more training news ...

The weather was awful this weekend, especially Saturday! It pour, all day, heavily. I have entered a show but I was too lazy (!!) to go. When I entered the show, it was meant for pre-Crufts practice but I just haven't got any energy left to go out for another long day! I was really lazy and wanted to lie in bed all day. What's wrong with me? Poor Colin and the dogs were soak to their skin when they went out walking. Good job I have a good husband that I can send out walking the dogs in the rain. LOL

Yesterday, we went to  Little Revel Ends for another Lee Windeatt's training day. I've booked up for the whole day, morning with Sipzie and afternoon with the boys. After a good rest on Saturday, I restored my energy to run 6 hours on Sunday!

This is little Miss Sipzie's first proper full training day. I wasn't sure if she is ready for a three hours training session but I like training on the carpet, so I thought I'll give it a go and have any of the boys standby, just in case she can't cope. Sipzie was coping very well, eventhough she easily got distracted by the food from other handlers but I managed to get her to pay attention to me. I must remembered to bring a crate for our next training. I have taught her the "crate game" and she is loving it. When I had trouble with her paying too much attention to other handlers and their food at Club training, I took the crate and played "crate game" with her and it worked a wonder! So, this is now in my note.

Also, Sipzie is coping well or can I say even better on carpet. I've noticed she jump clean every single time. This is a big step for us. At home and at Club, she only jump small height; I sometimes put an odd pole up to medium but she knocked the Medium down every single time. I thought she isn't ready and do not  want to knock her self-confidence off. Yesterday, there is another Medium sheltie there, Saffie is already competing, so she is jumping medium height; and another young Border Collie Ballet jumping medium; so Sipzie automatically goes into Medium category. I was so worried at our first sequence but she was jumping well at that height. I am so glad and proud that she is jumping well on Medium height and still not losing her speed. Maybe I can start putting another odd pole up to practice at home?

We did a lot of things that we have never done at class. Sipzie and Ballet are the only two young ones out there and the rest are already competing. It's good that Sipzie and Ballet "don't" do weave just yet, so we can practice on some other easier sequences.

We have learned to teach the dog to work independently. This is what I need for Sipzie. This could be our weakest point at the moment. She is clingy and glue to me most of the time. With her speed, if I can get her to work ahead and look ahead, it would be good for both of us as I cannot run fast. We work quite a bit with a tunnel underneath the Dog Walk; this means the handler got stuck on the other side of the DW and the dog needs to look ahead after she comes out from the tunnel. It was quite challenging for me and Sipzie and she wanted to come back to me instead of doing the jump after the tunnel but with the help of her favourite toy, it works!

We've also got to practiced all the front crosses and pull through. Gosh! Have I improve on my pull through or what? I managed to get Sipzie to do all the pull through and this is her first time doing a pull through!! There are a lot of room for improvements and I have noticed from the video that I have made quite a lot of silly mistakes with her, the most unbearable one is our startline wait is never consistent! I need to make a big note out of that!!! Oh, and how clumsy I am with her, we nearly clashed into each other all the times!!!

here is some clips from the training day:

Sadly, the sunny weather didn't stay long, just before we finished the morning session, it turned cloudy and windy, soon, the sky opened up! I was hoping the rain will stop before the afternoon session starts. Of course it didn't! I had to train in the rain for three hours. I have to keep swapping between and Saturn and Sizzle, so none of them get very wet and cold.

Saturn didn't work terribly well, not sure if it is the rain or the carpet, he wasn't even half of his normal speed :( On the other hand, Sizzle worked very well in the bitterly cold rainy day. He really did the small/medium handlers proud though. We got to run this sequence (see video), the handler got stuck on the other side of the DW again, the dog has to go through the tunnel to find the weave with See-Saw on its way. All the big dogs did really well, none of the dogs were looking at the See-Saw at all and they all weave beautifully; sadly, none of the medium dogs managed the weave as they either look back for the handler or go up the see-saw, so do the other small dogs. I was last up, no pressure. I wasn't sure if Sizzle is going to manage to find the weave pole eventhough I know he works well independently but I could only try. You can hear all the cheering in the video as he is the only small dog that did it! I am a proud owner of that little dog :)

here is my little man, please excuse Saturn's barking at the background: