Thought I would share the rosettes and lovely trophies from the weekend. I love how the second place trophy is a bit smaller!
On Monday this week we went to Packington Show as well. No clear rounds unfortunately or rosettes to show for our efforts. Some tricky courses and as usual I made small errors in each course. Things I have learnt are
1. Always watch my dog - if I am picking him up from a tunnel turn to look at him so he gets the right side!!
2. Plan the course and then believe that I can get to the point I want ... I always think I am too slow, but often I am ahead of Dylan, so I should believe it is possible.
3. If I want a wait make it happen ... Dylan is quite capable! We had a lovely wait on a tricky course - hard start and he performed beautifully. If it hadn't been for the angles of fences and me rushing we would have had a clear rather than an E!!

On Tuesday I took Dylan to K9 Rehabilitation for his second massage session. Joanne took an hour to work her magic. All muscles are released now and the three days of agility had not done him any harm. I now have a few warm up and cool down exercises to do with Dylan. So glad the hip issue is now resolved. I am lucky that Dylan told me he was hurting before any major damage was done. When we ask them to perform agility we need to remember they are being an athlete ... so proper diet, exercise and building up to the performance you want are important. I can see that massage is so good .... now to book one for me!

I raw feed the dogs and the cats having done loads of research to work our how to balance it all. Today I went shopping to Morrisons and managed to pick up this haul to share between them. I also buy MVM mince, lamb ribs etc, Nurturing by Nature products (I particularly like their chicken and fish mix), Natural Instinct, which I get from our local pet shop - Dovarts, who also stock whole rabbit, which makes a nice change of other bits. Raw feeding the dogs and cats takes a bit of effort, but we have been doing it over a year now. I think it is cheaper than kibble and wet foods, healthier if the balance is right and gives loads of variety for the animals. And yes I do manage to do it while camping!

Here's the Team: From right to left: Tania & Harry; Julia & Lily; Amanda & Twix; Me & Dylan (thanks to Luke for taking the picture after our run)
The team run was my third run of the day (a very hot day as it turned out). Dylan's previous runs were not perfect, particularly the grade 6 agility run which should have turned out better ... handler error as usual though! The first run of the day was jumping and was a good run except I didn't give Dylan enough room to see the weave entry ... I should have fed him round from the tunnel and crossed behind him I think. He did get it in the end though and the rest was very good.

We headed up to the showground for the Nottingham Show on Saturday morning. No run first thing so we had time to set off at a reasonable hour. The night before had been raining heavily and so windy, but Saturday was a beautifully sunny day and eventually very warm. Luke came too and we set up camp. Luke was great and helped video lots of my runs and took some good shots of Dylan too.
First run on Saturday was the Crufts Medium Qualifier. Similar to the jumping win we had a few weeks ago the course had been set with 2 sets of 6 weaves in parallel. Last time I went around the outside, but this time I thought I would go up the middle since the second set should not be visible to Dylan from the angle he comes over the previous jump. This worked really well and in fact the rest of the course ran well except I nearly pulled him off jump 16. No faults for that though as he hopped over from a stand still. We got round well, with 5 faults on the A frame contact, which was my fault as I rushed to the next jump a tad too early.

Next run was a combined grade 6,7 agility run. Having walked the course my worry was the beginning and round to long jump from jump 8 & 9. My start unfortunately happened the way I thought it would, with Dylan heading to the DW from jump 1, touching the DW and then coming to me at the wall. Woops! I realise now that I need to keep my eye on him at all times & teach him to come to my hand! The rest of the course ran really well. so was really pleased with Dylan. Luke managed to video the middle part to the end as he worked out how the camera worked - thank you.

Julia, Tania, Amanda & I make up a medium team. Team photo to come at a later date. Julia runs Lilley a spaniel owned by Anne. Tania runs another spaniel (forgive me Tania as I don't know his name). Amanda runs a poodle (again I don't know his name) and of course I run Dylan the cockapoo. I think we are called the "Rushton No Contacts"
I ran last after Tania and we had to wait behind the line. Dylan was eyeing up the dog walk and it took quite an effort to get him focussed on the first jump. He ran a good round coming in clear. Overall we had no eliminations, but a few faults and some time faults too. We came 5th overall (out of 18 teams) with a time of 195.782 which included 45.782 faults.
The team run was my third run of the day. My day did not start very well at all. The first run was the Crufts Medium Qualifier and whether it was me or Dylan, we did not display any team attributes at all and in fact Dylan decided to run a different course! See below for the course design.
Our next run was a Graded 6, 7 jumping which was very widely spread and had a tight time of 34secs to get round clear.  We had a clear run and I surprised myself in getting to obstacles before Dylan! The best part was sending him to the tunnel (7) and encouraging him with "Right right right" as a command. He did a perfect right to come back over jump 8. Our time was 37.850sec, so time faults for us. We did twiddle a bit at 15, but not sure where else we could have made up the time.
The last run was a CG1-7 agility course which was lots of fun. Dylan was perfect and so was I for a change. Clear round and came in 7th place out of 130ish dogs. Really happy with that.

Saturday 4th May - my first run was the Olympia Qualifier, an agility run. I wasn't sure whether Dylan would concentrate or not. He did and we did a solid clear round, but I knew it was slow. Time was 34.995s. The fastest time was 28.... seconds, so well behind. I was happy with his contacts. I think I gave him the "find feet" command too early on the dog walk, but better to get it that not at all. We probably lost several seconds there.

His weaves are becoming reasonably independent as long as I am running in that straight line. I was able to be ahead of him which made the following fence much easier and I was in the right place. The course was an easy run and there were lots of clears.

The combined 6-7 agility run was good except for my mistake on the fence 8 to 9 pull in, where Dylan back jumped fence 9. Dylan had a great "feet" on the dog walk which was quicker than the earlier run. Fences 16 to 17 I took Dylan round the left wing of 17 making the seesaw tempting, but no problems at all. Some folks took their dogs between 15 & 14 to do 17, but I decided that was too risky for Dylan. It was a fast run despite being E-ed.

The graded jumping run was fabulous, except for me getting in Dylan's way in front of fence 7. Apparently I slipped slightly sideways, Dylan looked up and then at the fence which he proceeded to take out! Otherwise a super run, fast. So useful to be able to be ahead on the weaves, made fence 5 easy.


Dylan's final run, another agility was clearly one run too many, as he decided not to bother and went off sniffing. So other than a good contact on the dog walk the rest was pants and I walked out with a dog who was only interested in sniffing! I suppose the spaniel had to come out sometime!

Sunday 5th May 2013 was an eventful day. It started with a Graded 6/7 jumping which was so hard. The judge told in no uncertain terms that her grade 4/5 large dogs could manage it so we should have no problem ... see left. I knew that it would be a frustrating course for Dylan because I would have to get to places before telling what to do next.
I took him round the back of the weaves rather than through the middle and he nearly went in the tunnel, but a loud "DYLAN" called him back and into the weaves. We also nearly went wrong 17 to 18 as a pull in was needed, Dylan was frustrated and bit me, but at least he had stopped and I could pull him round to 18 and onto the finish!. Not the neatest (some of the grade 7 dogs were amazing), but 1.5seconds faster than any other grade 6 dogs in a time of 40.327s

My next run after a long wait was the Jewlnick Pairs, which I ran with Sian Mapp & Ollie. We were both eliminated, but had fun. My last two runs were right at the end of the day. His agility run wasn't bad with some great pull ins where necessary, but confusion coming off the A frame and into a tunnel placed underneath meant we were eliminated. Dylan's last run, a combined 6-7 agility went pear shaped with him wandering off sniffing. I grabbed his collar and headed to the last jump!

So a fabulous weekend, with some great first runs. Dylan was brilliant and I still need to practice being faster for him and being very clear on instructions so he stays focussed.