Happy Birthday Kiros

Kiros celebrated his 11th Birthday on Sunday by doing his favorite thing in all the world..............Agility:-)

It was Agility Nuts this weekend and he ran amazingly in every class, only missing clears in two classes due to my poor handling.

His final haul was three 1st's, three 2nd's and a 4th in pairs with Kizzy.

Typically if Kiros goes clear in Veterans at Nuts he wins the class so I think he is beginning to slow a little. 

For the first time I have been able to make a direct comparison between his and Reno's time as they both went clear in the Up and Under Jumping with the same course - Reno was 2.25secs faster getting 2nd place in Elementary!  Having said that there were 6 tunnels on the course that Kiros finds harder now he's getting older.

At the moment I'm really hoping that I will be able to enjoy more of his Birthday's with Kiros. 

He's been to the Vet's to have a lump in his stomach investigated and it has turned out to be a Mast Cell Tumour.  The lump is being removed and analysed on Thursday but the Vet seems pretty confident that it isn't attached and that she can take a good margin from around it.  That doesn't stop me worrying :-(

Ann and I shared a day's Judging on Sunday so, although I didn't Judge all of these classes, here are the courses I designed:-

Elementary Speed and Power

Starters + Speed and Power

Veteran Speed and Power



Reno ran the Speed bit of the Elementary course beautifully (I think recording the fastest time) but wouldn't even try the weaves in the Power section, even though I held his collar and took him right up to them, preferring to go back into the tunnel and getting himself eliminated.

Running him was exceptionally frustrating at the weekend!

The bits of courses I though he could do I either miss handled or he decided to take his own line and his weaves have got worse with him ignoring and running past them again.

I think that he is going to leave me with no option but to stop competing with him all together.  Very annoying as I have entered a few shows in August when I was optimistic that the additional work we'd been putting in was paying off!!

Remembering that I had a problem with Kiros's weaves when he was young I decided to look back at past video's of him only to find out that his problem wasn't as bad as I remembered.  At Reno's age Kiros as reliable getting independent entries (mainly on straight lines) and had a great rhythm.  He was taught by pull/pushing him through up-rights!! 

I think the main difference is that Kiros LOVES weaving - Why doesn't Reno?  Maybe by shaping him I've allowed him to go wrong too many times?

Jo set up a long straight line last night to see what the problem was - Jump, Jump, Straight Tunnel, Jump, 12 Weaves.  Reno would do weaves on their own and Jump, weaves but when we tried from the Tunnel he started running ignoring them no matter where I stood.

He's obviously not slowing enough to go into them, but why not?  Does he not know how to or does he just not want to do them?

No competition book for this weekend so (hopefully) plenty of time for practice!!!