shopping… I did manage to get new harnesses for our flyball team though so they should look very smart next time out.

The briefing was quite exciting as we finally felt like we were actually at Crufts. Lots of questions got asked and they showed us a photo of what an acceptable cross is which surprised me as it was fairly tight and I did wonder how they would judge it by eye…

The time finally came for us to go in. They wanted all teams ready in the holding ring so we had to get our dogs ready even though we were the last team to go in the ring. It was boiling hot in there so the dogs all got very very hot and they could hear that flyball was going on the other side of a big curtain so keeping Cai calm was almost impossible. I wasn’t too worried as our goal had been to win our first race which would qualify us for Saturdays racing. We knew before who we were racing and as long as we made no mistakes we knew our dogs were much faster than them so we just had to go in and run perfectly with no distance markers and no warm up… sounds simple!

The first 3 races were run and then it was our turn. We ran into the ring and Cai didn’t seem bothered at all. The ring feels so much smaller when you are in it and you are concentrating on your dog so much you don’t even notice the public. We had been drawn in the lane nearest the cameras so every time I looked up and the big screen they had images of our dogs on there. Cai look superb if I do say so myself! We quickly measured our 40 foot marker and lined up. With the flyball they really rush you so you go straight in and race with no time to get nervous. Cai ran start as usual. The judge blew the whistle and we were off. Cai was flying as he always runs well on rubber matting, Flash did a perfect cross into him and was well ahead of the other team. Jasper kept us ahead and Breeze went last winning the leg for us. It was fantastic to have breeze with us after nearly dying a few months before. Sadly I could see her already tiring and getting affected by the heat.

Cai was perfect in the second leg but we got faulted for two early crosses, having watched the video back later though they were really wide but that shows you how hard it is to judge by eye when the dogs are going so fast.

That put pressure on us as we couldn’t afford to get faulted again. The last leg was just perfect! We were miles ahead of the other team and actually got a ‘wow’ from the commentator. Thankfully we didn’t get faulted for our changes. That qualified us for Saturdays racing so there were big smiles all round. We left the ring thinking that was it to find out we were racing for placings! We got a few minutes break and the dogs got a quick drink then we were back in again.
We won our next race too and stayed in the ring to race for 1st and 2nd. The dogs were really tired by now and all effected by the heat and so were the handlers! I’m wearing shorts next time. We didn’t expect to win as we were racing the fastest team in the UK but the dogs did there best to try. We ended up 2nd gaining us a lovely Crufts rosette and a lap on honor round the main ring. Who would have thought four years ago my Cai would be leading everyone round the main ring at Crufts. This just shows you that you should never give up as you can achieve anything if you try hard enough.

Maidstone Flyball

2010-02-14T21:54:00.000-08:00

Power Paws had one team entered today. We ended up in Div 6 on a declared time. I really had no idea how the dogs would do as Charlie had never done starters but had been running with three lanes up in training out of netting for months now with no problems. Poppy had done one starters comp and didn't put a paw wrong all day. Barney has run in open but got badly interfered with at his last open comp and refused to run again and its taken months to build his confidence back up. and then i had both Campbell and Maddie running. Both have done a few starters and Campbell has run in open once with the Dream Team. We had to run under the Dream Team name as we didn't get in but thankfully they had space for us. Well there were some good bits and bad bits! Barney, Campbell and Maddie all ran perfectly. Poppy for some reason decided to run out of the first two jumps on the way back from the box every time. She has never done this in training and hasn't done it in training since so i really dont know if she will do it again. We decided to go NFC so that we could put wings up to stop her as i didn't want this to become a long term problem. Hopefully she wont do it next time out. Charlie really didn't cope well, he got very spooked and wouldn't leave his mum so we couldn't run him all day.

Our best time after going NFC was 20.5 seconds with Campbell, Barney, Poppy & Maddie who Michelle had to run. I was pretty pleased with this as our changes were really wide and barney was pretty much running from the line! They are all more than ready so fingers crossed they get there act together next time out. I don't think ill enter them until the Dream Team show in may though as i don't want to travel miles to find out Poppy is running out again.

Cai was running with the Dream Team as normal. We only ran 4 dogs in the team Cai, Flash, Jasper and Bailey and they managed a best time of 18.08 seconds which wasn't bad but i know we can get to mid 17's with a bit more work. Cai ran some cracking times and managed a 3.95 so his times are still just getting better and better. Id really like to get him fit enough to run under 4 seconds on grass consistantly this summer but ill just have to wait and see if its possible.

TraVal Crystal Challange

2010-02-06T17:41:00.000-08:00

Our first agility show of the season. Just two classes for Cai and Campbell and one for Chico. First up Cai had starters (grade 1 - 3) agility. There were two sets of weaves and Cai missed both but did the rest quite nicely. Starters jumping was a nice course and Cai did a lovely round to finish clear. He is losing lots of time on wide turns though so we really need to work on that. Next up Chico had starters agility. I rushed him in the weaves and he didnt complete either set properly and just went off and did his own thing rather than doing the pull through he was ment to be doing. He was quite slow too even for him but seemed happy enough to have his one go. I decided to only enter Campbell in the open classes as he is very good on twisty courses that require more handling but is not so fast on simple flowing courses. He did a cracking round in the open agility (grade 1 - 7) to finish 7th beating lots of dogs that are much higher grade than him. The start was quite tricky with a right hand weave entry but he didnt have any problems. He did a lovely round in open jumping but was obviously not quite right as he had two poles down which is not like him at all.

Doncaster Flyball Again!

2010-01-24T15:39:00.000-08:00

Well i really must be mad as we decided to make the trip north again to Doncaster for more flyball. The racing was held indoors in a riding school with turf laid down on the racing lanes and runback. Not seen this before and i have to say i was impressed with how good it looked and the ammount of work that must have gone into laying it before hand, although it had all got very muddy by the time division 1 started. Today i was not just running Cai but Campbell was making his open debut too. I hadn't been that bothered about running him before now as hes very slow compaired to Cai and not really that bothered about the ball. I think he just does it because i ask him nicely. Well he was a little star and actually rather enjoyed himself! I think he may have even run under 5 seconds once during the day. He ran in 3rd position and crossed in nicely and came back out without even looking at the other dogs which has been a problem in the past. Unfortunatly other dogs in the team let us down so although he completed all but 2 leg he has not ended up with many points but i know he can do it now so look forward to his next show.

Cai's team ran well but we were down Breeze one of our key dogs as she had started fitting foillowing the show the week before so got no where near our seed time and got smashed in all the first halfs races. We clawed our way back in the afternoon and ended up 3rd (there were 7 teams in our division) Counting up the points it looks like they have ended up with around 600 each as we took many races to 5 legs! All in all a good day... although i got up at 3.30am sunday morining and didnt get back to 1.30am that night! 22 hours awake for flyball.... not sure id do it again. Oh hang on we are going back in March! i think we are offically mad.

Doncaster Flyball

2010-01-17T23:14:00.000-08:00

The first show of year for us and what a way to go! We got up at 3.30am to make it to Doncaster for 8am. We actually did it in far less time than i thought and arrived at 7.30am so had lots of time to spend with the dogs before our busy day started. I was only racing Cai today so didn't have too much to think about. He was fantastic even though he is really not fit at the moment and hasn't done much training over the winter.

It was his second time on matting and he was running around 4.2 seconds so nowhere near what he can do when fit but he was consistent so i cant complain. I just couldn't get the lights right all day though and ended up being 0.1 second late every time which is not much but its annoying when you are consistently getting it wrong by the same amount but cant seem to get it right! Cai is really better running from 50 foot but these lights only allowed us to go from 40 foot so maybe that's why we struggled. We were seeded 1st in div 1 on a time that was really a bit too fast for us but even though we didn't come close to our submitted time we still won every race to finish 1st with a best time of 18.44 seconds.

He finally got his Flyball Dog Intermediate award certificate too which i was very pleased with. My only goal for 2009 with him was to get him running in open, i never thought he would finish on well over 1000 points. We are back off to Doncaster next week lets hope we do as well.

Just Mini's Agility Show

2009-12-13T13:43:00.000-08:00

Our last show if the season so i wanted to make it a good one! Only one run for Campbell in grade 1 - 3 agility. He did a lovely smooth round but didnt feel as fast as he has been recently so i was very surprised to find he was in 2nd place, only 0.01 seconds behind first, there were still lots of dogs to go but he stayed 2nd so im really happy! Chico was up next and did a nice round just deciding to miss out a few weave poles along the way... although he was sellective about the ones he chose to miss! I wasn't really bothered as im just glad he is having fun.

Cai had grade 1 - 3 steeplechase first. He managed to wait at the start for about half a second which was better than nothing. The course was lovely, testing with some tunnel traps but ran nicely. He managed a nice clear but was quite slow for him and had huge wide turns. He finished 2 seconds behind the winning dog to come 9th. Not bad for a mad grade 1 dog at only his 3rd agility show. He had grade 1 - 3 agility last. This course was nice and i thought it would suit him well but he didnt manage a few of the turns so ran past a few jumps. He got the weave entry though for the first in compertition. He ended up E'd but there would good bits and lots to work on in 2010.

Test Night

2009-12-08T19:49:00.000-08:00

Well it was test night again at Eastbourne agility club. Im one of those sad people that actually really enjoys them and looks forward to them for the other 9 weeks of training! I really like to see how my dogs are doing and how they compare to the other dogsin the club as many of them are a higher grade than us. Also i like to compare them to each other. I know Chico is faster over the jumps but slower everywhere else where as Campbell can turn very very tight. Also Cai got to do his first test night as he has been training at eastbourne for about 6 weeks now. First up was the jumping.

I ran Campbell first in the jumping and he did a lovely fast round but i stupidly called him on a turn and he had a pole. I then did his agility which was a perfect Campbell course but between the two of us we totally messed it up and ended up E'd many times! Next up was Chico in the jumping he worked lovely, i really think the break has done him some good to finish 3rd. He did a cracking round in the agility to finish clear but the scribe forgot to write his time so they assumed he had been E'd during marking and he didnt get a place. I was gutted as he has been working much better than he has for a long time. Later on i ran him again just to get a time but the round wasnt so good although we only ended up 1 second beihind Cai's time.

I ran Cai last in the jumping and he was great, very fast and bounced most of the jumps although his turns were wide at times. He didnt worry too much about the other dogs and stayed with me. Unfortunatly he had one pole down on a turn or would probably have won. Finally he had agility and he was lovely to run. A bit mad and felt almost out of control but held it together to go clear but with lots of time wasted on turns. I was very surprised and pleased to find he had won! His first test night and he gets a first. Well done Cai :-)

Pheonix 5 Agility Show

2009-12-06T12:38:00.000-08:00

The club i train with (Eastbourne DTC) decided not to hold a 2nd kennel club show this year but have an unaffiliated one instead. I would have liked one last KC show before the end of the year but was happy to make do with an unafiiliated one! The day started off horrable. It was raining very hard and windy which caused a lot of noise in the riding school we use. It didnt seem to bother the dogs though thankfully. I had all THREE entered, yes Cai finally gets a go. I have been training him at Eastbourne club now for 5 or 6 weeks and he has been really really good. Ok who has stolen my dog and replaced it with one i can trust?!

All of them had two classes first up Campbell had grade 1 - 2 agility. It was a nice course, not too easy but flowing. Although it did have right hand weaves which always worry me. He did a storming round but had one pole down when i turned him (need to remember to keep my mouth shut with him!)I checked his time and he wold have come 2nd 2 seconds faster than the 3rd place dog. He is so close now to getting some good places but one thing always seems to go wrong to hold us back. He still ended up 13th though. Next up i ran Chico. He was really keen but got a bit carried away and headed for the wrong jump then couldnt make the weave entry. Im pleased he enjoyed himself though. Last up i ran Cai. it was quite stressfull getting him into the school as people just dont seem to think about anyone else and stand with their dogs on long leads blocking the entries. He was very excited by this point and just wouldn't wait so i really had to leg it after him. He didn't make the weave entry and made a few other small mistakes but had fantastic contacts and listened so im very happy.

In the afternoon Campbell had grade 1 - 2 steeplechase. I dont normally enter him in these anymore as i just dont think he is fast enough for this type of course and we have enough clear round rosettes to wallpaper the house now. Well he tried and managed a good time and stayed in the top 3 most of the way but ended up 8th. Chico was up next, now he could be great at these types of course as he really covers the ground but just doesn't put the effort in, he still pulled off an ok time though and finished 13th. Last up i had Cai. There were a few tight turns i didnt think he would manage but he really tried hard and just had one pole down but had a fantastic time so a really great start to his agility. I was told when he was 12 months to give up as he has no intrest in agility and is out of control and agressive. I NEVER gave up and believed in him all this time and 3 1/2 years later we are getting somewhere.

Oh and tell me why does my dog have his mouth wide open in every photo?!!

Ball Busters Flyball Tournament

2009-11-08T14:30:00.001-08:00

The Ball Busters held another one of their very successful indoor tournaments at Maidstone today which is thankfully just under an hours drive away from me as i have a stinking cold and really didn't want to get up! We had to arrive for start of racing (8.15am!) as we were doing ring party in Div 7. We then had a long wait for Div 2 to start. We only had the Dream Team Mad Dogz entered today.

We were seeded bottom on a declared time of 19.00 seconds our current seed time is actually 19.77 but the Dream Team have had some new dogs join them so we knew we could run faster. We have only had one very wet training session together so really didn't know how the dogs would run. Well what a fantastic day! Kerina ran Magic in his first open and he was fantastic pulling off some great times and he didn't mess around once, She should be very proud of herself and her lovely boy. Cai ran first as usual and wow he was flying. I really thought he would be slower indoors but i couldn't have been more wrong he ran 4.02, 4.05, 4.04 & 4.04 in the first race including his start time (three were perfects). We ended up winning every race and only dropped two legs overall due to inexperience with the new dogs.

Annoyingly though he started turning right again in the last race. I really think he was just being nosey as he likes to race the dog on the other side but it really messes up his turn and he always fumbles the first leg he does it. We do have sore paws tonight though as he burnt through his boots in the first 3 legs so i had to vet wrap him which he also burnt through very quickly! Heavy duty boots needed for next time me thinks! We ran a best time of 18.22 which im sure we can improve on so roll on January.

Wimbledon Wizzers Flyball Tournament

2009-10-04T21:49:00.000-07:00

We had 1 team entered into the starters at Wimbledon today. Only 5 teams were entered so we had 4 races in total. Brea came with Poppy who is always such a consistent dog. You can really trust her to get on with it. Brea went on the lights and did a great job getting quite a few 0.01 second starts. This was there first show with us this year and although Poppy is getting on now she is still a great little flyball dog. Shelly also with Poppy has been training with us for 7 weeks now and Poppy is proving to be a good flyball dog. She is already running under 5 seconds and was really well behaved all day. Definitely a star of the future and one i cant wait to get into open. Then we had Kila with Barney who are getting back their confidence now and running really well. Penny with Skye. And Sam with Onyx who is going to be a great height dog when she gets a bit more confident as she can drop the ball at the moment when she gets distracted. I put Campbell down as reserve as he is Mr plod but reliable.

Most of the team got lost on the way and turned up just as we were due to go into the ring for our first race so i decided to run Poppy (with Brea) Skye, Campbell and Barney first so the other two could warm their dogs up and watch one race without being throw in at the deep end. We won the first race 3-0 so a pleasing start.

The next race in i pulled Campbell and we either ran Skye or Onyx with new Poppy going last. Again we won only dropping one leg due to a dropped ball. We then had a break and i went to check the two teams we were still to race. The next team had posted some good times so we really needed our fastest dogs to beat them so i ran Poppy, Campbell, Barney and new Poppy. We won 3-0 again with our best time of the day 22.33 seconds. I think this is our best ever starters time as we normally run 24-26 seconds in starters.

The last race of the day was against a team who had posted very slow times so to make it fair i let Skye and Onyx run. Unfortunately Onyx dropped her ball on the first leg and then went looking for it on the second leg so i had to pull her and put Campbell in. We then won the next three legs so came 1st overall. A great day overall and some fun racing. I'm really pleased with our times as we ran under 25 seconds all day (when we didn't have a light) and had three 22 second times. And Campbell actually seemed to be enjoying himself!! shock horror!

Poppy handled by Brea (above) Poppy handled by Shelly (below)

Introducing Roxy!

2009-09-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

Well sometimes its just meant to be.... i happened to come across a photo of Cai's mum with two pups on the Internet. One of them a blue merle bitch and the other a sable bitch. I know she is getting on a bit now so this would probably be her last litter and as my next dog was going to be a bitch it got me thinking. So after chatting to Caroline (Cai's breeder) i drove all the way to Wales to pick up my new blue merle puppy.

Only i didnt come home with the blue but somehow ended up with the sable! She's nutty, fast and bossy and love her to bits already. She is super clever and very fast to learn and can already do sit, down, paw, speak, spin right, spin left, put head on floor and touch a target with her nose. Im having so much fun with her and she has been such an easy pup... so far! Hopefully she is my little flyball star of the future.

Stour Valley Agility Show

2009-09-20T21:57:00.000-07:00

This was a lovely show last year and had a good selection of classes this year so i was really looking forward to it. Both Chico and Campbell were entered both days but something came up on Saturday so i only made it over on the Sunday.

Campbell only had 2 classes today as i didn't want to waste my money on the combined 1 - 4 border collie helterskelter as he wouldn't be fast enough to make the placings if he had gone clear and i really don't need another clear round rosette! First up he had graded 1 - 3 Agility. This was a nice testing course which i was really looking forward to. He missed his weave entry though and them he got confused when i called him back and back jumped the jump before. I was gutted as he flew round the rest of the course and really felt like he was giving it his all. This is just the kind of course he will win out on, but today was not the day. Next up he had graded 1 - 4 jumping. Again a testing course which i couldn't wait to do. Campbell always does so much better on the harder courses as he turns so tight and saves seconds. He did a fantastic round that really felt like one of his best and we got some lovely compliments when we left the ring. Unfortunately we had 1pole down. Stupidly i went to check my time to find out where we would have come to find out we would have won the class :-( He is so close now to winning out but we just keep missing out for one reason or another!

Chico had three runs today. Combined 1 - 4 helterskelter was first. I got lost but Chico went well! Next up was graded 1 - 3 agility. Annoyingly Chico had the first pole down as he was getting stressed and kept looking at the dog queueing behind him so didn't take off properly. After that he did a perfect round if a little slow in places. Last up he had graded 1 - 4 jumping. It was not really a Chico course as it required too many turns and her hates turning and always goes very wide when i make him. I was determined to get at least one clear this weekend though so just took it slowly and didn't rush him and he did a nice steady clear 4.5 seconds slower than Campbell but still finished 7th. I really don't know how he does it, all his placings to date have been top 10 but he really has some rubbish times!

Ive decided that this will be Chico's last show for a year or so though (other than the odd class) as i find it really hard having both him and Campbell entered as they are so different to handle that i end up messing up my runs. Also Campbell is just about to turn 4 and i feel he will probably only be at his best for another year or two so really want to concentrate on him while he is doing well. Hopefully with a bit more focus he will win me out early next year. Most of his placing in the latter part of the year have been top 10 with many top 5 so i know he has it in him now. I was going to put him up on points but think ill wait a few more months now to see what happens! Also i think Chico could do with a year to mature a bit and will hopefully come back more confident.

Prestbury Park Agility show

2009-09-06T00:15:00.000-07:00

A lovely show and our first time camping this year! I'm not entering Chico in all the classes he is able to do anymore as he switches off so quickly so two classes is enough per day.

Saturday

First up Campbell had Grade 1 & 2 agility and he did a cracking round in a very fast time.... with 5 faults on the dog walk! so annoying as he would have had a very high placing with that. Next up Chico had Grade 1 - 4 collie jumping. Now when i entered this a few months ago he was enjoying jumping courses much more than agility. Now that's not the case and this was a very interesting course that i would have loved to run with Campbell but knew Chico would hate. He tried but had one pole down but didn't enjoy all the nagging i had to do to get him round.

Last up they both had Grade 1 agility. Chico went first and did a nice round with just one pole down. Campbell is really on top form right now and did a fantastic round although i did slow him on the dog walk to make sure we got the dreaded contact. I went to check his time to find we were in 1st! we stayed there most of the class but ended up 2nd which I'm really pleased with although i now realise how close he is to winning out!

Sunday

Campbell had Grade 1 & 2 agility. It was a very testing course that not many people were getting round and i wasn't surprised when we ended up with and E! Next he had graded 1 - 3 agility. This was basically the course from the morning but in reverse so again quite testing. We managed to get round this time with 5 on the dog walk and 5 for a missed weave entry. Chico was a bit switched of and did a very slow steady round but went clear in a painfully slow time of 41 seconds. We ended up 10th which surprised me! Last up they both had grade 1 jumping. Campbell got 5 for a missed weave entry and Chico got E'd for jumping the tape round the ring although he did come straight back in and complete the course without any faults in a nice fast time.

Prestbury Park Crufts Flyball Qualifier

2009-09-05T03:23:00.000-07:00

Well what an odd day. We went along to give the Crufts qualifier ago. We have not done one before so really just went to see how they do things as all the rules are a bit different and there is not usually much run back room. 8 Teams were entered and there was only one we didnt really want to be drawn against in the first round and that was Wimbledon. Well it was not our lucky day and we were drawn against them! We went into the ring already a bit confused. The judge had said he would allow 2 minutes to warm the dogs up the first time we go into the ring and nothing after that. I sent Cai and the next thing i know a dog from the other side crosses over and crashes into him. Now anyone who knows Cai knows this is not good news for the other dog! Well Cai was such a good boy. He just started hunting for his ball as it had be knocked out of his mouth. He then found it and returned back over the jumps with the other dog chasing him but he didnt touch it.

Crufts flyball is best of 3 and if you win the first 2 you only race 2 legs. We then ran our first leg and Wimbledon's 4th dog crossed the line first. Then in the second leg it looked like our dog crossed the line first but everyone started leaving the ring so i assumed they had been awarded that leg too. It was all very messy and confusing not like BFA at all! When we got out of the ring Wimbledon didn't look very pleased and someone said well done to us and we realise we had actually won as they crossed too early in the first leg so we won both legs outright.

After more confusion in the second round we were awarded the win there too and had qualified for Crufts 2010! The final was against a fast BFA team the Kiddy Monsters who really pushed us and although it was close they took the first two legs so we came 2nd overall which is great for our first Crufts qualifier. For a made up team that never train together we did really well and still cant believe we qualified at our first show. The dogs in the team were Cai, Loki handled by Steph (from the Swifts) Flash and Breeze with Michelle (from The Dream Team) and Magic with Kerina as reserve. Now we just have to wait till March next year and see what happens.

Shooting Stars Flyball Tournament

2009-08-29T14:27:00.000-07:00

I always like to enter the Shooting stars tournaments as it was all thanks to them we got going as a team so even though we weren't really ready we headed off down to Kent with 2 brand new dogs, Barney, Angel, Maddie and Campbell. First race in was a bit of a mess, Onyx wouldn't go down and get her ball so we had to run Maddie. She is not running well at the moment as she is really slowing down on the way back from the box since being attacked. She did better this week than last week but still no where near as good as she should be. Thankfully Onyx decided flyball is actually fun and ran fantastic from the second race onwards. Harvey who is Maddie's brother got quite distracted by the dogs in the other lane. When he was running well he was great and when he wasn't.... well he was a pain in the bum! i can really see he has a stubborn streak too like Maddie but also shows so much promise.

Barney was good again this week but has really lost his confidence on the way back. He used to be much faster coming back than going out but that has all changed now. Hopefully with more practice he will get his confidence back. As Maddie was running so slow we had to call in the reserve reserve Campbell. I dont like to run him much as he gets tired quickly and then switches off and isn't really into flyball. He just does it because i ask him nicely! Well apart from dropping the ball once he was actually quite good today. He did some nice starts and also ran in 2nd and 3rd position fine. Hopefully he is starting to enjoy his flyball more and will have more drive and speed as he does more shows.

I really wanted to give Cai a run today as he hates missing out so entered him and Angel into the Mini/Maxi pair just for a bit of fun. I wasn't really bothered about getting a good time as Angel had already run 17 legs in starters and she is not used to crossing tight with Cai. Well we did our three legs in what felt like an ok time and i went and put Cai back in the car. Suddenly after about 10 mins they are calling us back in as we were through to the next round. I hadn't realised it was a knockout so was not ready at all. I managed to grab Cai quickly and leg it back to the ring and couldn't believe it when we went and won again 3-0. This put us through to the finals against Janice and Roger from the Shooting Stars who had two very experienced dogs. The racing was very close but we lost the first two legs and then won the third. As it was best of 3 we came second overall with a best time of 10.34 seconds. I couldn't believe our two managed to pull it off so well. Angel really was best dog of the show this week.

Hailsham Lions Agility Show

2009-08-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Well i didnt think i was going to make it this year as i had planned to do flyball this weekend but the team i was running Cai with had to pull out so i managed to squeeze a last minute entry in. All three got to have a run today as the rings were netted although i am feeling more positive about Cai by the minute as he is really focused and just loves to work and i feel he will be ready to run out of netting by spring 2010.

First up Campbell had grade 1-3 agility. It was a nice flowing course without any weaves and he did a cracking round to finish 5th. Chico was up next, he didnt put that much effort in but got round without any sniffing with just 5 faults on the dog walk. Last up was Cai. Well what can i say! hes a little star and he managed to pull a clear out of the bag... yes it was messy but he has only had 1 proper training session this year and one other agility show to date. I was very pleased to find out he had come 3rd! not a bad start to agility shows for him.

Last up was grade 1-3 jumping. Campbell did a messy clear to finish 6th, my fault not his! Chico should have been eliminated (as he jumped an extra jump) but the judge wasn't looking so just gave us 5 for a refusal! And Cai was just a bit mad! i tried to get him going like i know he can and went a bit far as he was totally mental and i didnt have much control so really need to keep him a bit calmer until he is more responsive in the ring.

Four Paws Flyball Tournament

2009-08-22T14:43:00.000-07:00

We took one starters team today made up on Skye, Barney who has had to go back to starters after his big crash in Kent, Maddie, Chico and Campbell as reserve. Skye was a star and didn't make one mistake although slowed towards the end. Barney just ran out once but that was probably the handlers fault and my 3 well they were just naughty! Maddie did her usual thing of going to the box and lying down, Chico started well but got bored quite quickly and Campbell was like a rocket for a few legs then kept slowing down to have a nose in the other lane! Its very frustrating having 3 dogs who are very very hard work and then Cai who is a star and lives for flyball. We did well though with the dogs we had available and finished 2nd with a very slow time of 27. something seconds! Not our usual standard but we all had fun and cant wait for next weekend.

Cai did the singles and was back on top form today. I had to run him from 53 feet as anything closer and he got a false start. He did 3 runs over 7" getting 3.955, 3.971 & 3.976 to finish 1st. I then asked to run him over 14" to see how much the higher jumps slowed him down and he did 4.247, 4.143 & 4.144 so not a huge difference. These times would have also put him in 1st even with all the other dogs running over 7" so im very proud of my boy today.

Dundee Flyball

2009-08-09T14:07:00.000-07:00

Well i must have been mad. Michelle offered me a lift to Dundee in thier van for the two tournamnts this year and i said yes! 550 miles EACH way and a total of 12 hours driving... but it was worth it. First up on Saturday was the Clatto Clangers tournament. It was our first time camping this year and ive really missed it. It makes such a difference to just get up and roll out of bed and you are there! It was a really lovely venue and all the other teams were friendly and it was great to see another southern team the Wimbledon Wizzers make the journey. Cai was on the lights again and he is getting better each time out. He was running very slow for him(around 4.5 seconds) but didnt put a foot wrong. We lost one race on speed to finish 2nd.

Maddie got to have a go in starters pairs and actually did it! i really didnt think she would because she can be quite spooky and stubbon at times. We only made it through to the second round but it was nice to know she is ready for starters now.

Sunday saw us travel a few miles up the road to Caird Park for the Tayside Roadrunners tournament. Wow what a lovely big park with huge trees dotted about, it was great for dog walking. All the dogs were tired from the day before but ran really well and i was pleased as Cai's average was about the same. We had sorted out our crosses more as a team and ended up winning all our races to finish 1st.

MAADH Agility Show

2009-07-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

Well today was a first for Cai he actually got to have a go at an agility show! Ive not trusted him up till now as i dont think he will stay in the ring if there is something more exciting going on in a ring next door but today was only a small local show with one ring and netting all round.

First up Campbell had 1-3 agility he did a nice round but has got really naughty with his contacts in the ring and missed the A frame and didnt get the dog walk and see-saw as well as i know he can. I have forgiven him though as the a frame had been set at the old height so was very steep making it hard for him to go to the bottom. Next was Chico again he did a nice round just missing the dog walk contact which was naughty as he hasn't missed one before now! Finally Cai got a go. I waited till very late on in the class so that there were not too many dogs around but shouldn't have worried as he worked lovely and didnt look at anyone in or outside the ring (apart from at the start when he ran over to say hi to Angela who was judging!) Ok he was very slow and hesitant and had a few poles BUT he stayed with me and didnt bark non stop which is his usual style. Also i need to remember he has never had a proper agility lesson other than one with Leah last Thursday and i only do bits with him maybe once a month. He could be really good with more work and experience. Im hoping to enter him at some of the winter shows indoors as most of them have netting between the rings and then hopefully start him outdoors without netting next season.

Second up Campbell had 1 - 3 jumping it was a lovely flowing course but not just straight up and down. Val Clarke was judging and i always like her courses as they are usually very sensible for the grade but not just up and down. Campbell worked well but didnt feel that fast but i was surprised to find we had come 2nd! Chico was being a monkey and somehow managed to find a tunnel to go in that wasn't even facing towards him so got us E'd. Cai was really good again, he missed the weave entry but got it second time and ran past one jump but the rest felt really good so a promising start.

Aces High Flyball Tournament

2009-07-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well today was fantastic, some how we ended up being put into division 1 (seeded 7th) on a declared time of 19 seconds! We had one dog in the team who has never run in open, Barney who has done one open tournament then Cai, Flash and Breeze. I though everything would go smoothly but how wrong could i be! Barney got interfered with in the very first leg of the very first race and refused to run after that. Bizzy was in a world of him own and pretended he had had no flyball training so he was out too that left us with 3 dogs.

Luckily we had put one of Michelle's veteran dogs as reserve 'just in case' well they ended up running every leg but at around 6.5 seconds. Cai ran start dog for the first time and was amazing. It took me about half the day to get the lights sorted but by the end of the day i was only 0.1 sec late. They were showing the dogs individual times and Cai ran quite a few 3.8 - 3.9's so im very very pleased. His turn was fantastic all day too and he didn't let the other dogs bother him. We ended up 7th but i was not surprised as we really shouldn't have been racing in Div 1 with a 19 second time. Cant wait for Dundee and the British Champs now!

Cai gets his 'Flyball Dog' award!!!

2009-07-13T15:05:00.000-07:00

Well the BFA website has been updated and Cai now has his flyball dog award :-) Anyone who has known me for a while will know how many problems i have had to overcome with Cai. He was asked to leave agility after his second class and obedience didnt go much better as nothing they tried managed to focus him so they eventually told me i had to be more tough on him and dragged him into the middle of the room and shook him by the collar till he stopped barking. We didn't go back.... I didnt want to give up on him though so thought i'd give flyball ago.

I rung a lovely lady Called Janice Aird who is the area rep for the BFA and asked if there was a local club. Well it turned out the nearest club was hers 'The Shooting Stars' but they were over 60 miles away. I talked with her for quite a while and they were happy for me to bring Cai along. Well that was the best thing i have every done for him. He loved it from the start and was obviously going to be something special if i managed to finally sort out his issues.

3 1/2 years later with a lot of hard work we have finally done it, Cai has been awarded his 'Flyball Dog' Award.

Thank you to Janice and Roger Aird from the Shooting Stars for not giving up on us. Sam Bawden from the Mad Mutts for kicking my Butt and making me trust him. Michelle and Roland from the Dream Team whos frendship and advice has been appreciated. And all my team mates from The Power Paws flyball team. Its been a long hard slog but it was worth it!

Billingshurst Agility Show

2009-07-12T07:06:00.000-07:00

3 runs for Campbell today and 2 for Chico as i have decided to pick and choose which classes i enter Chico in from now on as he does better with only 1 or 2 runs and he still makes baby mistakes and I'm finding it hard to keep him interested as he just doesn't have the drive Campbell has.

First up Campbell had grade 1 - 2 agility he missed his weave entry then i put him back on his contacts as he wouldn't stop so we ended up E'd. Next up he had grade 1 agility. He was really bitching in the queue and wouldn't listen to me and was constantly looking for a dog to hump so our run didn't go to well. Not sure what we ended up with fault wise as i didn't bother to check! Last up he had grade 1 - 2 jumping. I made a big effort to wind him up and focus him on me and it worked. He did a nice round to finish 12th.

Chico had grade 1 - 2 jumping first. He worked nicely through the box at the start but just missed the weave entry as he was looking at the number. Thats the second time he has done this recently too! he also ran wide past a jump but didn't sniff and kept working nicely so i was pleased. Then he had grade 1 agility. He did a lovely round getting all his contacts and not turning too wide but didn't feel that fast. I was really surprised to find out we had come 4th!

He must have heard me last week as i had said i was going to stop agility with him for a year to see if he would come back to it with more drive and excitement and i want to get him castrated!

Surrey DTS Agility Show

2009-07-05T18:39:00.000-07:00

Not the best of days today. I woke up and nearly didnt go as i felt really tired and wasn't very keen. Managed to get it together though and arrived with lots of time to walk my first course. There were three runs for each of them today. 2 agility which was nice and one jumping.

First up Campbell had Grade 1 Jumping. It was a fairly straight forward course and he did a lovely round to finish 7th. Chico did a good round too but was quite a bit slower as he wasn't really paying attention today so just got a clear round.

Next up Campbell had grade 1 agility. Again another easy course but he had the 2nd pole down then didn't stop on his A frame contact so i put him back on and the judge asked us to leave the ring! ha ha naughty me. Chico did a nice but slow round i thought he had gone clear but it turns out the judge gave us 5 for a refusal at the tunnel which he did first time with no spins so god knows what she saw?!? Even the scribe said 'that was a bit harsh' when i went to check what the refusal had been for, annoying but it happens i guess!

Last up they had grade 1 - 2 agility Chico did an ok round but just ran wide past a jump so finished with 5 faults. Campbell had another pole down early on so i really pushed him to see what i could get away with and we ended up with an E!

Campbell at UK Agility

2009-07-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

These are two of my favorite runs with Campbell this year. Both times he is really keen and listening to me so pulled off some lovely tight turns when needed. I really should believe in him more as he tries so hard for me and what he lacks in speed he makes up for in accuracy and effort.

Dave Munnings Training Day

2009-07-03T21:56:00.000-07:00

Had our 3rd and last training day with Dave today. It was boiling hot again so not ideal as all the dogs really felt the heat and were not keen to work. I decided to take Chico again and leave Campbell at home as i am really pleased with how Campbell is going at the moment but feel i need help with Chico as he is hard to motivate and turns VERY VERY wide and sometimes just switches off.

Its started very well we worked on tight turns and crossing in front and behind and Chico put in some of the best turns he has ever done. Suddenly after about an hour though he just stopped jumping and refused to work anymore. He wasn't even that hot but he was having one of his switch off moments. Both Dave and i tried to get him going again but he was having none of it so i ended up putting him in the car for a break.

I decided to get Cai out for the rest of the session just to see how he behaved as he has been so good recently and loves his agility. I didn't plan to run him but he seemed very calm i asked Dave if it would be ok. He was fine with it so i did a few sequences with Cai and he was AMAZING! i love Cai so much he really is my one dog in a million. He did all the turns quite wide but went like a rocket and didn't bugger off after any of the other dogs. Im getting to the stage now where i think he will be able to compete regularly this time next year. I plan to do all the unaffiliated outdoor shows with netting this summer and then the indoor shows over the winter and fingers crossed he will make his outdoor KC debut about this time next year.

Keston Agility Show

2009-06-28T21:12:00.000-07:00

Three runs today for each of the boys. First up Campbell had graded 1 & 2 agility. Stupidly i have wrecked our contacts in the last few weeks so we ended up with 5 on the A frame. I really need to re think how we train contacts and work the contacts in the ring as i hate to ruin a good run by holding him in the 2 on 2 off position. Next up was Chico im still trying to get the excitment & enjoyment back with him so am not putting him in a wait at the beginning and have started running his contacts as he has got very creepy and slow recently. This has been working well but now that he has got his speed back he has started to miss them so i am going to have a go a training him to do running contacts. He missed his dog walk then flew the see saw so i put him back over getting us E'd.

Next up Campbell had combined grade 1 - 3 jumping. He did a nice round to finish clear with one wide turn which cost us a few seconds and a place. Chico also finished clear but was very slow through the weaves and had quite a few wide turns but was only 3 seconds slower than Campbell so he is much quicker over the jumps.

Last up they had grade 1 jumping. I wanted a nice fast up and down course for Chico and got one! i did a running start with him and he got a nice entry into the weaves but i rushed him too much and he ended up comming out early then had a pole. Campbell was amazing. Id got some Pow Wow energy drink to see if it helped him get through the day as he can get very tired and his first run is often his best. Well either it worked or he was very keen as he did a lovely fast round to finish 8th. There was only 1 second between all the top 10 dogs so im very pleased.

Axstane Agility show - Day 2

2009-06-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Three classes for each of them today, two agility an one jumping which made a nice change. First up Chico had combined grade 1 & 2 agility. A nice flowing course but with quite a few areas you could go wrong if you didnt pay attention the whole way round. We did a running start, he tried hard and did some nice tight turns trough the tricky bits then went wide and ran past a jump 3 from the end. Next he had combined grade 1 - 3 agility. A nice course with not too many tricky bits. I did a running start with him as he has been much more keen this weekend and i really want to keep that enthuiusam. He did a nice round and listened to what i was asking but went wide on one turn and found himself on the bottom of the A frame before he could turn onto the see-saw which is what he was ment to be doing! Last up he had graded 1 & 2 jumping. We did a running start again then a nice round but ran wide past one jump. I then got a bit flustred and handled the final sequence wrong and he put a spin in infront of a jump. All baby mistakes though which we can hopefully sort out with more training. I ran all his contacts today and he didnt miss one so maybe thats the way to go with him?

Campbell had combined 1 & 2 agility first. He did a speedy round which really felt like he was going as fast as he could. He ran all his contacts even though he knows he shouldn't but it was going so well i let him get away with it which im sure i will regret at next weeks show! I was really surprided when i went to check my time to find i was 0.5 sec behind the current winner. He ended up 5th which im very pleased with. This is his best agility placing to date and now gives him 66 agility warrant points. Next up was the jumping where he took a pole. Then we waited 5 hours to do his last class as he was in part 2 of the 1 - 3 agility. Shouldn't have bothered as i managed to get us E'd by over handling him and pulling him off a jump.

Axstane Agility Show - Day 1

2009-06-20T12:51:00.000-07:00

First up today Campbell had grade 1 - 3 jumping. He really tried hard and felt like he was going as fast as he could with some very tight turns. We waisted a few seconds where he nearly took the wrong jump after the tunnel but called off nicely to finish 18th. I then decided to take him into the practice ring for a minute to work on his contacts as im still not happy with them in the ring. He must be picking up on something i do as he stopped on them all perfectly in the training ring even though i acted like it was for real not just training. Then he had graded 1 & 2 agility. He must have been more tired than i realised as he felt very slow and didnt have as much drive through the weaves as i would have liked but it was a nice clear. I was really surprised to find we had finished 10th!

Next up Chico had grade 1 - 3 jumping he felt much better to run today and didnt stop to sniff or have a look around. I didnt make him wait as im trying to get him excited about agility again and a running start really makes a difference. He did a lovely round with perfect (but painfully slow) weaves but just put in a spin in front of a jump due to bad handling by me so finished with 5 faults. Next up was his graded 1 & 2 agility again i went for a running start and decided to run his contacts as he has always come down quite low on the contact area and not really ever been a jumper. He did a lovely round just running past the see saw due to me not giving him enough help again, sometimes i forget he is not like Campbell. He finished with 5 faults but i was happy as he had put the effort in and felt nice to run. Im now going to start retraining his contacts into running contacts as he is not a dog that likes to break his flow as it makes him start to worry too much. Also his stride naturally takes him low so hopefully he will be able to make the transition without too much problems.

After a long wait Chico had grade 1 - 2 jumping. I really needed to leave him in a wait as the start would not have been easy without one. He was a good boy again and worked nice with a few wide turns, although much much better than he has been recently. He finished clear but with quite a slow time as he is really crawling through the weaves. We were in 27th place until the last dog ran who knocked us out! never mind a clear is good progress so im pleased. Last up Campbell had grade 1 - 2 jumping. It was a nice course that had a few tricky bits which i always like as Campbell is best at tricky courses that require some handling as he is not really a speed dog. He did a nice round but i pushed him to hard into the weaves and he missed the entry.... oh and i hadn't walked the course as i had been chatting!

Cant wait for tomorrow now! Abbie Campbell's girlfriend will be there so im sure there will be a bit of competition between the two of them.

Bluebells

2009-06-07T14:05:00.001-07:00

Well i haven't posted any photos for a while so here are some i took in the local bluebell wood earlier this year.

HH Show UKA

2009-05-30T13:47:00.000-07:00

Campbell had 4 runs today. We haven't had the best start to the year competition wise so im not expecting too much from him at the moment. Well he surprised me! first up we had Novice Snooker and he did a great round that went exactly how i had planned and we finished the whole course before the time was up with a score of 51 finishing 2nd. Then we had Novice Jumping which was a very very testing course that i didn't think we had a hope of getting round! Well i should have more faith as he worked amazingly and was one of only a few to even get round to finish 2nd. Im really pleased with this as there are some very good fast dogs in Novice at the moment.

He then had pairs with my friends boxer Abbie. I had to do the contacts part of the course and she did the tunnels part. They were both little stars going clear and we finished 1st. Last he had Novice Agility, by now i was really hot and tired and had walked the course hours before and stupidly sent him the wrong way!

Chico just had two runs, first up was Casual Jumping which was not and easy course but he tried hard and finished on 5 faults only getting distracted when they blew a whistle in the other ring. His Casual Agility was right at the end of the day so i dont think either of us were really up for it. He missed the weaves but did the rest quite nicely.

UKA Quad Paws

2009-05-29T20:39:00.000-07:00

I decided only to come for the last two days not the whole week as Chico isn't ready for a week of shows yet and Campbell gets tired.

On Thursday Campbell had Novice Jumping and Novice Agility. He did two nice rounds but didn't get a place in either. Chico had Beginners Jumping and Beginners Steeplechase he was not up for either and spent most of the time sniffing and ignoring me. He really isn't enjoying his agility at the moment so i need to work on getting him to enjoy it again like he used too.

On Friday Campbell had Novice Gamblers which went ok but i managed to mess up right at the end so we didnt get a place! Then Novice Jumping and Agility, we had faults in both but he tried hard and it was very hot so i couldn't have asked for more.

I decided to run Chico in the Casual classes today so that he could just have a blast on a simple flowing course and hopefully do it from a running start so that he didnt switch off when i asked him to wait. He had Casual Jumping first which was a nice course with no weaves and he did a lovely fast round with no sniffing to finished 2nd. Casual Agility was the last class of the day so he was a bit switched off but i did a running start again and he did a nice round just running past the weaves to finsh 2nd.

Test Night

2009-05-19T22:15:00.000-07:00

Well it was test night again tonight. I really enjoy these nights as it gives me a chance to see how both Campbell and Chico are progressing. First up i had jumping with Campbell. He did a lovely round and felt quite speedy to put us in 1st place. Chico was next up, he was quite tense and ended up having one refusal but did try hard. Campbell then had contacts, ive really been working on these this year and he is pretty solid now but could still find a bit more speed. He got them all perfectly to finish 3rd. Chico was a good boy too and got all his contacts as well although could have been faster and finished up 6th.

Eastbourne Agility Show

2009-05-16T13:50:00.000-07:00

Three classes for each of them today. First up was Campbell in the grade 1 – 4 helterskelter. There was a tricky start and then the rest was flowing, he did a lovely round getting a nice entry into the weaves clear but didn’t make it into the placings. Chico was up next and also did a nice round but popped out of the weaves early which was annoying as he did the rest very nicely although very slowly for him so he obviously wasn’t relaxed. Next was Chico in the grade 1 & 2 jumping. He did a nice start but went back over the start instead of 5! He then missed the weaves completely and stoped to have a look at a dog outside the ring…. It just got worse after that so we ended up E’d. Campbell had the jumping next and did a nice round but slipped on the wet grass and had a pole down but got the weaves perfectly.

Campbell had grade 1 & 2 agility next and again did a lovely round although it did feel very slow. He ended up 14th so not too bad really. He stopped on all his contacts and I held him there for a second as he has been flying off them recently so I was pleased with him today. We seem to have got it together again after a bad patch and im trusting him to find the weaves entries by himself. If we carry on like this he should get some nice placings this year. Last up was Chico in the agility. I didn’t expect much after his jumping performance thankfully as it was a disaster. He really wasn’t paying attention and didn’t want to work with me today and spent most of the time with his nose on the floor sniffing of barking at me! He better try harder next time or ill pull him out of competition until we seem to be working well together again. Hopefully its just an off day and I did ring party all day so didn’t get to spend much time with them so that probably didn’t help.

Tunbridge Wells Agility Show

2009-05-09T18:49:00.000-07:00

All my runs ended up being at the same time today so everything was a bit of a rush! First up Campbell had Grade 1 agility. He did a lovely round and got a lovely weave entry even though I was no where near to end up 14th. I really tried to stay calm and relaxed today and remember ive done loads of work on the weaves and I just need to trust my dog to find them and stay in. If i worry about it I only mess things up. Then I had to run and grab Chico who had Grade 1 Jumping. He did a great round with a few VERY wide turns but got his weaves perfectly to finish with one pole down. Then I had to run Campbell straight away in Grade 1 jumping. I was still out of breath and tried to over handle him and messed it up completely! Chico had Grade 1agility last and did a lovely round stopping nicely on his contacts and getting his weaves but unfortunately he fell off the dog walk so ended up E’d he would have been clear if it wasn’t for that.

Lewis Agility Show

2009-04-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

3 Runs for each of them today. Campbell had Graded 1 & 2 jumping first. A lovely easy course with one tricky bit. He did a good run and I couldn’t believe it when I went to check our time and we were lying in 1st we didn’t stay there though but ended up 4th which I am still very very pleased with as that’s his best place to date. It was a very fast course so I am surprised we managed a top 10 placing. Next he had Graded 1 & 2 Agility. It looked fairly easy and there were no weaves so I was looking forward to it…. But we got E’d that was after he went to say hi to Angela the judge who he knows! Last was Grade 1 – 7 Power and Speed. I didn’t expect a place in this as it was a very easy course which the higher grades would fly round. I wasn’t wrong we managed a clear but were 4 seconds behind 1st place.

This was Chico’s first Kennel Club show so I didn’t expect much as he still gets very wound up in crowded spaces. He had Graded 1 & 2 jumping first. He did a lovely clear round and got the weaves without a problem and finished only 0.2 seconds behind Campbell. He is still quite slow through tunnels and the weaves so will be much faster than Campbell when he is a bit more relaxed. His second run was Grade 1 – 7 Helterskelter. It was a very tough course with lots of jumps close together and we didn’t manage to get round but im not surprised! Last he had Graded 1 & 2 Agility he did a lovely start and then decided just like Campbell to go say hi to the judge getting us E’d. Never mind it was a great day and I cant wait for our next one.

Patenden (UKA)

2009-04-25T22:46:00.000-07:00

Campbell had 4 runs today, Novice agility was a nice course which I thought we would get round but the bloody weaves caught us out again so we ended up with 5 faults. Novice jumping was again a nice course but Campbell really decided to be naughty and missed the weave entry then when I put him back in he came out early so I put him in again and he got it right! Other than that no problems so we finished on 15 Faults. Novice Snooker was a fairly simple course with the 2 tunnels as the 7 point obstacle again so everyone just did them 3 times. Campbell did a lovely round gaining 38 points to finish 1st. We only need a few more points now to move up to Senior. I don’t really want to yet so may not enter the Agility classes anymore until I think we are ready. Beginners Steeplechase was last and he did a lovely clear but didn’t get placed.

Chico had 2 runs today. Casual Agility was first we ended up with an E but he got his weaves perfectly so im happy. Casual Jumping was next and he did a lovely round but the weaves we on the right and I didn’t feel confident and he missed them and got confused when I tried to put him in again. He got them on the fourth go but by then we were E’d. He did try hard and has got quite speedy and really seems to be enjoying himself now!

Prested Hall (UKA)

2009-04-19T19:44:00.000-07:00

Not the best weekend, Chico had 3 classes, Beginners Jumping, Agility and Steeplechase. He has sped up the last week or so and I wasn’t prepared so lost control a few times! Agility was nice we just missed our weave entry.

Campbell Had Novice Agility, Jumping and Time, Fault & Out. We missed the weave entry in agility and jumping but managed to get it in the time fault and out first time round but ran out of time so didn’t have to do it twice (thank god!) we ended up 4th so could have done better!

Match Night

2009-04-19T11:42:00.000-07:00

Had ring craft club match night tonight with Alfie. I only ever go to give him more experience of being in the show ring with other breeds as Staffies don't do well against other more flashy breeds and i didn't expect to get anywhere. When i arrived i was warned by another handler that the judge doesn't like bull breeds and wont even look at there teeth! Well he was right she wouldn't go near his mouth and she asked me to show her his teeth. Hes not really used to me doing this but was very well behaved, he really has come on lots this year. She surprised me though by picking us out first in yearling, we then went on to win reserve best in match. I'm very pleased and surprised! Cant wait for the championship shows now the first one should be Southern Counties in June.

Maple leafs Multibreed Flyball

2009-04-13T23:20:00.000-07:00

We were all mad to enter a Multibreed tournament so soon. Two of the dogs had there first ever tournament in the starters on Friday and both have only been training for a few months. Cai is very experienced but i wasn't sure if he had the will power to stay in his own lane and Frazzle is reliable but you never know what they will do the first time competing without netting! Also we were having problems with Zeus returning over the jumps at full height so had to borrow a Staffie as height dog from the Mad Mutts which turned out to be a fantastic move as he was great and got the lights spot on.

We didn't need to worry either as all the dogs put in a great performance and Cai was just amazing. He ran nearly every leg, we only pulled him so Zeus could run last as he doesn't like doesn't like dogs crossing too tight on his return. We put in some great times and didn't break out which a lot of the other teams did, we also stayed consistent and actually got slightly faster as the day went on. We finished 4th overall (out of 7) which we are all very pleased with as we didn't go to win today just see if our dogs were ready for open. It was a fantastic start to open tournaments for us and we cant wait to do more now we know we can trust our dogs!

Cai also raced in the singles competition. I did his 3 runs right at the end of the day after a full days racing in the divisions and i didn't expect great times but wow he really found some power from somewhere and put in 3 fantastic times his best being 4.09 seconds. This was good enough to win it so im very pleased. If only id run him early in the day... i think he would have managed sub 4 seconds then. He really is a dog in a million and i wont ever have another like him.

Easter Celebration Agility Show

2009-04-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

Well a mixed weekend for Campbell. Only two runs on Saturday. Grade 1 - 3 Agility was first and he managed a nice clear but felt very slow and didn't make the placings. Then grade 1 - 3 Jumping which had and odd angle into the weaves which i was worried about and Campbell missed it but flew round the rest to end up with 5 faults.

Today didn't go much better. We had grade 1 - 2 jumping first which again had a slightly odd angle weave which i was worrying about and Campbell missed the weaves totally even with the circle he finished on a decent time so i was a bit gutted to have 5 faults. Next was the grade 1 - 2 helter skelter which was a super fast circular course that i didn't think would be a problem but guessed we would be quite slow. Well Campbell took off faster than i expected and even go us out if trouble when i went to pull him off the right jump! we finished clear to end up 19th (out of 221 dogs) so I'm very pleased as he is not a fast dog to even get a place on a course like this is a miracle. Last we had grade 1 jumping which was tire weave to start. Having missed quite a few weaves now i really was getting stressed and i wasn't surprised when we didn't get the weaves... i was surprised though when Campbell just went flying past heading for the long jump. I get the feeling he knew they were there but has decided weaves are not much fun anymore! The rest was nice so we just finished on 5 faults.

Maple leafs Flyball

2009-04-11T13:05:00.000-07:00

It seems ages since our last flyball tournament which was back in freezing cold January. We had two teams entered today, the Power Paws Flyers were seeded 5th and had some very tough races against teams who were doing much faster times than they declared so didn't really stand a chance. We also had to borrow 2 dogs from another team and although they did fantastic its hard to get it all together when you have never raced together before. They ended up 6th out of 7 but put in some good runs.

The Power Paws were also short of dogs but thankfully all managed to keep it together. Zeus and Lolly were racing for the first time and did really well and didn't really slow as the day went on. Cai was a star and is really starting to focus on his job... now i just need to trust him a bit more! We were seeded 2nd so were hoping to do ok but were very surprised when we won every leg to finish 1st with a best time of 21.8 seconds. We had declared a time of 22 seconds and never went more than 1 second either way so managed to keep consistent too. We won a lovely framed photo which was a nice surprise. Now we just have our first multibreed on Monday to enjoy/panic about! Im not expecting much but it would be nice to get a few points.

Scrambles Sunday

2009-04-05T10:40:00.001-07:00

First up Chico had Nursery Agility it was a very tricky course which would not have been out of place in a grade 3 course so i was not expecting to get round but my little boy surprised me and went clear. He was the only Maxi dog to get round so not bad for a baby. He went clear in all his Nursery classes this weekend so i am very pleased. He then had Beginners Steeplechase which again was not the easiest of courses but he did a lovely run clear with one huge wide turn which wasted 3 or 4 seconds to finish 2 seconds behind Campbells time.

Campbell had Novice Jumping first he missed the weave entry which was annoying as it was not a hard one then took a pole down but was very responsive so i was please with how he went. Next he had Beginners Steeplechase which he went clear in 2 seconds faster than Chico but didn't make the placings. Power & Speed was next, he usually does well in this as he is very accurate. He did a lovely power section but my handling was very messy on the speed section so although he went clear it was not as tidy as it could have been! Last he had Novice Agility which was not really the kind of course i like as i always worry doing snakes and i worry even more if there is a right hand weave... we didnt get round but i think Campbell had had enough by then anyway as he wasn't really listening anymore.

Scrambles UKA Friday & Saturday.

2009-04-04T11:05:00.000-07:00

Well Friday turned out well. Campbell has moved up to novice and proved he can do it with a 3rd in Novice Agility. It was a good run but we seem to have lost the stop on his contacts so i will have to train them for at least one run this weekend as we have worked so hard to get them i don't want to loose them now! He went clear in Beginners Steeplechase and was the fastest clear outside the placings.

Chico just had Nursery Agility and he did a lovely round clear and in the fastest time although they dont award placings for this class.

Saturday was a busy day for us. I ring managed all day and had loads of runs with the Pairs and Laps Knockout so things were a bit hectic. First up was the Novice Royal Canine Agility. It was a tricky course but i wasn't too worried. Campbell had a great start but missed a weave out as they were on very uneven ground and all out of line. He wasn't the only one to do this. I used the rest of the round to train our contacts. He stopped lovely on the dog walk and see-saw but not his A frame so i put him back on. Then we had the pairs with Chudley. I was to run the Agility part of the course and they were going to run the jumping part. Campbell started off well but then got confused and decided to do his own thing. Chudley got an E too so i didn't feel so bad!

Next was Novice Jumping. Quite a tricky course and Campbell had a few poles down. Beginners Steeplechase was next and we managed to get a pole down again but he did a lovely run apart from that. The Laps Circular Knockout was last and Campbell was great, really flowing and felt lovely to run. We got through the first round but not the second. The dog that beat us went on to win.

Chico had Beginners Steeplechase first and he felt great and was really moving but took about 4 poles down so i think i was rushing him too much. Nursery was last and he was a little star again going clear, stopping on all his contacts perfectly. I cant wait for him to turn 18 months he is going to be so much fun to run and doesn't stick to me like glue like Campbell does.

Waverunners Day 2

2009-03-29T13:19:00.001-07:00

I wasn't really looking forward to today after our rubbish day yesterday but my boys surprised me and pulled some good runs out of the bag.

Chico was first up in Nursery Agility on a very tricky course which was far too technical really. He surprised me though and did a lovely clear round (one of only two)and got the best time so would have won the class but as they only give out clear round rosettes we had to make do with that. I was so pleased with him i then decided to enter him in both the Steeplechase classes. Steeplechase II was first and he took the first pole down as he wasn't looking where he was going. After that he did a lovely round with no other mistakes in a faster time than Campbell! Steeplechase I was after that and he did well but got confused at a tunnel that we had to go through twice one after the other as i didnt handle it very well. Overall im very pleased with him though as this is his first proper show and he hasn't jumped outside on grass before.

Campbell had Steeplechase II first and was doing great then ran past a jump coming out of a tunnel as i had crossed behind him so we ended up with 5 faults. Beginners jumping was next. It was a very easy up and down course that he flew round clear, he did clip the last pole but thank god it stayed up! He then had Beginners Agility which i really wanted to go well as were only 4 point off moving up to Novice. When i walked the course and saw it was almost the same as Chico's agility i was worried as it was quite a tricky course. He didnt let me down though and did a lovely clear although he didnt stop on his A frame so ill be training his round next week to make sure i dont loose his contacts. I did hold him on he see-saw and dog walk today but we still finished 2nd with less than a second between us and 1st so had i pushed him we could have won. Never mind im pleased with his 8 points as that now moves us up to Novice from next week.

UKA Waverunners

2009-03-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

Hmm... 3 runs with Campbell today and 3 E's! 2 were my fault and one was him just not paying attention. Ive really got a problem remembering courses at the moment and keep running the wrong course getting E'd in the process. The more i worry about it the worse I seem to get!! The annoying thing is i only needed 4 more points in Agility to move up to Novice which should have been easy but it was not to be today.

Chico had Nursery Agility first and did a lovely run and just ran past the last jump AGAIN. It wasn't just straight up and down so i was pleased but really feel i need to do more work getting him to run on ahead in a straight line as he tends to drift towards me. As he is so much faster than Campbell he usually gets ahead of me so i cant push him over. I then decided to enter Steeplechase as he had done so well in the Agility and was managing to stay pretty relaxed. He did a lovely run over full height and only had one confused moment due to my bad handeling as i ran him as if he was Campbell where he needs a bit more guidance. We did end up E'd but thats because i ran the wrong course... can you see a theme here? Maybe tomorrow will be better?

Cai Flyball Training and Cross Country Jumping!

2009-03-20T16:39:00.000-07:00

We have our first Multibreed coming up as a team and i cant wait! I'm hoping Cai copes with the pressure as he is one fast dog running around 4.2 - 4.5 seconds on average.... although i know he can go faster! Ive been doing loads of fitness work taking him out running next to the bike and fitting in as much flyball practice as i can. I'm hoping we can do a few swimming sessions soon too to help top up his fitness.

As a bit of fun we did some cross country jumping over a local horse cross country course. Some of the jumps were about 4 foot high but Cai hardly put any effort in jumping them. I don't think there is anything this dog cant do.

Horsham Breed Show

2009-03-19T21:11:00.000-07:00

Today was fantastic. Alfie was entered for his first breed show this year since i have started training him and what a little star he was. He now stands rock solid and is happy for the judge to go over him and check his teeth. He is in fnatastic condition as his owner takes him out running next to her bike for about an hour a day, he also does flyball training and agility training so is solid muscle! He was entered in post graduate and open. There were a few dogs abcent but he showed him self off really well to win both his classes then best of breed. I didn't really think we would get anywhere in the group as Staffies are often overlooked for the more flashy breeds but i should have had more faith as we took group 4! What a fantastic start to his show career. I have 3 champ shows planned this year and im hoping he does really well, his owner wants to qualify him for Crufts so we only need a 3rd.... fingers crossed!

Toni Dawkings Training

2009-03-13T07:34:00.000-07:00

Had another training session with Toni today. I decided to run Campbell as Chico is still not quite ready for 3 hours of training and his weaves are still a bit hit and miss. Since i last trained wth Toni i have sorted out Campbell's contacts which were apalling! He now has a fantastic stop at the end of the contact which i was hoping he did today like he does in training. He is a good boy and didnt put a paw wrong and i think Toni is very pleased with his contacts now. We also worked on speeding the dog up over the contact equipment. Toni held Campbell while i ran away calling him and then she released him and he shot over the dog walk and into position much faster than he normally does it. He really does thrive on being wound up!

We also worked on turns which Campbell does quite nicely and is usually quite tight. Its me that needs training as im not always in the best position to help him out! We ran the course she had set up then tried different ways of handeling the turn which really got me thinking about where i need to be more. Ive also realised that Campbell really will have to learn to work on ahead this year as i wont always be able to be there with him. Thats my goal for the next few months... get him to GO when i say GO!! All in all a good three hours training and i cant wait for next week.

Club Test Night

2009-03-10T15:33:00.000-07:00

Campbell and I had test night at club tonight. We always get 2 sections a jumping course with no weaves and an agility section which is just made up of the contact equipment and 2 or 3 jumps. We did the jumping section first which was a very simple up and down course which we shouldn't have had any problems with. Campbell did a lovely round and did a recall over the first 3 jumps without ducking so i was very pleased. I didn't warm him up enough though and i could hear him clip every pole and he took one down. Note to self... warm dog up properly if your expecting him to jump well! Next was the agility and i was hoping he did well as we have really been working on our contacts these last 2 months. He did fantastic and came 2nd with all his contacts perfect so I'm very pleased.

C-Side Agility Show

2009-03-07T11:07:00.000-08:00

Well a mixed day today. First up was Campbell in the grade 1 - 3 jumping. Warmed him up then took him in and he went loopy! went over the first two then legged it across the arena heading for the tunnel. Just lost it completely after that and probably got E'd at least 3 times! Need to do more warm up next time, but not too much as that slows him down. Grade 1 -3 agility next was an easy straight forward course. Sailed round clear but was out of the placings by 2 seconds as he just wasn't fast enough.

Chico did the run for fun again at medium height. He did a fantastic run and went much faster than i expected which took me by surprise he didn't put a paw wrong but we got E'd as i ran the wrong course! Doh. Never mind he did as i asked and that's what counts.

Next up was Campbell in the 1 - 7 Jumping. There were quite a few little traps but he did a great round clear and again was 2 seconds outside the placings! Last was 1 - 7 Agility. Quite a tricky course with a very hard weave entry on the right which he got brilliantly but then got tempted by the tunnel and popped out the last weave! Trained his contacts after that and he was fast and stopped 2 on 2 off and waited to be released which i was really pleased with as i can often release to early in a panic to save time! So 2 Clears and 2 E's for Campbell today which is not too bad.

Flyball Training today

2009-02-28T15:26:00.001-08:00

Snow!

2009-02-03T05:22:00.000-08:00

C-Side Agility Show

2009-01-31T15:04:00.001-08:00

Well this is an unlucky show for me as we never seem to do well! Today wasn't too bad though. The extra training ive put in the last few weeks really seems to have helped, Although it took Toni to kick my butt and make me sort out Campbells contacts. Ive been really strict and have started working with the clicker to really give him a marker he understands when he gets into the 2o2o position as before i have let him get away with pretty much doing what he wants and have ended up with quite a few missed contacts where we shouldn't have had them. Also i have been really working on his weaves and entries especially on the right and and he was fantastic today and did two sets of right hand weaves and didn't come out early.

In the starters jumping we got 5R for missing the second weave entry, Starters agility went really well but he took a pole down when i told him to go left. I really must work on this more as he keeps taking poles if i say anything before his back legs have cleared the pole. Open agility (grade 1 - 7) was a nice flowing course with not too much handling required and Campbell really went for it and was clear. But we were 10 seconds behind the winning dog and 1 second outside the placings so he really will need to improve his speed if we want to get anywhere this year. Hopefully with the lighter evenings i can get him out more and get his fitness back to the level it was at last summer. Open jumping was going well and all the bits i was worried about were out of the way then Campbell went and did something odd that i didn't expect him to do so i ended up calling him back over a jump and we got E'd!

Chico finally got to have a play too as he was entered in the run for fun class now that hes 16 months. He was a little superstar and really listened right up to the last jump which he ran past! Typical. He is obviously still very much a baby and wasn't going as fast as he does in training and kept checking to make sure he was going the right way but i think he has some good times ahead and he loved every minute of it. I still cant believe i have had him for over a year as it seems like just yesterday i got him.

2008 roundup

2009-01-10T11:14:00.001-08:00

Campbell had an amazing 2008, he only started agility training half way through the year so we didn't do many shows but he has managed to go clear or get placed at all but 1 show. This is the dog who had no interest in agility until he was 2 1/2 years old so not bad.... now if only he was fast! Hopefully we will be moving up to grade 2 in the early part of the year and id like to have him at grade 3 by the end of 2009.

He also ran in his first flyball tournament and did really well just very slowly!. Id like to do a bit more flyball with him in 2009 and it would be good to get his flyball dog award by the end of the year. He will never be super fast but we can have fun along the way.

Cia hasn't done much this year as I've really had to try and sort out his 'issues' we are getting somewhere so hopefully in another few year he will be able to take part in more things and maybe start competing in agility. He is flyball mad and we have managed to start competing and we came 2nd and 1st at our first two shows so a great start. His best time in training has been 4.2 seconds but I'm sure he can go sub 4 seconds with a bit more work! I really hope he carries in doing well so i can get him into open in 2009 and get his flyball dog award.

His agility is coming on really well and he can work in a class now but is not ready to work without netting. We may do a few BAA shows next year as they are netted but I'm not going to push him too much as I'm not bothered if he never competes in agility as he was made for flyball.

Chico managed to get two rosettes in 2008 even though hes only a baby... he came 4th in dog most like his owner (don't say anything!!!!) and got a second in a fun 'agility' type thing at a companion dog show. He has started his agility training and is showing promise and i wouldn't be surprised if he wins me out before Campbell does in 2009. He has his first agility show in January so watch this space. He has not really taken to flyball so i am probably not going to bother to carry on his training in 2009, if only there was food at each end of the jumps then you would see him run!

Wimbledon Whizzers Winter Warmer

2009-01-04T22:52:00.000-08:00

Well i managed to convince everyone that driving to Wimbledon was not actually that far for a tournament so we finally got to race again. It was the Wimbledon whizzers first tournament and they did a fantastic job. We had one starters team entered and decided to run Barney (X breed), Frazzle (Toller), Salsa (Goldie), Alfie (Staffie), Angel (Staffie) and Cai (Collie). Over the last week or so we have been walking the other dogs with Cai so he can get used to them as he is not great with dogs he doesn't know. This has worked really well and now i can do tight changeovers and don't have to panic about catching him so quickly as he goes over the finish!

They had 3 divisions of open before the starters so we didn't start racing till it was dark but the flood lights and marque worked really well and we were protected even when i started to snow. I did start to panic a bit when i saw that they had just put one small strip of netting round the jumps and NOTHING else!! All our dogs can run really well without netting but i worry about dogs crossing into our lane when Cai is running and panic that i cant catch him in time before he sees that it is open between us and the other teams dogs. I was so worried i nearly pulled him out and swapped him for Campbell who will 'do' flyball but only because i ask nicely and in his own time. Cai is over 2 seconds faster and our best dog by far so decided to be brave and go for it and wow how good was he. He didn't look at the other team once and got followed up the lane by one of our own dogs who then tried to grab the ball out of his mouth and he did nothing. I even started to call him further back from the finish before catching him and he was still perfect. He has come on so much this year and i now feel we could run in open as a team.

The other dogs all did very well Frazzle did the box in competition for the first time and got faster as the day went on. Angel didn't put a foot wrong and didn't drop one ball which has been a problem before and Alfie was really flying but got very overexcited and kept going back for a second ball even if there was another dog on the lane. No one could catch him so i think we will need to teach him to come back to a tuggy so that you get more than one second to grab his harness before he is off again! And Salsa ran in competition for the first time and was really good, she was fast and only messed up on the very last leg when she decided to say hello to the box loader.

We got our best time ever of 21.7 seconds and were only beaten in one race so ended up in a fantastic second place. I have been saying since we started racing as The Power Paws that i wouldn't put us into open tournaments till we can do 22 seconds so it looks like we will be entering open soon. Cant Wait.

Cai, Barney & Alfie

Campbell Tribute

2009-01-02T13:42:00.000-08:00

A fantastic video a friend made for me a while ago. I still watch it from time to time and think it really shows how lovely Campbell is. He is a dog in a million and i doubt ill ever have another like him! Enjoy...

Just Minis Agility Show

2008-12-14T11:14:00.000-08:00

Well today was our last show of the year. Its was freezing cold and i really didn't feel very well but as it was at the venue we train at and only 20 minutes from home i decided to go. First we had the grade 1- 3 steeplechase which was a great course for Campbell but not so good for many others as there was a very tempting tunnel trap! Campbell flew round , his speed really has improved in the last few months although i think he was going as fast as he is ever going to go today so just couldn't compete against the super fast collies. He came 9th overall (out of 170 dogs) which im very please with and was only 2 seconds behind the winning dog.

Agility was not so good and i got us E'd as i was looking at the judge to see if she had faulted us for the A frame and pulled him over the wrong jump. But he got a fantastic fast weave entry so im not too bothered. I cant wait for next year now. It will be Campbells first full year competing and Chico has his first unaffiliated show in January and starts KC shows in April. Lets hope the little monster behaves himself!

Shooting Stars Tournament Video

2008-11-29T12:57:00.000-08:00

I finally got round to editing the video from the Shooting Stars tournament in Sept. Looking back at it i cant believe we came first, all the dogs look so sloooooow. Everybodys much faster now and Frazzle is doing the box and developing a lovely 'swimmers turn' and our change overs are much tighter so hopefully we will drop a few seconds at out next tournament which will be the Wimbledon Wizzers at the beginning of January. Last week at training i did lots of work speeding up the dogs by getting them to chase there handlers back down the jumps. Cai really enjoyed this and got a best time of 4.2 seconds.

P.s I am not kicking Alfie... i just push him out of the way with my foot as getting in Cai's face is not a clever thing to do!

Weave Training

2008-11-22T14:30:00.000-08:00

Campbell relaxing after a hard days training! Today after flyball practice i decided to practice the dreaded right hand weaves as i really let us both down last weekend. I set up a small course of three jumps and the weaves in the same layout as the open agility class and the first time we had a go Campbell showed me how little faith i have in him and got the weave entry on the right first time! i should have gone for it last week as a clear would have got us a place as they ended up placing some dogs on 5f. The trouble is i just don't have enough faith in him yet especially where the weaves are concerned.

C-Side Agility Show

2008-11-16T19:30:00.000-08:00

Well this has been one of our worst shows to date! Campbell was entered in all 4 classes, starters agility & jumping (grade 1 - 3) and open agility & Jumping (grade 1 - 7). A couple of the courses were not designed as well at they could have been.

The starters Jumping was first and look like a pretty easy course for Campbell. His wait was great at the start but the little bugger ducked the first jump! I was so surprised that he had already done the second jump before i had chance to react so we got E'd! he flew round the rest though and didn't put a foot wrong. The starters agility had a weave start which didn't really work too well as the timing gates were set up right by the first pole so you either had to send your dog into the weaves or leave you dog in a wait and start the timing as you get into position to call you dog in, neither worked too well and we managed to get 5 faults as i was worrying and sent Campbell into the second gap! The rest of the course went well though and he got all his contacts so i couldn't really have asked for any more from him.

The open jumping was ok... not sure how many faults we got! Campbell was a bit over excited and i kept giving him commands too early and as he is so responsive i kept pulling him off jumps! Oh well ill know for next time to trust him more and not try and work him too much. The open agility was a nice course with a nightmare weave entry for us as we still haven't got the best right hand weaves. I tried to get onto the left but it didn't work and we got 5F but the rest was great! I really must practice those right hand weaves more and trust my dog and not panic! i don't want much do I!?

Mid-Downs Agility Show

2008-10-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

Only two classes today. Grade 1-2 agility and jumping. I woke up to find it freezing cold and poring with rain and as this was one of the last outdoor shows i wasn't really looking forward to it! it normally takes a lot for me to not go to a show but i nearly didn't get out of bed today.

Arrived at the show and the parking was already starting to look pretty muddy, not a great start as you never know if you will get out again! Went to walk the agility course and within 5 minutes i was so wet i could hardly move. My jeans were stuck to my legs and i could feel water leaking through my coat. I ended up having to buy a very sexy (not) pair of army waterproof trousers that were a bit on the big side so that i could take off my wet jeans. Not the most attractive but at least i could move my legs. By the time it was my turn to run the ring already had lots of water in it so i took things steady as i didn't want Campbell slipping. He was going really well and then suddenly we have another dog chasing us round the ring! I didn't know if i was meant to stop or keep going so i just carried on and hoped for the best. Unfortunately as the ring was netted the dog couldn't get out and stayed with us most of the way. This was very off putting and i wasn't really handling very well so Campbell missed the weave entry. I was gutted as he would have got a good place if it wasn't for the 5F.

After a very long wait we went to run the jumping course. It was a nice easy flowing course so i knew Campbell could get round. I really pushed him and asked for all the speed hes got as he is not the fastest dog and we had a lovely clear to finish 8th.

UKA Waverunners Agility Show

2008-09-28T21:25:00.000-07:00

This weekend i had entered Campbell in his first UK agility show. He had 4 runs on Saturday and 5 runs on Sunday. On Saturday we got 5F in the jumping. We had a lovely round in the agility and Campbell got all his contacts although they are still a little slow so i really need to work on them more and ended up 5th. We went clear in the steeplechase but were just not quick enough for a place and had a go at the 'Power and Speed' class. I don't normally like these special type classes as i don't usually have a clue what i am meant to be doing and tend to take it all a bit to seriously. The power and speed class is designed in two parts, the first is the power section and not timed and is made up of the contact equipment, long jump & spread jump. If you go clear in that you go straight onto the speed part which is timed and made up of jumps and tunnels. Campbell did a lovely power section and flew round the speed section and we came 3rd.

Sunday we had Jumping where we got E'd (i blame the nasty tunnel trap :-P) got 10f in the steeplechase.... not really sure what went wrong, i guess one of us wasn't paying attention! Had a fantastic round in the agility and bettered our place yesterday to come 3rd. We paired up with a lovely lady and her bitch for the pairs class but BOTH of us managed to get E'd! I stupidly ran round with my lead in my hand... don't know why i didn't leave it at the start... but would have got E'd anyway as our round was rubbish. The finally we had the 'Time, Fault and Out' class. This was an agility class where you have to keep going until you either make a mistake or run out of time. We were given 55 seconds and Campbell didn't put a paw wrong so we managed to get round one and a half times before we ran out of time and WON!!! This is campbells first 1st so i was so excited and even worse i ran right at the start of the class so had to watch everyone else run to see if they beat us.

We only need 4 more points in agility now to go up a level, we should easily get these at our next show and if we get them in the first day of a two day show have to move up on the second day.

Shooting Stars Flyball Tournament

2008-08-23T19:45:00.000-07:00

Well today was amazing! I ran Campbell in division A with another team called the Terrierists who are a staffie only team. They are just amazing and can really show the collies how its done. They had a space so we joined them just so i could see how he is doing as flyball has never been that exciting to him.... well he surprised me! He loved every minute of it and only made a few mistakes at the end when he was very tired. Considering it wasn't even a box he has used before he did really well. We ended up 6th but that was due to the other dogs in the team making mistakes so i really think ill have to run him in some open tournaments next year.

It was then Cai's turn in division B. It was only the Power Paws second time out and some of the dogs had only been training with us for 3 or 4 weeks! As we came second last time we really were all very nervous as we wanted to do as well this time. There were 7 teams in our division this time so we had 6 other teams to race against and as it was best of 5 the dogs had a lot of races to do. They all did amazingly though and we won out first 3 races. We then went to check the score board to see how the other teams were doing and to plan which dogs to race in which heats to hopefully beat the remaining teams. We then won out 4th race and got very excited.

The team we raced in race 5 had not won all day so we didnt think we would have a problem there but they shocked us all and beat us! That just left race 6, if we won that we would come 1st so put all our fastest dogs in, Barney the dobe x, Poppy the collie, Frazzle the toller and Cai the flyball monster collie! We then won the first 2 legs and tied the 3rd so as we had then got 3 points the judge said we had won. We went off very excited and couldn't wait for prize giving. We then heard an announcement saying there had been a mistake and we had to go back and do another race as the tied race didnt count!!! Thank god all the dogs pulled out that extra bit of speed required and we won so came 1st overall with a best time of 24 seconds.

Underdogs Flyball Tournament

2008-08-10T17:48:00.000-07:00

Well today was our first tournament as the Power Paws Flyball Team. 5 of us went over to Paddock wood to the Underdogs starters Tournament. We were in Division 2 and seeded 2nd which means we submitted the second fastest time in that division so were under a lot of pressure to do well although none of us expected to as i was the only person who had ever been to a show let alone competed in flyball before! The other team members had never even seen how the lights work at the start and as i cant go first with Cai they had to learn pretty quickly! The first few heats were very messy as we were all terrified but the adrenalin soon kicked in and everyone started to get very competitive.

All the dogs were stars and behaved really well, except when another teams dog ran into our side and grabbed the timers cake and ran off with it spreading crumbs all along out lane. Then it was just too tempting to stop and have a sniff and see if there was any crumbs left! Cai was amazing and went like a rocket and quite a few times he had to really run to overtake the last dog in the other team but he did us proud and managed it most of the time and only once did he try to get into the other side. He really is a dog in a million and im so proud of how far he has come. I really hope he copes in open competition as he has come so far in the last few years and i would love to get some of his flyball titles.

Running in the team was Sky, Barney, Angel, Bob & Cai. We did a best time of 26 seconds which is still very slow but fantastic for us and that's with only one collie in the team! We won 4 out of 6 heats but didn't have a clue how the other teams had done so didn't know where we had come. Although we knew it wasn't last, and that had been our only goal that day... not to come last! We went to prize giving and could not believe it when we came second. It was a fantastic day and i think everyone is now officially hooked.

BAA Paws at Play Agility Show

2008-07-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

This was Campbells first ever full height agility show. I have been training him for about 12 weeks now so didnt expect too much but he has been amazing and has really picked it up well. The main week point is our weaves which i have trained badly and now he relies in me being right next to him or he comes out. Our first class of the day was introductory agility. I was a nice easy straight up and down course and he started really well. Just as he was about to go up the A-frame he spotted my friend who was videoing us and ran past. I circled him and carried on and then 3 jumps later he spotted my friend again and ran past a jump! he has never done this before so i grabbed his collar to get his attention (thinking we already had 10F so it didnt matter) we then completed the rest of the course nicely. W[hen i left the ring i found out you dont get marked for refusals in BAA at introductory level so i actually only got 5F and that was for touching my dog. I went to get my time (27.16 seconds) and was shocked to discover we would have come 6th had i not touched my dog. Not a bad start to his agility career.

Then was introductory jumping where we had a pole down in a good time of 20.91 seconds. And our last class of the day was introductory steeplechase where we had a pole again but in another good time of 23.47 second which would have put us into 3rd!!

Sunday we had 3 runs again. Intro agility where we had a pole in 40.4 seconds but other that that Campbell was great. My friend was banned from coming today so no distractions! Then intro jumping which went really well. Campbell was working really well and did a cracking clear in 24.41 second to put us in 14th, with rosettes going to 13th so we missed out on his first placing by 1! The last class of the day was intro 'take you own line jumping' where we had another fantastic clear on not the easiest of courses in 31.15 seconds to finish 14th again with rosettes going to 10th. Im really please with my little star, hes gone from having no interest in training to super star in only a few weeks. it just took him 2 and a half years to decided he had a brain!

Power Paws the Beginning....

2008-05-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

Today was the first meeting of the new flyball club i have set up in Bexhill. 10 handlers and dogs turned up any they all did so well. We have a real mixture of dogs with only one full collie and everything thing from a cocker spaniel to a shetland pony sized labradoodle! All the dogs managed to do all 4 jumps (with netting) and bring back a ball that i rolled at them from the box. They are all showing promise so watch this space.

Campbells First Agility Show

2008-05-10T06:43:00.000-07:00

Well after only 6 weeks training Campbell made it to his first show! We only entered the anysize at Tunbridge Wells as he hasn't been jumping full height very well and tends to duck under if he thinks he can get away with it!

Apart from my ending up flat on my arse next too jump number three he was great. We did get eliminated as he back jumped number 4 while coming to check why i was sitting down while he was doing his bit! but we got going again and he went really well and did everything thing like he was ment to. Can't fault him he was a star.

I cant wait for our next show now which will be Superdogs. Ive only entered anysize again but he is jumping full height well now so after that we will be on to the the big boy classes

Chico is Home

2007-12-22T12:57:00.000-08:00

After a nightmare 10 HOUR drive to pick him up I am finally home with Chico. My first impressions of him are great. He is much nicer than the photos i was sent of him and is so friendly and outgoing and so far nothing seems to bother him. He traveled really well but decided he wanted to sit next to me so spent the whole journey on the passanger seat.

Cai has been fine with him, although if anything he is a bit scared of him! Campbell has just accepted him but doesn't seem to understand why we had to get another dog.

He is into everything though so ill have to watch him like a hawk till he grows up a bit. Even though he is only 10 weeks old he already loves playing with tennis balls and loves food so it looks like he will be easy to train and will hopefully make a good flyball dog.

Another Year Gone

2007-11-05T20:59:00.000-08:00

2007 has been a bit of a nightmare. Ive not managed to keep up with flyball but have managed to carry on training Cai and Campbell at home. But my goal for 2008 is to get back to flyball as im sure Cai has missed going and i know i have. Its also looking promising that Cai might be starting his agaility training again after a bad start in 2006 as we have found a lovely group of people who understand his probelms but are willing to give him a chance. He has met some of the dogs that go before and got on really well with them so its looking promising. I doubt he will ever make it to an agility show but i dont mind that anymore and he has done me proud with his flyball.

Campbell really started to show an interest in flyball at the end of 2006 so hopefully i can continue his training although i dont think he will ever be that fast and he tires quickly but it would be fun to run him now and again. I think he will turn out to be more suited to agility as he has really enjoyed the training we have been doing this year so i cant wait to start classes with him soon too.

First Starters comp for Cai!

2006-08-27T20:01:00.000-07:00

Well training has been going so well with Cai he loves his flyball and it is really helping him to become a more normal dog and not so nervous. The team i train with the Shooting Stars are just fantastic and have made me feel so welcome and have been really understanding with Cai.

As today was our club show i really wanted Cai to get a chance to run in a starters class and he did! He had only met a few of the dogs before as we borrowed some dogs from other teams so i was a bit worried he would let me down but freaking out but he was amazing He was actually one of the best dogs in out team and went so fast, and although i ran him last out of the four dogs and often sent him quite late he managed to make up the time and we managed to win a few heats.

It really was an amazing feeling watching my 'problem' dog doing what he loves best without having to worry about him too much. Flyball really is a fantastic sport with everyone who competes being so welcoming and friendly i really wish i had started sooner.

Our team finally managed to come 7th out of 8 but i was so please with him that the fact we didnt come last was amazing!

Starting Flyball

2006-02-05T14:05:00.000-08:00

Took Cai to flyball today! what a fantastic day.... we trained at the Shooting Stars flyball club in Folkstone and what a great bunch they are. I really enjoyed my time there and cant wait to go back.... even though it took me an hour to get there!

Cai took to it like a duck to water this will definitely be the sport for him... he has already learnt to take a tennis ball off the shoot ( a very basic flyball box covered in velcro) and to return to me over the four jumps. He was very keen and jumped really well and was surprisingly calm.

I also did some socialisation with him as the other people were happy to feed him treats and allow him to sniff there dogs. He did relax a lot but i don't think he will ever except other dogs fully. Luckily he is very focused so will ignore everything around him when he has a task to do so actually competing with him shouldn't be a problem.

I took Campbell along for the ride but thought it would be a great chance to get him used to being round large groups of dogs so took him out of the car. He was a star and got lots of cuddles off everyone and was great with the other dogs..... he really enjoyed watching the teams racing at the end and was barking away happily so maybe he will be keen to learn once he gets a bit older. I didn't think he would be any good as he doesn't really play with toys but the trainers seem to think that will change when he realises how much fun it is, so we will give it a go and see how he goes.

Things are getting exciting now. Its great to see them developing into young dogs and finding out how different there personalities are... each have there own qualities and should excel and different things.