Darling Don...

Well it was training at MAD last night and we had the lovely Don Curtis. He specifcally set up excersises including weaves and contacts so me and the Hoaxey monster got a chance to practise them- thanks Don you are a darling!

We started off with some fast sprints round the outside using all three contacts and Hoax was great. She regognised the seesaw and DW without a problem this time (she has been confusing the two) and did them nicely. Her seesaw is already improving, she is stopping about a foot from the end now instead of stopping three foot from the end so is nearly in FP by the time the SS hits the ground. Much better! AF and DW were good although still more speed needed- but then I guess we will always think that!

We also worked a lot of weaves, Hoax finds weaving very tiring at the moment so I dont like her to do too many reps. we did straight line starts into them and also some left handed entries. Her straight entries were lovely, she is really checking stride to get into them (thanks for noticing Yvette) x Her left handed are not so good- but that'd ok, we can work on that.

Overall she was really good, we were both shattered when we got home but happy. I feel fairly ok going into our first show this weekend...

Happier Now!

Well last night I decided to stay at training and work Hoax in Nics group. I love training with Nic, he is picy as hell but always gives you a way to fix it so you feel positive after his training sessions.

Hoaxey was a very good girl tonight (besides doing the 'medium merle belly slide' on the start line) which I had to keep correcting. She is so twitchy on her starts/ waits and I am not sure I will ever change that. I think her start line will be a constant challenge to me.

Her speed was good tonight including contacts. She was very quick accross the ground. I havent worked a small dog before but find she is easier to 'lose' mid course. I always know where Boo is, I can hear him, see him out the corner of my eye and feel him jumping. Hoax is light footed and seems to jump silently, because she is never above knee height it seems much harder to know where she is, unless I am literally watching her. Therefore running ahead and leaving her to jump a fast line is hard for me as I can't really sense what she is doing!

We also have a small issue right now of the mix between speed and tight turns. I have done quite a lot with her getting accelleration out of turns. which is fine until you have two in a row. It means she completes the first turn nicely then puts power on immediately making it near impossible to get another neat turn. I guess this is the downside of a medium collies- they commit so early to a jump (jumping long and quite flat) that a turn has to be well cued. However, after rattling on about this I am not to worried. She is gaining confidence and I would prefer her to be a quick dog rather than a steadier one who watches me all the time.

I found it so intresting watching the Mediums at Crufts this year and comparing Hoaxey to the top dogs. Minx is still probably the fastest dog I have seen. I don't know what she was like at full height but she just skims accross the ground so very fast. She must be scary to work as she just doesn't waste a split second in the air or anywhere else she seems to win if she goes clear regardless of the odd wide turn! I also loved watching Jo Lathams Jinny, she is so elegant when she works and really stretches over jumps, she has the speed again but seems to have some lovely turns when she knows they are coming. Lisas Chi was fantastic at Crufts, I think his weaves are quicker than any medium dog out! He looks like he works so well on that surface and just didnt seem to have trouble with anything! They did make it look easy!!!

The thing all the quick medium collies seem to have in common are they tend to drift quite wide unless the KNOW the turn is coming. I think it is to do with jump trajectory again. The shelties running in medium however don't seem to have that, they jump quite a lot shorter and although are really fast don't seem to have the same issue at the collies. I wonder if it is to do with stride length? (But I have heard that one little medium merle called Dizzy is coming out who has speed AND the turns)!!! I think I will be having the jumping long issue with Hoax. I have always encouraged her to stretch over jumps which she now does, she can bounce a fair few distances and does so on quite a few excersises and courses. Just wondering if you get that with shelties or if they tend to add an extra stride?

Anyway, Hoax did the excersises really nicely bar the odd turn- I think they are fantastic excersises for Novice dogs and hope we keep the same setup next week!

Moaning Mand...

Ok, ok, so I missed Monday this week! Sorry Mand- happy now? LOL

Being self employed is fantastic- it means you get to take time off when you want... being self emplyed is pants as it means when you take the aforementioned time off, you have a TON of work to catch up on aswell! Not only are we keeping up to date with the Embroidery business but have also now begun Printing T Shirts and are adding more private agility lessons onto our diaries! Have a peek at http://www.sew-what-uk.com/ I think they are wicked!

Crufts! I LOVED it! Alright, so I have done Crufts before but the surface this year felt fantastic and the crowds and competitors were as great as ever! At first glance, the course looked awful on paper- horrid angles and all sorts of traps- aaargh! Upon walking it it had a much better flow and I was quite looking forward to it. My biggest concern was 2-5 as I ALWAYS lose Boo on these things as he tends to drift wide and not watch me- he didn't he was perfect! Ok so he didnt stop on his contacts quite how I planned but he really did run well- you can see in the vid he glances at me after the bottom of each contact, thats coz I thought he'd stop and as he hadnt was standing still and saying nothing!!! The standard in the teams was so high this year that nothing other than four clears was really enough to get through. We had 5 as a team so didnt quite make it but the dogs and handlers were great- well done guys! All in all Boo had a great day. He loves Crufts, Olympia etc so he came home grinning!

Sunday we did a training session with Stuart Carter. I worked Hoax and although was pleased with her, it doesnt feel we are making the progression that I had hoped for. We seem to have stopped improving for a bit now. Oh well- hopefully it will get better again.

This week I am not training Boo at all as I want to concentrate on Hoaxey. She is supposed to have her first show at Chippenham on Sunday so am hoping to work her at our club on Wednesday then at MAD on Thursday. Maybe I will get some confidence back.

Anyway- enjoy the vids etc! There are more on http://uk.youtube.com/user/gemmahanekom

Crufts

Well Boo-man has Crufts this Thursday. He has qualified for Teams! We have Stu & Storm, Mum and Tyke and Sue and Sassy also as part of the team.

My friends Heather and Michelle are travelling with me and grooming for the day. Then Friday we are going up as a group of five girlies just to natter, shop and watch! I am really looking forward to my Crufts days as I have been working very hard lately and looking forward to a day just enjoying and induging.

Thursday should be good aswell. Boo adores being taken out for the day and he LOVES mad places like Crufts. I know he will be a good boy and a happy lad when he is there. We have been working hard on consistency lately so I have quite a bit of confidence heading towards the day in the knowledge that if anything goes wrong at least we have done our prep :)

I have my bag, passes and camera ready to take. All that is left is to clean the van out on Wednesday and fill up with fuel etc. Give Boo his bath and groom (leaving his nails loooong) and put his crate, leads etc in, ready for 5.30 set off! Ouch!

Oo forgot to say- we as Sew What have sponsored our clothing so we all have wicked polos to wear :)

Monday Posting

Ok, so I don't know why I always end up just posting on Mondays but there you go!


Had a good week and weekend.


Thursday Hoax had Agility at MAD we did a short agility course which I really enjoyed running. It was big and fast and Hoax really flew round, including nailing some nice independant contacts. I was very pleased with her this evening- although our turns seem to have been sacrificed for speed right now!

Martyn also dropped Eddy off Thurs night as we are dogsitting him whilst Becky has her babies!

Friday Becky had the twins by C-Section. Mum and babies are doing well and Martyn is now Dad to two little girls, Mia and Niamh (Neeve). Both babies are around 7lbs- how on earth did Becky do it!?!

Saturday: myself, Heather and Sophie had a lesson with my mum. We began with some jumping sections which Hoax did very nicely, she felt a bit steadier today which allowed me to get much neater turns. We then went onto weave excersises, I have posted some of these below. I was really pleased with Hoaxeys entries- she got them nicely and without me intefering. She still doesnt like me getting ahead too much though so this is something I must work on. She got really tired at the end and started to get distracted- it's annoying when that happens as I wished I had ended the session 10 mins earlier whilst I was still happy. In the end- the final excersise went pretty badly- but she was tired and there was no point in pushing her so we quit then- it felt we ended on a downer :(


Sunday was obviously Mothers day, so we went over to Walton On Thames and took Mum and Stu out to dinner. My brother came too and we went to a GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen) they do the BEST and BIGGEST burgers there! Afterwards we went back to Mums and had a play with Kandi- Stus new pup. She is so fantastic- full of play and no fear at all, def my kinda pup- Oh and shes cute too!