WOW! Fanastic owl photos!

These photos were taken by Tony. Unbelievable! Can you tell by our faces that we don't even know the owl was overhead?

Axtane Agility show

Axtane has always been a fairly lucky show for me. It was the show that Pax won out of starters! So I always get a good feeling going to that show!

It was strange beginning as almost all the small classes were on at one time. To make matters a little more stressful one of the judges told her ring party not to let anyone check in late. Which in theory is fine, but when small dogs have three smallish size classes to run at the same time (one being pairs and realize that needs to take priority) it would be nice to have a little flexibility! I really do not think anyone was looking to run late, it was just hard to hit all the rings at the same time!

The funny thing was that I did make all my small dog classes on time but then FORGOT that Zen had a jumping class for me to walk and then run. We caught that one at the last minute before it closed, watched three dogs run and went to the line trying to quickly figure out the course. Zen, bless her, did her best to help me out and went on to get 3rd in that class. Zen also got 2nd in both her agility classes AND 2nd in the Mini/Mixi pairs!! We are partnering with a tiny adorable little poodle who is probably one of the smallest of the smalls. Considering Zen is probably one of the smallest of the mediums I think it is cool that we did so well!

But really this was Hex's day! She ran 100% clear in all her runs and got 2nd in the Grade 6,7 jumping and 1st in the Eukaneuba Agility Challenge. What a doll she is. As usual I didn't think she was running very fast! HA! With two first in two Eukaneuba shows she may have a good chance at being at Crufts in 2008. We won't know until the end of the year but hopefully......

No videos for Axtane as Dennis was not there. I left him home to do garden work! And with all the small and medium classes on so early it would have been too stressful for Lisa and I to also think about videoing.

Sunday I decided to skip Axtane and spend the day with Dennis. We went with Lisa and Tony and their friend Steve to the Country Game Fair at Parham House in Storrington.
It is so interesting seeing all the country folk out showing off their talents. I am not into guns and hunting but these people take it very seriously as a way of life. I have to give them credit for that. There were quite a few displays of gundog work and training and that is always interesting. I find that gundog people have a different attitude towards training sometimes but in general they all were fairly gentle with their dogs. There was the usual herding dog display and that is always fun to watch. People think these dogs are robots but I like to see the shepherd pull the mike away from their mouths and yell at their dogs "would you lie down dammit" hahaha. Even their well trained working dogs don't listen all the time!

The best part of the day was one of the Falconry and Birds of Prey display. Thanks to Steve's enthusiasm I joined him and Lisa to sit up close in the arena while one of the displays was going on. This particular display was with the Eagle Owl. The "bird Man" had us all first sit on the ground and then later lay on the ground looking up while the owl flew over us. WOW! What a feeling! The first time he had us sitting with our backs to the owl while he called it towards him. You could not hear or sense the Owl flying towards you and right over your head until it practically touched you with it's wings. That is how quiet it glides and why it is such a good hunter of prey! It was amazing. The second time he had us lay on the ground on our backs looking up at the sky. Then he had the owl fly right over our faces so that we could imagine how the mice felt as the owl swooped in to hunt them. Wicked! I could really get into owls (but that is not a hint for people to start buying me owl things!) as I find them so interesting to look at as long as I forget that they eat little animals!

We are off to Scotland on Thursday! I have my fingers crossed that it doesn't rain because the only other two times we were in Scotland it rained!

Hex at Thames 2007

Hex had some really good runs at Thames. I think she may have run clear and placed in every run except one. Not too shabby! Sometimes the videos focus too far away from the dogs but I think these may have focused too closely on Hex! But she is so cute that cannot be too bad!

Video of Zen at Thames in Medium Champ

She didn't win this one! But I was very proud of her performance on three difficult courses in the Champ class. As usual Dennis choose the song!

My Gorgeous Girls at Hinkley!

Moving on from Supa Dogs agility week.....

The Saturday after Supadogs we went to the Hinkley Championship show for the first time. Well it was a good thing we tried that show! It is a brilliant show with really good ground to run on and a positive atmosphere. I am glad we made the trip up even though it meant a night at a B&B. It wasn't worth camping there as there were only classes for Zen on Saturday and none on Sunday. The Bed and Breakfast was Victoria Farms and it is dog friendly which is always a plus! Very nice people there and the rooms are clean and comfortable if not fancy. Oh and the full english breakfast was lovely!

The show was so successful for us in so many ways. Zen getting another Champ ticket, Hex going advanced, Chi winning the Champ agility qualifier and Indy winning the Champ Jumping qualifier. I am so proud of them all....even if they don't run clear they always put in a good effort. None of these dogs need to be dragged around the ring or begged to work...they live for agility! And that is what makes them so fun to run. I am blessed with my dogs.

Here is a photo of Zen with her 4th Championship Agility Ticket and her trophy. She was a good girl! It was so nice to win under Andy even though his courses were way too front cross crazy! hehe





And here are some videos of Hex and Zen from Hinkley. Dennis picked the music!

Videos of Indy at Hinkley

We were lucky to get some good video at Hinkley. Here are two runs with Nicky and Indy (OBay Truly Driven). At Indy's first Championship class he won the Champ Jumping and I know that his first champ ticket will not be too long in coming!

Enjoy!

Yoga today

We did Partridge and canoe which both were super abdominal work! Wow I know I will be sore tomorrow. We did the palm tree (wicked side stretch)and the frog pose (ouch). FOUR sun salutations and I am finally starting to remember the order of poses in that one!

Then we did something that the instructor called Pose of Tranquility...but I cannot find that one on the internet. I need to get a book and look them up. It basically was similar to a plow but you were getting your legs up higher and starting to go into a shoulder stand. Really hard! Then we ended up with two balance exercises; the fig tree and some other one I did not catch the name of.

And we ended up with some wacky abdominal "flapping" exercise. I wouldn't want anyone seeing me do that it was totally weird!

We are actually going to leave for Scotland next Thursday but AFTER my yoga class as I think it is so helpful for me. If nothing else I should be better balanced and less likely to fall down running in agility!

Hex and Zen at SUPA DOGS FINALS!

Dennis has been busy tonight and we are finally getting thru loads of videos from the past two weeks. Finishing up tonight with the SUPADOGS FINALS!! No music again so you can hear my frantic calls (which didn't work for Hex this time!) Ha-Ha!

Supadogs 2007 video

Here are some OBay Shelties running agility at Supadogs week 2007!

A very exciting Thames show?

Hob-b doing her best imitation of a therapy dog!

Blame Dennis for no videos yet....

.....and blame Lisa for no photos!

I have lots to post about but no videos or photos to go along. So that is just boring!

Dennis had to go away on short notice to New York so he has not had a chance to sit down and transfer the videos to the computer to post on You Tube. Now if he would just show me how......but then he would be afraid he wouldn't be useful to me anymore!

And Lisa took photos of Zen's wins last weekend and has to bring her camera over to transfer them. SIGH!

But OBay shelties have had a great two weekends. To summarize:

• Hex went advanced (oops excuse me...Grade 7 which just doesn't sound as exciting) at Hinkley Agility Show. Hex is amazing me with her wins as I don't even think she is fast! I guess I am wrong!
• Zen WON the medium CHAMPIONSHIP at Hinkley! This is her first Champ win since she finished her championship last summer as I pulled her from all Champs last year after her 3rd win. And then she came in season this year and missed two champ shows. So if felt really good to run in Champs and win again! Zen is just ridiculously fun to run.
• Chi won the RESERVE CHAMPIONSHIP Ticket at Thames Agility! This was the first time Chi has made it into a Champ finals and he ran perfectly! Chi definitely has the potential to become an Agility Champion.
• We picked up and used our new caravan at Thames this weekend! It was so much nicer being at the agility show with a nice place to relax afterwards.

I will go into more boring details when I get videos and photos to go along with it!

Supa Zenny!

This was Zen's week for sure! It was not what I expected and I must admit I thought it was going to be HEX who would win the Supadogs final! But I underestimated my Zen as usual...

So we went to Supadogs for three days; one of them being the qualifier day for the Friday finals. There was ALOT of rain and alot of mud but it was still a good week. Zen struggled a bit against some of the faster medium collies but she still pulled off one 1st place, two 3rds, two 4ths and one 6th place. Hex was a superstar and came away with one 1st, two 2nds, one 3rd and one 4th. The funny thing is that both of them got a 1st over the same jumping course and got E'd over the same jumping course!

On Tuesday, the qualifer day, both Zen and Hex ran clear in the qualifer jumping and agility classes. There was 165 small dogs in Hex's classes and 128 medium dogs in Zen's classes. These clears qualified both of them for the Friday finals! Hex was actually seeded 1st in the finals for having the highest placed double clears of all the small dogs!

These were the trophies on offer for the Supadogs 2007 Finals. Aren't they gorgeous? I took the photos so that I could mentally picture one or two of them in my house. haha I have my own version of a mental management program!

We arrived on Friday for the finals with NO cheering crowd! Dennis was home putting up caravan security thingies and Lisa was home preparing for our long trip up to Hinkley. So it was me, Zen and Hex all by ourselves! Luckily Sue also qualified for the finals with her Novice dog Millie so that I had Sue and Barry to sit with, video and cheer for each other.

Here is Zen and Hex in my little car waiting to run in the finals.

My old girl Pax qualified for the Supadogs finals twice. The first year she got 4th and the second year she got 5th and we always missed out on the good trophies. Last year Zen qualified for the first time but ONE knocked bar in the second round put us out of the trophies again! I was determined this year to win one of those Supa Crystal trophies! I was so focused on Hex winning as I did not think Zen would win on the flat out open courses against the faster and larger border collies. But luckily one of the judges put up a suprisingly tight little course that just suited Zen down to a tee.

Unfortunately that tight little course caught out Hex and I and she got Eliminated on the first round. Boo hoo. She did redeem us by flying around the second round agility course and she was over 3 seconds faster than any other small dog in the final. Of course it was a bit of coulda, woulda, shoulda! She ended up in 7th over all in the small dogs finals.

Here is Hex flying in the finals.

Zen won the first round which put us running LAST for the final agility round. No pressure! I liked this photo of her even though it was taken from behind her. It shows her grace and drive.

Here are some cool photos of Zen jumping. Notice how her front legs are crossed and she seems to be turning in the air over the jump. She is so incredibly agile.

In the agility round I played it safe and actually held her contacts! Sue thought that was quite funny but I had the champ show the next day and that was more important to me. Luckily Zen had been in the lead from the first jumping by around 1.5 seconds (I found out later) because one of the super medium collies had a faster agility round by a full second. So in the end Zen won the Medium Supadogs Finals by a nice margin of .5 seconds! Whew!

Here is a photo of a happy me and a Zen who hates having photos taken after agility!

Finally here is a photo of Sarah Osbourne's Touchango Top Gear (Tig) with Zen. Tig easily won the Supadogs Novice Final which was a fitting end to his fantabulous Novice career! Sarah and Tig also train with Lesley Olden so we wanted to take this photo for her. Lesley has kept us on the right path in training our dogs. I must say that Sarah looked as cool as a cucumber in that final! Way to go Sarah and Tig!

Daniel and Bailey at Supadogs

Here is a little video of 9 year old Daniel running his OBay sheltie Bailey. Daniel and Bailey did so well this week at Supadogs coming home with quite a few trophies and ribbons. This was the only run of his that I got on video so I had to share it with everyone! Aren't they a cute pair? I have been promised photos of Daniel and Bailey with their trophies and will post them as soon as I get them.

Dennis was in a rush to get ready to head back to New York tonight so there is no music on this video. You get the luxury of hearing our "yeahs" at the end of Daniels run! hehehe

Cippenham Agility Show 2007

Supadogs is such a huge show. 12 rings of agility each day and agility for 7 days straight! I think I am pretty agility addicted but it is even too much for me! I was entered for 4 of the days and only ended up showing for 3. I am glad I did not compete everyday! It was muddy and wet for many of the days and the week didn't start out great for me on Saturday. But luckily we were not camping at the show this year (stolen caravan and all that!) and I was glad to go home each night to take a hot shower and collapse in my bed. But more about Super Supadogs later!

On Sunday instead of going to Supadogs I went to a more local and smaller (5 rings) show at Cippenham. Well that was a very good choice on my part as we did much better there. The reason may have been that I was more relaxed because the show was smaller. It certainly was not because the weather was any better as it rained there too! Anyway at Cippenham both Zen and Hex were little stars with each one winning all three of their classes! (Zen's classes had around 60 medium dogs and Hex's class had over 100 small dogs) I must say that was the greediest we have ever been at an agility show; winning 3 out of 3 with two dogs. 6 trophies and 6 red rosettes! This also put Hex 1/2 way towards her advanced status!

Here is a photo of the two winners smiling!

Who are now very bored with photo taking!

This show was made so much nicer because Liz was there with her mom and they set up ringside with a tarp over the cars and a nice dry place to sit and watch some runs. Liz even brought a super picnic with fresh salad and veggies from her garden. Now that's the way to enjoy an agility show!

The best part of the show was seeing Liz get her first ever agility trophy with one of her super Golden retrievers named Archie. Archie got third place in a jumping class of almost 200 dogs. What a fabulous achievement for a handsome SHOW bred golden retriever! Liz has been getting such nice comments from the judges on seeing both her goldens running with such enthusiasm and attitude. I wish I had some of those runs on video but it was too rainy to bring the camera out. Liz also did well in a subtly tricky ABC agility with a 4th or 5th place out of 100+ dogs. I think Liz was pleased to run some nice courses that actually required some handling challenges for her and her dogs. It is boring for some people stuck in Grades 1 and 2 to always have to run straight up and down courses. She trains her dogs well and loves to have some good challenges to be able to show off her dogs strengths. Her goldens will never beat the super fast Border collies on straight lines but they can do some nice work and love to show off on the more tricky courses. I really enjoy seeing judges that can design fun courses for the dog but that challenge the handler. It is a real science to designing those types of courses. Once I get my computer back I will try and post the ABC course as it was also the same agility course that I ran with Zen and Hex.

I will post more about Supadogs later; it was an action filled week of mud drenched agility!

Photos of MACH 2 Presto

Here is a slideshow of photos of Presto (Jordan's little boy) done by his owner Eleanor. I have to say I am glad I didn't go to Supadogs today as it is raining hard! Time to catch up on things around the house and on the computer!


Presto running agility 5/11/2007

Ups and downs and queuing in agility

Last Saturday began the week-long agility event called Supadogs. I was pretty down on Saturday after a fight with jet-lagged hubby on Friday and then a 5 minute walk back and forth to the day parking at the show on Saturday. I was just about ready to pack it up and go home! Added to the stress I had offered to help and ended up as a "caller" for a ring. Remind me never to do that job again! I think every person running in agility should have to work at every job at least once. Then they can understand WHY things are done as they are.

At a show like Supadogs with such distances from parking and camping to the rings it is really hard to tell someone they cannot queue. But when the queue is 12-25 dogs long is it right to let people queue up when they are not really due to run? What does that mean then for the people who are scheduled to run, show up at the correct time and then still have to wait 30 minutes standing in line? It was such a tough call as I really sympathized with the people who had just walked miles only to find out that it was not their running orders yet. I felt like a mean person! Should I have just let anyone run in any order?

The excuses I got for running out of order were funny at times. Almost all centered around the fact that they did not want to walk back to their car or camping. While I fully understood their dilemma; did they not realize that everyone had this problem? As usual I got one or two really grumpy and down right rude people. I was proud of myself though and just ignored them and didn't stoop to their low level. For the most part people, after their initial begging, were understanding.

Anyway no more calling for me! I will stick to judging, scribing, pads or poles! :-)

So obviously we had no luck at the first day of Supadogs in our own runs. Some close calls with Hex who was an absolute star but we just had some minor errors. Zen was the worst I have even seen her and I had to carry her out of the ring at one point! I have never ever had to do that with Zen before and hope to never have to do that again. She usually tries so hard for me and I do not know what went wrong that day.

BUT there was some really positive great news from the first day at Supadogs! Two of Zen's brothers had some fabulous runs and results:

• Bailey (Obay Truly Daniel's Dream) run and trained by 9 year old Daniel had his first ever 1st place!! Since Saturday he has put in quite a few clear rounds during supadogs week and has had even more placements not only in his junior classes but also in regular classes competing against the adults! This is really a special achievement as his mom, Linda, runs and organizes the Supadogs show. At such a huge event Linda is busy 24/7 and how wonderful for her to be able to award her own son a First prize! She was starting to choke up when reading out his results and I, of course, started crying also! Daniel and Bailey have such a special relationship. I have been promised photos and also have a video from later on in the week.

• Lucky (OBay Truly Lucky) started later in agility as he was focusing mainly on obedience. Recently he has started to be trained in agility by a young handler named Catherine. They have only been working together for around 2 months. Catherine is running Lucky this week at Supadogs and on the first day he won his jumping class! Lucky is a powerful dog and when he gets it right he will do fabulous and Catherine is just the right handler for him. He has had another clear (2nd place) and few near misses during the rest of the week but is getting great experience and now Catherine knows what he needs to work on.

So I was grateful to Lucky and Bailey (and Catherine and Daniel) for improving my outlook on Saturday! Sunday and the rest of the week at Supadogs turned out to be much much better! More news to come.....

Yoga today

Bridge, Reverse triangle, swordsman and fig tree. Those are the only ones I can remember today!

I was so tempted to skip yoga this morning and was feeling lazy. When it is over I am always glad that I went; I just have to get my enthusiasm up to get there. What I do for dog agility is mind boggling! Unfortunately it still doesn't help me run faster....

Supadogs Agility Week starts on Saturday. We are not camping (obviously as we have no caravan!) but I am planning on going Saturday, Monday, Tues and Wed. I have my fingers and toes crossed that Hex can win 4 classes this week and move up to Advanced. It will be tough as Supadogs usually attracts EVERYONE! We will do our best!

Good news on the caravan front. The insurance has gone thru and we can order a new caravan. They promised us that we will have it on the Thursday before Thames. So hopefully we will get it home, load it up and head out to Newbury on that Friday morning. The following week we are off with the new caravan for our holiday up to Scotland. No rain please!

Eastbourne show

Yesterday I took Zen and Pax to the Eastbourne show. We went there rather than BATS because it is much closer. It was a nice show with only 2 rings! Fantastic! Such a nice change from these huge 12 ring shows. It was nice to just sit ringside and watch some runs. Unfortunately it was quite windy and that got annoying after awhile and finally had to go sit in the car to get out of the wind. Luckily it wasn't a strong wind and it didn't affect the dogs.

Zen was running nicely after coming back from being in season. Hex has to stay home for another week and will be back out at Supadogs. I can't wait to start running her again. The courses were definitely geared towards easy at this show. I do wish judges would learn how to set simple courses without putting straight lines in. I know that many people would like courses with small challenges even at the lower grades. Give them something to do rather than run in straight lines up and down the ring. And that doesn't mean pull-thrus!

My medium and small classes were geared correctly for the lower grades (small and medium classes were open or Grade 1-7 so it had to be simple courses) but that doesn't mean that we necessarily run clear on them. haha

In Zen's jumping she ran lovely but after the collapsed tunnel she did something weird and actually ran BETWEEN 13 and 14. If I had tried to do that I couldn't have as the gap was pretty darn small! Oh well no clear in that class. Zen did win the pay-on the day jumping which was also pretty simple except for a three jump pull thru which she handled well. She also won the agility which was a very simple course but involved a 5 JUMP sprint down the long side of the ring (in a very BIG ring) at the end. I think these judges are out to kill me.

Here is a rough draft of the jumping course.

I am not sure why I entered Pax except that I knew it was a small local show. She was glad to be out running but I still think I am going to restrict her only to jumping from now on. She fell off the dog walk yesterday and that really worries me. I do not think it was the wind but a combination of her just not getting alot of training, losing her balance and a bit of the wind. It is quite a long way down from our dogwalks and she hit with a thud. She got up and shook herself off and seems fine; but she will be 11 in September and I want her sound in her old age. I have been lucky in that she has not had any lameness in her entire life and never had any agility-related injuries. Joy was the same way and she was sound and agile up until she left us this year. I don't know if it was genetics or just my being careful with them but I want the same for Pax. So no more agility classes for her and only the occasional jumping classes to keep us both happy. It was nice to have her out around the rings and playing with her; she is such a fun dog.

Today no agility for us. Hopefully a nice long walk with the dogs and I think the sun is shining. Hurrah!

Bitches in Season

This is the first time I have had so many intact bitches at once. It is got me thinking about bitches in season competing in agility.

I can understand not letting bitches in season compete at every show; but it is really necessary to stop them from competing at major finals and championship classes? They do allow bitches in seaons at the World Agility Championships. I wonder if it is worth putting forward a proposal for the same in England for major competitions. (Olympia and Crufts)? How can someone who wants to breed from bitches who compete work this out? My options are:

1. risk missing out on Crufts, Olympia, Championship classes ect.


2. spay the bitches and not continue a line of working dogs


3. Only breed from non-working bitches


4. inject the bitches with hormones to delay the seasons.

Obviously I pick number 1 especially for bitches that I want to breed that year. I am unsure what to do about Hex. She will not be bred this year or even next but I am really concerned about the side effects of the hormone injections. I must talk more with people who have used them and then had succesful breedings. I will have to make a decision soon especially if she qualifies for Olympia this year.

I am always planning litters and puppies in my head. I saw a gorgeous tri sheltie boy 2 years ago at Clean Run Camp. and luckily he belonged to a good friend of mine. Jif comes from show breed lines but has some good working dogs in his pedigree. But the reason I liked him was that Jif himself is a super worker with intense drive and speed and had good structure and type. I also met his brother, Spooner, who was the same way. That really excited me as it shows that the drive is genetic not trained! Now Diane just sent me this link to a video of the third brother in that litter. Wow! Now I am even more determined to breed Hex to Jif. It will, of course, produce another ALL BLACK litter! hahaha I am doomed! Check out the video of Jif's brother Seeker in Round 5 of the USA World Team Tryouts .

http://www.abctc.com/WorldTeamVideos.htm

Here are some photos of Jif. The funny thing is that I first met Diane back in 1994 or 1995 at the Boston ASSA sheltie national when I saw and liked another one of her male shelties called Teller (Ch. Aylmere Premonition). I ended up breeding Joy to him and that produced my soul-mate Pax. So maybe it is fate that I have fell in love with Jif. Or maybe we just have similar tastes in shelties! haha

Dennis is off golfing in France for two days, the lucky boy. He deserves a little break as he has been stressed about work lately. I have been doing too much gardening (Who needs trees they take up room and I always need more room for agility equipment) and have been very achy yesterday and today. Yoga this morning helped a little. We did:

• Open and closed sitting spinal twists
• Rocking horse.
• Warrior and Archer
• swordsman
• Fig tree

Now my instructor is about 70 years old and can do everything! What's my excuse?

Beacon Grade1-5 jumping course

We may have cracked it! Hope you can view this course. It wasn't as easy as just saving it as a jpeg or bmp because the CRCD wouldn't let me do that. Maybe because it is the older program? Anyhoo....we had to actually copy it and open it up in another program (we used Paint) and then paste and save as a jpeg. I have to thank my wonderful marvellous genius of a husband for figuring it out. Yes....he made me say that!

I do not think I quite have the exact spacing correct and I have to work that out as sometimes I design a course and then it just doesn't fit as I expect. It may be my lack of "spatial awareness" as Lisa likes to tease me about. The same reason I sometimes run into agility obstacles and knock them over or trip over my own feet! HA!

The course did run well and I liked it better than some of the straight up and down courses I sometimes see at the lower levels. The dogs that won had more independent weave pole entries which shaved time off of their runs because they didn't need to push the dogs forward and waste time. There were almost no dogs eliminated by going into the tunnel after 5/9 or by going in the wrong tunnel entrance. The majority of eliminations were from lack of start line stays and dogs blasting over #5 instead of turning right to #3. And the majority of 5 faults were due to knocked bars and incorrect weave entries. I should have written down the numbers of clears, faults and eliminations as well as winning times but the weather was so bad I didn't have the ambition. I just wanted to get back on the road for the 3 hour drive home!

No more judging for me this year as I want to concentrate on Hex and Zen and getting ready for the try-outs. I have printed out some of the USA world team tryout courses and am going to set some of them up. I would think that they put sequences in that they felt were representative of what they will see in Norway.