Trying thursday

Thursdays exercise was quite a difficult one. I worked some sequences with Brandi and then ran the full course.

We managed to get through and I think it was quite a nice round, although I had to RUN and was finished after 1 round

This is the course we ran

And here is the video of Brandi's round

My sweet girl...Roxy

Yes Roxy is in training, I have taken it very slow, perhaps because I didnt start off correctly with her. She comes along to the training sessions and I have been jumping her on the more simple exercises. We have started weave pole training and almost on six straight. She has a great attitude for jumping and she absolutely loves it....but what she also loves is telling me to hang on while she quickly goes to greet someone standing nearby. This is my social butterfly and she loves everyone, so it gets frustrating at times when she runs off to say "hi". We will work on that a bit more and but has improved alot, even bringing the toy back to me has improved so I am confident we will get there.

For now we will keep at our training and hopefully be able to enter some dog jumping rounds next year, SO watch this space......

Here is Roxy's video of a round from training last week

Tricky tuesday

Well lets just say Tuesday was difficult and at times frustrating... I eventually sort of got it right, but not nearly as well as I would have liked, so we will need to work on these moves some more

This was the exercise

Here is Brandi's attempts at the exercise

Here is Rush' video



Winning EP champs 2012

So the night before EP champs it poured, I lay awake wondering what the day had in store for us, ok I will admit I lay awake and I was a bundle of nerves. By the time I got up there was blue sky and the sun was peeping through....I knew it was going to be a good day.

I bundled the dogs into the car and headed of to art in the park where the EP champs was being held.

Brandi ran like the wind in our first round, her weaves were good and we ended round 1 with the fastest clear. She had 1 hair raising point where she went a bit wide at the 3rd last jump and I was hoping to be able to pull her through 2 jumps and that she wouldnt decide just to take the wrong one. I was ecstatic as I knew that we were now in the final and had a shot at the title.

Walking the jump off course, myself and I think a few others were "shocked" at the weaves being in. We are just not used to weaves being in a jump off, and then we had to do them twice!! Brandi's weaves are good but the last couple of shows she has been breaking down in the weaves so I knew that I had to keep my head together and work like we know we can. I walked the course with a front cross before the weaves, I knew that if I didnt cross in the right place she would knock, but took the chance. She didnt knock and flew into poles. Coming out of the tunnel for the weaves a 2nd time I walked it on both sides, but felt more comfortable being on her right but that meant I would need to cross after the weaves. She came out the tunnel, I connected with her and bam she nailed the entry. A few jumps and we made it, clear. We were the 2nd last to jump so we had to wait for the last dog to jump to hear who had won. So far we were in the lead.

We won EP champs 2012, I couldnt have been happier. I was SO proud of how Brandi ran, she ran her little heart out against good competition.

Here are her 2 rounds.

Thanks Nadine Shortland for the video

Brandi and I after winning EP Dog Jumping Champs 2012

Thanks Kayleigh Heideman for the photo

Here are the 2 courses we ran

Thumping Thursday

Last night we set up an exercise, the 1st one of our new series.

Brandi had some lovely runs but some with wide turns, I managed to get 2 of these on film, I then worked a few of the sequences where we had wide turns and tried different crosses

Here is Brandi's 2 rounds

I then ran Rush on the exercise and I was happy with how he worked. We also had wide turns out of the tunnel and then also worked on a few pieces where we struggled a bit. We then tried 12 poles as he has been doing well on the 6+6.....he nailed them....so chuffed.

Here is Rush's rounds and his first attempts at 12 poles



Collections and extensions

Last night we set up an exercise which concentrated on collection and extension. The first exercise we worked on a height of 550mm and as the youngsters did so well we changed the height to 650mm...they all managed that too....very happy!

Afterwards we set up and exercise and ran this with 2 different routes

Here is Rush's video with both exercises, and a little trick at the end :)

Weaving and turns

Our evening weather has just been so awsum lately that it gives us plenty of time after work to head out and just train!

Last night we set up weaves, still on 6+6 and wow was I impressed with Rush's weaves. We had a terrible set back some time ago when we started on 6 and basically had to go back to the start. However that was only for 1 day and Rush was then doing well. Tonight we did have a missed entry and then we also had a super entry, all in all very happy with his progress

Here is a clip of his weaves from last night

We also set up some jumps and worked on turns and driving out of turns

Here is a video of Brandi and Rush jumping exercises