Ups and Downs

Shall we start with the ups?

Had a great weekend with Kiros at Agility Nuts.  He ran beautifully and managed a 2nd place in Novice + Agility and 1st in Novice + Jumping.  Here is a link to the video of his win.

http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=154964661184927&ref=mf

It's the first time that I've seen him run for a while and I'm quite happy to see that although he isn't as fast as he used to be he doesn't appear to be showing any sign of his age.

This was the last show of the Summer Season and the Agility Nuts of the Season were announced on Sunday.  Kiros won the Large Senior award by some margin.  I couldn't have hoped for any more from him.

Now the downs :(

At the beginning of June I resolutely told you that I wouldn't start competing with Reno until he could run a course in training.  Then after a really promising show at the end of June my resolve wained a little and I started running him at KC shows.

In my heart of hearts I knew he wasn't ready but thought that the ring experience would help him improve.

Unfortunately I was wrong and after this weekend I have decided not to compete with Reno again until he is more confident.

Our main problem is still the weaves.  Although he can do them in isolation he finds them very difficult in a course and, as they don't hold such high value to him as other obstacles, he chooses not to attempt them going off to do another obstacle or worse still going for a sniff.  In a competition ring I am struggling to control his choices so my only option is to stop competing until he actually wants to do them.

It is a real shame as I have really enjoyed running him and was very much looking forward to the remaining shows that we have entered. I'm worried about allowing the problem to escalate and am hoping that if I take action now I will be able to get him competing again very soon.  Hopefully there will be some courses without weaves in them that we can have a go at!!

On a positive note he was excellent at training last night.  Although he didn't actually do his weaves in the course he got the entry every time and came straight back to attempt them so hopefully we are getting somewhere? :)

KC International Festival

What an excellent start to the weekend with Ann and Indi achieving their first ever clear round in Grade 3 Jumping and coming away with 4th place in a class of over 100.  Well done both of you.  I'm sure there will be a lot more to follow.

Because of the standard of Judges at this show Kiros has been able to do all of his runs.  It is so nice to run Grade 6 courses that aren't overly physically demanding on the Dogs.

We have only had one clear round but Kiros as run really well and thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Every time I got to the ring to run Reno yesterday the heavens opened but at least he got used to running in the rain.  He ran well and very confidently.  I made a few mistakes with my handling!!
His best run so far came today in the Grade 3 Jumping.  He was clear until the 2nd from last obstacle, weaves, but did get his entry and completed them on the second attempt.  Unfortunately after them he spotted his toy and ran around the last jump to get it.  Oh well, at least he got rewarded.

Next weekend is Agility Nuts again and I'm judging Agility on Sunday. Good luck everyone:)

Reno's KC Debut

I've bitten the bullet and started to run Reno at KC shows.  I had planned to wait until I was certain that he could run clear in training but I'm obviously not that patient!!

Our first run was at Rugby.  I was quite optimistic about this run as he had been so good at Agility Nuts so was a bit disappointed when he lost focus going to see the pole picker and judge.

Since then I have done a couple of runs with him at Adams (were Katie took these photo's - thank you Katie).  Both nice confident runs with handling errors on my part.  One run at Empingham that was a little disappointing as he seemed very nervous.

He was also very distracted during his first run at Derby but his Mini/Mixi pairs with Indi seemed to change all that as he really enjoyed it, although he thought Ann was trying to steel the baton at the end of Indi's run and wouldn't let her have it!!

After that he has done two lovely runs the next day at Derby and four very promising runs this weekend at Scunny. 

At the moment I'm really not handling him very well and he doesn't want to do the weaves at shows so both of these things are stopping his "flow" around the courses and when this happens he allows himself to get distracted.

I'm optimistic that with a bit more practice these can be easily sorted.

Watch this space!!

Kiros continues to run so well for a 10 year old Shepherd.

I'm picking and choosing the courses that he runs now which sometimes means that he doesn't do much in a day but what he does do he thoroughly enjoys - maybe a bit too much as he has started to get a bit naughty!!

Clear runs have been a bit few and far between as he has been missing contacts, breaking waits and knocking poles.

He did do a lovely clear yesterday in the EO qualifier stopping on all of his contacts to prove he can still do it and he's just being cheeky!!

I'm looking forward to next weekend at we are off the KC International Festival.  Lots of top class Agility to watch.

I just wanted to finish this post by congratulating Pen and Brennan for not staying in Grade 2 very long!!  They won Grade 2 Agility and Jumping at Dog Vegas last weekend so at the next Dog Vegas show at the end of August Brennan and Reno will both be running Grade 3 together.  Yippee!!