On September 29th Jiggy, Simic and I participated in our first rally obedience competition. Both dogs were really cool and happy and did their best. Both dogs ended up with maximum points (the only two in the class with maximum points) and Jiggy was just a tiny bit faster, so Jiggy won the class and Simic came in second. When you get maximum points in the beginner class you get a title of Rally novice champion (RBM) and you move directly to the next level Rally advanced level.
All Zet And See Me has been doing great in agility and she is now in jumping class 2. Cogratulations to Dorthe and See Me.
I have updated my link page with some pretty interesting links if you are interested in breeding and health in the border collie. There is also new links to the leading gossip page on agility and a cool page where you can compare different agilityruns from youtube including most of the runs from the world championships.
This past year has been full of new experiences for my puppies from my first litter by Jiggy x Fetch. This year almost all of them have had their debut at agility trials and they are all showing great potential and great will to work! I am very proud of my puppies and the owners who does such a great job giving my puppies a great life.
Click on each dogs name to read a greeting from their owner and see what they have been up to this past year.
Strafe
Flex
See Me
Zoya
Wink
Jazzie
Remember to watch the playlist on youtube with all the links to videoes of the All Zet A puppies. The link is on the left on this page.
Woops... I have not been writing much here lately. Lots of stuff has been going on both good and bad... I will try to let you in on most of the stuff in this blog post. Let's start with the newest news.
The Danish National Championships: Silver for Simic and I
This weekend Simic and I won silver in the team competition for large dogs at the Danish National Championships together with Jiggy's sister Nala/Poul, Maj/Cheri and Regin/Nike. Simic was really cool to run. Simic and I are getting more and more together... She has been kind of different from Jiggy for me to run. I have had to get used to her not being as independent as Jiggy, which has cost us quite a lot of faults during the summer. I love running Simic though, just because she is such a happy and funny dog. She LOVES agility, and makes me smile all the time, when we work together.
Jiggy - Lots of ups and downs
This season has not given me and Jiggy the consistency that we needed. We have won several classes, but we have had more runs with super flow and great times, but with one or two mistakes. Last winter Jiggy had an injury in her left rear leg, which took us some time to get rid of. Jiggy seemed to be doing ok in the competitions in the spring (no soreness after the competitions), but now unfortunately she has gotten the injury again. This time it seems that the injury is not as severe as the last time, but it makes me wonder if she has been ok this whole year. For instance.. Jiggy only had 2 weave pole mistakes the first whole year of her career, and I think that in the beginning of this year her percentage of faults on the weaves was more like 35 percent. Jiggy is such an honest dog, so that makes me think that maybe she has not been completely ok. Jiggy has only been limping one day, but I have decided to keep her away from any agility for two month before starting rehab... Balance work, core strengthening, swimming etc.
As you may know or have guessed we did not make the world team this year. I am very sad not to be participating, but on the same time I know we did not show our best this year. Hope to get to go again sometime in the future.
Puppies???
Jiggy has just started her season. The timing of her season decides that Jiggy will not have puppies this winter for sure. I wanted to be sure that I had all the health results on Jiggy's puppies before deciding if I was going to breed her again. Jiggy's puppies from the first litter will get the health results after they turn two... which they do 7th of September... This means that Jiggy will have pasted her season when I get the results. I do not feel it is responsible to breed her without knowing the final status on her first puppies, so for now it is still unsure whether I will breed Jiggy again.
Rally obedience
Because of Jiggy's injury I have joined a rally obedience seminar and Simic has joined as well. Both girls actually like it although I am sure that they would rather do agility. We have entered a competition in the end of this month... Will be fun to see how that will work out.
All Zet A litter - Wonder pups
All my puppies from the first litter have achieved so much already and I am very proud of them. They will be two years in two days and I will dedicate the next blog post to let you all in on how they are doing. If you want a sneak peek... Then take a look at the play list I have made containing most of the videos of the puppies from the litter: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL48F481510F172E12&feature=mh_lolz
Wowee... Jiggy is getting freeking fast again. She is just getting faster and faster... She is soo cool to run. This was not our weekend when it comes to results, but I actually felt that we are really starting to get back in shape. In one of the WC tryout runs we were 3,09 sec. faster than second fastest time - It was an awsome run, but with one bar down and a missed contact on the A-frame... Very rare mistake for us... I did not see it, but I must pay more attention in the future! Here is one of our runs from the weekend (the only one we got on camera - thanks Natasha). Jiggy's is so cool, but one mistake on the second last obstacle cost us a clear round!... I do not know if we would have been faster that the winner, but if we where we would have been Danish Agility champions, so I was really disappointed, but at the same time really proud of the run.
Jiggy - So close but still so far away ;o)
Simic had a few great runs, but also a few runs where she allmost fell in the double jumps... I decided to not to run her in the last class 3 runs. Simic is doing super great, but I feel that she sometimes does not have that extra strength when the course gets tight and tricky. Sometimes if I am a little late with a que she will also get in trouble, so I decided to draw her from the WC selection. Do not want her to get hurt. We now have a new goal... We will run in the open classes where the courses are just that bit easier, and we will try to qualify for the Danish championships... We have three out of four clean runs needed. One thing is sure... Simic is still happy doing all the agility she can.
Simic having fun
Jiggy and I are slowly getting back together... We still miss some to get back in our best shape. We had some really cool runs in Roskilde this weekend... We had the fastest time in many classes, but only got one clean run, that earned us the first place of 75 dogs.
Simic was having the time of her life once again and had some great runs. We still get some miss communications, but she is so fun and happy all the time ;o). Our best result was a 4th place in agility class open out of 75 participants... Pretty cool for such a "mature" lady ;o).
No video, sorry ;o)
This weekend we had the first outdoor competition in Vallensbæk. It was serious competition from the very beginning... All the runs on Saturday counted as tryout runs. On Sunday we had runs that counted as qualication for the Danish championship and for European open.
Phew... I ran 14 runs the first day... 4 with Jiggy, 4 with Simic, 4 with Mac and 2 with See Me. Sunday I had a total of 8 runs. That was a bit much and it was hard concentrating on getting all the details of the course to stay in my head. I did not get any super results this weekend. Only one clean run with Jiggy and two clean runs with Simic. Both Jiggy and Simic have not been trained properly before this competition because of injuries. To my great joy both dogs got through the weekend looking pretty good with no soreness.
This was my first trial with Simic and she is doing pretty good her age considered. Simic and I have to get to know each other better. Simic is not as independent on me as Jiggy is. In forinstance the weaves I have tought Jiggy to do the obstacle on her own and Simic is used to getting help from the handler, so Simic ended up getting quite a few faults on the weaves. The best thing about running Simic is that she is just having the time of her life... She is soooo happy! I love running dogs that just show so much joy... And then the results dosn't really matter. In agility class 3 we actually ended up at 2nd place. We had a clean run in Agiliy open giving us one out of four points to qualify to the Danish championship as well.
Jiggy was soo sweet once again, and I feel that I let her down this weekend. I made some stupid mistakes! Running three dogs with different background training and different vocal commands made me say wrong commands for Jiggy, so she sometimes turned the wrong way... Loosing us time or getting us disqualified. Sorry Jiggy! Our best result was a 6th place in open agility... A nice run with one misunderstanding loosing us some time... But the best thing is that this run was just enough to qualify us for European open. Sooo nice to have the qualification in the first try.
Mac was a little bit unconcentrated on Saturday, but still much better than at the Seminar in the beginning at the week. Sunday he was actually really concentrated outside the agility ring... That was really nice. He wanted to play with me and it made me feel that I had a much better connection with him. I think we had some ok runs during the weekend, but we did not get any good results to show off ;o).
This year is very different from last year when it comes to qualifying to the national team. There are twice as many people trying to get on the team and there are many very talented young dogs with experienced handlers and they are doing a great job at the tryouts... Hope to step up my game next weekend. I have decided to not run Mac in the tryouts anymore... I like running Mac, but I am not capable to mentally be ready so many times in one day. I am still thinking about wether to still run Simic in the tryouts or just run the open classes with her.
Some of Jiggy, Simic and Mac's runs from the weekend
See Me's debut run in jumping
The tryouts for the national team starts tomorrow. This year will be a little different for me than last year as I am going to run three dogs in the tryouts. I am going to run with Jiggy, Jiggy's mom Simic and with Tine Larsens Mac. Jiggy seems ok after she was limping in Finland. I had x-rays done of her lower back, her hips and her back knees. Everything was ok. Only thing to see was the minor thing on her hips, that we saw when she was first examined for hipdysplasia at one year of age. The vet said that it had been a little difficult to get her to lie straight when the hip x-rays had to be done. My vet is a chiropraktor as well, so he corrected her pelvis and then it was easier. So maybe it was still the hit from the door that was not still a 100 % ok. I will take her with me tommorrow and start one class at a time and look very carefully to see if she will be ok at a day of trial.
Simic is going to be 10 this summer, but she is still going strong. She is such a fun and happy dog. She has been living with me for the last 1½ month and she is settling in very nicely. I was at a seminar with Zeljko Gora in the beginning of this week and she thought it was so fun. I also ran Tine's Mac and Simic was not happy and she came running on to the course while I was running Mac... Barking and smiling all over her face. Sarah says that she has never done this before. Simic does not have the same speed as she had in her young days, but she is doing super when you think about her age. We are not aming to get an individual spot on the team, but maybe she still has something to offer for the team. Only time will tell.
Tine has asked me to run Mac for her in the tryouts and I have said said yes. He can be difficult to run sometimes, but when we get it right he can be brilliant as well. It will be fun to see how things will go tomorrow... Good thing I now have Tine as my personal assistent to help me.
Dorthe Johnsen (owner of See Me) asked me if I knew if any of the A litter puppies' relatives where trying out for their countries national team... I yes I know of quite a lot, and maybe there are even more. Here are the ones I know about:
Mother of the All Zet A litter
Border Treasure All Jiggy Wit It (Jiggy) Denmark - Jane Elene Christensen
Jiggy's mother
Assasara Attractive Thunderbird (Simic) Denmark - Jane Elene Christensen
Jiggy's sister
Border Treasure Amazing Jewel (Nala) Denmark - Poul Lerche
Father of the All Zet A litter
Fetch Granting Pleasure (Fetch) Italy - Marco Giavoni
Fetch's sisters and brothers
Fluffy Fame Granting Pleasure (Fame) Germany - Johannes Voran
Evening Moon Granting Pleasure (Schnucki) Germany - Andrea Deeg
Fleece Granting Pleasure (Fleece) Germany - Kriztina Kabai
Bet Granting Pleasure (Blizz) Germany - Carsten Zimmat
Brak Granting Pleasure (Jester) Germany - Fabian Schweiger
Even Sweets Granting Pleasure (Bu) Slovenia - Silvia Trkman
Fetch's Halfbrother
A Hot Chilli of Austrian Starlight (Chilli) Germany - Larissa Fiedler
Avery of Austrian Starlight (Avery) Austria - Robert Landkammer
Bao of Austrian Starlight (Bao) Schwitzerland - Sarah-Jane Reimann
Fetch's Niece's
Gean Granting Pleasure (In) Germany - Martin Wenger
Dabbin' Daisy Granting Pleasure (Deesi) Germany - Andrea Deeg
Fetch offspring
Beck's Hill Horror (Brie) Italy - Dennis Beoni
Beck's Hill Good Luck (Miles) Italy - Ruggiero Pesce
Beck's Hill Honey Moon (Hindia) Italy - Carlo Fazioo
Beck's Hill Golden Eye (Chi) Finland - Jaakko Suoknuuti
Beck's Hill Fast and Furious (Be) Slovenia - Silvia Trkman
Beck's Hill Havanna Summer (Suvi) Hungary - Viki Csavas
Mawlch Tip (Tip) Croatia - Zeljko Gora
Mawlch Turk (My) Poland - Magdalena Ziolkaska
In the beginning of April Jiggy and I participated in the annual three day competition Gåsahoppet in Sweden. It is a great event with lots of participants from several countries. Jiggy was not completely back in shape after Finland. She was fine, but I had only done agility with her e few times before the trial, so I decided to run once the first day, skip the second day and run twice on the last day. Jiggy was just super in the first run. She gave her everything. I did great as well except in the frontcross just before the A-frame. Bummer. Jiggy corrected my mistake very fast, but we still lost a little time. We ended up at the 2nd place just 0,07 second after number one... Super!!! It was such a shame about the misunderstanding as the first place would have earned us the title of Swedish agility champion and a ticket to the final. There was 104 participants in the class. In the last two runs at the trial Jiggy was great... Again it was my fault that we did not get more clean runs. Sorry Jiggy. Here is the best run from the day.
Here is a video from Flex celebrating his 1½ years birthday... All I can say is Cuuuute!
And here he is in his first steeplechase final
I have made a playlist with all the videos I can find of the puppies from the All Zet A litter. Just follow this link and enjoy ;o): http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL48F481510F172E12&feature=mh_lolz
Wow. The trip to Finland to train with Jaakko and Janita was great. We went by plane and this is the first time I have ever tried to fly with a dog. It was all pretty much a good experience travelling with the dogs on the airplane, especially in Helsinki airport they were very nice and helpful.
I am basically familiar to the way they handle in Finland... It is not too different from how I usually handle... The biggest difference is how they train. We had courses up to 40 obstacles long. And the handling is difficult from start to finish... This is very good exercise for the brain! Here is an example from the course we had the first day.
We were prepared that the courses would be difficult, but that Janita expected us to learn this hard 40 obstacle course and run it 3 people in one hour... That we did not expect! So we decided just to memorise the first 14 obstacles. We then told Janita that we had memorised the course until the weaves and she responded by saying "the second time you come to the weaves"?... My reply was "Is there a second time"? I had not seen that ;o). Jiggy was super cool and the thing that gave us the most trouble was the turn from tunnel number 4 to tunnel number 5. Jiggy just did not get the idea to start with, but she ended up getting the idea. The first weave entry and exit was also quite difficult... That was really annoying as I usually feel that the weaves is one of Jiggy's strongest sides, but lately she has started making more mistakes. Usually when she makes theese mistakes I have to think if she is starting to get an injury. Jiggy has such an honest heart that she will allways try to do things right. I turned out to be right... More on that later... Here you can see a video of Tine, Henrik and I giving the course a go... This is an edited video with the best parts from the training.
As I said I have been feeling that an injury was on its way... I was actually not sure she was ok at the trial in VAS when she made two weavepole mistakes in one day. She has not been sore or limping or anything, but I really have to take it seriously when she starts to make mistakes that she normally does not do. After the trial in VAS I took her to the chiropractor just to be on the safe side and he said that everything was ok.
There where no problems with her after the first day of training in Finland (running combined max. 10 minutes). But the day after before training I saw her limping when we were outside walking on snow and ice. Janita and I looked closely at her before starting training in the arena and there was nothing to see, so we trained again thinking she might just had been walking odly on the ice. Whe we got home that day and she had been lying down, she was limping again for sure. She got better the next day (no limping), but I did not want to enter her in the planned trial. The next day I let her jump about 10 low jumps to see how she would react and she was again limping just a little bit, so I decided not to run her anymore.
The weird thing is that I could not figure out where the injury was... It was her left hind leg... She has never been limping on that leg and she did not react to any manipulation of her legs, paws or pelvis... Then I started thinking... About one week before leaving to Finland Jiggy was playing in the garden when I called her from the living room. She came racing in and I only had the door half way open. She hit the door very hard with her left hind knee and started limping... The limping disappeared after 5-10 minutes, so I figured it was just the hit. I had one training session 5 days before leaving to Finland just doing some weaves and turns on low jumps and then the last few days we just went for our normal walks, just to be sure she would be fit for the training in Finland. Maybe her pelvis was off and maybe she had a small injury in her knee that was getting worse because of the training. When I got home my Chiropractor chekked her and said that her pelvis was a bit locked, so maybe the hit from the door was worse than I thougth.
Jiggy seems to be doing fine now. She is now still not limping and her pelvis is corrected and she has been swimming and going for walk/runs in the deep sand at the beach. She has also done a tiny bit of agility and she looks fine. Phew... Hope she is all OK!
On the last day I was running Fu and Hitti. Fu is very young but she is very well trained so I could run her like a grown up dog... She was super. Still asking permission a little more to take the obstacles than the older dogs but, when I got her more excited she was getting faster and faster... And screaming all the way ;o).
The last excersice on the day was a 20 obstacle course where the exercise was to walk the course exactly the way you would imagine you would run the course. Janita would then time the coursewalk. We then had to run the course (clean offcourse) and time that... The goal then was that the time from the coursewalk and the real run, was as close as possible. We felt pretty foolish running around with no dogs, and sorry Henrik... You were to funny. Going so slowly we were thinking you were running a chihuahua or something ;o)... Henrik was 20 seconds faster with the dog than on the coursewalk... HA HA! I was really proud tthat my times was only 1 second appart. Here is a video of the best runs I had with Jaakko and Janita's dogs.
In the end I would also like to show you a video off all the things that did not go as planned... Thanks to Henrik, Tine, Jaakko and Janita for a great week.
Wow... All my puppies from my first litter is now officially old enough to start competitions in agility. Really cool. They are all doing so good and they all have great potential for agility. In the US they can compete allready at 15 month, and Strafe has allready been to a few trails and done really well. This has earned him the titles OA (open agility) and OAJ (open agility jumpers). He has also earned a leg in Excellent A JWW and an Excellent A Standard. Pretty cool results!
Check out Rosanne's youtube channel to see all the super videos of Strafe here: http://www.youtube.com/user/DKSAgility/videos
See Me was participating in my first seminar. She is just the coolest dog on an agility course. Super flexible and easy to handle. I got the chance to run her on the course as well. Here is a video with See Me running first with Dorthe and then with me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJnUdMmQgeQ
Tug has developed in to a stunning dog... He is really beautiful. Here you can se a whole bunch of cool winter photoes of him: https://plus.google.com/photos/106549683649666365443/albums/5703015955492226721?authkey=COLT9_HSvqb1Sw&banner=pwa&gpsrc=pwrd1#photos/106549683649666365443/albums/5703015955492226721
My first real seminar
In February I held my first real seminar... The participants were really cool and maneged to get some cool runs on the course... Take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4h3_9Q5Jgw
Competition in February
February was also the month were we had only competition this whole winter in Denmark. I ran both Jiggy and my friend Tine's Mac. Both dogs were really sweet and happy. I only got one clean run with Mac and none with Jiggy. I did not feel I was handling the dogs quite good enough, but when I look at the video I am satisfied... Take a look at the runs here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiVxuJ7wjmY
Training with Jaakko and Janita
Tomorrow morning Jiggy and I leave Denmark together with Tine Larsen and Henrik Petersen... We are going to Finland for one week to train with Jaakko and Janita and to compete in the weekend. Jaakko and Janita is in my oppinion th best instructors in the world. I am really looking forward to learning as much as possible and trying to beat their asses in the weekend trial, ha ha. I will be taking my camera with me, so hope to make some videos when I get home, for you to see. Off to bed now... Have to be up bright and early.
My puppies from the A litter (Jiggy x Fetch) are getting really big and are starting to run full courses.
Flex has his debut at a new years trial and Barb and Flex had a great time. Flex allways puts a smile on my lips. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9osRNjsYcM
Barb has also produced a blind cross instruction video where Flex is the star together with Barb's super sheltie Skecher. Here you can see a small trailer for the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic3CJmPoAMo
Both Jazzie and Tug has been participating in a tunnel cup competition in Estonia. Wow they are fast and happy ;o).
Jazzie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IEPXZaLwt4
Tug: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQfSbaJc4DM
See Me and Dorthe joined a seminar with Natasha Gjerulff and here is a small video... See Me is getting really good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIDMSwkpLcQ
The puppies sire Fetch Granting Pleasure is back after an injury... Looking super good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCjT5b0a9vg
