Caoimhe

Our new addition to the family arrived her name is Caoimhe pronounced kee va. It is Irish Gaelic and mean gentle, graceful, and beautiful. How cute is she!She was born in the Dogs Trust at West Calder. He Mum returned home and Dad was re homed. I have been wanting a Saffordshire Bull Terrier for a long time, came to understand and adore the breed after training obedience and pet sitting a few. Staffy rescue were involved in re homing the pups and after having had a pup reserved from Babworth animal shelter in Nottingham for four weeks, the woman decided a week before I was going to pick her up I was not getting her as I had a entire male Border Collie. Thankfully Staffy rescue and dogs trust realised I was not stupid and being a responsible BC breeder, my own doggy business, and a pack of six, collie staffy pups was a ridiculous thought. I am so glad Caoimhe is here. She is no different to any other pup I have had or trained. The only difference is the attitude of people towards her. I know only to well the reputation they have and the reasons for the reputation. They are a breed that are abused by so called owners who burn them with cigs and starve them make them fight to protect the illicit drug use of the owners. It is so sad, all dogs have the same potential to harm. It is how you bring them up, just like kids, the difference is the dogs only want to please us in any way they can. Friends have made comments and my skin is getting thicker and I try and laugh of the comments about the "killer" dog. In truth I want to tell them they should know better being part of the doggy world.

From Caoimhe and I See the dog not the breed is our motto.

Christmas

The dogs have not done any agility for weeks but have made up for it chasing snowballs and coping with a new addition to the family. I can never remember it being so cold and crunching the deep snow for so long. Throwing the ball is hilarious it bounces of the top of the snow before disappearing under a bunch of mad mutts. They love it! They had great fun opening their christmas present Sweep was particularly funny, everytime one of the others were given a present he dived of his chair grapped it jumped back up on the chair with his back to the rest whilst tearing it open. He managed to eat half a bag of bonio before I stopped laughing and took the parcel from him!
Well 2010 has finally arrrived! We are of to Lancashire at the weekend for our first show in months. Should be interesting as we have done no training. Logan gets to meet up with his brothers Billy and Dipper, they always seem to recognise one another and chase each other like mad. Dipper has had a first and a second place so far we are all so proud. Everytime one of my pups wins something I just beam with pride and boast to everyone. Caoilte will also get to see her sister Toots, althougth Toots is very like her Mum Rhu and only has place for one person and is rather aloof with the rest, proper little madams they are. Have a friend coming with us so it will be great to have company on the long drive. So fingers crossed the first show report of the year is not to far away, that is if I can stop my addictions to facebooks farmville!!

Caoilte Wins Grade 3

It is ages since last update so I will try and bring you up to speed. Monkey had a wee set back as usual due to me not trusting her and not intilling confidence in her. However we worked through it. Our partnership started coming on nicely. We went to Ireland for a holiday to see her sister and do a couple of shows. Well yeeha Funky Monky WON Grade 3 Agility in 28.27 secs. She looked a bit confused when she was getting hugged and kissed to death and at the same time getting her wee face all wet with tears. She had 3 runs and 3 clears and we had not walked the jumping. Her last agility run was a combined 1-7 so trained the contacts had a lovely run. You could have knocked me down with a feather when I was told her mum Rhu had won the class. She also had 3 clears that day. So have attached the wining run of my Funky Monkey. Such a lot of hard work had finally paid of.

Oh Funky Monkey!!

Although Caoilte had been a bit more boisterous at show and made occasional contact with my hand at the past couple of shows it was due to me using the wrong hand or being out of position. I thought we would work through it as in training she continued to be good. Nothing prepared me for the performance at Weardale show at the weekend. On the Saturday I was a bit tired and the show started later so walking dogs rings and doing runs was a bit hectic. I still made sure she got extra exercise before going into the ring. She started of with a jumping round, doing a lovely wait then every turn the old Monkey was back barking at me, jumping in front of me and looking at me but worst of all despite keeping my hand up and giving clear hand / arm signal reinforced with GO her mission seemed to be to get my hand. The higher I took my arm out of her reach the higher she jumped to grab me. I put her in a down calmed her down calmly and quietly tried to run again. Her behaviour continued. In hind site I should have put her in a down thanked the judge and calmly left the ring. However when in that situation it is very difficult to know what to do, especially when I was shocked at the old Monkey's return. I tried to be as helpful and consistent with her as possible. To no avail. I made sure we had one to one time tried to get rid of excess energy on the Saturday and Sunday morning. I put it down to being tired and was so looking forward to friends seeing the vast improvement in my wee lass. I could not have been more relaxed on the Sunday, prior to her first run we were sitting chatting at the champ ring she was curled up on my knee almost asleep. We stood in the queue I had her lead on one finger and expected nothing from her only hoped she would work with me. Again did a recall over the first jump, she took the lead over the long jump into the cloth tunnel, I command her to turn left then the demon appeared she jumped in front of me, then leaped jumping at my face whilst I froze. I had no idea what she wanted me to tell her I gave her as much help as my now shaking knees would allow, I had to try and keep my hands out of her reach. The judge was standing at the weave and I gave her her command she gave the judge a funny look and backed away a wee bit, I just repeated the command she did a nice 12 pole weave and tyre to finish came out the ring appeared to be the wee Monkey I love to bits. All the hard work I have put in over the last year was gone, we were back to square one. I was really upset and at a loss of what to do. She does not do it in training. The only thing I can think of is in training the jumps are wider apart than at shows and she has more space, when at shows my position could be wrong as I am used to the wider course and am not positioned where I would be If the jumps and distance between obstacles was the same as at a show. Her graded and combined classes are not straight up and down and there is an element of close work round the jumps needed, or directional change which she can do on a wider course cause I can not run very fast. On a standard course I my position is different perhaps she is confused. I am racking my brains to try and find the solution and can only hope we understand each other one day. As a dog trainer I have always been able to help solve others problems and don't have a problem within my own pack they all know and respect me as leader. But oh ma Monkey is testing me in the ring. I have a knowledge of psychology and using techniques are often useful and solve many a problem but this one has got me beat so far. But she is a joy to have and to run when we get it right so our learning curve continues. So will just have to stock up on the Kleenex again LOl

Agility update

Things have been a bit hectic, did a training week with Logan ah boy does he have the bug. Every time Kenny was praising or motivating another dog in the group my arm nearly came out of the socket, he broke out of the garden to try and get Kenny to play jumping. Kenny came up with a fab idea of doing the 2x2 entry to continue teaching the angles then into the training weave. While Kenny was talking to me about it, Logan thought he would go and do the channel weave without any help from us, what a dog. So we are now working on bringing in the poles which has been done quite quickly to try and slow him down a bit and teach him to respect the weave. I still have not given it a command other than go, when he finally can weave consistently then I will add the weave command. He still has not the A frame other than play tug on the contact and the dog walk so we have a long way to go but boy am I enjoying training him He is like a wee sponge takes it all in his stride.

Poor monkey I have judged one of the days at the last two shows and not really been very focused on my agility. Had a cracker of an agility run with her and I got lost with 3 jumps to go!! If she could work this computer would have put me on eBay "Failed dog handler free to bad home". She was really cheeky in the ring on Saturday her face was a picture when she hopped of the dog walk headed for the next jump I was in prime position so just ran to her picked her up, her face was a picture. I put her back on the contact thanked the judge and left the ring laughing, continued to laugh all the way back to the van. Over the last year we have progressed so much I can cope with silliness as I know there is a wee star waiting for the right course with her handler in the zone.

Funky Monkey

After SKC came Avon show. I also spoke to Emma about fitness after discovering she had been an athlete and competed in the Commonwealth games, wow. So the plan was to eat a banana and drink loads water before our first run. Considering I never eat breakfast especially at a show as I fret to much about missing walking courses and exercising the dogs ensuring they are warmed up and happy. However I stuck to the plan and whey hey WI the monkey came 3rd in Agility, guess what I had for lunch? A banana roll and a bottle of water, came 8Th combined 1-3 agility. On the Sunday more bloody banana's got her 5Th in agility and I missed walking the course 14Th in jumping which was a bit disappointing as she only had one wee stutter, the energy was a wee bit low and running up the hill to finish I was a bit slow. I could not help remembering the same show the previous year, when I left the show in tears as I was unable to channel her energy to focus on agility so she was biting and barking at me and was so frustrated I made the decision to pull her from competing at shows until we got sorted. What a difference, it became the turning point for our relationship. Again have got to thank Kenny for changing our relationship and his patience in going over and over my handling of ma Monkey increasing my confidence in my ability as a handler, which created the Funky Monkey.
Our last show was Weardale and she had some good and not so good runs. Mucked up her weave a few times and I was staying behind her walking in case she skipped in the middle or missed the last pole. I have worked on this since we came home as she needed to learn my position was irrelevant to her completing the weave. I had changed my command to saying Yes when she entered and go when she finished. Now I say Weave and let her concentrate on doing it while I run ahead or away. It is the only time I reward her with her motivator in life her Ball. Any way she got 13Th in Agility and didn't get placed in jumping!! OMG I was thinking I have a slow sleuth instead of a Monkey. But after looking at it walking at the weave, made a difference to her time. In the jumping which was comb 3-5 when we came of the course the judge shouted down well done and the the lady doing the leads said that was fantastic (she weaved great) so bit deflated at not getting placed.
Felt good putting new style of handling into practise in the ring where before my competitive streak would have went for a fast clear. Some of the things she did were awesome.
Her sister in Ireland has had her own challenges and won 1-4 combined agility so moves to grade 4. I am so proud of Rhu and her pups and long for the day we wave bye bye to grade 3 as she is a capable wee Monkey and needs to move on.
Rhu has been doing really well this season my change of style is easier to practise with her she is like a remote control press the button an you get what you ask for!!
Logan is going to be a big boy next week and do his first agility break. Am a bit apprehensive as he has not done the A frame or see-saw yet. Still at same stage of 2x2 weave. He is 14 months now and am scared I muck him up. Think the break will be good for him. I had got loads of wine stashed away, and loads of things to catch up on so a nice relaxing break with loads of sunshine is hoped for. TTFN

Shows

We have been really busy lately and not had much time to update our story. So much has happened at the shows so will update soon. Keep checking in for more antics from our mad mutts and sane owner or is it the other way around!!!