Finally some agility training....

We got back from the World Champs and then flew off to NY. So not much training of my own dogs going on. Not so bad for Zen; as a break is good for her and we had been doing loads of training before the World Champs. Hex, on the other hand, has been ignored (training wise) since her last shows in mid-August.

So I saw some good courses on another blog ( http://brisbeethewhite.livejournal.com/ ) and what I enjoy about that blog is that I can see the courses run on video and then try and copy the course. Even better her videos download full screen (none of this blurry You tube stuff!) so you can really see the run. ( I must figure out how to do this with my videos)This time it was even better as she posted the course map! As we know course maps are not always exact; so after watching the run we tweaked it a little and then set the course up to run. This sounds easy but it takes us (Lisa and I) ages to do! Luckily I can leave the course up and use it for training during the week.

Annyway, here is the course.

And this is how it looked in my back garden. Note we switched the collapsed tunnel and the pipe tunnel around. This was because my garden is slightly narrow and we didn't want them running thru the collapsed tunnel into the Oak tree! This actually make it a bit harder I think. Also the course is upside down in my garden so in the photos you are seeing the dog walk to see saw combination that I found difficult (#1 - #11)

Here is the link to the video of Brisbeethewhite running the course with her border collie.

http://www.brisbeethewhite.com/videos/londonUSDAAstd10-14-07.wmv

The trouble I had was along the back and to the see-saw. If I left the dogs on the dog walk and ran laterally before I released them I COULD get to the left wing of #8 on the landing side to push thru the gap to #9. But JUST barely! Zen and Hex run so tight to the jumps that it was really hard! Then the difficulty was trying to push to the seesaw and of course the evil opposite arm flew up to try and save it. It wasn't pretty; I tried it a few ways and some worked and others didn't. Eventually the dogs just KNEW it was the see saw and saved me! hehehe But the back of #17 and the two pipe tunnel entrances were taken a few times along the way. This is a very clever course; it doesn't look so tough but it was!

Lisa and Chi did alot better and I think they got it on the first try! Woot! (see Lisa I can talk computer geek stuff too)

So I was happy to get some work in with Hex on Monday morning because......Monday afternoon I slipped and sprained my ankle! Just in time to head out to Luxembourg for the International Sheltie Agility Tournament! BUGGER! Luckily it has not swollen up; it just hurts! So maybe, just maybe, I can brace it and still run the dogs. Although I might be a bit optimistic! I won't push it as I want to be OK for Olympia in December. So if you thought I run slow normally; I hate to think how slow I will be running in Luxembourg! Arghhhh!