We managed to cram a lot into this weekend!
It started off on Friday night with a two and a half hour agility workshop with Toni Dawkins which was fantastic! She's a great trainer and gave us lots to work on. I also learnt that I should have more faith in Pepper who was amazing in all of the exercises despite me saying 'she'll never do that'! Some of the highlights were running an exercise without using our arms to direct our dogs - we could only use our verbal commands and our bodies. It was amazing to see how tight the dogs turned round the wings and demonstrated perfectly that our hands just reinforce everything else! I'm looking forward to putting it all in to practice.
On Saturday Ian and I took the girls for a long walk to our favourite place - Farnham Park. After getting wet and grubby I gave them both a long overdue bath and clip. I'm not entirely happy with the outcome this time and keep seeing bits of long fur sticking out, but they are tidier than they were before I started.
On Sunday Pepper and I went to our first Winter fun show at Scrambles. It was a really nice day with lovely supportive friends and we came away with two 1st places for Jumping and Steeplechase and a 2nd for Agility.
Our first run was the first of two Agility courses - Pepper did a bit of a doodle dash over the first 4 jumps getting us eliminated, so I knew that I could relax and work on her contacts. She did an amazing job stopping on them all in a perfect 2 on 2 off position - I really feel that we have turned a corner and believe that she now understands what is expected of her both at shows and in training.
The Steeplechase and Jumping were nice flowing courses and she stormed round them both - she's definitely got faster over the last year!
The final Agility was disappointing as she knocked the first pole down! I think I might have sat her too close to it! Such a shame as we would have won if she had been clear, but having been faulted I held all of her contacts again and it was a big surprise to get placed 2nd!
Meanwhile, Ruby was having a lovely time on a walk with Ian, playing with her favourite ball without Pepper there to steal it from her!
A good weekend all round!
It started off on Friday night with a two and a half hour agility workshop with Toni Dawkins which was fantastic! She's a great trainer and gave us lots to work on. I also learnt that I should have more faith in Pepper who was amazing in all of the exercises despite me saying 'she'll never do that'! Some of the highlights were running an exercise without using our arms to direct our dogs - we could only use our verbal commands and our bodies. It was amazing to see how tight the dogs turned round the wings and demonstrated perfectly that our hands just reinforce everything else! I'm looking forward to putting it all in to practice.
On Saturday Ian and I took the girls for a long walk to our favourite place - Farnham Park. After getting wet and grubby I gave them both a long overdue bath and clip. I'm not entirely happy with the outcome this time and keep seeing bits of long fur sticking out, but they are tidier than they were before I started.
On Sunday Pepper and I went to our first Winter fun show at Scrambles. It was a really nice day with lovely supportive friends and we came away with two 1st places for Jumping and Steeplechase and a 2nd for Agility.
Our first run was the first of two Agility courses - Pepper did a bit of a doodle dash over the first 4 jumps getting us eliminated, so I knew that I could relax and work on her contacts. She did an amazing job stopping on them all in a perfect 2 on 2 off position - I really feel that we have turned a corner and believe that she now understands what is expected of her both at shows and in training.
The Steeplechase and Jumping were nice flowing courses and she stormed round them both - she's definitely got faster over the last year!
The final Agility was disappointing as she knocked the first pole down! I think I might have sat her too close to it! Such a shame as we would have won if she had been clear, but having been faulted I held all of her contacts again and it was a big surprise to get placed 2nd!
Meanwhile, Ruby was having a lovely time on a walk with Ian, playing with her favourite ball without Pepper there to steal it from her!
A good weekend all round!
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