A few updates & Dylan's Latest Blog Entry

New layout for the website. Not sure if I like it yet, it’s a bit flowery for my tastes but I definitely got the purpleness I was after! It took a bit longer than I was expecting so Sad Puppy was up for a whole week, apologies! Also added the nifty Lightbox plugin which does something awesome with my photos, you can test it with the photo of Dylan on the right.

All feedback very much appreciated, please let me know what you think!

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Dylan’s Blog

I’ve had such a good weekend with Dylan! We were flyball training yesterday and we’ve progressed to full runs, including the box. He is still learning his turn so Julie is on hand to guide him, but he’s really turning nicely, getting those back paws up and round to push off. He’s definitely going to be a little chaser I think, he really races me up to the line. There are three of us in our group at the moment, Chip (the stunningly handsome red-tri Lurcher) and Amber (superstar Australian Cattle Dog). Dylan loves Chip and Amber, he will play with either of them for hours if he could! We decided this week to introduce some very wide changeovers, which worked really well! Dylan was running first and he did very well, with Chip and then Amber running into him. We had one scary moment when Amber came a bit tight, which freaked him out a bit, but he went right back and ran again so it obviously didn’t put him off!

I also had a spare couple of hours today when I actually managed to get up to Wakefield for a session! I took Kim too, and she was working like a complete lunatic, which was nice! She’s really got so enthusiastic about agility this year, it’s been great. Dylan only did a little bit, but what he did was really nice! We did our first collapsible tunnel, which is his new favourite obstacle, he wasn’t fazed at all. We also did some dogwalk/Aframe work, which didn’t start off quite as I expected! Dylan was very enthusiastic, and he’s a lot faster on the dogwalk than Kim. I’m very pleased I taught him the way I did because he flies along into his 2o2o position, absolutely no hesitations. He completely understands what’s required of him, which is fantastic! The Aframe was another matter — the first time he did it, he just was going way too fast, and flew the apex, bounced once off the downward and then remembered to down 6 foot away. I was not happy! Took him over again with a steady command, which was much better. We also did a set of 12 channel weaves, about 6 inches open. Dylan really needs to concentrate still with the weaves and his mind wasn’t on the job (the dogwalk was more appealing!), and we only got 2 perfect run-throughs of about 10 attempts. Called it a day after the second good one, I don’t want to push my luck!

We also did our first, much dreaded, see-saw. Thank you to Jeremy, Dianne, Avril, Margaret, my mum, and Wendy, who all assisted in some way or another! I started off by pulling down the weighted end to two or three inches off the floor, and asking him to “shut it” (the command I use for when I want him to go and close the door), in an attempt to familiarize him with the noise. He did it perfectly, and he didn’t look particularly worried, especially after a big tuggy game. After that I only asked him to do the whole thing 4 or 5 times, getting someone to hold it at the end and very gently lowering it to get him used to the movement. The first time he really didn’t like it, and tried to jump off. By the final time he was growing in confidence, standing a bit taller, and although he is still very wary I’m hopeful that we’ll manage it eventually!