Shows, Trials, Lee Gibson and other news...

Bad, bad, bad blogger... I have been so  bad in posting that I actually had to go and re-read my previous post (well the doggy one) to remember what I had last blogged about.  In my defense it is partly because I have been hellishly busy (is hell busy?) and partly because 2011 has apparently decided that it either hates me or wants to test my limits...  Soooo, after a blow out on the highway (when of course the skies had to open JUST as I started changing my tyre) and then having to do a 140km round trip to find a dealership that had my spare tyre in stock, my newly acquired kindle's wireless konking in after a week and 'being fixed again', homicide inducing work catastrophes (which at least ended in the tender begin submitted), agility politics, certain unnamed dogs getting hold of and partially eating a maggot infested corpse of some critter (so past it's sell-by date that the exact species could no longer be identified) which of course resulted in some induced vomiting and yet another round of de-worming, burning myself to a crisp (yes, this might be my own fault), some health issues on the human side of the family and some other minor hiccups... I have time to make another post...  well not really, I should be working, but I need stress relief.

Nox, dude (chick) that is MY bed!!!

Soooo, I am going to try and do this in chronological order:

The second show of the year did NOT go as well as the first.  Chaos for the first time in his life, leaped of his contact.  I was shocked.  I stopped put him back, continued the run, got to the second contact... and believe it or not, there he goes AGAIN.  I put him back again, attempted the same contact and when low and behold he did the same thing, I just walked off.  Yes, yes, bitch and moan with me, I should have walked off after the FIRST one, but this was just so unexpected.  I was horrified.  The rest of the day with him just went downhill from there.  I ran Quake too though and he went very nicely.  I ran with a toy and since it was very bad course design for Grade 1 dogs, I just made up my own course, but he did exactly as I wanted.  So happy with the monster, now I am going to train, train, train and hopefully start entering him officially in the middle of the year.

We then had Lee Gibson here for a week of workshops and seminars.  I was part of the organising committee, so a lot of time and stress went into this week, but a lot of good came from it, so much information...  I like the simplicity of his training methods, no frills or fafs or training of complicated maneuvers that you will never use in reality. Definitely have some valuable ideas that I will be applying in my training.  What always amuses me about an accomplished and well-known handler that presents workshops or releases a new book or dvd, is the six months that follows.  Every Joe Soap and his mate will start every sentence with: 'but Lee Gibson/Susan Garrett/Greg Darrett/Silvia Trkman says/does/approves...'.  Now I give every single accomplished handler in the world credit, they obviously DID get it right.  I apply several of their techniques in my training...  BUT I just wish people could realise that they will still have to apply their OWN skills and training to what he said, unless they have developed body transplant technology which will enable them to actually become Lee Gibson and that would just be really weird.

This brings us to the weekend of the night show and the first trials.  Eish, that is all I am going to say...  I am not transferring blame and most probably would have sucked just as badly, but really... at both the shows I was running around like a mad hooligan, setting up ALL the courses, cooking food, doing results in between.  Barely seeing my dogs and not once being able to take them for a decent walk.  I don't mind helping out AT ALL.  Hell that is what I am there for, but there is limits!  My mind was not remotely where it should have been.  So out of the 5 rounds that I ran that weekend, I had 4 Eliminations and 1 10 faulter.  So no points at all for me toward the SA Champs/AWC qualifiers yet.  I am not going to dwell on it though, I am not even going to dwell on actually even getting points to be honest.  What I do want to start doing is get the best possible rounds I can.  It is that or nothing.  Chaos deserves that much.

Yesterday we had the NAPC Top Dog invitational.  And despite the boiling heat, it went quite well.  An unlucky first bar, cost us a place in the contact (finished 4th with the quickest 5 faulter), my retardedness meant an E in the non-contact.  I mean shame poor dude, he was heading for the right tunnel entry, when I blatantly turned towards the wrong one and he actually did a face plant to accomplish that...  Chaos, dude... you need to get a new owner.  Another bar kept us out of the Dog Jumping jump-off, but oh well.

My lunatic boy, The Spaz - Chaos

Volt of course has been going with to all the shows.  I take him close to the rings and have huge tug games.  He really is amazing, not even looking at other dogs (well, there is one BC that makes him go ballistic, with no way of me getting him back).  But if you leave him to his own devices he goes bananas-monkey-dog-crazy when he sees agility, at the end of the lead or in his crate.  So he is crated faaaaaar away from the rings and I make sure that we play big time when he is on lead to avoid that.

My Blue-Eyed Boy

Here is Chaos's contact round from yesterday:


On a different note... I love our house... I was just sitting outside throwing balls for the boys, when all of a sudden, three Impala shot up the hill across the street...

Got Anthony to take some pics of me and all the boys today... sad by true the first one of me and all my boys together.

 But all my boys are a bit 'ma-bef*k'... if I so much as move...  Echo has learnt to look more casual about the whole business, but still gives me the eye.

And my four 'of the awesomeness BC's'