Flyball videos

We had a training session today, mainly for the team dogs but Storm and a couple of the other starter dogs had some runs as well. They were all timed and Storm has got quicker since last time he trained and got a fastest time of 4.86 seconds. He did 5.30 last time he was timed. Monty got a fastest time of 4.83 seconds but on average Storm is faster than Monty. Here's a video clip of each of them. Monty doing an 8 hurdle run to build fitness & stamina and Storm just doing the usual 4 hurdle run. The 7" hurdles are nothing for Storm and he doesn't have to jump at all, he just runs over the top of them lol. He can't do higher hurdles until he's older.

Working

I let Monty & Storm have a go at working Basher, my horse today. I put Bash in the arena and went and got Storm. It was only the 2nd time Storm has seen a horse so he was a bit wary to begin. Bash is a good boy though and will just plod around the arena while I follow on behind. Storm quickly got braver and was going in and sending him on (he thought it was him sending him on heh). He was a bit gobby and kept having a bark which is just down to lacking confidence. He kept in behind and just drove Bash forwards and at one point Bash slowed down and Storm shot in, nipped him on the hock and sent him off again.
After he'd spent a bit of time working I put him back in the car and got Monty out.
Monty was very wary to begin as he developed a fear of horses after touching the electric fence and getting zapped. There were two horses on the other side of the fence so he figured that horses being present mean't he'd get electrocuted. I sent Bash of plodding round the arena and Monty soon got braver and started circling him. Storm takes the direct route and goes straight in whereas Monty keeps some distance and just circles. He's also a bit gobby and kept barking.
Bash is fine for them to start on but they will need to move onto something else to learn to work properly. Bash isn't scared of dogs so they can't move him around as he'll just walk over the top of them if they try and head him off and make him change direction. I walked round and kept Bash moving and changing direction but of course the dogs thought they were doing it which was boosting their confidence. They need to move onto something that they can move around themselves. I don't know if Mark will let me use his cows to practice lol. They both looked very pleased with themselves after their efforts heh. From there it was off to the lake to get legs clean as they had orange legs from the sand in the arena.

Quiet time

For the dogs anyway. Flyball has finished for this year so the boys are just chilling and enjoying the holiday. They still do their clicker training so they're not taking a holiday from everything lol. I took them on the park with the ball launcher today and totally knackered them out. I know when Monty is knackered cos he will leg it after the ball but then flop to the floor once he gets to it. Storm won't bother trying to race Monty for the ball and will hang back if Monty is in the lead. If Storm sets off first though he will go full tilt after the ball while Monty is trying to get their first. They'll quite often get to the ball at the same time and then its a guess as to who has it. Storm comes back much quicker than Monty does and brings the ball to me whereas Monty throws it at me on his way past. Monty is a cheat and will run off across the field and wait for the ball to be thrown to him rather than for him. I make him come back though and won't let him set off running until the ball has been launched. If he pisses off in one direction assuming thats where the ball is going to go I will launch it in the opposite direction so he has twice as far to run to get it. Monty had to drag himself home afterwards lol. When we got home they were both laid out on the kitchen floor doing very good steam train impressions hahahaha. Monty managed to slobber all over the floor as well! Half hour later he was back on his feet throwing toys at me to try and get me to play fetch with him. Monty's a pain and is always mithering to be played with (fetch) whereas Storm lays down quietly and waits until he's invited to play.

Bath time

Well, after much deliberation and research I gave Storm a bath today. I've always been led to believe that it isn't good for them to be bathed unless absolutely necessary but upon doing some research into it, it stated that its better for them to have a clean coat than a dirty one. Storm was absolutely minging, his whites were yellow!!!! I fished my rubber bath mat out and put it in the shower tray for him. On his previous baths he would lie down in the shower which made washing him a bit tricky. The rubber mat mean't he remained standing which was a big help. I used his deodorising dog shampoo and also used some conditioner on his tail, feathers & britches. I had the bag of treats handy and kept giving him one for being a good boy. Unfortunately the water ran cold halfway through but he didn't seem to mind too much. Afterwards I gave him a good rub down with the towel and then blowdried him. He's all nice and clean now and smells much better than he did......shame it won't last long *sigh*

Doncaster Indoor Tournament

Was up early yesterday morning to get to Doncaster. Fortunately Doncaster is only about 30 minutes away so I didn't have to set off at silly o-clock. I had to take the flyball box with me as Andy's van was broken so he was going by car, just taking the dogs that were running and didn't have room to take the other box. It had been forecast to be very cold so I had numerous layers on as I remember how cold it was there in October. We weren't in until the 2nd division so that gave plenty of time to exercise the dogs and fuel up on a sausage sandwich. I made a point of wearing my long Woof boots as the tournament is held in an indoor riding school and although the dogs run on turf, the school surface is this strange black rubbery type stuff and turns everything black. I was wearing white trainers last time I went and certainly learn't a valuable lesson about choosing footwear carefully lol. We were first in in our division and won the first two races. We lost the 3rd as Keston decided he didn't want to do the hurdles on the way back. We won one race and lost another in the afternoon and ended up coming 2nd in the division. Monty ran great again with no misbehaving. It was at Doncaster last time that he had Andy bellowing and chasing him off the box because he suddenly got a habit of spinning round and going back to the box for another ball. I managed to get 2 free hot chocolates from the food van and they had squirty cream on the top and were excellent. I also met Jakey Tripod, the 3 legged dog whose road to flyball dog I'm following on Facebook. He's a lovely boy and it was great to watch him racing.
The weather was quite nice during the day but the temps dropped quite a lot later on. I got volunteered to box load for Cheshire Set in Div 1, the last Div of the day as Katherine had to leave straight after our Division. We went back to the cars after the racing while the presentation started. The temperature had dropped so much that all the cars were frozen. I scraped the ice of the disco's windscreen before we went in for presentation. Afterwards I had to scrape it again as it had re-frozen! We all started our cars up and just sat for a while till they'd defrosted and de-fogged so we could actually see out the windows. Thankfully the drive home didn't take long and I didn't hit all the bloody traffic lights in Balby as usually happens.
So, Monty has another rosette on the cage and some more points and we had another good day. I think that was our last tournament until the New Year.

Yesterdays training

I didn't have the energy to compose and write this last night lol. It was our usual Sunday afternoon training session and again it was cold and muddy. The mud on the field is like clay and just sticks and clumps to everything. Storm was timed today and is doing about 5.3 seconds. Monty hasn't been timed for a while so we're not sure what times he's doing now. He certainly isn't doing 4.3 seconds so there's less than a second between Monty & Storm. Storm will probably be faster than Monty once he's done growing, developing and building fitness. Monty isn't the fastest dog and will only run on the secondary teams and never the main Rockets team. Monty doesn't care though, so long as he gets to go and get his ball he's happy. Only time will tell how Storm turns out but he's doing brilliantly so far and hopefully will continue to get better.