Reasons to like computer games!

How do you entertain overseas family members who come to stay? Send them out to weed your new agility training area…

In actual fact I would never dream of asking my sister in law to spend her holiday weeding. My brother and his teenage sons incessant use of his X-Box drove her to it! Like me Lisa finds the mind numbing effects of computer games less than entertaining. The stupid thing drove me nuts too but I would have spent time weeding in preparation for grass planting whether an X-Box was involved or not. It was very fortuitous though as we ended up weeding a space that was more than twice the size of what I had already managed to do prior to their arrival. She was like a human weeding machine!



With the addition of reticulation courtesy of Colin and his magic box of plastic bits my agility area is starting to become a reality. Grass runner planting has commenced and every day after work I’m adding a bit more. We have an area at the back of our garden that is full of overgrown grass runners so I’m just pulling them up and transplanting. It takes time but it will save heaps of money. I did the same thing for the dog pen and that now has the most magnificent area of grass you could ever hope to see. It helps that we don’t have dogs in there yet, but every time I look at it I still feel proud that I contributed to its creation.



Since I last blogged Sonic and I have done another couple of trials. One of which was the games classes at the Royal Show. To make a change from the first weekend at the Royal Sonic and I were actually successful, as opposed to lots of near misses. We ended up winning the Excellent Snooker class and placed third in Excellent Gamblers, just 2 points away from first place. It was a good day, Sonic was focused and I handled him well which equalled great team work and success.

Last weekend saw the GSDA Western Challenge Agility Trial. I have good memories of this event as Soda won the Masters Jumping class (her specialty event) a couple of times back in her hey day. The special thing about this trial is that you get really beautiful jarrah wood trophies. It is rare these days to get any trophy at all let alone one that is made of proper wood and not cheap plastic! Back then it used to be run on the main arena at the Canine to give it an even greater sense of occasion.

Both the masters courses required lots of control with off course choices for dogs everywhere and plenty of tight turns required. All in all I thought Sonic and I made a pretty good job of both of them. In agility I shoulder pulled to bring Sonic inside the next jump in preparation for a rear cross. Unfortunately I pulled too hard and he interpreted it as a turn and then went back up the dog walk instead of ahead of me to the jump. The rest of the course was clear. In jumping I turned early for a tight front cross and Sonic quite rightly came off the jump completely. I’m happy that I tried to change my timing as it’s clear that I need to, I’m just going to have to accept that I may pull him off jumps from time to time if I get it wrong. I’d still rather that than being late all the time like I have been. After that happened he completely blew me off when I did a pull through and ended up heading into the wrong tunnel entry so I’m going to say that we both screwed up… The positives from the run was that he was turning brilliantly tight yet still driving out of the turns.

The Good the Bad and the Extremely Ugly

Last weekend saw the whirlwind that is the Perth Royal Show descend with the usual series of "if only's" muttered after most classes that I ran with Sonic. I'm the first to admit that there is a lot to be happy about with his performances in general but still feel frustration when he blows me off on course. I absolutely have to take some of the blame. My inability to execute a front cross even remotely close to when I should be still eludes me. I will no doubt continue to suffer the consequences of Sonic doing off courses until I am blessed with far improved timing.

Sonic's speed is still climbing. Out of 18 qualifiers in the Masters Jumping class he came fourth which was even more impressive given that my handling wasn't anything to be smiling about and I got in his way more than once. He ran a fantastic Masters Agility course and if I hadn't gotten out of position over the end sequence of jumps I'm sure he would have gone clear. As it was I got behind him and then it turned into a big fat mess. I was pretty disappointed with that one after spending the first two thirds of the course demonstrating his wonderful independant contacts and some great focus.

I do seriously need to sort out my late front cross timing. What I'm doing is not working and even though I plan to move early it's not happening the way I want it to. I'm going to have to focus on rotating at least a stride further out than what I am now. Maybe that will minimise the lag time between my brain thinking "move" and my body actually doing it! It also has a lot to do with my paranoia of turning early and dumbing them down. The other weirdo thing that I need to work on with Sonic is the table. We blew Open Agility with him walking around the back of it again before he'd get on it. I've been racking my brain trying to figure out why his table performance has suddenly changed but I'm none the wiser at this stage. I spent a little time working on it after he ran around the table at the Gosnells trial but he still did it at the Royal. Luckily we rarely see the table in Masters but I don't want the times that I do to be a problem.



Some good news on my agility training area at home. We have planted our first grass runners and put in the first bits of reticulation to get it going. It's not a big area yet, it only gives me enough space for a set of weavers, an A-Frame or a couple of jumps, but it's a start and hopefully we'll keep chipping away until it's finished.

Over Enthusiasm?

Just when I thought that Sonic's broken start lines were under control out emerges Mr Over Enthusiastic... Sonic really loves his agility now. His speed is going from strength to strength along with his growing confidence. Unfortunately joy for Sonic is appearing in the form of a lot of silly barking and any semblence of a start line stay floats away over the horizon never to be recovered. I think I was lulled into a false sense of "Sonic has really settled into his agility now" after having a few trials where he really didn't put a foot wrong and I thought I only had to deal with my inept handling. But apparently not. Dodgy handling is irrelevant if I can't actually get Sonic over the first jump because he's carrying on like a nut job! My withdrawing him because he wouldn't sit and stay at the start line was met with "good decision Karen" from ring side. I obviously wasn't the only one who thought my youngster needed to realise that acting like a nut job means NO agility for Sonic. And trying to tug on your leash as you are walked back to the car after being withdrawn in disgrace from the class for acting like a clown will definitely not work. Not quite sure how he's going to handle the Royal Show this year where the excitment level is doubled with big crowds and much smaller agility ring.

If he was perfect all the time I guess it would be boring...

Great dog - very average handler

OK, its back to Sonic and agility now after boring everyone stupid with pictures of pretty flowers from my garden!

Sonic and I headed up for the Geraldton agility trials last weekend and had a really enjoyable time. We ran some very nice courses courtesy of Clive Makepeace and Jill Houston. We ended up with Q's and wins in Masters Agility, Open Agility and Novice Snooker. I actually thought all Sonic's runs were very solid. The only thing that prevented wins and Q's in Masters Jumping was yours truly with poor handling/bad timing. The things that young Sonic has to put up with... Sometimes you got it, sometimes you don't.

Today was a Dogs West Fundraiser. There was lots of sunshine out there but geez the wind was cold. The type that goes straight through you and your clothing. I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to run Sonic today. Yesterday afternoon I was about to give him a furry foot trim and noticed that one of his dew claws had split and half the nail was sticking out sideways. No doubt he'd done it during the day while doing his best impression of a dickhead charging about out the backyard, crushing my native plants. There was no way I could cut off the broken bit as it was right in the quick so I expected he would be visiting the vet today rather than agility trialling. But while we were out at dinner last night he must have knocked it off because the nail was gone by the time we got home. He appeared totally nonplussed about it so trialling we went.

First up was Masters Agility and I was all set and ready to go. While watching the dogs before me I had a sudden panic when I realised that during course walking I had somehow missed that there was a pull through between jumps 16 and 17. Not normally a big deal, Sonic knows pull throughs, but it was at one of the most critical points of the course and if you were in the wrong place you were fairly likely to put your dog back up the dog walk instead of into the tunnel. When I went up to the line I had no plan other than to just go with where Sonic landed after the pull through. As it happened we got through it. It was very messy and luck most definately played a hand but I'm not complaining! Even after stuffing around he still powered on and I want to make special mention of his dog walk too. He was miles ahead of me and just drove down into two on two off. Not quite as fast as when I'm in front but being consistent is really starting to pay off. The extra exciting thing is though that he ending up winning Masters Agility today which is the now the second week in a row. Not bad for a little fella who still has massive room for improvement.

Our big tragedy for the day was Masters Jumping. He ran an absolute cracker. It was fast and powerful but his mega stupid dodgy handler left him unsupported to go off and do a front cross and surprise, surprise he pulled off the jump *sigh*. Oh what a dork I am! He even did the most superb tight turn from a 180 after a jump. I guess Sonic will just have to hope that next week I pull my socks up or he may just give me the sack!

Spring is on its way

While most of the Perth agility community headed down to Bunbury for an agility trial, I was at home doing housey things. Not because I didn't want to do the agility trial I just love being here and it doesn't happen very often.

When I was outside in the garden I noticed for the first time this year that all our native trees have started flowering. They are all probably very confused with the endless sunny winter days and no rain. I will not pretend to be even remotely green thumbed. At my house plants tend to either survive of their own good fortune, get trambled by dogs and die or just die anyway. I have noted that native plants are impresively resiliant. I have no idea what 99% of the plants are called but they all looked so amazing with the different colours and types that I went inside and got my camera out to take some photos.


Bottle brush...? Who cares, look at that awesome bee that I managed to get in the shot!


Pretty purple flower


Pretty pink spikey type flowers


Protea (?)


Bottle brush (maybe the first one wasn't a bottle brush) otherwise known as pretty yellow and red flower


A couple of black and white fluffy flowers otherwise known as border collies


and pink/red flowers to finish off!

I love this place.

Happy Birthday Sonic!

What goes squawk, squawk, thump, squawk, squawk, thump?



A tree full of Barnaby's Black Cockatoo's having an afternoon feast perched in a banksia tree. If it wasn't for the amount of noise they made I could easily have thought it had started raining banskia cones. I definitely wouldn't recommend standing under one of the trees while they were up there without wearing some type of head protection.



Squawk, squawk...



stand clear.....thump!



Can you believe that my Little Man turned three years old today? I keep telling him he's a grown up now but I don't think he wants to grow up cause he's having so much fun being the baby of the house!

Happy birthday Sonic!

Finding some form

I think I'm starting to get my enthusiasm back for agility training now. There was even one week when I went to training both nights! It has been really nice having a break. Work has just been so full on that taking the dogs for a run around the property instead of having to rush around to get out the door and off to training has been much better for me. I'm sure the break has been pretty good for Sonic but I have noticed a couple of little holes that have appeared at trials that need a bit of extra work. Particularly after I let him run through his dog walk contact at the Cloverdale trial he seemed to think that he didn't have to stop on them anymore. But we seem to have sorted that out again now.

Saturday Perth Training and Obedience Dog Club hosted a single trial. I started the day with a fantastic clear round in Masters Agility courtesy of Lexi. She had a really strong run including her "skying" the A-Frame which seems to have become her signature agility move. I have never made any attempt to train her flying over the A-Frame but for some reason no matter what speed she's going she just loves launching herself over the top. Sonic didn't do very well in the Masters Agility class. We had come straight from the Open Jumping class with a fairly nice run and I only had one dog to run before I had to do Masters. Even though I'd been tugging with him and playing some focus games he was completely unfocused when we got into the ring and his run was full of mistakes. It's not the first time I've found him to be really bad when we've had to go straight from one ring to another. I really don't know why and nothing I've tried seems to make any difference. Thankfully I can normally avoid having to do it and get to give him a break in the car between classes.

Sonic did however have one shining moment to finish the day in Masters Jumping with a really good run. He powered around most of the course and read my body beautifully. There were still a couple of spots where I would like to see him drive out a little harder but he is improving every week which is fantastic. He came in at second place behind one of our fastest dogs Diva. I'm thrilled with the way that he's handling courses at the moment. He is reading my body so well at the moment and I think it's all part of his confidence that the speed is slowly coming. Its so much fun running him when he's like that.