Tuesday 16 June 2009

Happy Birthday Jaglet

I can't believe that Jag is 8 years old today. Where have those eight years gone.

Here he is at just a few weeks old, shortly after we had bought him home.



And another of Jag competing in the champ final at the weekend (thanks Graeme).



And today in the back garden, just looking gorgeous.







HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAGLET

Monday 15 June 2009

Oops where did that month go!

Just kinda looked at my blog and realised the last time I posted was around Vyne time! Oops. I like being nosey and reading everyone elses blog so guess I should be fair and update mine. Not that I can see why anyone is interested.

Still here goes!

The agility season continues to go well. Jag has missed out on a couple of champ finals but also got to a couple more. Frustratingly I seem to be messing up the finals quite early on. At Thames last weekend we messed up at jump 4 but after that he ran really well. I have a couple of Olympia semis to go to now. Day one and three for certain and probably reserve for day two. Mind you I can't see me driving up to Birmingham three days in a row so will have to hope I make it on day one! I can but hope. I some how think it will be a rather strong day.

Jag really is working so much better this year than last and I really feel like we are back together. I am enjoying running him sooooo much.

Twix, well this year was always going to be work in progress. I had decided that I couldn't accept her contacts as they were so have worked really hard to improve them and improve Twix's confidence to work on her own and ahead of me. Well it seems things are starting to pay off. At Tunbridge Wells I finally managed to get our first clear rounds of the year and a couple of places in jumping classes. Then at Nottingham and Hinckley Twix seemed to be working better and better. No clears but just silly little errors. I had a kick up the bottom at Hinckley when I had decided not to run a grade 6/7 jumping because it was too hard for Twix and I didn't want to de-motivate her... to which I was told don't be so silly of course Twix can do that... so I did and Twix ran really well on a tricky course and just doubled up in the weaves for some strange reason but was so glad I ran that class (thanks Toni!). So it was a weekend off and then off to Thames. This is where it got a lot better with Twix! We did a nice grade 6 agilty judged by Hannah.. and yes I know we went horribley wrong but Twix felt like she was finally moving as quickly as she does in training. I went from that run straight to a graded 6/7 jumping which again was a nice course but had some nice turns in it that Twix could make up time on if she got them right and a tricky weave entry which Twix is kinda good at. So Twixlet ran, did a really nice round and went into the lead.

At this point I turned into one of those handlers that couldn't leave the ring! I was so excited. She was leading by a second. At the end of the class she was still there. Yipee. Was very very happy! So one down... three to go. Twix's contacts were good all weekend and I feel like we are making progress... long may it continue.

I'm sure there are some videos somewhere that I can add.. will have to have a look as it's a bit boring without some videos to break up all this reading.

Next weekend . No qualifiers to worry about so chill chill chill.