Weekend stuff: training, trials and sewing needles

This past weekend was a busy one. On Saturday we went to a training day at Sue's sand school. It was taught by Nancy who also owns little Kizzy. It was a great session and everyone seemed to enjoy it. What I liked about Nancy's teaching was that it wasn't all about "handling", she was into training the dog. But then again, that is my strong point so that may be why I liked it! haha I like to try and teach the dog to do most of the work, I guess in some posh agility circles that makes me a lazy handler!

Nancy talked alot about teaching the dog to collect itself before turns and gave some good methods to work on this. I have been lucky with Zen and Hex as this is a strong point for them; their weakness being that they have a harder time going on ahead. I guess after running Pax, who turns like a Mack truck, I worked extra hard on our turns. Or, maybe, they are more natural at tight turns than Pax.

Anyhoo, everyone seemed to enjoy the training day. I even heard some comments that people were saying it was one of the more informative sessions they had been on. That will be really cool for Nancy to hear. I will go to most training session at Sues that I can get to. It is so close to home and it is just good practice for Hex and Zen. And Sue makes a good lunch! But, in reality, so many training days are not that informative, they are more like run-thrus. Because really how much can a trainer teach you in 3 hours with 9 people to train. Also, due to the large number of participants you sometimes don't get much done, it is alot of standing around and bull-shitting with other participants. But I did think Nancy's was well worth it and I am not just saying that because she reads my blog!

Here are some photos from the day. These are not the best photos, I actually have some really good ones that Dennis is working on enhancing with his new prowess in Photo Shop. I will hope to post them on another day and also offer them to their owners. These photos below are funny ones or interesting training ones!

Here is Sue's older BC Buddy more affectionately known as Buddy the Bast***. You can see why..

This is George the Golden. He is a young boy and is doing well in training. But you can see clearly that he was some rythym issues in the weave poles! What a trooper that he stays in the weaves when obviously he has to work so hard at it. Bless!

This is a young Vizsla named Boris. I thought this shot was funny as it looks like his ears are tied up in a bow!

This is a young BC cross poodle (yes, for my american friends reading this, they do these crosses on purpose! ) named Chip. They make lovely shaggy fast agililty dogs! As you can see in this photo of him weaving.

The funny thing is that at the training day we worked on a few things that I actually used at the show on Sunday! I like when that happens! Once I get the videos from the Chippenham Agility Show uploaded I will post them along with our good news.

Now after the long day at Sues, we went out for dinner with our neighbors. It was a dinner planned to thank one of our neighbors for helping us set up our wireless Internet. It was 4 couples for dinner at a local pub. The dinner was scheduled for last month, but had to be cancelled due to everyone having the flu! Unfortunately, it was rescheduled for this weekend and we didn't find out about it until 3 days before! Uh-oh! It wasn't the best time for me to be socializing having been out all day training and then thinking of getting up the next morning at 4:30 am for the drive to Chippenham Champ show. But the dinner was good and it was good to meet the 2 couples that we hadn't met before. At least if I see them in Sainsburys' I will recognize them now! They live on the other side of the field from us and I can occasionally hear their horses and donkey, so I am sure they can hear my dogs! It is quite a long distance but the sound travels because the field is so open.

We had to leave the dinner early (well early for English people!) and said our good-byes at around 11pm. When we got home I was getting ready for bed when Hex comes into the room with me. She is rolling something around in her mouth and I can hear clinking noises against her teeth. Usually this means she was picked up a pebble and is rolling it around in her mouth. I glance at her and see a glint of metal in her mouth and realize it is a sewing needle! I scream for Dennis and grab Hex's muzzle to open it up. At that point I think the needle is already headed down her throat. Dennis comes and I have him pry open her mouth while I look in (not an easy prospect when dealing with the wicked one!). I am able to feel the tip of the needle in the back of her throat and somehow get a hold of this slippery little thing. Which, it turns out, is also attached to a long piece of thread. Holy sh**! I give Hex the biggest hug and know that we really we lucky with this one. If she had not come in and shown me, she would have swallowed it and we wouldn't have known until she showed some sort of symptoms. And even then, who would think "Oh it must be a swallowed sewing needle and thread" Yikes, it is too awful to think about.

Sunday was the long awaited for Chippenham small/medium Champ show. Unfortunately, Zen did not win the champs.. boo hoo. But more about that another time. Hex was a star but I will blog more about that in another post! This post is too long already....