We are leaving early tomorrow morning for Belgium. 2 hours drive to Dover Terminal, 2 hours on the Ferry crossing to Dunkirk, then another 2 hours from Dunkirk to Putte. I am getting very stress now, packing, more packing, even more packing ... check all documents (human, dogs and car!), make sure all dogs have all their essential, those who travel and those who stay behind and Sizzle is going to stay with Eleanor. BTW, I think Samber decided to come into season!!! I hope my nephews will look after the two boys and two girls well, not to let them mix together, or else we will have some unexpected puppies!!! Doh! Luckily we have a good weekend to spend time with all the dogs, they all have good long walks and we played a lot in the garden, eventhough it was very hot but we love the time together.  we decided to take Saturn with us to keep Sing company. I wish I could take Sizzle but he hasn't got a pet passport granted to him yet!! I will miss him the most! I know he is in good hand. He loves Eleanor's children and dogs.  we have some lovely time playing football in the garden, you can see how Gem loves being one of the KNIGHTs pack!  Sizzle loves his football too  Let's see who gets the ball   Sing's way  and Sizzle's way
Till I come back, I will miss them terribly.
We have a nice girly came to stay with us since the end of March. She has a good pedigree and have been shown a little when she was younger. She is carrying our very first Sing-let. Hopefully by the time we come back from Belgium, we are getting ready into action.
 golden Gem
It wasn't windy today, so I got to practise on the dog walk with Sizzle after we came back from Pachesham this afternoon. I had a good think about what to do with him and his dog walk last night; basically I still want to stick to our running contact as we have been doing it since the first day I started our agility training. My back up is to go back to 2o/2o if our running contact gone horribly wrong, I hope not! Sizzle is very different to Sing, eventhough Sing does running contact but he has much shorter stride and he is much slower, so I can find my way to catch him up when needed. Sizzle is so much faster and he also stretch himself longer (if that is the right way to express it?), so I have higher risk with him not hitting the contact area. I know we have not been doing a lot of dog walk, and running contact needs a lot of reputations, you are talking about doing it again and again and again and again ... Unfortunately the small "hit hit" board didn't work on Sizzle. He hits it perfectly when the board is on the ground but he try to avoid the board when he did the full dog walk. He will hit the board when he is on the down plank and I have been doing that for 5 weeks. When I started put him on the full dog walk, he came down so fast and saw the board and decided he leap over it! I've ordered a custom made size "hit it" board, again the mechanism in the board is not light enough to take Sizzle's weight, so when he is on top of the board, it didn't beep! I have started a new idea before Sizzle was ill. I put his ball at the bottom of the DW, so when he came down, he needs to kinda stop to get his ball. I am hoping to shape a pattern that he will change his stride. We did a few reputations and he was doing well. I gradually moved the ball further away from the DW then he started to get so excited and jump off before hitting the contact area. Then, he fell ill, so we didn't get any practise for four weeks. Today is the first time we came back to this. I put the ball out (at the bottom of the DW) to start with, after three/four runs, I fade the ball out (I was holding and hiding the ball at my back), I cue him "get it", when I saw him hitting the contact area, I throw the ball for him. We did about three/four runs and he didn't miss the contact area. Later in the evening, when Colin got home, I thought I will get him to video us so I can see what I was doing. I started with putting the ball out for him then holding the ball and throw it for him when he hits the contact area. I have noticed that when the ball is not there, he was looking back at me for the ball. I need to think of a way to get rid of his behaviour as I want him to drive straight down instead of looking at me. Any ideas welcome!! here is our training video:
playtime for Sizzle
I haven't update about Sizzle and his training for a while. We have not done a lot for a good few weeks. He was very ill three/four weeks ago and I have not done anything since. I started to take him training last Monday but he fell flat on the A Frame, so another few days of rest. I only started to do a bit of V Weaving with him on Monday and he seems to improve a little. I have closed up (not upright) the weaves and add the wires on. I thought it is good for him to learn with the wires on as I may need them in future, especially teaching the entries. Our entries are not good, there is a lot of room for improvements. I am taking my time, I have learned to be patient with my training with him. He is a very good little boy and I love training him. We went to Pachesham yesterday to resume our usual training after a four weeks break. I wonder if the sequences were too hard for the baby dogs or all the dogs were not on form, we all did terribly!! Our first sequence was this one below:
 It was so funny that all dogs (Yes! All dogs!) decided they will go up to the A Frame after jump #4 instead of jump #5 then the see-saw. We all know that all dogs love to go up to the contacts so they can get their rewards (food) but I can't understand why they all chose the A Frame and not see-saw! Before we did our first run, Eleanor has warned us that the dog may pick up the A Frame as it was very obvious to the dog when they took jump #4, we need to work hard to get the dog's attention to do jump #5 then they will see the see-saw.
My first try with Sizzle was to put him on a wait, then lead out to slightly pass jump #2, then recall and run, he took all the jumps but after jump #4, he went straight up to the A Frame!! I didn't want to stop and restart again (I have learned not to do this with a baby dog), so I run with him from the A Frame to jump #1, that made it worst as I was so far behind (now I know I cannot do a running start with him!) and the three jumps were not in a staright line, I did tried to push him out but he missed all the jumps and went straight up to the A Frame again!!! I decided we had a game then restart it in a proper way. Our thrid try was so much better, he responded to me when he took jump #4, eventhough he was wide as I call him a little too late but he took jump #5 and did his "wobble". Our 4th and last try on that sequence has captured in the video below. He now has also learned to do the see-saw (his big wobble board) independently but he sometimes still come off too early. We need to work hard on that but my see-saw has taken down early this year to train his running contact and I lost the nuts to put it back together!!! In the 2nd video, you can see this sequence below:
 again, all the other dogs (not Sizzle) find the jump #4, #5, #6 to tunnel impossible. My first attempt with Sizzle was not very successful, Eleanor took out the see-saw and replaced with jump #6, so all the dogs were looking for the see-saw after jump #5. The see-saw was lying on the floor, so all the dogs were jumping all over it looking for food!! Luckily my second attempt was a successful one. Sizzle loves his pipe tunnel, he went straight into the tunnel from jump #6 and I have time to switch and pick him up on my right to finish the sequence. Phew!
Our running dog walk was a mess at the moment. Due to Sizzle's illness and the new "hit it" board problem, we kept putting the training off. We have not done any dog walk for at least a couple of months. Before Sizzle was ill, I have try to put a ball at the end of the dog walk for him to stop him leaping off and add my new cue "get it". I wasn't sure if he got the cue, as sometimes he hit the contact area and sometimes not. I have put the ball further and further. I am not too happy with my training. I wanted to try out some new options this week but the wind was so strong and I do not want him to blow off, so no training until the wind die down, this probably mean, no dog walk at all until I come back from Belgium. I have taught him "target" separately but never put that on practise, maybe I will try the 2o/2o. I will give it a good thought when I am in Belgium. As all the dogs were pretty bad this week, we didn't get much done at this training. I stayed back for 5 extra minutes when the class was over, just to do the weaves. It was a competition upright weave, I started putting Sizzle on the lead, hopefully he will drag me to weave and with the lead on, I can correct him if he goes into a wrong poles. He started off well but missed the last 2 but I managed to pull him back to correct him. We did three more on the lead, no mistake. I decided to try it off lead, and he finished with no mistake. I should have done it on the right hand weave as well but I thought he was good, so I finished off in good mood. here is our little training video, I've also added the one Sizzle learning the cloth tunnel at the end:
Sorry this is a silly title! Ever since Colin read the post of Sizzle fell flat on the A Frame last week at training (if you remembered I said Sizzle was like a spider), he now call him "spider" as his nickname! he is a handsome spiderman! Now, what about "sheepdog"? Sizzle has a real funny character. I had trouble teaching him to weave a while ago, so I took Saturn out to show him how to weave and he just copied what Saturn did but in speed! I've just realised that I have a cloth tunnel lying around in the garden, hardly been used, so maybe this is the time I should introduce him a new equipment. We don't do cloth tunnel at club but I know mostly at show, there is a cloth tunnel in each class. I always start with the usual way, lifted the end of the cloth tunnel and call him (it is hard when I am on my own, the only way is to get him to stay in front of the tunnel and recall), he came through SLOWLY, after a few times, I really wasn't happy about it. Later, I've got Sing and Saturn with him out in the garden. I starting to send the big boys into the tunnel and he just followed his big brothers in speed! YeeHa! I thought it was great, so I did a few more cloth tunnel with three of them at once, my cue word for the cloth tunnel is "push" (for Sizzle only). Then, I got Sing and Saturn to stay and let Sizzle did it on his own. He didn't hesitate, he really is push through it so fast. Today, we had another go at the cloth tunnel and YES, he push through it with no problem and in great speed when he was coming down the line. Colin said he is like a sheepdog, I asked him why. He said normally a baby sheepdog is copying what his mum is doing, so Sizzle is coying Sing & Saturn, he is a real sheepdog then? learning to PUSH  I like this picture, did you see Saturn? Sizzle is very keen. Once he learns, he is confidence and do it in speed, poor Saturn got stuck behind!
 The above picture: Sizzle is not a food orientated dog, we always have some trouble using some treats at training. He only likes good food like Roast Beef/Roast Ham/Roast Chicken (not the boil chicken!) but he loves his usual dog food so much. He is quite a fast eater too. Sing is the slowest among all the dogs. Sizzle always eyed on Sing's bowl after his gulp down all his food.
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we decided to take Saturn with us to keep Sing company. I wish I could take Sizzle but he hasn't got a pet passport granted to him yet!! I will miss him the most! I know he is in good hand. He loves Eleanor's children and dogs.
we have some lovely time playing football in the garden, you can see how Gem loves being one of the KNIGHTs pack!
Sizzle loves his football too
Let's see who gets the ball
golden Gem
