Wow, seems a slightly inadequate word to sum up the club at Bishop Burton at the end of December.  We had lots of dogs and handlers making their competition debuts, several partnerships on their second or third shows and a few seasoned competitors.  It was an absolutely amazing atmosphere, lots of smiling faces, people helping each other out, walking courses together and new agility competitors being shown the ropes of running a ring.  I want to thank each and everyone of you for making the show such a success for our club.

I think we can all take a lesson from Jacob our youngest member when those agility rounds don't go quite as planned.  It was Jacob and Pip's first show; Pip got a touch of nerves and didn't perform as well as we know he can do in training.  Jacob never gave up trying to get Pip round the course and encouraged him all the way round. Jacob left the show telling Pip that he loved him and that with a bit more training that maybe Pip wouldn't be as scared next time.  What a fantastic attitude for a young lad and I'm sure at your next show Jacob Pip will show everyone what a cracking dog he is and how well you've done at training him.

Although several of our other partnerships didn't manage a clear round either, you were still absolutely fantastic, I saw some amazing runs, with super handling and even better than that happy enthusiastic dogs.  Those clear rounds are really not far away and for some handlers just getting your dog in the ring and working with you deserves a medal. Another one of our young partnerships deserves a mention too - Elise and Darcy.  It was this pairings first show and although we still have a bit of work to do on the weaves the rest of their runs were flawless, even when it came to trickier sequences.  Once Darcy's weaves are perfected they'll be no stopping this partnership, who have been an absolute pleasure to teach and the fact that Elise has put a lot of time and effort in with Darcy away from the agility field really shows.

I think the club went away from the show with an impressive haul of rosettes.  Jason and Ruby were on fire at only their second show and impressively won out of grade 1, and just to prove it wasn't a fluke added another couple of wins to their tally too.  Ann-Marie and Jemma added to their every expanding rosette collection with several wins. Cassie and the lovely Charlie won their agility class, taking them to Grade 5 and I saw Charlie do some lovely, fast, enthusiastic other runs too.  Alice and Merlin won their agility class, taking them to Grade 4.  I was a nervous "back seat driver" watching Alice's run, willing him to get his weave entry; to hit all his contacts and keep all those bars up, I needn't have worried, it was a fantastic clear run that went into the lead and there they stayed.  And also a well done to my very own Hector who won two of his agility runs taking him to grade 4.  Another special mention must go out to Pauline who is an inspiration to all of us, I don't think Pauline managed any clear rounds but Pauline does fantastically well running both Tia and Harry and we love having her as part of our club, showing those young whipper snappers that agility really is for everyone.

Really sorry if I've missed anybody's achievements out, I'm sure you'll give me plenty of opportunity in the future to blog about your successes.  Roll on the 2016 agility season.   

​



​   

Well it hardly seems like five minutes since I bought Hector home for the first time, he was that tiny that for a good couple of months he fitted in a cat carrier and yet here we were at his first ever competition, and yes I was more than a little excited.  Hec learnt a lot of his agility foundations in my living room; turns were practiced round cones; waits were practiced with the carefully engineered distractions of my other dogs (well that's what I like to think of them as); his contacts were trained and proofed on a contact trainer and after finding that I had enough room for six weaves in the living room he learnt to weave there too.  We supplemented that with whatever training we could squeeze in before classes started, but those 5-10 minutes each week at the agility field soon started to add up.  Along with agility training, Hector learnt lots of tricks, some obedience exercises and practiced how to run as fast as he possibly could on walks and obviously get himself fit.  So that was it we were ready for our first competition, Hec handled the noisy atmosphere without a care in the world; all his foundations were solid, he waited on the start line, listened to all his commands, his contacts were perfect 2 on 2 offs and he even managed to weave!  We didn't manage any clear rounds mainly because we are still a new partnership and I am learning where he might need an extra bit of help but to say I am pleased with his debut is an understatement, I can't wait for his next competition.

Running five dogs in competitions was exhausting, especially when one of them is Rufus who seems to require so much more energy than anybody else!  Nancy gets better with each competition, and thrives on the noisy atmosphere of indoor arenas, sadly this is the opposite to Connie who finds the whole atmosphere very stressful.  Connie did a lovely run in her first jumping course but found the enclosed environment difficult to focus in for her other runs.  Still we have a plan to help Connie cope inside so hopefully at Connie's next show she'll be back on form.  Although Connie and Nancy are both at a similar stage in their agility careers and have trained together since they started their agility foundations, they are both very different dogs who have different needs, so need to be trained and handled differently.  Please always remember that your dog is an individual and so what might be appropriate for somebody else's dog, may not be right for your dog.

I remember saying to Ann when we first started up the club, that wouldn't it be fantastic if one day we'd have handlers/dogs trained by us that were competing.  Well a few of you have already made your debuts in unaffiliated shows or anysize classes, and now we have several of you entering your first grade 1 show.  I guess I'd better start thinking up some new hopes/plans, as that one is firmly ticked off the list.  And we've got lots more agility debuts to look forward to over the next coming season.     

​              

Hector is the newest addition to "The Agility Dog" team.  He's a five month old Chinese Crested cross.  He's started clicker training and has been learning some tricks and basic obedience but he's also started to learn some agility foundations.