Cassie's First Trial

Finally the moment arrived last night with Cassie's very first run in a competition.  I was surprised by how much more nervous I was than normal, mainly because I just didn't know what to expect.  So I'm very glad I only entered novice jumping as I don't think I could have mentally coped with running in the agility class as well!  I felt pretty confident she would stay with me because she's been training so well but you never really know what's going to happen when you get out there.  I needn't have worried though as she was fantastic.  She was with me all the way, totally focused and enjoying herself.  I think it helped that we had a lovely open and fast course where the dogs could just stretch out and have fun.  I had been telling myself that I had to run with her the whole way and be as close to every jump as possible.  Unfortunately when I got in the ring I went into a bit of auto-pilot and reverted to my border collie handling and of course she came off the tunnel entry and a couple of jumps.  I was pretty annoyed with myself but I just kept going though to make sure it was  nothing but fun for her.

So mission accomplished, first one is done.  I learned a lot and have plenty of things to work on.  I wasn't going to trial her again until the States but I've decided to enter her in novice jumping at the Dobe Club trial in two weeks just to get a bit more ring experience under our belts.  I'd prefer not to leave it all to the States and blow our chances by not being prepared enough.  Then hopefully I can get this A-Frame finished off and she'll be right to hit the agility ring too.  Just so much fun, I can't wait to get out there again with her.

   

Sonic was a good boy and went clear in Masters Agility.  He is running so well for me at the moment and is handling like a real pro.  Unfortunately the poor bugger has been sore in his back all week.  He looked OK but would not drive through the weavers so I can only assume that he's still not 100%.  I wish our dogs would listen to us when we tell them to slow down.  I hate to think what his body is going to be like in another couple of years when he takes so little care of himself.  More treatment this week and hopefully I can get him right for the States. 

Getting Fit

A couple of weeks ago when I caught up with one of my long time girlfriends she totally inspired me with both her physical and mental transformation.  She had struggled for many years to return to her pre-child (and twins I might add) bearing sized body of thirteen years ago.  Out of the blue she made a decision that she'd had enough of accepting things as they were, signed up for a twelve week diet and exercise program and has never looked back.  Not only does she look great but she is the most positive I've ever seen her.  Just brilliant.  So I came home and raved to Colin how fabulous she looked and next thing you know we are now doing the same program ourselves.  We both have different goals.  Colin is keen to lose some extra kilos that have crept up and I want to be both fitter and healther.  It's hard work keeping up with a papillon.  It's only week 1 and it is hard work both in doing an hour of exercise every day (especially when your knackered after a long day at work) but also completely changing our eating habits.  But we are both determined and of course there to support each other.  We've both already started losing weight.  It's amazing what can happen when you eliminate crap from your diet and stick to calorie limits!

I'm more than anything looking forward to be fitter.  It's going to be of great benefit when I travel to Spain to compete at the World Agility Open this year and of course my main goal in all this will be to keep up with Cassie.  It's only one week until Cassie's first trial.  I've been very much up and down about whether to run her or not.  I have no doubt that she will easily manage a novice jumping course but getting her focused is a bit of a work of art.  I'm getting much better at understanding what I need to do to have her in the zone but given the pressure of having to have her spot on mentally ready at the point in which we walk up to the start line is going to be challenging.  At least at training if I don't think she's ready I can spend another couple of minutes getting there.  We won't have that luxury at a trial.  But you know, sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind and just have a go.  If it's a disaster then we'll keep working on it. 

Cassie started her A-frame training a couple of weeks ago after I took delivery of our magnificent brand new A-frame courtesy of Brian Cowling.  Cassie approves and is loving it.  With her already solid understanding of the mat she has picked it up very quickly.  I'm expecting to get her up to full height by the end of this week.  My biggest aim with Cassie is to have her ready for the State Trial in April.  I think we'll be OK.  Again, it's really about her focus with her understanding of the equipment pretty good at this stage.  It is hugely exciting.  She's such a talented little dog and just so much fun.  I feel so lucky that she's come into my life and brough with her a new level of excitment for my favourite sport.

Tribute to Murphy

How do you say goodbye to your best mate?  There are no words I can find that explain the feeling.  Questioning yourself constantly but knowing that it's the right decision.  Dreading it till the very last moment.  Knowing that you can't take it back once it's done.  Once the tears abait realising that you have given the gift of peace and that no more pain will be suffered.  It has to be enough.

I picked Murphy out when he was three days old.  He had a "thumb print" on his head just like his mother.  It seemed to me a good sign.  I had my heart set on a chocolate and white border collie so when an ad appeared in the newspaper for a choc and white litter to be born it seemed that it was meant to be.  I had not always been a border collie person.  When I was younger my favourite breed was the German Shepherd.  But somewhere along the way I decided I wanted to do obedience and agility and I knew that a border collie would be the perfect partner.

He was for the most part a gentle soul.  He was my shadow from the very beginning and would never have left my side if he'd had a choice.  For a big softy he had quite a tough side and was extremely protective of those that he loved.  Over fifteen years of wonderful memories that I'll never forget. 

I'll miss you so much my big man.  Gone to join his best friend Soda at the rainbow bridge.

Summer Training

So finally here we have it, another video of the gorgeous wee Cassie. I certainly think we are getting there. Her confidence on the equipment is growing and some final tweaking like weaver entries at speed will need to be done before she goes in the ring. But otherwise I'm pretty happy with where she's at now she's reached 18 months of age.

 

Getting my green thumb on

I've been feeling a bit nostalgic this weekend after spending most of it working in the garden so I decided to look back at some old photo's of my agility areas humble beginnings. 

When I first started my agility area it looked like this;

October 2010

Today it looks like this;


January 2013

Did I mention that ALL of it has been painstakingly hand planted by me!  At this point in time I recon it's about two thirds done.  So if the weather is kind over the next month and I can get the rest of it weeded, then get some more runners in the ground, by next summer I should have the whole area to play agility on!  It's definitely been my saviour with Cassie.  I don't know how I would have gotten her running dog walk trained without it (and of course my speccy dog walk).

I haven't really done that much dog training since the end of last year.  Mostly because of our usual summer heat which makes it impossible to get more than five minutes of training done before your lathered in sweat.  I decided over Christmas and New Year that we would all have a break (puppies included) and of course then we went to New Zealand for a couple of weeks to go to Kriszty's wedding and have a bit of a holiday while we were there.

New Zealand is a great place.  If I didn't want to live in Perth anymore I could easily live there.  Huge open spaces everywhere, so green and picturesque.  Did I mention they don't have snakes!  I think we'd only been there a day when we drove past a lady walking her border collie's out in hills.  We did all the touristy stuff.  I think Queenstown was my favourite place.  Even though it was busy and full of tourists like ourselves it had a real atmosphere and vibe to it.  And no I didn't go bungee jumping...  I did however go white water rafting and loved it.  We had massive rapids thanks to the huge amount of rain they'd had.  I only fell out once and it was very dignified.  Just don't ask the german girl sitting behind me who I appeared to have kicked in the head on my way overboard....oops!

On the way down (I'm camera side second from the back) in my oversized life jacket.

Yes that would be me doing the splits....what a wonderful moment to be caught on film!

However all good things must come to an end and I'm back at work and back to full training with the dogs.  Cassie is going well and if we can overcome her over arousal issues we'll be hitting the ring hopefully sooner rather than later.  My plan is to enter her in Novice Jumping at the Classic which is on at the beginning of March but I will run her only if I'm satisfied that her running off has resolved and I can run her through sequences without it happening at training.  Then if her jumping run is  successful I will look at entering her in agility as well.  I just want to walk up to that start line 100% confident that she's going to stay with me and it's not going to be too much for her to handle.  It will certainly be very exciting if it comes off!

Little Fizz is going well.  She's in the middle of her first season.  Riot her father has had to go on "holiday" for the next couple of weeks as he can't handle having a girl in season at home.  Boy brain doesn't even begin to describe it.  For all our sanity it was best that he's not here until it's over.  She won't leave poor Sonic alone and of course he's quite bambozzled as to what's going on...  I'm not doing much with her agility wise other than having a lot of fun getting her to chase me and just learn to play.  She's not hugely confident so I don't want to put any pressure on her at all.  I doubt we'll do anything much equipment wise for quite some time to come.  Which is really good considering how much work I have to do with Cassie yet!  Hopefully I should have some video coming very soon....


 

Moving Forward

After a couple of very emotional weeks and saying goodbye to Soda it's been nice to immerse myself back into training with Cassie and Fizz.  Cassie is now just over 17 months of age and it's hard to believe that she is old enough to trial in less than a month.  I had her measured a couple of weeks ago and she is a strapping 26.5cms so into the 200 height she goes.  There is a part of me that would have liked to have seen her make 300 given that there are a lot more dogs competing in that height but hopefully we'll get that opportunity at ADAA trials.

Cassie's dog walk is looking pretty good, although when there is a tunnel in front of it she's not quite so careful as to where her last stride might be.  But generally speaking it's consistently nice and fast and there is no doubt that it's one of her favourite obstacles.  She's more than capable of running a novice jumping course now and she is reading my body and handling really well.  While I'm waiting for my new AF to be build I've started working with a half size AF that I have.  She understands how the mat game works and picked it up really quickly so hopefully the full size one won't take long.  We've also worked our way to twelve weavers and have started see-saw training.

Over summer I'll be working on novice sequences and tying all the bits of equipment together.  Of course our biggest issues is still Cassie visiting everyone.  Although we had a few weeks there were it looked like we'd worked through it her disappearing mid sequence has reappeared.  What can I say, there is such massive value for her in other people and dogs and it's going to take me a lot of work to get through it.  I do have a plan.  How long it will take and how successful I may be is yet to be seen but we have to start somewhere.  I have no doubt we will have some ups and downs for a while yet.  I'm probably feeling a little more frustrated than normal given how much natural ability she has.  I did want her first trial to be the Western Classic in March but I'm not optimistic that she'll be ready and if I have even a sceric of doubt that she won't stay in the ring with me then I won't run her.  Failing that I'll aim for the State Agility Trial in April.  I can't wait to trial her as she's going to be a blast but I'm sure that patience will pay off.  And I have to be even more determined than she is!

  

Goodbye Beautiful Girl

Soda came to me quite unexpectedly in October 1997.  I had realised that my then five month old border collie Murphy needed a companion while I was at work which I happened to mention to his breeder.  She offered me a seven month old black and white border collie female that she was looking to re-home.  And so the legend of Miss Soda-Pop was born.

Her superstar beginnings were rather humble.  I joined a local dog club to start obedience classes with Murphy and my then housemate Felicia came along and joined one of the classes with Soda.  Murphy was a bit of a natural and picked it up pretty quickly.  I was enjoying it so much I wanted to get more involved in obedience so I ventured down to Southern River and the Collie and Shetland Sheepdog Club to join in obedience classes.  It was at the Canine Grounds that I started to meet other border collie people that were into obedience and from there I became involved in the wonderful sport of agility.

Our first team win 2001 Western Classic Agility Teams.  The BC Bandits with Helen & Dee, Rod & Bundy.

Again Murphy was the one who I jumped in with, Soda coming along for the ride.  I had no idea what I was doing and was just trying to learn what I could from those who'd been around a lot longer than me. Both of them learnt about the same speed but because it was Murphy who I'd gotten for obedience and agility I always focused on him not realising the untapped potential that was lurking inside Soda.  So I went through and got Murphy's CD title following on with Soda shortly after.  Then it was onto CDX once again getting the title with Murphy and then Soda.  When we got to UD I started training both of them but found that Soda picked up the scent work so much quicker than Murphy.  With the amount of training required for UD I decided to continue with Soda only.  I have limited memories of Soda doing CDX but bountiful ones of UD.  She just loved it.  I can remember her charging off to get the seek back article and throwing it over her head in the excitement and having to look for it again before charging back to me at full speed.  She'd jump the directed jumping jumps with the same gusto as if it was an agility course.  She would heel all day if you asked her to and my biggest issue was her rushing me and trying to get in front.  I can never remember a time when she'd lag behind.

Western Classic 2003 Masters Jumping winner

When I began agility it was Murphy who led the way.  He wasn't super fast but was extremely consistent and very sensible.  Although Soda showed lots of potential as a young dog it wasn't until Soda was about five that her star started to really shine in agility.  It took me that long to get the hang of handling her properly and when that happened things started falling into place and the wins started to come.  She shone brightest in jumping.  Although if it wasn't for my poor training and subsequently her inconsistent contacts I'm sure she would have achieved far more in agility.  As it was she won over 40 Masters Jumping classes over the course of her career.  Not a bad feat for the early 2000's when there were about half the amount of agility events on that there are now.  She won multiple State Titles, Royal Shows, Western Classics and made the WA National Agility State Team twice, in 2004 being the top point scoring in making the team.  We never managed to win a National final but in 2004 in Canberra she never placed lower than fifth in all the clear rounds she completed.  One of my favourite wins was at the State Agility Trial in 2005 where she won the Masters Jumping class beating not only the local dogs but all the eastern stater's that had come over for the Nationals being held the week later.

ANKC National Agility Trial 2003 - Victoria 

I find that I can't help but think her agility success had a lot to do with all the UD training I did with her.  With all the hours we put in together it seemed to change our relationship.  We developed a very deep bond and understanding of each other.  When we were running a course it sometimes felt that she was reading my mind.

Never happier than at the beach!

In 2004 I started to notice some changes in the way she was running agility with me.  We were getting massive over runs and off courses.  At first I thought it was her just not listening and doing her own thing but then after watching videos back it became quite clear that she wasn't ignoring me rather she couldn't hear me.  Basically over that period her hearing seemed to disappear quite quickly and I ended up retiring her when she was nine.  Apart from the fact that her body was starting to show serious signs of wear and tear the slats had come off the dog walk giving me no way to let her know if she was running up a see-saw or a dog walk.  Obviously there was no question I was going to risk her flying off the see-saw and seriously hurting herself so we called it quits.



Soda enjoyed a long and healthy retirement until probably the last year of her life when she slowed right down.  Her arthritis had made walking slow and uncomfortable for her but being the tough individual that she was she never stopped trying.  In the end at the age of fifteen years and nine months of age it was clear that she'd had enough and it was time to let her go.  A decision I'd been dreading for the few months prior.  But as I'd been told by friends who had gone through the same thing, when it was time there was no doubt in my mind that I had to be brave and let her go.  With one last weekend to spend with her I plugged the very dusty VCR in and sat down and watched hours of old agility video footage with Murphy and Soda asleep by my side. It brought such a smile to my face seeing her in her prime, black coat shining in the sun and such joy on her face.  Such joy on my face.  Soda was without a doubt my one in a million.  She was special and I'll never see another like her.  I'll certainly never forget her.  Rest in peace Soda.