Edge Update and States Winner :-)

Thought it was about time to have an update on Edge :-D or Mr Zee.... or just Zee, which is what he gets called more often than Edge.....
To tell the truth I probably shouldn't have named him before I got him, which is what happened. Because Cray-Zee suits him soooooooooooooooo much better :-P
He's 8.5mths old and he's gone from a chunky little puppy to a long legged, crazy running machine. I just LOVE his personality, he makes me laugh at least several times a day with his goofy antics and yet all the while he thinks he's the COOLEST dude around LOL. He's fitted into our house as though he's always belonged, so I feel really lucky and grateful that all my dogs get along and love hanging out with each other. He and Liryk are the BEST of friends and will spend most of the day fooling around and doing bog laps in the backyard.
I've started his running contact training :-D It's sooooooooooo much fun! I had a momentary thought of whether I'd do it all again, but truth be told even the grey haired moments are worth the adrenaline rush at the end :-) And second time around thankfully seems to be going alot smoother.
We've almost finished our puppy class with Silvia Trkman. It's been SUCH fun! And he's probably the most "aware" of his body out of all my dogs. Would definitely recommend it to anyone whether it's with a puppy or an older dog.
I've put together a video of where we are at so far in our training and just couldn't help myself with the choice of music as it's Edge's personality down to a tee :-P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QX8KHSXnVZU&feature=g-upl&context=G28f9816AUAAAAAAAAAA

Last weekend we had the State Agility/Jumping Trial and I couldn't be happier with Liryk. She and I are running so well together as a team that I almost don't want to jet off to Belgium in two weeks, just incase I some how lose that insinc feeling with her in the time that I'm away. She won both heats in Novice Agility and Excellent Jumping to get her into the finals. Novice Agility had a pretty tricky weaver entry and unfortunately she missed it, but I couldn't have been happier with her run overall. Her contacts were great and she was flying. The Excellent Jumping Final.... I'm.... well... speechless. She was a wee superstar and WON!

Liryk's Finals run......

2 Years Old :-)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIRYK!!!!
I can't believe she's two already....... where has the time gone???
From cutesy wee puppy, to awesomest dog EVA (well obviously in my opinion LOL)

She's SUCH a blast to train and run! I'm soooooo lucky that Liryk is one of those dogs that gives 200% everytime you go out there and the adrenaline rush from running her just makes me want to run her more!!

This year is going to be a big year travel wise for the two of us, we're off to the Nationals in June and then I also want to take her to the ADAA Grand Prix :-D Awffy excited!!!!!

THANKYOU Sam and Richard for letting me have the BESTEST DOG EVER!!! And of course she wouldn't be here without the sneaky antics of her father Jake :-) THANKS JAKE!!!! :-P

Are We Really Looking Out For Our Dogs?

Really ??? Are we???
I know it seems like a strange title but after Saturday night I left a trial feeling completely awful that I put my dog in a position that became extremely dangerous for her. And I'm soooooooo thankful that she didn't break anything and will hopefully not have any lasting fears, other than some bruising.

Any equipment has the potential to be dangerous, but I think contacts due to their height as well as the width of the dogwalk are particularly so. I won't mention adding a bit of rain but I'm sure you can imagine it doesn't get any safer.  We as competitors, as well as the judges who design the courses really need to look at the approaches to these obsticles. I'd like to make it clear that I DO NOT want a smaller / wider dogwalk, nor do I want to be expected to slow my dog down, what I'd like is consideration taken to the dogs path and how it will approach these obsticles.

Liryk is quick, she can do an ANKC or ADAA dogwalk anywhere between 1.2 and 1.4 seconds. Her ability to do an obsticle at this speed still blows my mind, but to expect her to hang onto something that is barely the width of a ruler from an angled approach is just scary. Yes I should have straightened her up, but things happen in a blink of an eye and to put that possible risk into the scenario, is just asking for an accident to happen. And one that I will be EXTREMELY careful NOT to do to my dog again.

I didn't see her fall, but the thud that I heard and the rush of people into the ring, let alone the horrified look on her poor little face still upsets me when I think about it. Thankyou to everyone who asked or came to see if she was okay, but most of all thankyou to Jules who came and calmed me down and walked Liryk out, so glad you were there buddy! And to Dr Deb Nook who made sure she was okay.

Our dogs trust us, I think it's only fair that we look out for them and keep them safe.

It's Over Already!

So a month off seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye :-( I still feel like I've accomplished things though with all the kids, but mostly the baby dogs, Liryk and Edge, who I felt kind of needed more "skills" under their belt. Well obviously Edge as he's only a puppy still, but with Liryk even though she's done no contacts or jumps, we still worked on "body cues" she will see on courses and the beginnings of blind cross training.


Edge is now 6mths and has grown taller, longer and stronger. His body awareness skills have become much better thanks to Silvia Trkmans puppy class, and we are lucky enough to be continuing into the next class thanks to the generosity of Silvia, as he fell behind quite a bit when he had to have his surgery at the end of Dec. I REALLY, REALLY like this puppy, ALOT! I LOVE his attitude, and enthusiasm for learning. He's all cute and cuddly, but will turn into a crazed beast the minute you start to wind him up :-D He's just FUN! And I'm having a ball with him!!


This weekend we had Daisy Peel come and present a seminar. The nights were LOTS of fun! I was a little worried that Liryk, being in the advanced class, may not have had the skills to be able to deal with some of the sequences, but OMG I honestly have to say, I was REALLY stunned and SUPER pleased that Liryk dealt with each sequence better than I could have hoped! On the first night I learnt I have a tendency to flap my arms around a smidge to much! And I need to focus more on what my shoulders and my legs are doing. And the result was amazing :-) Now to just make a habit of it!!

 I was also able to do a private lesson on Liryk's running contacts and got some ideas of how to use her obsticle focus to help with handling her on turns and teaching her that just because there is a jump in front, I may just be calling her off it :-)

Speaking of running contacts..... I've signed up to Dawn Weavers running contacts course. Just to get a different spin on things I guess. Turns are H A R D! And if there's someway to make the learning of them easier for the dog to understand, then I'm all for it :-) Liryk doesn't seem to get that she can complete the dogwalk AND turn on the flat and thats obviously a flaw in my initial training. So I'm going to try something different, because what I'm currently doing just isn't really working for her. I also wanted to make sure I have as much information available to me before I start Edge's contact training. That was one of my mistakes when I started with Liryk.... I pretty much went in blind. And I have to say I REALLY like the turns that Dawn gets with her dogs! You can check them out at www.dawnweaveragility.com and click on the running contacts tuition link.

Well the R & R is over and it's only another 2.5wks before the next trial. I'm excited but I must confess I kind of liked blobbing in front of the couch the last month in the evenings, rather than chopping up treats and organising dogs into the car before shooting out to training. Oh well the 2012 year of trialing will be a load of fun I'm sure and once I get back into the swing of it, I'll wonder how I took 4 weeks off!!

Time For Some R & R

For the last few weeks I've been winding down my training with the girls. I entered them in the ADAA trial on Sat (pretty much because I LOVE the courses!!) but now it's over they're going to have a good looong break!

My plan had been to give them a good 6wks off, no training just swimming and fooling around at the park and teaching them some more tricks. But I forgot about having booked a private lesson with Daisy Peel on running contacts at the beginning of Feb! DOH! So it's only 4 weeks off for Liryk......... well that was until her performance at the ADAA trial. Oh My Lord!!!!! I don't know if it was the full moon but she was MENTAL!

AND popped out at number 10 weave pole on nearly EVERY single run!!! And to top it off Epic decided that if number 10 was good enough for her sister then it was definitely good enough for her :-/ So we missed out on a couple of Q's with both girls, due to the new found "weaver" issue :-(  And by the end of the night I had the issue then, with NOT trusting my dogs to do their weavers.... what a cycle!!

So I basically woke up Sunday morning on a mission..... to put my trust back into my dogs because deep down I DO KNOW they can do all 12 weave poles. Seriously if they can do 10 what's another 2?? Nothing right??

And I guess I might have been a little extreme in my proofing with Liryk.....I might have put a tunnel a metre off the third last pole kind of inticing her to come out.....but she got it!! So then I decided to make it soooo basic (I thought, maybe that's the problem, Liryk is thinking there's nothing out there "trying" to lure her out so maybe nows the time she CAN skip a couple at the end!!) Nope she got all her weavers then too :-/  So I've put the weekend's weird antics down to just that.... WEIRD!!!

So we're off to chill out for the next month. And the perfect way to start your doggie holidays is with a birthday so HAPPY 6th BIRTHDAY EPIC!!!!!

And Happy New Year everyone!!! :-D

FUN!!!!

I'm wondering, is it possible to have TOO much fun?? I guess the down side is, you just never want it to stop and everything else that happens after, doesn't quite compare..... OR could it be that it sets off a chain reaction and everything else feels just as awesome and you can't believe your luck!

Having someone come to stay is always fun :-) But when that someone, also has the same addiction as you, you know that an awesome time is going to be had by all! My friend Simone (who I met at one of Ann Braue's Camp's 18mths ago) came over from QLD to tryout for the Aust Team going over to compete at the World Agility Open. She stayed for 4 days and BOY did we have a BLAST!! Between Jules and Simone I don't think I've laughed quite so much or been lead astray quite so often!! :-D It was great to see her young dog Kye in action and Edge fell instantly in love with her :-P

Our weekend was jam packed full of good food, adventures into Fremantle and the Perth foreshore, as well as a shopping expedition which ended with a totally awesome video camera and the revelation that Simone is a pretty SWEEEEET negotiator!!! :-D

The tryout's themselves were great fun and I had entered both girls.....though had the reality check that Liryk had actually only ever done a full size seesaw a fortnight previous, and the day after when I tried it in competition, she flew off into space and that was from a stop about a metre in front!! So at training the friday night before tryouts, I put her over again, and this time made it part of the sequence and she did GREAT! SO..... I thought, hell.... why not try :-) And even though some were pretty... well.... unconventional..... she got them ALL!!! Awffy chuffed with her :-D And considering she's only 22mths I'm sooooooooooo proud of how she went on all the courses.... yes we may have got a DQ in pretty much all of the classes :-P but she ran like a trouper!!! That's one thing I LOVE about my girls :-) they give it their all, yes both are VERY different speed and stress wise, but they are the same in how much they both do the very best that they can! And as long as they think they've just done the most awesomest run EVA!! I'm happy too :-)

The other thing I did was try a new trialling method...... actually, it's Jules' method..... and it seems to work really well for her.....you drink... and you keep drinking! LOL Now the downside is, the runs are now a bit of a blur and when stepping up to the start line there was the dreaded thought of .... what's the course again?? But somehow it ACTUALLY works!! :-D Not sure I'll take it up on a regular basis, but it definitely completed a fantastic weekend, that was totally stress free and full of laughter!! And the bonus of all the FUN is .... we got on the Team! ARGH!!!!

I put together bits and pieces of the runs the girls did over the weekend. Awffy proud!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hq3Rf-lIH2c

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

What A Week!

Last weekend we had the last ADAA trial of the year. We had some knocked bars and wrong courses but both the girls and I had a BLAST!!!



Epic gained her AAD title and a HUGE rosette :-)



My first run of the night was with Liryk in Combined Starters Agility and it was one of those runs you'd like to run over and over it was so much FUN! I don't know what it is about ADAA but I just don't seem to dwell so much on what to do with the obsticle after the d/w, and it's not like it was a jump "straight" after it either, there was enough of a push to the jump to require you to be up there to handle it. And I managed to get there and she NAILED her contact!!! It's sooooooooooooo exciting to run when it works!! :-D Unfortunately she tried to jump the second last bar with one stride from the previous jump and it didn't go well. DOH!! One bar but EXTREMELY happy with how well she ran!! Thanks to John for videoing!!!

Tuesday I finally managed to put together a video of Edge's tricks so far. At one point I really felt like we were going to fall WAY behind in Silvia Trkmans course, Edge really struggled working out how to pivot and even walk backwards, but we got there in the end :-) and now we get to move onto new things!!

His legs are forever growing and he's getting much longer in the body now too, we've definitely reached that gangly stage!! He's not far behind Liryk in height now, and at only 17wks it'll be interesting to see how big he actually grows :-)

Edge has SUCH a smiley face!! Poor Liryk looks discusted that she has to sit next to him LOL



Wednesday I got to pick up my new car!!! Having four dogs has been a little tricky to squish into the old Hyundai Wagon and Clint finally relented and said we could upgrade :-D It's a 2006 Commodore Station Wagon and I really, really can't believe how much room there is!! It easily fits three crates as well as a passenger in the back......or a 4th dog!! LOL Jeddy LOVES that he's the only one NOT in a crate!!

Then Wed, Thurs and Frid we've been renovating our bathroom. It's been going on for the last 3wks or so, a day here and there. But I have a friend coming to stay next weekend so we really needed to get our butt into gear so she wasn't going to be bathing in the dog pool!! 3/4 of the tiling is done, just the floor and shower to go, then in goes the new vanity and shower screen YAY!!! I can't wait!! And I really need to say a HUGE THANKYOU to my dad, uncle and husband who have done an AWESOME job so far!!!