Definately Time for a Catch up

Its been over a year since I last posted so well overdue for a catch up on the blog.
Its been a toughie for me - We lost our old boy Flame nearly 14 years not long after Fya which was just awful and suddenly there were no BCs in the house for the first time in over 20 years.

Then in September 2010 we got a new boy in the family. Arashi He's White Hot - Scorcha, is a Japanese Spitz who is the great=grandson of the famous little agility dog Storm - Ch Silverbay Luvina Storm ADX owned by Ross Carter. He is a delight and has brought a heap of joy to the household.

In the meantime, rehab of Kindle continued and Ashy was doing one or two classes every so often at shows but my heart really wasn't in it. Having been on the Agility Committee and seeing the not so nice side of the attitudes of some in sport I lost motivation to do this sport I had been involved with for so long.

However, I was involved in running the 2010 NDTA at Taupo which was a fantastic event luckily due to great weather. I was however pretty pleased to see the back of it so by the end of 2010, I had lost two great dogs and everything just seemed a wee bit hard.

Luckily Susan Garrett came to NZ in Nov 2010 and thanks to some great friends, I was able to attend and to some extent had my enthusiasm restored.
Kindle started jumping again at the end of the year so I was hoping that 2011 was going to be a more settled and enjoyable time..............

More Kindle Rehab

Today we videoed Kin's second effort on curved trotting poles.
She is really enjoying doing something and we've been doing the trotting poles building up the number and then adding the curve.

Here is where she's up to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpWFEUixmls

Goodbye My Fya Dog

After a weekend of being a bit "off colour" and before we were due to take her to the vet this morning, Fya died last night. She my profile pic to see my little girl.
An autopsy was done and she basically bled out into her abdomen as if from Rat Poison which is concerning as we don't have any here and the dogs have no access to any off the property.
A sample of her liver is being sent away to the lab for analysis so we will know in a few days whether that really is what happened.
VERY scarey and we are watching the other dogs very closely obviously.

Fya was a stunning little dog who gave everything she did 100%. Her enthusiasm for anything you asked of her was just incredible.
She started Christie's obedience career and loved every second of it. She did some rally-o and loved that too.
But her first love was agility and she was my wonderful little red girlie who gave me so many fun times in my sport. Reknown for her spectacular sliding contacts she was just awesome to train and she was training agility up until Wednesday last week.
She may have been one challenge short on paper but she was a Champion in our hearts.

I can't believe she's gone - we will miss her terribly.

Training Training Training

Well its definately been the theme of this week.
On Thursday, Ashy went to Rotorua club and trained with others for the first time. She coped really well and did some nice work gaining confidence throughout the evening. Her home performance continues to rocket away so really looking forward to the day when her confidence out matches it. It will be really cool.

Today Dyson and I ran a fundraising training day for NDTA. We did a foundation session of 1.5 hours followed by two groups of competing dogs at different levels doing a total of around 4 hours of handling training. What a great group they all were and there was some really good stuff happening and heaps of improvement and tidying up of exisitng skills along with some new ones being tried.

Another two weeks before Ashy's next outing which is the local Ribbon Trial so no excuse not to get some more training done. Having alocal ART might just give her the next step as it is a familiar grounds.

Ash's First Champ Jumpers Day

Well Ashy came out of season in time to make it to the WAG Jumpers Day on Sat 24 April.
She was extremely well behaved. Had 4 runs 2 of which I mucked up.
Here are the links to video of the other two - both clear.
She was nowhere near the speed she runs at home and very cautious but I was still very pleased with her first effort.
Her classes had 185 dogs in them and were won at rates around 5.7m/sec where Ashy was travelling at around 4 or 4.25 m/sec so no ribbons!
She finished middle of the pack of those who went clear (approx 75 clear in each class).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMqPkpuy0-M

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYe_NQ6AYhY

Finally a Training Catch-up

Well we've finally got some video taken of Ashy training again.
Here are two short bits.

One is Ashy jumping a line with both midi and maxi hurdles and the other is my first video of her full weave. Still lots to learn but improving all the time and I'm just thrilled with the way she's coming along.

Aiming to start her at a Ribbon Trial late this month just to see where we're at, with a view to a full Champ show start sometime toward the end of April.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTyJQeUiuZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yDBg6StOu-g

Update on the Broken Dogs

Well here we are nearly two months into the New Year already.
Kindle continues to improve slowly - would probably be further ahead if I was home more and worked less :-) as I struggle to get enough walking into her each week but thats ok and I can't do too much about that.
Ashy had her surgery on her eyelid in early January and all her stitches are now disolved so we've started her jump training and are now aiming to have her ready to compete mid-year or so.
Has been a great summer weatherwise with lots of very hot days and plenty of rain in the evenings so the place is green. The dogs have really enjoyed swimming this summer and having our own private area is fantastic.