We were a bit up against it last week, so it wasn't the most auspicious start to our competition season. The boys were poorly with a sicky/ cough type bug, and the weather report didn't look like it was going to do us any favours either. Thank goodness for our lovely caravan, without which I'm sure we wouldn't have attempted the trip. We left at around lunchtime on Thursday and actually the weather wasn't too bad at that stage - breezy, but sunshine for most of the drive. It was nice to finally be on the road - packing up for that first weekend show takes a bit more time than the rest of the season. It takes a while to get back into the swing of things, but fortunately I have a great husband to help me :-)
A rain storm greeted us when we arrived on site in Wadebridge, and underfoot was already showing signs of being boggy. Still it was better than it was going to get! We awoke on Friday morning to the sound of rain on the caravan roof - a roof which we were very glad of, it felt lovely to be tucked up in the warm and dry whilst the rain came down outside. However when we stepped outside we found there had been so much rain that there were puddles inside our awning - not from a leaking awning, but simply from the wet ground. Needless to say our lovely, clean caravan didn't stay like that for very long. Diva in particular, made sure of that :-)
That Friday I decided to try experimenting with some feeding advice I had been given from my friends at the Smart Clinic. There is no official research into how best to feed agility dogs, so advice is given from research from greyhound racing & sled dog racing. Obviously agility dogs don't fit into either camp, but perhaps somewhere in the middle. What had been suggested was that greyhounds aren't fed on the morning of a race, but are fed a big meal the evening before. Similar to human sprinters I'm led to believe.
I didn't feel I could run her with nothing inside her, so gave Ella a small amount of tinned mackerel which she thought was lovely. As did Diva who tried to dive into her bowl after it :-) That day we had just two runs - jumping & agility. In both classes we had poles down (as you'll see from the video clips below), which could have been put down to handling errors on my part, but seem unlikely as my handling doesn't get better throughout the weekend - if anything it gets worse with the onset of my cold! So it's not an experiment I think we'll be doing again, and in truth whilst in makes sense with greyhounds, we ask a bit more from our agility dogs than just flat out running. It's certainly interesting to think about though, and I'd encourage other people to experiment to work out what works best for their particular dog.
The weekend was wet and uncomfortable for the most part, and I'm still recovering from the cold/ sicky bug that the children gave me from Saturday onwards. But I'm always keen to try and find the positives, so hear is what I came away with from the weekend:
Ella only missed one weave entry in 8 classes, a massive improvement from last season :-)
Even when poorly, I was able to do some pretty decent handling :-)
My agility friends are many and spread all around when I wander around a show :-)
A hot shower can overcome the most negative weather :-)
I'm capable of reaching the goals I set myself, against big odds :-)
Today I am grateful for my mum who took such good care of my boys for me today whilst I felt ill. None of us would be anything without family and friends, and I'm so very lucky with mine.
A rain storm greeted us when we arrived on site in Wadebridge, and underfoot was already showing signs of being boggy. Still it was better than it was going to get! We awoke on Friday morning to the sound of rain on the caravan roof - a roof which we were very glad of, it felt lovely to be tucked up in the warm and dry whilst the rain came down outside. However when we stepped outside we found there had been so much rain that there were puddles inside our awning - not from a leaking awning, but simply from the wet ground. Needless to say our lovely, clean caravan didn't stay like that for very long. Diva in particular, made sure of that :-)
That Friday I decided to try experimenting with some feeding advice I had been given from my friends at the Smart Clinic. There is no official research into how best to feed agility dogs, so advice is given from research from greyhound racing & sled dog racing. Obviously agility dogs don't fit into either camp, but perhaps somewhere in the middle. What had been suggested was that greyhounds aren't fed on the morning of a race, but are fed a big meal the evening before. Similar to human sprinters I'm led to believe.
I didn't feel I could run her with nothing inside her, so gave Ella a small amount of tinned mackerel which she thought was lovely. As did Diva who tried to dive into her bowl after it :-) That day we had just two runs - jumping & agility. In both classes we had poles down (as you'll see from the video clips below), which could have been put down to handling errors on my part, but seem unlikely as my handling doesn't get better throughout the weekend - if anything it gets worse with the onset of my cold! So it's not an experiment I think we'll be doing again, and in truth whilst in makes sense with greyhounds, we ask a bit more from our agility dogs than just flat out running. It's certainly interesting to think about though, and I'd encourage other people to experiment to work out what works best for their particular dog.
The weekend was wet and uncomfortable for the most part, and I'm still recovering from the cold/ sicky bug that the children gave me from Saturday onwards. But I'm always keen to try and find the positives, so hear is what I came away with from the weekend:
Ella only missed one weave entry in 8 classes, a massive improvement from last season :-)
Even when poorly, I was able to do some pretty decent handling :-)
My agility friends are many and spread all around when I wander around a show :-)
A hot shower can overcome the most negative weather :-)
I'm capable of reaching the goals I set myself, against big odds :-)
Today I am grateful for my mum who took such good care of my boys for me today whilst I felt ill. None of us would be anything without family and friends, and I'm so very lucky with mine.
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