Jive won two of the two Novice Agility events at Moorabbin on the 16th July. It was a big field for novice agility with over 30 dogs competing, in each event. Jive put in two lovely runs and won both of them with a very good time of 26 seconds.
He also had two excellent jumping runs with only one fault in each so Jive and Kris had a super day.No more trials until the 28th August so another break from agility.
We have been training on our Weave Challenge which Jive is going extremely well, I need to video some of the challenges but we are up to week 7.
Jikata's very soon
Jive will be a daddy in four days as Nakita is due on the 4th August but she might go a bit early as she so big, poor Nakita can't get comfortable.
Jive at Morwell agility trial. Thanks to Robyn Evans for photo.
We have no trials for several weeks as a lot of trials have been cancelled due to wet and muddy conditions and also other things, so next trial is not untill the 16th July. We now have plenty of time to train on our weave entries and other things like running Aframes with tunnels very close to Aframes. As Jive loves his tunnels.
As Kris and Jive have only one pass to go before they are in masters jumping, we need to train on advanced skills like obstacle discriminations, seems like that is very popular with judges at the moment, tunnels and tyres next to each other, lots of discriminations also more on serps, threadles, and pushthroughs.
We are in the middle of the Weave Challenge and up to position 4 which we found pretty tough going with the send and the recall. I am doing this challenge with Jazz, Merlot and Jive so we take it in turns and they don't get so tired. With the wet weather lately my ground is very soft, so after a couple of runs on the weavers it tends to get churned up quickly so need to keep moving the weavers to other parts of the ground.
And to think we have another two months of winter. The dogs get so wet and muddy that they have to swim in the dam at least twice a day not that they care as they love their swimming. I am getting very sick of mud.
Below is a video of the send into the weavers with some forward motion, I also had a tunnel very close to weavers as Jive is a bit of a tunnel suck but he was a good boy and did not go into tunnel at all. My computer is very slow in editing so I only videoed the send. I need to get a better edit program.
Last weekend we trialled at Bulla which is near Melbourne's airport, it was a lovely winters day in Melbourne we even had a bit of sunshine we were lucky with the weather as only a light shower during the day.
Thanks to Robyn Evans for some great photos of Jive
The Good
Jive had a lovely run in Excellent Jumping and won the ring, there were over 30 dogs in excellent jumping, Kris handled Jive well and he and Jive did a good job winning the ring. Only one more pass to go in Excellent Jumping and then he will be with the big kids in Masters.
The Bad
We are not having much luck in agility though, Jive had a lovely run in Novice Agility, we have been working on his weaver entries all week and he did a lovely job getting his entry as a lot of dogs stuffed up the entry. But this was the first time in his trialling that he missed the A frame contact, just when I saying to Kathy that we have not had any problems with the running A frame. Funny my older dog Merlot also missed his A frame in the same ring using the same A frame, so not sure why, maybe it was a bit higher than usual, but really no excuse. Jive did end up winning the ring with one fault as no qualifiers in novice.
Jive certainly enjoys himself running as you can hear him talking as he races around the ring with Kris.
Jive had three attempts at novice agility on the weekend and managed to win one, the other two he had a bit of trouble with the weave entries as the other two courses were very difficult with the weavers. Below Jive's winning run with Katie handling Jive.
Weave Pole Challenge
I came home from the weekend at Morwell and thought we must train some more on weaving and then when I read Kathy's blog I thought what a good idea.
Kathy and her girls at Agility Adventures are doing a weave pole challenge and I thought as Jive has been failing in his weavers in Novice Agility it would be a great idea to do the Weave Challenge with Jive's sister Cricket and others . It will be good training and lots of fun, Jive is pretty good at the weavers but lately we have been getting some really hard entries in novice and he has just not been gettting them.
We are a bit late in starting but over the last two days we have been doing some of the work in week 1 and 2 as we need to get to the hard entries as Jive is competing this weekend and it would be nice to get out of novice agility. We are supposed to have only the six poles but seeing we are competing on Saturday I am working on the 12 poles this week.
So, if you want to join the challenge or if you just want a really good description of the exercises just click here .
My videoing is not too good and I did not video all of the exercises, I should be better next week when I now know what I am doing. We are in the middle of winter in Australia so it is very wet and muddy, hence the gumboots.
Jive has been very busy since I posted last as he has won three excellent jumping events over the last three weekends, also he had three matings with Nakita so hopefully we will see little Jikita's early August.
Nakita ready to play with Mr Jive
Nakita and Jive playing together
Some of Nakita's runs at the Royal Show last year
Below is a video with Jive's first two excellent jumping from Knox and Croydon. Jive has had a bit of trouble getting a qually in agility, if it is not one bar down it is a tunnel suck problem, we have got over those two problems and now we have a weave problem. Oh well back to more training.
Jive had his first run in Excellent Jumping last weekend, he did a great job but with the famous one bar down. He had three runs in excellent jumping with one bar down in two of the events, he managed to get two seconds with an NQ in each, but still couple of nice sashes and two nice prizes. Jive also had two runs in Novice Agility with one bar down and the other run he missed the last weave.
Katie has been working on Jive's start line stays and this is going really well, Kris also is getting his timing much better with his rear crosses with Jive. I am really pleased with Jive's progress with lovely running A frames and nice fast weavers. He does all the hard stuff but just keeps knocking that one bar.
Jive's Excellent Jumping run
Jive and I have been working on jump grids this week and lots of set point jumps as Jive is trialling this weekend at Knox.
I took the dogs for a run in the bush this afternoon as did not have any dogs to groom, dogs just had the best time.
Jive usually runs 10 laps everytime we get to this spot on our walk through the bush.
Dogs having a swim after their run in the bush
Dogs having a seat on our bush walk
Dogs all tired after their run and swim, getting warm beside the fire.
We had a double trial at Easter at Altona, lovely courses and lovely weather. Kris and Jive are starting to work as a team, they had two qualifiers one in jumping which was his JD title. The other one was first place in Novice Agility. Jive and Kris also had some other fantastic runs but with just the one fault in most of their runs. Next weekend the 14th May Jive will be running in excellent jumping.
Jive's Qualifing Runs
Some of Jive's runs where he had the one fault, although they were super runs for a baby boy.
Jive has been back at my place and having fun going for runs every morning with John and the other dogs through the bush and then goes for a swim in the dam. Jive just never stops running he has such a great time.
