Finally! The Summer agility season is here!!!

Guides canins offered a "starters" evening, and I was brave enough to register.  Although the venue is a beautiful one, Jasmine and I don't usually do well here, so reason enough for me to push myself and compete.  I registered Jasmine in starters standard, starters snooker, and stargers gamblers.

It's certainly a "no frills" event.  The trial itself will last well into the weekend, but most competitors have not arrived yet.  I'm sure that by the time Friday will come along, the place will be a circus!

All three fields are ready and available to walk.  The judge's briefing is done at the very beginning, then competitors are welcome to walk the courses at long and as many times as they want.  The only downside is the very brief 5 minute break between events, which includes the official "walk".

Our first event, SG, isn't that bad.  We've spent a lot of time practicing teeters, a-frames, and the dog walk, but that's become a problem.  Jasmine absolutely loves them now and instead of going to the tunnel as planned after the jump, she heads for the A-Frame and (GASP!) blind-closses me at the same time.  I was surprised, but made sure she nose touched the ground.  We did the mini (YAY!) and the 12 weaves.  Unfortunately, I haven't done any distance work with her and we didn't do the main gamble.  Oh well....

The second event was the ST.  Believe it or not, we ran out of time.  I know that we wasted precious seconds at the weaves, but was that enough?  My little precious did her down on the table "yes!", but she took the wrong end of the tunnel, so it would have been an NQ anyways.  Hey!  I wasted time with that as well!  We also wasted time just before the table too!!!  Well, that explains everything!

Last but not least, the SS.  Personally, I call it the medieval torture device, but was pretty confident with my plan.  The down side is Jasmine didn't wrap around the jump (the last red jump!) as planned and took it twice.  There goes my plan!  : )

Things to work on in the next few weeks:

• Wrap around jumps. 
• Tunnel entries.
• Distance.
• Short sequences with weaves.  Jasmine walked right by the 6 weaves in the ST.
• Keep up the work on the contact obstacles.
• Shadow handling.

No pictures... Sorry!  Yes, I should have....

A first for me, I ran out of air in Gamblers... Nerves?  Jasmine's speed?  Yes, Jasmine was quite fast in the Gamblers.... 

Jasmine's last word?  Prancing on our way back to the car....  She was quite proud of herself and happy to be back doing agility.

Well, whadaya know.....

Yup!  Jasmine got her third Q in her doggy lifetime, which also happens to be her first in the Advanced level.  It was a last minute decision of my part to enter her in one event at the trial last week, just for the heck of it.  The course was quite straightforward, and I didn't try any fancy moves.  If you watch the video, and if you happen to be a judge, you might be tempted to call a refusal on our move when I lost my way...  Did the judge call it?  If he did, the scribe didn't note it, and Jasmine and I got a lucky break.  On the other hand, we're not in trials every weekend, and when we are, we rarely qualify.  Therefore, I went proudly home with a beautiful ribbon in my pocket.  Both dogs earned pigs' ears for their good behaviour.

Fannie, for her part, was a good little dog, and sucked up all the attention that was given to her.  Both dogs borrowed Noble Walter's crate and were quiet as a clam in there.  They looked quite cute with the great silver ribbons attached to the crate.

Scary moment

We've been having a very wet Spring, with important rainfalls.  The horse arena where the trial was held wasn't spared and several muddy spots could be found on the sand.  Just before the second tunnel, I was so sure that Jasmine would detour to the water puddle (she's been know to do this during our off-leash walks), that I called "tunnel, tunnel, tunnel".  It wasn't even necessary.  She didn't even glance at it.  : )

Fannie's training

Great news!  Fannie figured out the basket exercice, and now, we're reducing the size.  The same goes for the balance disk.  Training a young puppy IS fun. 

The basket case

One rear-end awareness exercice which Fannie needs to do is the "basket" exercice.  The idea is to shape her into putting all four paws in a basket.  Once that's done, you reduce the size of the basket until she can put all four paws in a itsy bitty basket.  We've been working on it for the past two weeks and no results.  Before getting all depressed, I consulted Jasmine's notes on this same exercice and found this.

"Jasmine finally got it and in one day, went down three sizes with no problem."

That perked me up.  : )

Introducing Fannie

Fannie is a little black miniature poodle, so picture taking will be difficult.  Here a few pictures to describe her outgoing personality.  Let's just say she's keeping me on my toes, and annoying the heck out of Jasmine.

Week 6

This week's theme : "Fill the frame". There are many ways to fill the frame, and here is one of them. Jasmine could hear another dog and human walking and went into the sit to listen. It's also a submissive stance I guess. ; ) Fannie is in the car, snoozing away.

Week 5 - 52 Weeks of Jasmine

Boy oh boy!  Am I ever behind now!  This is what happens when Jasmine gets a little sister.  Yup!  Jasmine now has to share her house with little Fannie, a black miniature poodle.   You'll get to see her later on, but for now, here is week 5's theme, "Vintage".

Not bad if I do say so myself.  My first thought was to get a shot of Jasmine around old buildings or objects, but hey!  Why go for the ordinary?

I also used this shot as a profile pic on facebook.

Week 4 - 52 Weeks of Jasmine

Theme: I ate this.

I worked the whole week trying to get the right balance of the food with Jasmine looking on.  Jasmine is looking at the food, yet she's not the main subject of the photo, which was my goal. Unfortunetaly, getting Jazz to sit in the centre of the frame was next to impossible.

Thanks to muttsandaklutz who suggested I use a special feature on my camera. It worked. The food is in focus and Jasmine is part of the blurry background.