Wimbledon Whizzers Winter Warmer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.