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.

Coming to the end of an era

We had very sad news today in the WA agility community with Kriszty's Jess passing away. Jess was a one in a million and will no doubt leave a massive hole in Kriszty's life. I've had the privilege of getting to know Jess pretty well over the years with Kriszty and I becoming great friends after travelling and competing together for quite some time. There are many wonderful memories for me with Jess and my own beautiful Soda going head to head in the agility ring especially through 2003 to 2005. We also competed side by side in our agility team "The Masters & the Apprentices" with countless wins over the years.

Agility has changed in Perth, especially in the last five years or so with our top group of dogs these days being more often than not, hand picked as puppies for their potential to be good agility dogs. They are then trained from puppies with a serious attention to detail and lots of help from attending agility seminars, agility literature, the internet and DVD's that we consume. I first started teaching myself and my dogs agility in 1998 and everyone that I met got involved in agility the same way. We wanted to provide our pet dogs with some extra stimulation and have some fun with them at the same time. Over those years I witnessed some really special dogs including Rod's Bundy, Tracey's Jake, Sam's Kal, Megan's Jestah, Ash's Bailey, Mel's Max, Frank's Harley, Richard's Della and of course Kriszty and Jess, just to name a few. All great pet dogs who shone in agility. Sadly we are coming to the end of an era as not many of these dogs are alive now. There is a part of me that really misses those days especially as I watch Murphy and Soda get older and more fragile.

Jess's health hadn't been good for a while and Kriszty knew that her days with Jess were probably nearing their end, but it still doesn't make the sense of sadness and loss any less. I think WA agility is shining a little less brightly tonight with her gone. Below is a tribute I put together after Jess competed in her last Royal Show last year. I think now is a good time to watch it again and remember what a wonderful dog she truly was. RIP Jess.