Finishing on a high.....and starting on a high...

Zev and Christine - Olympia Medium KC Stakes 2014

After our Autumn break in October, where we switched off from the agility and had some R&R, the plan was to ease back into training in November. However Zev, suffered his first ever attack of pancreatitis. The dramatic quickness of how fast his health deteriorated was scary. Thankfully swift veterinary intervention, modern medicine plus Zev's and mine determination he recovered, with just one small set back. In short, I have learnt caring skills I have never needed previously. It was a real shock to the system. In a year of having to say goodbye to our beloved Nuts it was a massive downer.
But as always we focus on looking forward.

Marc & the guys and gals - Christmas 2014

 In December I got a phone call, from the organizer of the KC Agility at Olympia - Medium Day,  Zev and I were one of the handlers being called up. I knew he was fit enough as I had worked to maintained that.  Our original qualifying run was paw-perfect, however as agility goes despite this, we were just outside the places, which is the way it can go. We were the only Sheltie in in the Olympia medium event. As always we just have to go out and run our best and as the sporting expression goes "It ain't over 'til it's over" by Yogi Berra. 
At Olympia on the Medium day we achieved a 5th in the jumping and a 4th in the agility. In many ways I felt like I had won, with Zev just being Zev, his recovery, the fact that he had only returned to agility just two weeks before, his enthusiasm, his and mine's performance, how we handled the whole event. 
I remained composed and calm even with running first in the evening final, I worked every obstacle and maintained handler focus. Sure there is one turn I felt that could have been improved but heck at the beginning of November I did not know what the future held for Zev far less to have the joy of running him again. To run him in front of such a great crowd  I was on a high and Zev had a brilliant time too. A friend said we will always be an excitable team the difference is I am learning to control it and channel it more consistently. A wise friend indeed and very true.

As always for Christmas and New Year we have lighted candles and remembered the loved ones no longer by our side to celebrate many good memories and the fact that we were fortunate enough to have had them with us for part of our journey, however briefly that has been.

That said we finished 2014 on a high.....so here's to looking forward to 2015 and making the plans, ambitions and dreams for that year and beyond a reality. 

Blogging with a smile :-)

We went to the Border Collie Club show today, I guess it may become the midland equivalent of mid-downs in the south to kick off the season, and we got through the day pretty damm good, Raz was happy to be with us for walks and checking ring duty. This is a very important duty and keeps ours guys that don't compete actively involved in our day, the other is collecting rosettes duties. So it is a busy day for all the guys.

Well me and the Rivioli, what can I say, she is going up a gear and showing more keeness and determination, I wanna run her again and again. So looking forward to Easter and having several days of competition and getting back into the groove. The Zev makes me feel the same, managing to gain a 2nd and a 3rd in combined classes. I was so chuffed at the improvement and know that there is more to come. I did get told that Shelties just run the speed they do at agility and you can't change it, well Zev is a sheltie and his speed is increasing. I just thanked the person for the info and smiled :-) perhaps me and Zev are unique. I do not know? But I would have thought with the right training and appropriate value reward, improvement in performance would be possible, sport is about improving and enhancing unless there was a physical, emotional or psychological reason why that would not have an impact...sure is food for thought.

Good weather, good company and great dogs. Met a young dog that was beautiful and so like Nuts, I was wow, wow and wow. Enough to put a smile on anyone's face, Summerwick is right 'Happy Days'... the gloom is lifted :-)

p.s Zev is now two, and it fab that Bernadette photos them so young, you can see Zev has gone from cutest puppy to most handsome sheltie :-) how lucky am I - loads...how bias am I...totally....

Dixie's spring afternoon

Its weird, how life goes  on...Loobie being gone is just so so odd. I did not know her as a youngter...I was just getting to know Lesley towards the end of Loobie' agility career, and I wondered is it to soon to post but Marc took these photo's this week and for our guys's life simply goes on. They might know I am sad, but their simple appreciation of the small pleasure's in the garden on a sunny spring afternoon was so good for the spirit. I had missed the entire thing (working!) so Marc captured on photo a brief insight to one afternoon in Dixie's puppyhood. Seeing the photo's and their captured moments of play and bonding, did make me smile briefly once more.

Shelties in the Limelight at Newton Heath

What a day, Friday the snow was so thick in the morning, we thought ‘oh no show’. Friday Night it cleared so on to Newton Heath we go. As you see from the photo no snow. It was a lovely sunny crisp day. And there was some great results Zev won his Medium Grade 4 Agility to go grade 5 and then we did a lovely jumpers round and won that too. What was extra special was Sizzle who is Zev’s buddy did exactly the same in Small Grade 4. These shelties were rocking, with two excited and extremely chuffed handlers. As you can see from the photos they are two stunning tri shelties and Zev’s birthday is the 8th March and Sizzles is the 27th March, so it will be great to watch their progression over the coming years.

My Babyoli was super, unfortunately her pilot had a tiny blip and at that speed it had an impact;  but what the heck the great stuff was she was a happy doggy, and was motoring and did some fab stuff with me and it was just joyful to be running with her. Which is really exciting for the coming season and I think she is ready to start learning more technical stuff for grade 6. The courses set by the judges were excellent. And it would have been great to do them again. No vids as the camera/video thing was playing up! How disappointing is that!

A special mention must go to our Raz, who with Marc came third in the Gr7 agility, not bad for our one eyed boy. He continues to amaze us with how he gets round. But Marc is getting used to analysing it from Raz’s vision perspective and as long as Raz is safe and happy we will let him do it. The sight issue has affected him far more in daily life, and we are so glad we have moved before he loses his remaining vision.

Then the weather today is back to, well the photo says it all. Surreal that it cleared for one day for us to go to the show.

Zev – Jumping at Rugby Christmas 09

The video is of Zev at Rugby, I realised after the show he had kept company with grade 7 dogs, as the class was combined. Even with Zev’s “whoa, we actually doing agility at a show, I’m gonna do the bestest wait in the whole world!”. It was like starting all over again and we even pulled off a ‘back flick away’ coming out of the tunnel :-) It was certainly a flick-flacks and tunnels ‘r’ us type of course, with inexperience on our side - well Zev's side - I was so proud of him.
So bring on the 2010 agility season I am so looking forward to running Rivi and Zev. And from April I will have the fun of watching Marc run Mister Big débuting on the agility scene. Oh yeah...bring it on....

 
Loving the Christmas holidays, such a shame it only happens once a year.

Weeheee - fun in the snow

Why the snow sends the guys into orbits of sheer joy, I don't know. But they certainly made me smile with their antics, running around with a bit of conifer trimming. It was hard to keep them in view!

Oh no…rusty-i-tis creeps in.....

Dammit, went to Rugby Christmas show and having not done a show for 2½ months meant rusty-i-tis was surely showing with me. As my focus on jobs and house stuff, meant I felt like the tin man from the Wizard of Oz, where is the oil when you need it? Just the split second timing of ‘outs’ and ‘change of direction’ signals… hmmm I did train the guys to be responsive. Which is of course the upside to all this :-) Rivi does stuff that just sends me into ‘floating on a cloud’ land even on a course that I ‘glitched’, and I’m really excited about competing with them both next year.

I vowed to Marc, we are not having such a break in future. Which was a bit dramatic, as we have always had time off and pretty much have most of the winter off; I liked the balance. However, the way I was I don’t think that I am going to be able to if I want to raise my game. Zev, bless him it was like doing his first show all over again, he came 7th in a combined class of 81 dogs which was not bad at all. I confess in this posting I am being picky, and don’t get me wrong Zev and Rivi had a fabulous time, and were none the wiser about their handler’s glitches. Interestingly even with just two runs each they found it mentally a very tiring day out. Which is another element of the dreaded rusty-i-tis affliction – out of practice with the hanging around and mega loads of stimuli going on.

So I am now on a mission to banish the rusty-i-tis, it will be erased until a memory no more; my movements will be perfected, my signals clear and timely, shows have been entered – well one a month. Just to keep me and my guys ticking over and ensure the banishment works ;-)

Hmmm, but Christmas is a coming, might still have the time off, after all…..

Zev caught on video by OBay Shelties :-)

Well, I just had to link to this video that OBay Shelties had done of Zev at training whilst on the birthday celebration. He is so full on and passionate, and luvs his cool kong and doing his agility.  I could wax lyrical all night about my perfect wild man....and I could dance all night.....see the OBay Blog for videos of his great litter mates.

An OBay Weekend :-)

What a special treat for Zev and I really enjoyed it too. Due to the some of the OBay girls celebrating 1st birthdays, we got to go down for the weekend. See the OBay blog for pictures and notes. I was so pleased with Zev it is the first time we have stayed away without the others with him. He was the perfect gentleman apart from getting me up at 2am in the morning, just to check that he was not missing any action!!!!!!!!!!! Ohhhhh me and 2am in the morning are not a well made match at all. He let his hair fly with the customary “wall of death” around the lounge as he got very excited playing with Itz and Zaz. The training session was good for us,  I really liked the way Johanna set the session and gave explanations about the reasons for tackling a sequence of obstacles. That meant I could relax, enjoy and think ‘game on’ to trying a different way to handle a sequence. As someone who loves the speed and freer style of some handling combinations external to the UK, it was an opportunity to be seized. It would have been great to have done it all again with Rivi, Johanna I need a large dog training session – pretty please. There was that many dogs in the house that afternoon, and it fantastic how much laughter and fun was generated just by watching all the shelties having a great time.


To the OBay Gang, thank you for a fabulous time. Needless to say Zev was also very excited to be back home with the others. The photo shows him luring Big into a chase game, before rain stopped play…..

Season draws to an end - Part 2

Then the Zevman, what can I say, we had some real if onlys. You see on this jumping vid. He turned so tight on a pivot he came through the tiny gap between the jump wing and me. What a good boy to be so tight and that just shows inexperience in us as a team. But low and behold lets boogie as we won the grade 3 agility, he was such an angel, doing a tunnel dog walk discrimination. He was so funny. As I decided on the strategy of start handling as you mean to go on. So I did not block the tunnel as it was on the left side of the d-w and I needed to be on the right. I did a mini pull in cue and Zev, got on the dog walk and in a flash looked at me and said “why you waiting there, we need to get a move on”, oh it did make me smile, then there was a flat left hand pole entry, did that, did the wonky line of jumps, tunnel under the d-w. Crikey, was I squeaking with excitement after that round. And further development was he is getting the play after, like I do with Rivi, I think the celebration at the end is really important and gives me a chance to say thanks to them both.

My stomach hurt, and it has not hurt with excitement since the worlds 2006. So thank you to Zev and Rivi, for giving me the perfect finish to the 2009 Agility Season. Prior to Rivi, I did not have a dog to run in agility for around 18 months so what can I say, except "its good to be back :-)"
My thanks for the season are:
-Marc, who is always by my side supporting me no matter what s..t he has going on.
-Nuts, who is also always by my side and indulges the youngest of the pack as only a grand dog can do.
-Big for being the bestest/cutest toy poodle puppy we could dream to have
-To friends for support, guidance and laughter
-To new friendships made
-Rivi and Zev – enough said
-Raz and Wings for being with us and enjoying agility
-Tri, for being a big part of our lives for longer than we could have hoped
-Beacon for being a great agility club

Gillingham Part 1 - Zev's first agility run

Due to technical hitches the blog for Gillingham will have to be in three parts. Part 1 - Zev's first agility run.

It was weird and tough, without our Tri in the caravan. But knew the first show without her would be the hardest one. However, life doesgoes on, and Zev's first run was a coming.

His first KC show, and it was hard to tell who was more excited me or Zev! There was some great courses and very kind judges, and we even managed to get round one and come 2nd. It was great to see Zev developing more drive with each round, and it was like a ‘light bulb’ moment for him on the Saturday – “Wow I don’t just get to watch, I can do it!” By Sunday, a friend was in fits of giggles watching him, as he is so like ‘come on, I wanna do it now, and I mean right now’. She said I should be under no illusions who is now in the driving seat! Ha ha. By the time we finished our last run, we were laughing so much I could not stand up straight. Needless to say on Monday at training I had a very charming, pushy and full of it Zevman :-) Wooohoooooooo...

Big and Zev

Mr Big’s fan club continues to grow, mind you he is so darn cute it is not surprising. He has been directly responsible for at least one additional home succumbing to having a poodle puppy! This photo made me chuckle, how perfectly Big blends in with the bedding. Talking of photos check out the OBay blog posting dated Sunday 10th of May, there is some fabulous photos of Zev playing with his baby sister, they had a great time. What was also lovely but not captured on photo was Zev’s sheer joy at seeing Bernadette and Dennis again, it was humbling to watch the greeting ritual and the sheer delight of it. It was one of life’s lovely moments.

Today, Big and Zev found a baby bird in the garden, they just looked and did not try to get the bird but were curious. So I suggested they leave alone and they did so. They are such good dogs :-) And we watched for a while and baby bird just could not make the flight path high enough to get back over the fence. I thought what do I do? I did not want to pick up as I was worried that it was so delicate. So I put my hand down on the floor and waited for the response. Baby bird climbed on! Very carefully I went to the fence and just held my hand out until baby bird decided to fly off back to its nest in the hedgerow. What a special moment, I was thrilled that I helped the baby bird, and by letting it make its own decision, the problem was solved as if it was the most natural thing in the world to give a lift in my hand.


Life sure does have some magic moments sometimes.