this week's agility training and swimming

I have quite a busy week this week doing agility stuff.

Sizzle was a bit "switch off" on Tuesday, he looked tired and lost his attention easily. I blamed Samber for tiring him out! Also, I have got a few important things to work on him as well. As a young puppy, I taught him to chase bird, my idea was to get him going and I want him to power on for speed but I now realised it is very "dangerous". He has a very strong eyes for bird, any birds! This happened on Tuesday at training, I didn't see a pigeon got his attention and I tried very hard to get him to focus our "jump tunnel jump" sequence. The minute I let go of him, off he shot into a different direction then only I knew he was chasing the pigeon! I guess I have a good job in getting him NOT to chase a bird when we work.

On Thursday, I trained Sing and Saturn. Sing was very good, I still put him in the beginner class to do some simple stuff to encourage him to upgrade a gear. Saturn was a mixture of good and bad. When he was so hyper, he was very fast and lost control, he just wanted to take any obstacles in front of him. Eleanor told me this is not the first time he did that and I need to crack this bad habit. So, I have something to work on Saturn too.

After the agility on Thursday, we normally go for a walk at Oxshott Common then heading to Greyfriars for our fitness swim. Sizzle is becoming so confident that he don't actually need a life jacket anymore but I insisted to put it on for the first 15 minutes. Saturn is a nutter when comes to swimming pool. He is so excited and bark and just want to dive into the pool all the time. I was trying to chuck the ball for him to dive in first, then Sing, then Sizzle but I think my timing was wrong, in the end he always dive into Sizzle who came back with a ball in his mouth! I need to be more careful next time.

Yesterday, we went to train at Bernadette. I really enjoy going to her. Again, Sizzle wasn't really focus, he just wanted to sniff most of the time and he went off his toys! That really surprised me! Sizzle is a very toy motivated dog but I just can't get him to play with the toys. We also discover we have more problems and I need to fix them! We also did some agility with Saturn. He jumped a little funny (keeping his back legs), I have noticed that sometimes he stretch out nicely but sometime he tucks his two back legs. I really don't know what is the problem there. Before the biopsy operation last July, he was a great jumper. I just hope my vet didn't ruin him! Not just because I want to do agility with him but I want a healthy happy Saturn!

Saturn at Lee's TD, watching and hopefully learning

This afternoon, I took Saturn to Lee Windeatt's training day at Sue's sand school. I have never been to Lee's TD and I was really looking forward to it. Lee is a very nice guy and he gave me a good tip to try Saturn on the A Frame, hopefully that will speed him up. I had tried to apply that (that is: as soon as Saturn's two front legs hit the ground, priase him like Crazy) towards the end of the training and it worked! Hopefully that is not a one off from him! We did some short sequences to look at things and I think Lee likes "turning away" (or flipping) method. I am terrible at that. My arms and hands are not co-ordinate enough to give Saturn the body language he wants, I just messed everything up.

At one of the sequences, Lee put a jump half way in between the weave (figure below):

We need to handle the dog on the right hand side, send and flip him into the weave entry (handler is not allow to pass the jump). Other than the smashing and amazing Bernadette & Zen did it correctly, I don't recall any of us could do that. I know if I were to handle him from the left hand side, he will find the entry. I have never done this flipping away thing but it is good that I know my weakness and I will practise more!

We also did a recall over A Frame and See-Saw. Saturn was very good at stopping at the contact until I released him eventhough he still kinda creeping down the plank. Overall, I don't think Saturn was working very well today, he was not in his full speed and I also notcied that sometimes he jumped with two back legs tuck in and sometimes stretching out. Also, at Sue's sand school, she has very close neighbours, so we are not allow our dogs to bark, so winding him up before his run is prohibited!

here are a few sequences we were doing this afternoon:

It was a three hours long training, I've asked Colin to take Sizzle in to watch for 10 minutes. He was so excited and started to bark when he saw some fast dogs going around, poor little man has to go back to the car.

I've got a bit stressed with Samber's house trained this week. She was very clean the first four days, eventhough she wasn't keen to go to the garden to do her toilet but she was clean indoor. She started to poo and wee indoor since last Friday. She is very clever that she didn't messed on the carpet, she will go to the kitchen and bathroom on the tile flooring to wee and poo. I don't really want that to happen, so I took her out every hour but everytime she went into the garden, all she wants is PLAY. At the end, I have to keep her in and let the boys out, then let the boys in and take her out. I have even tried to stay in the garden with her for more than an hour but still she is not doing anything. I started to crate her at night (before, she was sleeping on our bed with the boys); when I let her out in the morning, she did her toilet and I priased her but she was very nervous. We go out everyday for a walk, sometimes she did her toilet but sometimes she don't. Basically, she kinda hold her toilet until the next morning!

daddy's girl