catching up ...

I was feeling poorly last week, my whole body ache and my migrane is bothering me, I am not coping well when the weather turns hot! Isn't that sounds funny to you, I came from a hot country and I am complaining HOT when the temperature hits 20c? I am living on ibuprofen but my migrane just wouldn't go away, so I am hiding indoor during the day. This means I am not enjoying the lovely sunny spring.

I didn't do any training last week with the boys, it was humid and wet and our club training was close for Easter break. I enjoyed a bit of agility break. Well, maybe I was too relax about it and I did terribly at Wallingford on Sunday. I have entered Saturday and Sunday and even got a camping pass from Marion but Friday was pouring, so I decided not to go camping. On Saturday morning, my migane hit me again, so I told Colin I want to stay in, not going to agility. Colin thought I must be seriously ill as I am always energetic about agility and I guess he was right. My headache wouldn't go away, after dropping my nephew at Pryford to play golf, we took the dogs to the swampy Wisley Common for a walk, both Sing and Sizzle loved the puddles and water ditch, they even tried to swim, that was so funny.

I was feeling a little better on Sunday, so we went to Wallingford. We didn't leave home until 8am, it was a funny feeling, normally we woke up before dawn and set off to the show before the sun comes out but Sunday was very leisure. I gave myself plenty of time. There were about 200 dogs before us, so I thought two hours after the show starts should be the right time. We got there around 9:30am and our first run was at 1:20pm! And yes, both Agility and Jumping started at the same time, so after four hours' wait and we were done in 30 minutes (including the queing time)!

I had 2 runs each with Sing and Saturn and I had four eliminations! We started with Agility. I like Carlos's course, he always set up some nice challenging courses which needed some handling, I was running a few of his courses last year and I really love it.

this is the Grade 4-5 Agility course (just a draft from what I can remember)

My worried was the #5, #6, #7, #8 bit. I know I can trust Saturn to find the weave, so I challenged myself to turn him in between #5 and #6, then push him to take #7 and asked him to weave. He did that beautifully. His only problem was the contacts. First, he ping off the dog walk, then he ran passed the see-saw and A Frame! With Sing, I did a front cross after #6, so that give me a better position to stay behind #7 to send him into weave. He is not a great weaver so I have to watch him but somehow on Sunday, he kept pulling out from the 10th pole (both in agility and jumping) and that gave us the two e'd!

I being very stupidly handled Saturn in the Jumping class. He should do well in that course but I was moving when I sent him into the weave, so he went in the 2nd pole but I carried on and that gave us the e'd. It wasn't a difficult weave entry but I was being too careless. I am hoping to do more UKA shows this year to improve Saturn's contacts.

Back to little Sizzle. My long waiting custom made hit-it board arrived today! I was a bit disappointed with it, the size and colour is perfect but the beep isn't working too well for Sizzle. I remembered on the CleanRun website, there is a section you need to fill in was "how heavy is your dog", so when I emailed NoseTouch, I told Mary Lou that the weight is between 4.2kg (Sizzle was 4.2kg when I ordered the board, now 4.5kg) to 8.6kg (Sing's weight). I know nothing about the mechanism, but when I put Sing on the board, it beep but when I put Sizzle ON it, it doesn't beep at all, so I try running Sizzle on it and it doesn't beep either!! I guess the board needs a bit of a loosen job?

We have tried out the new hit-it board, after a couple of months break from the Dog Walk, he is keener than ever, so here we go ...

woohoo ... I am flying!

and this is better ...

I am still trying to play with the board, first I put it closer to the bottom end and he jumped over the board A LOT; so I tried moving the board further up to see what will I get out of it, here is the first attempt ... nearly miss!

wee ... here I fly!

then, I started to put his toy closer to the bottom of the DW

I think he starting to get the idea, I put the toy further from the contact and that is so much better.

I will keep experimenting for the next couple of days to see what outcome I have so I can fix up the training method.

small note on our weave: we are still working on our entries and I have also tried different combinations of things, one thing I am glad with is when he weaves, he is always put his head down and focus.