Agility people

... have messy houses yet their kennels are spotless.

… think everyone has dog crates in their living room.

… have kids who know more about ‘birds & the bees’ when they’re five than most people know when they’re 40.

… will drive 400 miles, spend £ 100 on diesel, £ 150 on hotel and £ 50 on meals to bring home a 50p ribbon.

... have kids who regard ‘bitch’ as just another household word.

… get up at 6 am to walk dogs, can be at ringside 200 miles away by 9.00 am but have trouble getting to work on time.

… never miss a closing date for entries but pay the credits card bill 10 days late.

… use dog food bags for rubbish and rubbish bins for dog food.

… have parents who think they’ve lost their minds.

… have dog friends who think they are terrific.

… keep eating even after finding a dog hair in their pasta.

… will usually give up the £ 100,000 home in the town for a shack in ten acres so they can have £ 100,000 kennels.

… only visit relatives if there is a dog show nearby.

… are barking mad.

Zierow 21.11.2010

We were working for this moment since March.
Our first competition :-) .



We had two runs (Agility & Jumping) and we didn't get any faults.
We came 7th (out of 31)in Agility and 10th in Jumping.

It was a great day and we had lots of fun.

Hello Holly!

That's my little Border Collie Holly.
She was born 13th of june.
She is very smart and loves to play, run and sleeeeeep.
Of course she LOVES Emma and Emma starts to like her :) .
More news in the future.

Yay, A-frame :D

Because the dogwalk and the seesaw are working out so well we started to explore the A-frame on tuesday.
Emma always wanted to go to the A-frame, although she didn't even know how
to handle the A-frame. So she was extremly happy starting to work her A-frame contact.

Her dogwalk became pretty fast, because of that she sometimes misses
the contact zone. Is a fast dog who sometimes misses the zones better
than a dog who always stands on the zone but gets time faults 'cause he's not fast enough ?
Maybe we have to practice till she's still fast AND (almost ;) ) always gets
the contact.

Oh and I´m thinking of entering us into our first competition on September 1. .
"Just" a fun-competition, but still exciting !

A beautiful day at the seaside

It´s extremly warm in Germany these days, so we decided to go to the seaside today.
Swimming was great for Emmas bones and muscles after two weeks of 3 times training weekly.

Agility is still fun and I notice progresses every day. Her 2 on 2 off contacts became better
at the dogwalk and she doesn´t jump down the seesaw anymore.
Looking forward to our first Obedience beginner lesson tomorrow :)

Weaving

Well, we weren´t able to train with our group, 'cause my puppy is in her heat.
Argh that's so annoying.
So we practiced a lot at home. Focused on her weaving and jumping (no contacts, because
I have'nt got an A-frame or a dogwalk at home... )
Next week we will be able to train with our group again. :)

2on 2off

A new blog

I had some problems with my old blog, so I decided to make a new one.
I actually couldn´t add the dates of my posts anymore, but because the blog
should be a kind of a progress diary I have to see the dates.
Sorry for the trouble.

Contacts

Yesterday we had our last lesson for beginners and today we already had our first training in our new group.
Yesterday we passed our first jumping cours. Nine hurdels and two tunnels.
Emma did a great job, although I messed the changes at the beginning.
She always forgives me my mistakes, that makes it a lot easier for me.
Today we trained with our new group. They are all very nice and started with agility
last year, so we were the newbies. But Emma did such a good job ! She took every hurdle
she was supposed to and she ran through every tunnel I wanted her to run through.
Then we started to train her contacts. After a few tries she stood in the position and knew
what I wanted her to do.
Tomorrow we will train again. So three days in a row.

Training so far

The last trainings (including today) we concentrated on handling.
Today we learned the French change, last week we learend the Belgium change.
But Emma is most of the time too fast for me. So today we often bumped together, when
I tried to change the side. I guess we (I ) have to go jogging at least twice a week to get more condition and to learn running together with my dog without running into each other.
Emma also refined jumping through the hoop.
And of course we are still training her weaves.

I´m courious how we´ll improve till summer :)
And then we are finally able to train 3 times a week. Yeah . :D

Happy Birthday Emma !

What a beautiful day. Perfect for Emmas thrid birthday :)

Can´t believe she´s already 3 years old. Seems like it was yesterday, when I sat next to
the puppy box. 8 little, yellow baby dogs soft breathing and without much fur lay in the box.
One of them was for me, my dog, my friend.

When we first met she couldn´t even look at me, but today I can´t imagine to live without
her, glancing at me .

An injured paw.

Thursday Emma hurted her paw. She stepped into a piece of
glas or something like that. I immediately applied a bandage and the wound
is healing now.
Now she has to wear a "dogshoe" on our walks.
Of course no Agility yesterday.
But maybe we will go to the retriever-training tomorrow. It depends on
how her paw will be doing. She doesn´t have pain or walk with a limp.
The shoe is just protection against the dirt.

She´s trying hard to make me happy...

and she´s very sucessfully!
We started learning the weaves. At first she ran around and not through the weaves.
But she really wanted to do it right so we tried it again and again and again..
and she made it.
After that we trained the bent tunnel. Last lesson she was a bit tired when we started
training the tunnel and we had problems to enter it from the right side.
This time she made it at the first go. (Yay ! :) )

Also we trained Contacts today. We started with the seesaw. The trainer helped us.
I stood at the end and was ought to treat her when she comes to me, but she didn´t want to
run with with him, she wanted to run immediatly to me.
So we changed the positions and then she did a good job.

After many reps. we were both very tired. (And happy)
She always tries to please me and can´t stand doing something wrong.

Progresses & a new Clicker.

Today we trained the tunnel and learned/explored the bent tunnel. From the left
side it worked, but she didn´t like the right side first.
Than we trained the running around a hurdel, Emma does it really good!
Another new obstical we learned was the hoop (is it called hoop in english? ).
I took her favorite toy with us. But we forgott it - so I can´t introduce you to "Sebastian" today.
I also lost my red Clicker, so I had to buy a new one.
A yellow one.

It´s spring.

Dog cookies.

I love cooking for Emma.
Sometimes I write new recipes for treats and of course I (and Emma)
test them.

Treats are a good help for educating a dog.
Working a lot with treats I noticed that they sometimes smell not THAT nice.
Also I like to know what I (really) give my dog.

One of Emmas favorite recepies:

Carrot - Kiwi cookies.


Ingredients:

2 carrots
1 kiwi
1 tablespoon thistel oil
7 tablespoons whole grain oats
4 tablespoons whole grain flour
6 tablespoons milk (1- 1, 5 % fat)
(honey)

baking temperature: 150-200 C°
baking time: 20-30 minutes.






First you have to rasp the carrots. Put the thistel oil to the carrots. (Will set the vitamin A free)
Then shell the kiwi and squish her.
Mix both ingredients.
In an other bowl mix whole grain flour, whole grain oats and milk.
If your dog likes it a bit sweeter, add some honey. (will make the whole thing stickier).
After that knead both pastes together.

Shape small nuggets ( ca. 5 Cent-size).
Put them on a baking plate and into the oven.
After they´re finished, leave them in the off-state oven for an hour.
This will make them harder and more durable.
Store them in a hermetic box.


Sunday I baked apple-cookies for our Agility Training. They were good I guess.
Not only Emma tried them.
If you (I mean your dog) liked this recipe, tell me & I´m going to upload the
apple-cookie-recipe too.

Enjoy the cookies. :)

She´s talented.

Today we had our second agility lesson.

First we just trained running through the jumps and turning.

After that our trainer wanted to proof how high our dogs can jump.
Emma managed the normal height immediately.
The other dogs had some problems, but the trainer (Nancy) helped them and
after 2-3 tries they knew what they had to do.
Then we practised jumping over two hurdles.
Again Emma made it at her first try.
She seems to be a perfectionist.
And she did great with the tunnel too.
A new dog joined us. Five months old Border Collie "Link" ! Such a sweetheart!
Our last exercise was the start. Three hurdels and just one command.
I chose "Go" . At home we already trained it with a target. Of course I forgot my target at home...
But she did very well with out the target.
I´m so proud of Emma. And Emma is so tired now.

Cute Labrador puppies

It´s raining.
I got so obsessed with the crufts live stream! Always watching and googling the dogs, their
handlers and the breeds. Today after 5 PM UK-time we will be able to see the Obedience World Cup Teams. Hopefully I´ll see the German Team.

Emma has a "date" at 4 PM. The young Australian Shepard Spike and Emma are a nice couple.
It´s kind a apologize, because I watched so much Crufts instead of walking her.

Oh and I have got a new Browser. And I immediately discovered this amazing skin for the browser.

Personas for Firefox | Cute Labrador puppies

By the way Emmas breeder is going to have puppies in May.
Labrador puppies everywhere :)

First Dummyworktraining since december.

This morning we were finally able to train on our training ground.
It was nice to see the dogs and owners again after such a long time.

We didn´t do difficult exercises. Just a few land marks and some blinds.

Emma enjoyed seeing her friends again.

But unfortunately Emma is going to be on heat soon.
So we can´t go to the training again for 2-3 weeks.

Emma is a bit late. But she isn´t alone. Many of her femal friends are late,
because of the cold, long winter we had. (HAD, I hope spring is coming now! )

Crufts 2010

From today till march 14 you can visit this site http://www.dfscrufts.tv/ to see
the show live.
Crufts is the largest annual dog show in the world and it is set in Birmingham.
It´s amazing to see the dog-human-teams working and presenting.
Here is the schedule http://www.crufts.org.uk/whats-on/day1/.
It´s an honor to be invited to Crufts. So we wish Eva Hampe, Piper and the whole
German Obedience World Cup Team fun and good luck!

Treat

(Advertisement by Pedigree ®)
The hungriest breed in the world is missings, isn´t it Emma ?

Agility

Yesterday we had our first agility lesson.

Our training group is really nice. A yellow Labrador and a Welsh Terrier.
Emma was extremly excited. She wanted to say hello to everyone and wanted some action.
We started with the tunnel . After 2 tries Emma knew what she was supposed to do.
She is so fast!
The trainer determined Emma wouldn´t be a slow Agility-Lab.
Our homework is to train the side changes. Emma knows heelwork just on the left side. Now we have to practice it on both sides.

I´ll keep you up to date. I am courious if we are going to see a development.
For now I can say it seems to be a lot of fun and a lot of work .

Sheepdogs & sheep.

I have got 2 weeks holidays now and I started them this morning. At 9:00 AM.
I visited a sheepdog training for beginners.
And YES I took Emma with me, but of course she didn´t herd the sheep.
It was amazing to see the trained sheepdogs working. Almost as amazing as seeing the trained ones, was seeing the beginners. Most of them (90%) were Border Collies.
After a few minutes every dog knew, what he was supposed to do.
There genes told them exactly what to do. Even if their parents didn´t herd.

I also had really nice conversations with the handlers and the trainers.

Border collies are fascinating dogs. I do love this breed.

I hope it stops snowing, because our agility training starts tomorrow.
That is the best way to have holidays.

We have to trust to luck.

Our training (hopefully) starts in 50 minutes.
I hope it won´t be cancelled!
But even if it is not cancelled, there will be much snow at the trainings ground.
So.. either we won´t be able to train OR it will be a REALLY hard training.
Wish us luck :)

It´s snowing. Again.

I´m so tired of snow. It was gone for a few days, but in the last few hours it snowed a lot. Now we are living in a winterwonderland. Again.
I hope we will be able to train tomorrow.
And on monday Emma and I are going to our first Agility lesson, if it stops snowing...

I took some pictures.



Our weather is crazy! There was a storm too. Emmas ears are flying :)

Odin is in the house.

Today I have to care for two dogs. Emma, like always and Odin the Bernaise Monutain Dog. 9 months but way stronger than Emma. And he can be very stubborn.
So we went to the wood and had I lovely walk, altough the forest floor was very slushy.
Now they both slept / rested and I am going to walk them again, after posting this ;) .
Ahh it´s raining right now, BUT they really want to go out. (So Emma doesn´t tell me if she wants to go out, but Odin does. In this moment. )

I´ll take some photos and add them after Odin is gone.

Emma retrieved a beagle.

A few days ago we met a ten-year-old girl with her two-year-old beagle. Emma and Lulu already know each other, but they can´t play THAT good, because Lulu is a hunter.
The girl always has to walk Lulu on a lead, otherwhise the beagle would run away hunting a deer.
We walked to our favorite lake. Next to the lake is a field.
Suddenly Lulu ran away. The girl coudn´t catch her. She shouted, but the beagle didn´t obey.
Lulu ran on to the field, maybe she got scent of a deer or a rabbit.

Emma was next to me, so I told her "Retrieve the lead!".
That is one of ozr "little tricks".
She sprinted very fast and caught Lulus lead. Then she brought the lead AND the beagle back to me.

I have got such a obedient, good girl :)

It´s been a while, but we are fine...

and we have got A LOT of snow here!

Emma still loves snow, for me it's definitely too cold!

I want the sun, green grass, singing birds, leaves and flowers !!

Well you can´t get everything...

My uncle & my aunt are going to move soon. Then Emma & I´ll be sitting Odin the Bernese Mountain Dog . OMG it´ll be pretty hard. He is soooo strong and big! 30Kg (66,6nlbs) and he is still growing! Now he is 8 months old.