Saving Himself...

Well we are back from our third day at Dog Vegas today and to be honest I thought i'd be coming home with nothing to write about!

Megan has been a bit of a madam at times, but has had some very good attempts in her jumping classes, usually with one mistake (often the weaves).

Heidi has been a good girl 90% of the time, she had a lovely agility run yesterday, got all her contacts, weaved perfectly and kept all the poles up but bad mummy couldn't get ahead enough to do a front cross after the weaves which just made her take the wrong jump. We have been working on a stop dog walk contact lately in addition to a running one and in her agility this morning she was flying round (borderline on not listening) she got to the dog walk and flew along it and I thought there is no way she is going to stop but she really surprised me and did so I was happy with that. There have been some fast jumping courses this weekend too which I hate for Heidi, we finished 1 with 5 poles down!!!

Silly me somehow managed to not enter Kody at all on Friday so he was only running yesterday and today. The courses yesterday were a bit tricky and we generally got in a muddle. Today was a bit better though, in agility we got round all the tricky bits but for some reason Kody wouldn't go over the jump in front of him so we ended up with several refusals. His jumping was his second to last run and he ran it lovely and clear, finishing 9th. The last run was the ABC Helter Skelter which was a really fast flowing course, perfect to help him gain his confidence and he worked really hard finishing 3rd, less than a tenth of a second off the winner so i'm really pleased with our clever boy!

Swimming x 4

All the doggies have been to hydro today and they all enjoyed themselves and did very well. It has been 3 weeks since they last went, Heidi was happy to get in the pool but was a bit nervous jumping off the ramp until she had done it then she was more than happy. Kody improved today too, we had him swimming up and down and turning at either end, i'm fairly certain after a few more sessions he will be confident enough for me to be able to video him.

At the end of the week we are off to Dog Vegas, we are there on Friday, Monday and Tuesday as i'm working over the weekend, hopefully the sun will stay shining as Winterton is often a bit chilly.

Lincoln Agility Show

Well it's been a lovely weekend, despite my very inaccurate weather forecast it was really lovely and sunny on both days and very warm.

The dogs are staring to run well in places and not in others. Yesterday Heidi was the better one, although she was very manic after being in the van for about 3 hours she did do some very nice runs where she just had poles down really. We even had ALL contacts and weaves! Today she missed her dog walk in both runs and to be honest her concentration had gone a bit and she was back to doing what she wanted but she did finish with a very fast jumping run just taking 1 pole.

Megan has been a bit up and down, she doesn't cope well with being at bigger shows with loads of people around so that hasn't helped. She has had some 'naughty' runs where she has done her own thing, she has had some good trys too. Her contacts have been terrible again missing every one. I understand the dog walk as I have only recently changed the criteria of what I want from her but I thought we had cracked the A-Frame. In the end I decided not to run her in her agility this afternoon.

Well Kody was our little star this weekend and earned himself a trip to the toy shop. Yesterday he had a good agility run, just missing the weaves on the first go and missing an 'in' which did result in an E. Today he did a lovely agility run and we went clear!!! I did hold his contacts for ages so I could get in the right place and he stopped a bit far up the dog walk so I had to get him to come further down onto the contact. We ended up finishing 44th which I know is a long way off but hey, plenty of room for improvement!

I dont think my dogs want to spoil me with too many clears, so far this year they have had 1 each, wonder who the next one will be from...

We jut have one massive well done to say for this weekend and that is to Jo & Zippy (Megan's brother) who won into G6 today! Not exactly what you had planned but really well done!

Megan & Kody Are Not Popular!

Well Megan and Kody are well and truely in the bad books at the moment. Last night they all had their dinner and while I was in the kitchen the two of them started to play wrestling. It was getting a bit rough so I told them off (as they are supposed to relax after dinner) and Kody came and stood behind me legs, I gave him a fuss and then in a split second him and Megan had a go at each other (They do have their differences so it's quite normal, they sort it out in a second) but my hand was still in between them from stroking Kody. As a resuly one of them (I have no idea which) bit me.

There was a moment of mad panic and screaming and obviously they knew they had done wrong and went back to behaving, but my finger was badly cut. So last night I spend my evening at A & E in Lincoln getting my finger stitched back together!

I have had 4 stitches and a Tetanus injection and have some antibiotics to take and my finger looks like this:

I have decided to take the rest of the week off work as I have to get the dressing changed and stuff and with a bit of luck I should be ok for Lincoln at the weekend. I know it was an accident and I was unlucky to be in the wrong place at the wrong time but they are both in the bad books today but to be honest they've been as good as gold!

Swimathon and Shuttleworth

Yesterday I did my 5km swim. It was considerably harder had I had ever imagined it would be. (Having only done 80 lengths at once) I had to do 200 lengths and by the time I got to 130 my arms were like lead weights and my shoulders were killing me!   Still I completed it successfully in 2 hrs, 10 mins and 57 secs so I was really pleased.

Today we have been at sunny Shuttleworth. It was a lovely venue but if I go again I will definitely be camping, the walk backwards and forwards between day parking and the rings felt like miles and when you have 12 runs to do its pretty exhausting!

Heidi was a good girl today, she had a clear in the BSD jumping this morning coming 9th but unfortunately they only placed to 8th :( She continued to be a really good girl all day with only 2 poles down for the whole day and she missed her DW contact and we did have weave issues in one class but on the whole she was very good and listened. It's when she is like this that I like to run her she drives me mad when she is mental so lets hope she stays a good girl.

Kody tried really hard for me today, he had plenty of opportunity to bark at me though for getting him confused, poor boy is probably thinking 'God I wish I had a mum who knew what she was doing!' I have found the G6 courses hard today, its such a big jump from running the girls in 1-3 classes last year as i've had no progression to it. Still it will be a steep learning curve and as long as Kody continues to have fun thats the main thing.

Meg was a bad egg today (we call her Meg the bad egg at home if she is naughty). I don't know what got into her really, its as though her and Heidi decided to swap places for a day and she be totally nuts! Her agility class was terrible, she broke her wait, she missed all 3 contacts by miles and in all but 1 class today she wouldn't weave (but when I called her back to me she did them from the wrong end towards me!), I ended up taking her out of one class for being such a madam. She can be so stubborn when she wants to be. It didn't help matters either when a dog ran into the ring while she was running and had a go at her, thankfully she came straight back to me rather than fight back but i'm sure that spooked her a bit.

For next weekend please can I have my normal Megan back?!

Bad Back Again

I've not had the best weekend as I have hurt my back again. Last time I had 2 Chiropractor visits and 4 sessions to a sports injury clinic which sorted it out and I have had 6 weeks with no issues but now it's back to how it was before. Today I went to the doctor to get some pain killers and she has referred me to physio and i'm going to the sports injury clinic tomorrow. The doctor did say I have to keep moving and I am still able to swim, good news really as it's my sponsored swim on Saturday!

This weekend is a busy but exciting one, I have booked Saturday off work as I have my Swim at 5pm. I am doing 200 lengths (5km) which I think will take me between 2 and 2 and a half hours. Then on Sunday we are off to Spring at Shuttleworth. It is a good 2 hour drive from here and is quite a bit further than I would normally travel for a day show but I really wanted to go so we are, it will just be an early start. Our running orders are here as are the ones for Lincoln so i'm starting to get excited about the show season starting. Lets just hope my back gets better quick.

If you want to sponsor me for my swim you can do it online by following the link below


https://secure.artezglobal.com/registrant/search.aspx?EventID=17081&LangPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.swimathon.org%2fpage.php%3fpage%3dSponsor_a_swimmer

I am almost at my target of raising £100 so any small amount of sponsorship would be appreciated!