Collection of treats for RAF dogs

Thanks to everyone who has contributed dog treats, these and any more donated next week, will be delivered to Brize Norton for the 49 RAF Police dogs who have just returned from duty in Afghanistan.

New term!

A new term starts this week. Looking ahead, we will not be training Christmas week, Wednesday 26th December.

A full weekend of training!

Thank you to Matthew Goodliffe our guest trainer for last Saturday, for giving us a brilliant day of training :-)
We also had two workshops Sunday morning; one for those clever enough to qualify for Olympia, and one building weave skills for those dogs working towards independent weaves at who are not quite at the upright pole stage. In the first Olympia workshop we worked on some things that are specific to that final. Everyone was looking really good and we had a really fab couple of hours, some people came away with some specifics to work on that we will hone in the second workshop in December, but overall a very positive bit of training. Great to welcome Dave Munnings and Dan Shaw who were working their young dogs there as well. In the second workshop we worked on weaves using channels and 2x2's, made some really good progress, with all the dogs building motivation and drive for the weaves and showing some really nice (and fast!) weave action. A great weekend of training, and thank goodness we have an indoor venue, the rain lashed down!! I feel so much happier knowing there is less risk of dogs slipping or falling in our lovely indoor venue, especially now that winter is upon us (of course it is much more pleasant for the handlers too!) :-)

Technical difficulties

It seems that some emails that I send are not getting to everyone, and some emails that people are sending are not getting to me! Sorry about this, until it is resolved please resend emails if you do not get an answer!

Kennel cough

There is a lot of kennel cough about at the moment. Please do not come training if your dog is coughing! Please do not come training if your dog has been in contact with other dogs that have kennel cough!

This week is week 9 of the current 10 week term. Yesterday was the last open show of the year for me, I saw some nice work from club members and was really pleased with my two dogs as well, Deece bought home two trophies and Zazzy had three top ten places in the North Downs show. I greatly apologise for the delay in booking solid dates for our training plans, it seems there are many pheasant shooting days planned in the woods nearby and obviously I don't want to be running any training days when that is going on! If I cannot get a definitive response this week we can either move the weekend training to a different venue or hold some classes after dark (assuming the shooting has to stop when they can't see what they are shooting!)

Crucial Keys to Agility Greatness

From Susan Garrett's blog:

'The Three Crucial Keys to Agility Greatness'

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

So you want to know what I view as the three most important things in creating a great agility dog? Foundation, foundation, foundation.'

From Dave Munnings: 'The more I learn and the more I teach, the more I realise the importance of foundation.'

From the Olympic British Cycling coaches:  'the ethos has been to make small gains in all areas, which result in major gains in performance... the devilishly fast times are in the detail.'  

Thinking back to the competitions over the summer, the kind of questions I am asking myself now are; are my contacts fast and accurate enough? Is my wait rock solid and my dog driving out at full speed when I release? Is my dog driving as fast as possible round the course? Are my dogs' weaves reliable no matter where I am? Is my distance handling and verbal cueing up to scratch? do my dogs' understand what obstacle I want them to take next? Are my turns tight enough? Is my dog knocking too many poles? Have I got the right balance of drive and control? Does my dog come to me when I call rather than take what is in front of it? Does it drive on when I am lagging behind?

With these thoughts permeating through my mind, I thought I would offer five more one hour workshop dates on Sunday mornings, offering an opportunity to focus on some essential skills. These will include:

Building more drive and motivation in your dog (speed workshop)

Creating more self control in your dog

body awareness (co-ordination and balance)

jumping skills (grids and turns workshops)

weave skills (for dogs just learning to weave, and also advanced weave skills for experienced dogs)

contacts, speed and proofing

distance control

obstacle discrimination

handling choices

In December there will be a day to practise Olympia style courses, and a charity event (courses, games, cake stall etc. - thank you to everyone who has already offered to help!)