Happy Howl-a-days!!

My doggie siblings and I would like to wish everyone a very Happy Howl-a-days! We were lucky enough to get to see Santa a few weeks ago (I got to tell him what I wanted for Christmas...hope he understood dog-talk)

Abbey, Owen, Baxter and Ripley

Have a safe and happy Holiday Season! See you all in the new year. Licks, Abbey!

2008 ends with a great run!

Friday morning Mom packed Baxter and I up in the car and we headed to Acton Agility's AAC trial. This was our last trial of the season (and probably the last time I jump 10" too!) I had a rough start in the morning, Mom pissed me off in the Masters Gamble and I just refused to do the contacts. You should have seen me jump from above the yellow! :) Ok, I know that isn't good but I have to keep her in her place.

We then went on to do 2 Masters Standard courses. The first one I was still in a mood (I am a wire fox terrier you know...) and I jumped off the contact of the frame and missed my weave entry. Mom made me go back and do the contact again, I hate that!

Our next run was going quite well. Mom was being really nice to me and wasn't screwing up on the handling so I was running nice and fast. We had done almost the whole course when Mom said frame and I just wasn't listening and went into the tunnel instead :( Mom said she was sad because it was a beautiful run up to that point and we only had 3 more obstacles to go. Oh well, I tried! :)

Here is a video of that run:


The final run of the day was Masters Jumpers. Mom was in a rush to get out of there because a snowstorm was happening outside so we both ran fast and didn't make any mistakes. I came out with my 5th Q, half way to Bronze :)

Here is my Masters Jumper Q run:

Rules are made to be broken (or changed as it worked out)

The Agility Association of Canada (AAC) put through a bunch of changes to be implemented in Jan 2009. The most exciting change for me is that I can move from Specials where I jump 10" back to Regulars where I will be able to jump 16" We had no idea that this was going to happen but after training these past months at the 16" height and doing so well, I am VERY excited about it. Look out Regulars, here I come. There are also a few new titles and I am kind of close to a couple, so look out...I might have a few new letters behind my name soon.

Exciting news, I am heading to the final agility trial of the year next weekend! I get to do 2 standard runs and 1 jumpers run. I will let you know how that goes :)

Spot On Fun Match

So we ended up going to Spot On's fun match today to work on my 16" jumping. I was a good girl in the jumpers run going perfect. Mom thought about adding in the 12 weaves after my run so she went back after and we re-ran that part and I was a very good girl in the weaves. In the standard runs I was a very good girl, maintaining my start line, getting my contacts and weaves (I missed it once when my mom put her leg out and pushed me off the line...how rude!) My dad was nice enough to take some video of us so here are some better ones of me:

This is me doing the jumpers course:


This is me doing the standard courses:

Jumping machine :)

So I have been on the new 16" jump height training for less than a month now and I am rocking! My mom is so proud of me, she says I am jumping great. We have been training pretty hard recently and mom is now talking about even re-training my weaves using 2x2's. She says that if they can help B to get his entry every time that maybe I can learn too. I have done just one day so far and was a bit confused but mom says she's not giving up on it. I will let you know how it goes. Aunt Andrea was so nice enough to take some video of me last night for everyone to see. The lighting isn't great in the arena but at least you can see how good I jump :)







On Sunday mom is taking Baxter and I to McCann's for a fun match :) I can't wait to play at the higher height in a more charged up environment. I will see if someone can video tape me and then I will post it...(the lighting there is much better!)

Back to training...

So my Mom has been neglecting my agility training these days spending all her time with the border collie boys :( She says that she was giving me a much deserved break but I think that is just bull. I guess she is feeling guilty (I think biting her the other day helped her to realize this) so she took me outside today to work on skills she says. I thought I had pretty good skills but she said we are on a mission this winter/spring for something really cool (a secret but if it works...she will tell me and then I will tell you).

So for the next 6 months I will be using this blog with my Mom's help to track my training to see if we can become an even better team. Might be a bit boring so I will label the post "Training" if you would rather not read about it. If I have something exciting happen in my life I will put a cool title to let you know.

Day 1 of back to training:
Mom has moved the jumps up to 16" today. She says going forward, I will only jump 16" in training and CKC agility. Sadly they will not let me move up to 16" in AAC so we may have to do some of those trials at 10" or FEO.

We first started with weave entries. I never learned 2x2 weaving and instead of going back to basics, Mom has decided to just use poles 1-2 at an angle of 1 o'clock and 7 o'clock to help with entries, we also had 4 more poles totally straight and all 6 poles were staked. We started with offside entries first, and at pretty easy entries. We were able to do entries from 2 feet back from pole 1, Mom really pushing me to stride through the whole 6, throwing a cookie for reward. We did 6 of those in the first session. We then moved to onside entries and I had a bit of trouble understanding the open entry of pole 1-2 so I was going in after pole 3. Mom had to support the entry to get it right...she is re-thinking the open poles. We did 6 on that side also.

We moved onto jumping then. First we did 2 jumps with Mom doing a post turn, I stayed out and jumped those well. I did 2 of those each direction. Next we did serpentines. I missed the serp jump the first time coming past it to my mom. I wasn't rewarded for that so the next time I did it correctly. I did 2 of those in each direction also. Next we did threadles and I found that much easier to come in than take jump 2 but was running under jump 2 when being sent back out. Mom needed to move back and give me a bit move room to get a stride to jump the 16" at a slice. I did a few of those after really nicely she said. Our final work was on 270's. Mom was very proud of me for staying out and doing them. I did come in a few times as I wasn't really reading Mom's body but she says that I was good and that is why we are practicing. For the final one I got a jackpot of my breakfast! woohoo.

So that is it for now. Mom said she will be more organized with the record keeping tomorrow like she does with the boys. Our training plan tomorrow is:

Weave Entries - onside/offside
270's
Threadles
Serpentines
Set Point jumps

New Sport?!

Did I ever have FUN on Saturday! My mom took me to a Dock Diving trial to try my paw at a new sport. I LOVE water and swimming so much, it is my second favorite thing to do, after agility of course. I had been learning to dive off the dock all summer so this was the test.

I did 6 jumps all together and had a personal best jump of 4'8" which both Mom and I thought was pretty darn good for such a small terrier like I am. Sadly I didn't make the finals (imagine!) but when they were handing out the ribbons I got called up to receive the "Shortest Jump" ribbon...how rude, lol ;)

Look at me jump!! Don't you think that looks hard?! and look how cute I am!!

For my final jump I just wouldn't go off the dock (it is 3' above the water...and the water was sooo cold) so Mom let me go from the ramp...what fun!!

So next year I am going to work hard with mom to see if I can learn to jump a little bit further. It is definitely a sport that I could love.