Born Again?

I am open to everyone’s beliefs so long as they are not harmful to others or themselves and don’t think blogs are the place to be that personal but I for me re-incarnation has a certain fascination – partly because how can so many dead people live in heaven without serious overcrowding LOL

Torro is an unusual dog and does not seem to have normal dog skills. His idea of being friendly is whacking another dog with his paw. There were a few happenings in his puppyhood and something from a communicator that could give the opinion he was a cat in a previous life. Well our cat (Dirty Harry) died of old age in the October and Torro was born in January. There was also a long and complicated serious of events that resulted in me having Torro. He made eye contact with me when we went to look at the pups that made me think he thought good I’ve found you again J

I had forgotten about this and only started to think about it because of how Rhyme is going at training.

I am so enthusiastic about the puppy training and how we can break things down to help dogs learn the equipment when they are older. I love training it and seeing the rapid progress dogs make and how much fun they have. However Rhyme does not seem to share this emotion. However much I would prefer to break things down and build understanding and then speed. He just does things. He does them like he has done them before.

The seesaw is a perfect example – I did wobble cushions, boards planks on balls gradually building to doing the seesaw on 2 tables etc, plus bang game and end games. Went to do the whole thing and he jumped off L Went back a few stages all ok then tried again. Again off he comes L Decided to just hold his collar in the old-fashioned way and viola, easy peasy, why didn’t you say this is what you wanted? seesaw sorted.

Then there was the match – I really should have waited and done more training, first on jump grids and set point etc etc. But the first time I showed him a course and he does it.

He’s getting to the age of doing full height now too so I just did an exercise at medium and then did the same at full height – done – no errors, no running under, no hesitation.

So this makes comes me to the conclusion that maybe Rhyme is a reincarnation of an agility dog. I do not know which dog and can only hope it was a very good one.

Traits peculiar to Rhyme include suckling your thumb when sleeping on your lap and nibbling you in a “you are mine kind” of way. So if you know of any past agility dogs with these traits I may have him – sorry you can’t have him back but it’ll be good to meet you J J

The Cats Out of The Bag & The Dog's of the Starting Block

So much planning and everything’s coming to fruition J

The meeting on Thursday was with the manager of a local Equestrian Centre that I can now reveal is going to be UpAndOver and The Lakers Dog Agility’s new home.

The Loriston-Clarke’s and of course, Fiona Boyne were brilliant hosts at Catherston Stud, both at Hurstbourne and when we moved with them to Over Wallop. We appreciate all their support and feel part of their greatness rubbed off and helped us create a great training school.

http://www.catherstonstud.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=171

Times change and with their daughter managing and a group of very demanding livery customers our ability to hire the school for any other time than Tuesdays became impossible. We are very grateful for Ann allowing us to have that.

With classes full we still needed somewhere to take on new members so the search began and here we are now our new venue

Cholderton Equestrian Centre.

http://www.altogetherequestrian.com/

In order to secure the venue and move the club on again we are committing to hiring every Tuesday and Thursday, so more planning now for new courses etc.

Sad to be leaving Catherston behind but changes tend to encourage more changes and this is just the catalyst to get moving with loads of training opportunities J

Talking of training opportunities I took the opportunity to try out how our training was progressing with Rhyme by taking part in the match against Wallingford in the Nursery class.

This may have been a silly idea, as he has not previously done anymore than 12 obstacles. However he was incredible and worked his four paws off. We only did medium height jumps and he does not have the speed of his training mate (and Kodi’s son) Buzzy but he was quicker than I thought and he LOVED it. So much so that I thought I would just train the start line on the next course. He was very excited watching the other dogs but totally settled on the start in perfect position, ready and waiting. Proud as punch.

Third run again he knew exactly how to behave on the start and no hesitation of pushing up. It was nearly a disaster as we ran up the line towards the other ring when his really, really strong chase drive took over. But this dog who three months ago I thought I would never even get in a ring because of this reason, recalled beautifully to me and carried on around the course with no further error.

My grown up boy is truly on his way now. So much motivation now to do the things we need to do to realize the future that I see possible.

Some dates are just good

10 years ago today Mark and I got married :) Those of you good at maths will have worked out we got married just after Mark turned 40. Some would say it was a midlife crisis but here we still are :)


Our friends Lauren Langman & Matt Rouse gave birth to their little girl this morning - it's great news and the baby is lucky to be joining such a lovely family.


So 2 major events - one the start of a great marriage and the other a baby already on this date. Both are quite life changing.


Other people will have dates or times of the year when things are just good or things seem to go wrong. There is probably somebody that can prove some kind of spooky connection to our birth dates that will explain this phenomena. A bit like astrology I suppose.


Anyway whatever it is about this date something else happened today that will make a big change in our lives. We had a successful meeting with somebody and it will result in a big change that will have far reaching consequences. An end of an era is approaching.


This is separate from my other big "watch this space" happening and I will be able to reveal all much sooner on this one.


Those of you who read my blogs regularly will have heard about polishing coconuts - it seems mine have been well and truly polished :)


Bring on all the changes - an the old chinese proverb says
"When the winds of change blow, some people build walls and others build windmills.” I know what I'm going to do.

Watch this space

So excited with a brilliant idea my friend had. It really has taken my imagination. Luckily she wants us to do it together so keep an eye open for an invite to try something different after I've finished my experiment I mean project re warm up stretching and cool down routines.

Everyone has been timed now and it's great how everyone is so keen to help. Once we have finished the project I am going to roll out the routine to all as we are already finding it a great addition to our agility.

Torro Laker was 6 yesterday - he is looking physically on top form which is more than can be said for me. I had a muscle spasm in my lower back on Tuesday and could not move. Thank goodness we had watched the film 127 hours recently or I think I'd still be stuck on the living room floor now. I figured if he could cut his arm off to save his life then I could suffer immense (but admittedly non life threatening) pain in order to get to the pain killers and freezer to get an icepack :)

Happy New Year

Happy New Year - lets hope it's a good one for everyone.

I love this time of year. It is so exciting, full of promise of what this year will bring.

When I take down the Christmas decorations I have a big sort out and clean round. I also clear out the trophies from last year to give room for new ones this year. It is always difficult to know what to do with the old ones as it seems ungrateful to throw them away.

We have had a bit of a worry with Flint as he is showing his age although not when we have been out walking :) We've had some great walks this holiday including going to Studland on Christmas Eve. This was Rhyme's first trip to the proper seaside and he LOVED it. That's him in the background, out in the water where he stayed the whole walk, squealing with excitement and wanting us to throw something in for him.

He is such a great character and always looking for the fun in life. I am looking forward to his agility training and can almost guarantee we are going to have some interesting times when it comes to competing :)

It all seems so much brighter now he has understood the concept of recalling. We have walked in many different places with many different dogs and distractions this last couple of weeks and he has easily passed each challenge as if he never had a problem. Now he has understood what he is supposed to do, he comes back every time and his reward is freedom to run in the wide open spaces which is what is loves most (except running in the sea of course). Recall problems - what recall problems. What a great start to the year :)

Merry Christmas

We are lucky to have a beautiful picture by www.pet-ography.co.uk given to us by our lovely club members last Christmas and he makes them into Christmas cards too. What better way to wish everyone Merry Christmas.

The Christmas party was brilliant this year. I worked out a rota so everyone got a chance to join in and also then got a chance to take control of the games :)

We really need to try that memory game out again - brilliant and challenging if you got it but not so easy to enjoy if you got knocked out. It was good shouting at the others where to go if they got it wrong though.

The Santa game was great fun even though Billy decided to play tuggy with Santa's scarf.

Boxed trios, well what can I say, a must for next year especially if Sandra's coming.

I hope everyone has a lovely Christmas it is such a special time. Cherish your time together with your loved ones and spare a thought for those that may have lost loved ones this year.

Polishing Coconuts

Hi long time no blog :( sorry folks.

I have been very busy doing loads of interesting things that would have been interesting to blog about too – ironic.

Here’s the list
• Course work and preparing for my thesis for my ICAT Canine Remedial massage therapy Diploma
• Choosing dogs for above thesis and arranging Vet Permission Forms
• Booking time to do thesis and arranging swimming for the swimming dogs
• Getting to grips with new routine and back to office employment for 1 day a week.
• Revising what I know about Credit Control and researching national averages for debtors re above job
• Training Rhyme
• Preparing for Christmas Match V Wallingford
• Preparing for Christmas
• Sorting Diary out for all the things to do and lovely people to visit over Christmas
• Writing cards & designing email card
• Preparing for UpAndOver Christmas party
• Checking supplies of CSJ & Orijen to ensure customers don’t run out of dog food over the Christmas break.
• Buying presents for family and friends
• Buying prizes for match & Christmas party
• Updating diary with shows I know we will definitely be interested in next year from the Agility Show Diary

I will come back to some of these at some point, as they are all interesting. I feel very lucky to have a life when I am busy doing loads of different things that I love.

Well why polishing coconuts? Well a good book to read if you want to take a bit more control of your destiny is a book called “Write it Down Make it Happen” by Henriette Anne Klauser. I will be re- reading it this winter and again I’m sure it will feature in another blog. The polishing coconuts is a reference to a study of some monkeys on an island that were cleaning sand off coconuts and more and more monkeys then joined in. When the number of monkeys on that island reached a certain number then monkeys on another island started to do the same thing. This shows how activity in one area can generate activity in another.

As you know I have a few key areas that I want better performance from Rhyme in – recalls, focus and play drive. I have been working on these using different methods (including tearing my hair out LOL) so you can imagine how thrilled I was with these comments
Great Recall – Lesley Olden - training afternoon
Good focus – Lauren Langman - training day
Lovely play drive – Gemma Hanekom - jump grid session.

Each of these comments were not relating to what we were working on in those training sessions so I could have easily not registered them but as consciously these are key areas for me my mind sat up and took notice and I thought RESULT.

In fact Rhyme’s work at the things we were supposed to be doing was not amazing so had I wanted him to excel at those things I would have come away feeling disappointed. The strength of knowing what I want and setting my own goals meant I came away from each of those sessions knowing that me and Rhyme are most definitely going in the direction I want to go in ☺ ☺