March 2010....

So what's been happening since I last blogged, Chippenham small/medium show, Downland, Kaiser went on his first training session away from club and the conservatory is finally taking shape.

Chip Small/Medium - I know a lot of people don't like indoor shows but I do lol - I find them more sociable and you know what surface you are running on - no worries about dogs or handlers slipsliding in the mud! Cad was having a cheeky couple of runs in the Champ but he still did some nice bits I do have those 2 runs but on Dennis's video camera and getting them off there seems complicated due to lack of correct wires or something like that - hence I have now bought my own video camera! I enjoyed watching the Champ final with Karen and Todd and Bernadette and Zen in it and Zen won the medium CC yay! So 2 E's in the Champ for Cad, nice clear on a very straight forward 6/7 jumping, it was a scratch pair as Cad's partner was in season - - another doodle :) they did 2 lovely clears - then we found out we had 25 faults on the changeover - you could not hear the tannoy but afterwards we found out (as others did) you had to hold the baton the whole time the second dog ran - it will make me cross to go on about it but it did put a dampener on things as I did not know my pairs partner and felt bad for letting them down after two lovely runs grrrr! We then got a 4th in the Graded 6/7 Agility - I was pleased with this as there was a tunnel handling point and Cad worked it lovely :)

Kaiser has been a very herdy/easily distracted boy! We have worked hard on this but I was not happy to take him on any training sessions away from club as if someone was doing something that was badly distracting him (like chucking a ball right by him down to the empty end of the indoor school) I know them and can ask them to stop just while I run (I would not find this so easy with people I don't know!). So he has not done any training days but anyways having worked hard on raising his concentration levels I booked to do a 2 hour group session with Gemma Hanekom - I like Gemma's handling of her dogs - always so very smooth and encouraging and I thought 2 hours was a good length to try after rather than some training "days" which can be 3 hours - yes of course we are not running our dogs for the 2 or 3 hours - lot's of listening/watching/learning - so I have a good few things to work on but I was pleased to get Kaiser into a different training location and get some new ideas on things to help us improve :)

Downland - I do like this show - 2 rings and you can watch from the upstairs viewing area - only thing was I had toothache for about a week and did not feel on top form at all and this seemed to rub off on Cad! We had a clears in 6/7 jumping just out the places and in steeplechase but I am finding I get more of a buzz doing the agility runs - we got 6th in the 1-7 Agility and a missed weave entry in the pay on the day agility - my fault (as ever!) Cad thought I was pulling him off the weaves I think! In the 1-7 I would have liked Cad to run down the dog walk a bit more so in the pay on the day I paused and he ran right down - only thing about videoing is it can make you what I call over-analytical !

Here are our runs in the 1-7 Agility and Pay on the Day Agility - I am not sure what I did to the second clip but you have to double click it to play on YouTube or at least on my screen it's all the wrong size - so I tried it on the blogger upload too - think I am being a technophobe doh!

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The conservatory is taking shape now - some people have said "is that not finished yet" ! But as ever it was not quite that simple! After the base and brick wall there was a wait of a few weeks for the glass/frame/roof etc to arrive and it's not just the conservatory but I was having all the back guttering/facias/soffits/wooden cladding replaced with white upvc and also 3 new windows so quite a major job! They have done a bit more so I need to take some more photos!