A busy time

Since the semi finals life for the dogs has been fairly quiet as i always like to give them a good rest after the build up to a competition. That doesn't mean i have had a rest as Feb has seen the start of two monthly Tuesday workshops. These day long workshops are for handlers who are competing and during the day we have a mix of individual and group work. The first of this kind of workshop was at the start of Feb and i really enjoyed it as it was good to work on individual teams rather than keeping things general which you sometimes have to do with large groups.
Betty has not had that much training recently as i have had a lot of work with the two competition dogs so it has been nice to do a little more work with her. She is great fun to train but you do have to be on the ball as she does things so fast. She already has some unique moves due to her size but at the moment i am struggling to come up with anymore. Of course she can do all the basic moves like the bigger dogs but some just don't have the same impact because of her small size.
I forgot to mention in this blog that we did a performance in front of royalty at the end of January. When i say royalty it was Princess Alexandra who i think is a niece to the Queen. It was all very formal and i had to stand in line to greet her, then little Betty and Pogo had to do their thing. Luckily it went quite well and i am told the Princess really enjoyed it.
Last week i made the trip to London to see a preview of the Dogumentary or as it is now called A different breed TV show which i was filmed for last year. It is going to be shown on Sky at the start of April and i must admit to being a little worried about how it was going to look. As i watched the first half of the programme i was cringing a bit as some of the dog owning characters are certainly outgoing. Then it came to my bit which was the filming done when Whizzy competed at a show. I thought it came across OK, obviously they showed the only three people in the entire show that had funny costumes but that's what the media does. We then saw the fifth show out of the six and that was ok. There are funny moments in it and i think it will make you laugh in places if you do watch it. Not having seen all 6 programmes i don't know what the others are like but from what i have seen it appears i will not have to leave the country in embarrassment !
Not long to go to Crufts now so i really must get back into training but with lots of workshops still to teach this month it might not be that easy.

Whizzy qualifies : )

At the end of November i had entered Whizzy at the PNM Guilford show in advanced freestyle as this was the first show she could compete at this level. This advanced class was also the last Crufts semi final qualifier of the year so although Pogo is already qualified in both divisions i thought i would see if Whizzy could qualify as well. I was not worried if she didn't as she is still young but it would be a great experience for her if she did qualifyed for the semis as in 2012 she will not get the chance as i can reveal that i will be judging the Crufts finals again.
She was her normal enthusiastic self and although i let her down in a few places i was delighted that she won the class and gained a Crufts semi final qualifier. This meant she has had a great first season by going from novice to advanced winning six firsts from six shows.
As i will now have two dogs in the freestyle semi it will be a bit more work but my aim for Whizzy is really just to keep her attitude as she is young. I will more than likely keep the routine she has been doing as my work needs to go into Pogo as this may well be her last time in the semis because of course i am judging the finals as i have mentioned earlier.
Training has not been going too bad with Pogo although there is still a sequence which i cannot seem to get consistent. I have tried going right back to basics but still she seems to do it but not always as crisp as i would like. So now i really need to decide whether to remove that sequence or just keep at it and keep my fingers firmly crossed on the day.

A quick update

As i mentioned in the last post the bank holiday weekend was going to be busy. At the PNM competition i was glad that Whizzy won her intermediate class especially as it was being filmed for a documentary. So Whizzy is now well and truly qualified for advanced freestyle but will have a good rest before i do any advance classes with her.
From the competition it was onto the Eye show where it was very wet on the first day but the second day was sunny but with the Red arrows flying over late our second display was much later which meant we were very late home.
After a busy week of grooming and filming it was time to drive up to see Andy Nickless www.workingsheepdog.co.uk for a sheepdog lesson. As i had not done that much practice i wasn't sure how Pogo would work. At home i had been working on her driving to try and keep her away from the ducks plus slow her down a bit. Not having trained a sheepdog before i was relieved that it seems i had been doing most of it ok and i was impressed that Pogo walked behind the sheep so slowly and the sheep were the calmest i have ever seen them. It was one of those rare occasions when i actually felt in control and Pogo even laid down when told.
Now its time for Paws in the park in Kent www.pawsinthepark.net so i hope to see some of you there.

The sat nav is working hard !

Its been a hectic few weeks with the sat nav being used a lot to navigate us to various venues around the country. We had a brilliant weekend at the Garlic Festival on the Isle of Wight where there was huge crowds. When i did the displays the crowd were four or five deep around the ring and i don't think i ever have had so many children in the ring for the "disco dancing" competition.
A busy week in the grooming salon followed and then a trip to Norfolk to see my good friend Helen and teach two one day freestyle workshops. Helen breeds Novia Scotia Duck Tolling Retrievers so the first day was just for this breed which meant i couldn't exactly ask the person with a toller to step forward. Both groups were very enthusiastic in the morning but i think by the afternoon what with the heat and the amount of work i do with the groups they were all needing a bit of rest.
Its no rest for the wicked as over the bank holiday weekend i will be attending the PNM HTM show at Stoneleigh where i will work Whizzy. I don't really need to as she has already gone into advanced but i have had my arm twisted to compete with her for a TV programme, more of that later! Then we will be going on up to Eye in Suffolk for the Eye country show. I have performed displays there many times so i know it will mean a lot of running around as the ring is very large so i have to try and cover as much of it as i can.
A apology to anyone asking me to teach workshops for the rest of this year, I'm afraid i think i don't have that much more time available at weekends, so make sure you get your date for early next year.

Three wins at the Paws n music show

Well it was a very long day at the Paws n Music May show held at Rugby. We got there for 9.30am and the last class which i was in finished just after 8pm!. I had entered three classes which was the most i have ever entered in my life, as normally i prefer to enter one dog one class at a show as i can then fully concentrate on the routine and dog.

The first of my dogs in the ring was Whizzy who was competing for the second time in Novice freestyle. Whizzy was certainly up for it and perhaps a little too much at some points but i would rather have too much energy than not enough. I'm glad to say that she won the class which means she has two wins in novice so now she is into intermediate freestyle. As good as the routine was i have to say from a personal point of view it was a case of good dog pity about the handler. My timing just seemed to be off and i wasn't giving her clear commands or signals so i think i need to give myself a kick up the back side before out next performance.

It was quite a wait then until the first of the two classes that i had entered Pogo in. The Crufts advanced HTM qualifier was the first class for her where we were performing our Lets face the music and dance routine. Feeling a little over dressed in my tails we had to change the routine a little as the ring was a lot smaller than the Crufts ring which was the last place we had performed it. It went ok and i am pleased to say that she won the class which means she has now qualified for the Crufts HTM semi final in January 2011.

There was not much chance to draw breath before the Crufts advanced freestyle qualifier class started. I had opted to perform Pogo's Hawaii 50 routine which she enjoys performing. The only trouble with Pogo is she is very much a one routine a day dog so having only just performed the HTM routine i had to work hard to keep her focus and get her to do the moves on time. There was a little bit of improvisation in the routine for various reasons but she did enough to win the class so now has qualified for the Crufts semi in this division as well.

So having not got home until 11pm it was very much a rest day for all us on the Sunday. I would like to thank everyone who gave such nice comments about all my routines and also to the hardworking PNM committee who put on a super event.