Almost there!!

The Doggies and I have just had a lovely weekend at Agility Nuts. 

I made my mind up to use the Agility classes to reinforce Kiros's wait's and Contacts as they have got a bit naughty lately so got Eliminated in his first run because I replaced him on the Dog Walk.  Only one contact the the "Give a Dog a Bone" Agility and, as Kiros never needs much reminding, he stopped and waited to be released.  Unfortunately he had a pole down (my fault!) but still managed 6th place as it was a tricky course.

As I was Judging Yesterday it was hard to grab moments to walk and run the other courses but Kiros was on top form and came 2nd in the Jumping (which I hadn't walked!) and 4th in the TFO Jumping.

Ronnie just had fun running around jumps and barking :)

I'd made my mind up to run Reno in any of the classes that didn't have weaves as we've still not got them sorted yet :( . On Saturday he was Eliminated in Clockwork Tunnels because he ran on into the wrong tunnel, Eliminated in Jumping because I forgot the course and took my eye off him!! and just 5f for a refusal in pairs as he took too long a stride and had to go around a jump.

The courses we could run yesterday were TFO jumping and a pay on the day Steeple Chase.  At Agility Nuts you are able to run with a silent toy in the Elementary classes (which Reno can enter as he hadn't run at a KC show) so I've been using my ball.  This all went wrong in the Steeple Chase as I made a mistake with my handling and Reno got "fixed" on the ball resulting in him being faulted!  His TFO Jumping, on the other hand, was brilliant with him completing 23 obs in the 30 sec course time (Kiros completed 26) finishing 6th.  The run has been filmed by Jackie so as soon as I've got it I will post it on here. 

Here are my Agility courses from yesterday for anyone who is interested

Elementary and Starters + Tunnel Torment Agility ( I had to alter this a little to fit the ring)

Elementary Agility

Starters + Agiltiy

Veteran Agility

What happened to May?!!

Not sure where the time has gone?

I've just spent from Thurday to yesterday working on our show - Nottingham ADTC.  It has been a great weekend with the only problem being the weather on Saturday.  I've worked on some really exciting rings - Champ on Sat and KC Olympia on Sun - and seen some top class Agility.  What a bonus :)

Since my last post I have taken Kiros to the Osteopath.  She gave him a good exmination and said that there wasn't anything wrong and his spine was holding up well.  Any little aches and pains he gets are down to his age and she has advised I keep running him as long as he wants to.

I've cut down his training a bit and picking the best courses for him to run at shows so he really enjoys his runs.  He's doing fine but just a bit slower.  I, on the other hand,  seem to be totally incapable of handling him correctly now.  I even forgot where I was going on a course at the ABC show!!

Reno's brothers and sister have all started to compete and Zippy is doing really well - congrats Jo. 

I'm still struggling with Reno's training.  I think my biggest problem is that I am so inexperienced at training a young dog I just don't know what to expect and am probably being inconsistent with my training and confusing him.  Poor Lad!!

On a positive note I have got his wait back but last Tuesday he started going under jumps.  I've decided to try 2 x 2 weaves instead of channels as they are easier for me to practice at home and I was struggling to close the channels up.  Unfortunately Reno still cannot understand to go through the gaps when the poles are straight so we need to go back a step with that. 

His See Saw was comming along nicely until last Tuesday (you can tell it wasn't a good session for us!) when we got out our RVA See Saw which is lighter then the Adams one.  It moved to quickly and freaked him :(

Let's see what happens at training tonight? 

Still a long way to go and I've got no idea when he will be ready to compete.  I've entered him in a few classes from July but won't run him if he can't run a course in training.  Trying to be patient!!