Saturday 30 April 2011

workshop dates

21 May - Clicker Training at Black Jack DTC
28 May - Barrel Racing Session at Black Jack DTC
23 July - HtM and Freestyle Day at Black Jack DTC

More information: http://www.blackjackdtc.com/trainingday.html

At other clubs:
26 June - HtM and Freestyle Day at WaggaWuffins in Manchester. Jane invited me over to do a training day at her club. More information: http://www.waggawuffins.com/index.html

Tuesday 26 April 2011

Walk in the woods with Gillian and Honey

Gillian and Sarah and I had planned to go to the woods today. Unfortunately Sarah didn't come with us, so it was just Honey and Violet, Wizz, Koda and Rogie . Gyp stayed home as she is too old to go for such a long walk. They all enjoyed themselves lots. Honey was not keen on being photographed, but after a bit of persuasion she let us take some pics of her as well.













Honey on the way back in the car.......

Monday 11 April 2011

Agility Club Championships 2011 & Obedience Club Championships 2011

This Summer we will do another club championship for agility and as the agility competition was such a success and as we have some cracking obedience dogs at the club, we will also organise an obedience club championship this year.

As it is the second year we are teaching agility, we will have 2 groups of competitors (beginners and novice) and the competition will be set up like that as well. The novice dogs will compete against each other and the beginners dogs will compete against each other. A team in each group can get an equal maximum amount of points (135) over 3 competitions and so at the final scoring each group has the same chance of winning the Black Jack DTC Agility Club Championship title.

In obedience we will start with two levels at the first competition for all competitors. In one level people can use a tidbit and in the other level all has to be done without rewards in the ring. Roger and Margaret Reed have kindly accepted the invitation to judge 2 of the competitions and I'll judge one myself as well. I am looking forward to these new series of club competitions.

For these competitions only club members can enter and take part and they are just supposed to be fun and as a helpful experience towards official competitions.

Sunday 10 April 2011

Line up Agility Club Championships final competition

Molly & Laurel & Paddy
Kate & Buster
Missy & Sarah
Caroline & Jack
Sam & Steve
 Honey & Gillian
Max & Lucy
Georgie & Pete

Paddy is the Agility Club Champion of 2010!

It was a wonderful day today. The weather was really nice, so it was all perfect for this exciting final. We had a stand from Megan's Mutt Munchies where Megan herself sold home made delicious dog treats / cakes and cookies.

All these products were made from the finest ingredients and without additives, colourants etc. Megan also kindly donated 2 large K9 cookies for the competition prizes. All these products of Megan's Mutt Munchies have been tested by the Barking Mad Divas and given their highest paw of approval. 



I had a set of 3 courses for the final: a gambling, a jumping and an open agility course. We started off with the gambling and here people had 60 seconds to gather as many points as possible. The contact equipment was worth 10 points when taken correctly, the jumps 1 point, the tunnel 5 points and the weave was worth a whopping 20 points! In the gambling the rule was that the points could be gathered in combinations of 3 or 4. You had to do a contact equipment, a tunnel and a jump and then you could start with your next set. The fourth obstacle in the combination was the weave but that was up the the handler if they wanted to do them or not. So if the dog would take an obstacle that was out of this set then it would not count. It turned out to be more tricky than I had imagined but everyone did really well.

Gillian and Honey did the sets without the weave and they managed to get a second place with that, gathering 81 points in these 60 seconds.





As the weave was worth so much more they had to really speed it all up. The only person and dog topping that result was Paddy who managed to scramble 89 points together.


Caroline and Jack and Steve with Sam got the same score of 73, so they shared the 3th place together.






Fourth was Laurel with Molly and fifth was Pete with Georgie who actually only did his first competition today.
 




The course of the gambling and of the open agility was nearly the same so we hardly had to change anything in the set up. Here the competition turned quite dramatic with 5 dogs gettting a disqualification due to a wrong course. Gillian had misunderstood that she would have to try to finish the weave even if she had made a mistake and ran on after Honey came out of the weaving poles so she got a disqualification. A very expensive one as else she might have won this course!! Caroline with Jack, Sarah with Missy, Steve with Sam and Laurel with Paddy were the only ones completing the course, but all had made mistakes. There was no dog that did the course in a clear round!



The last part of the competition was the jumping. I had set up a helter skelter version with tunnels and jumps and sometimes the dog had to take the tunnel and the next time they had to take the jump next to it and were not allowed to go in the tunnel. Control is very important here and the faster dogs were struggling to stay on the right course, Kate with Buster did a splendid job there and won this course.



One person was very unlucky today and got a disqualification 3 times in a row, but the rest of the time they did really well. This were Lucy and Max, who were placed 3rd in the overall scoring up to today and then plummeted to the 7th place and just missed out on a rosette.









When the people cleared up the equipment I had to calculate everyone's points and see how they ended up in the final scoring for the championship trophy. It was nerve wrecking as the 2 top dogs had the same amount of points, but as Laurel and Paddy had no disqualifications today and Kate and Buster disqualified on one course, we decided it was Laurel with Paddy who had done best and they won the trophy. Well done Laurel for working so well with both your dogs today!!!

People also got a chance to nominate another person (they could not vote for themselves) for a special prize, as they thought this dog was the black horse of the competition or this combination of handler and dog made them laugh most. Whatever people's reasons, most votes went to Kate and Buster, who won a beautiful rosette, a cookie from Megan's Mutt Munchies and a half hour private lesson with Hetty.


Final results over 3 competitions (2 were held in 2010 and the last one was today)
1st Laurel Larder with Paddy - Border Collie - 60 points CLUB AGILITY CHAMPION 2010
2nd Kate Smart with Buster - Labrador x Springer Spaniel 60 points
3rd Sarah Eccleston with Missy - Border Collie - 53 points
4th Caroline Forrester with Jack - Border Collie - 51 points
5th Steve Flannery with Sam - Cocker Spaniel - 50 points
6th Gillian Mc Bride with Honey - Golden Retriever - 39 points
7th Lucy McMillan with Max - Beagle x Staffy - 36 points
8th Lily Charity with Bailey - Schnauzer - 22 points
9th Adrian Long with Bramble - Bouvier des Flandres - 20 points
10th Laurel Larder with Molly - Border Collie - 10 points
11th Peter Brigham with Georgie - Springer Spaniel - 6 points
12th Alison Bark with Bertie - Springer Spaniel - 2 points

All agility pictures by Megan Hayes