Our club ran a Ribbon Trial last weekend, after 2 weeks of rain and wind, it came right just before the show and went back to rain the day after.

 I ran Kiltie in her first show since we've been re-training the basics and it went really well, we got disqualified every round, but she was pretty close to completing clear in both Starters course, and she was damn quick. The other event we entered was Open Jumpers, which was too hard for her at this stage. It had a sequence with 2 tunnels and a jump in the middle, the tunnel was far too tempting.

Kilties first show-

I got brave and entered Kiltie in her first champ show, probably too early, but I wanted to gauge where we were with her training. The show was at Kapiti, just a small show with one ring.

We'd just entered Starters, and I was going to enter jumpers with weave as well, this could be done on the day. We run a starters class here in NZ, it's a easy jumpers with weave course. There's no contact equipment and usually no more than 1 trap.

Hi There

Last weekend was to be Kilties first trial, I'd entered her and Ruby in the DAWG indoor show. We'd entered Starter 2 and 3.

But on Wednesday night we had a huge storm, the thunder and lightning scared the hell out of Kiltie. The next day I took her outside for some training and she couldn't sit, or go down. After a little investigation I discovered her lower back was causing some pain. The vet thought it was muscular, and gave us some rimadil and prescribed a few days rest - bugger!

I had to re-surface one of the A-Frames from our club last week. We covered it in small rubber chips, an awsome surface. So while I had it at home I used it to practice Kilties contacts. Within a week she had nailed 2 on 2 off in a dwon position at full height. Isn't it great what you can do with access to the right equipment. Off-course I'll need to proof this with lots of different environmental distrcations, but it's a good start.

Link - we competed in link this weekend. We're in the middle of winter here. Just been through a really cold and wet spell. Snow down to 300m, great if you want to ski!

Ruby, our normally stresses Irish Setter, had a great run. She went clear, got the fastest time at our club, and looked happy through the whole course. I've been doing a lot play with her, even clicked a reasonable game of tug out of her at home. But I do wonder if maturaty has more to do with her stressing less.

Weaves- We had a 12 poles weave at practice last week. The first few times Kiltie exited at the 10th pole. There was a jump that she was looking at when she hit the 10th pole. So I've got our weaves back out in the back yard and we're adding more distractions near the end of the weave. I'll click every time she goes between the 11th and 12th pole.

Hi

I've been reading blogs (mainly Bud Houstons!) and watching videos for a few weeks now.

I thought since there's a blog available for me use, that maybe I would use it.

I'm in Wellington, New Zealand. I'm relatively new Agility, I have 3 dogs, an 11yr old Beardie Cross (who has competed for 5 years), a 4 yr old Irish Setter and a 2 yr old Beardie Cross (Kiltie) who we adopted 6 months ago. I've retired our old dog, our Irish Setter is extremely stressed when other dogs are playing nearby, so most of her training is playing a distance away from other dogs. Which leaves our new dog, Kiltie. I thought I might document her training, so I can keep a track of how things are going with her, maybe you guys could give me suggestions?