Judging.. Updating step by step!

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<sup>Well again I’ve not updated very well! I’ve just not had much spare time.
I’ve had loads of training days but haven’t got time to write about all of them. I’ve got up early just so I can get a little updating done before getting ready for Nottingham Show.

I was asked to judge in Northern Ireland on Saturday 12/5/2012


So I drove up to the ferry Thursday night to catch it Friday morning. I didn’t finish teaching Thursday till 10pm and by the time I was back, packed and sorted it was 11.30pm but I was still wide awake so headed off. I stopped halfway. The ferry was due to leave at 10am. Check in was by 9. We got there for 8am but, with a broken car! About an hour away from the ferry my car started making the most horrendous noise. I didn’t stop till we got to the ferry, I just wanted to get there, then when I had a look the exhaust had come totally away from the back box! We were checked in and then told that the ferry was postponed.. Typical and they wouldn’t allow me to go to a garage to get my car fixed in the meantime.
I had classes booked to start at 2pm. So unfortunately Kristy had to cancel the 2 o’clock class. We managed to get on the ferry at 12.30 so managed to get in 4 hours teaching when I finally got across.</sup>

Saturday, judging day.

I judged all heights, all grades, agility. I really enjoyed the day and had lots of positive feedback about my courses. I wanted to make the courses not too straight forward but not too tricky and have them flowing allowing the dogs to open up a bit more. I really enjoyed my day and below was the courses that I set.

Last time I judged in Ireland it was horrid and raining so it was great that the sun paid a visit.

Sunday

Today I was teaching again, another good day. And no rain! Weave exercises and courses, handling and fastest lines, before heading back to catch the ferry at 10pm. This was on time!

I’ve being asked to judge at Scunthorpe in August. So with having to pull Ben out at Scunthorpe in April I said id judge the PRO PLAN 6-7 Qualifiers. But hopefully (fingers crossed) Ben seams better! I’ve done lots of core work with him to help tone his stomach up more. Now I’m undecided what to do with him today. He has had 5 weeks no agility and 3 short sessions back, and being fine. So he may have a run and see how he goes. Its something I’ve learnt that I’ve got to just play by ear and I’m much happier knowing that its not hurting him as that’s what worried me so much at Scunthorpe thinking that I could of possibly hurt him. But Ben wouldn’t run if he was a tiny bit under the weather or he would slow down which happened at Scunthorpe his very good in that sense.. Stig would still run with 2 legs! He has trained twice on large and has done a few small medium jumps in the Garden and been more nuts the ever! He has always been fine in himself but he was off it at Scunthorpe as his stomach wasn’t as toned and with loosing his spleen, stuff had moved a bit making him a bit uncomfortable when jumping but not in pain. He’s been checked and again he’s fine but we wont know how toned he has to be unless I try him. He’s been fine after jumping at home and at my venue so fingers crossed its done.. Just need to continue core training with him! He had been absolutely OFF HIS HEAD.. He absolutely loves his agility and I can’t say (if he is fine) that he won’t be cheeky. But I just miss handling my comfy slippers. Would love to have him back and letting him enjoy agility he has been really grumpy knowing he is missing out.

Lucy Osborne

I will try sometime this week to update more.

Lucy Osborne.

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Teaching In Poland

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Last week I was over in Poland (Mikoszewo) taking a 3 day camp seminars for Klub Agility FORT.

So I got up Monday morning bright and early and left for the airport. My flight was due to board at 7.55am.. 7.55 am came and we were told that we couldn’t board the plane as they were experiencing technical problems and had to wait for the engineer to get to the plane, look at it and sort it. The engineer was in Luton and I was flying from Doncaster. Hummm anyway we managed to get boarded some 4 hours later and lifted off and were finally on the way to Gdansk.

I arrived at Gdansk and was greeted by Ania Kulawiak and her two lovely shelties... oh and her boyfriend :p It was lovely and warm when I got off the plane T-shirt weather! (Something I haven’t experienced much of this year in England) so we set off to the training camp venue which was about an hour away from the airport. As soon as we got there we planned to get into our rooms and get all sorted out, however.... my room key had legs and was nowhere to be found, so we went for dinner first.

Tuesday
It was my first day of teaching. Today’s training was focusing on Handling - We did a few course exercises and broke them down and worked on verbal/que timing, positioning and physical ques. Where and what behaviour should be rewarded and in what place we should be rewarding. It was a great day as there were some extremely keen people and dogs.

In the evening i did a classroom seminar for everyone. What do our commands mean? goal setting target setting for not just a win, but for training each individual command.  Getting into the habbit of following through criteria even in the ring and why this is important.
　

Wednesday
Today in the morning we focused on Weaves. My FAVE bit :-) Looking at the importance of reward in certain places. We did some entry exercises some of which can be found on my DVD and worked on maintaining speed focus and drive to the end of the poles and the way in which I would close channel poles together.

I really enjoyed the day and had some fantastic comments back from the exercises I set and information that I gave. So very please with the weave seminar.

I was then asked by Ania if I could help her out with one of her students who had been having weave 'problems'

The dog was called Stephan . A Flatcoat Retriever with a lot of drive! I could instantly see the problem and why the dog was doing what he was doing. The Channel had been left open far to long and the Weave word to this dog now meant... GOGOGO extent your stride and RUN. This makes it really hard when you begin to close the channel as the dog will probably barge or just jump out because that weave word really just means run like hell!

So we took away the weave command and just allowed the dog to go forward. The stride instantly shortened so we rewarded it. I then closed the channel up more and straight away he started to put in the weave action. (they weren’t fully closed but enough to make him start putting in the action) We did a little more work and then ended the session on a massive high. It’s a great feeling when you can help someone give them the missing part. Such a fantastic dog. I can’t wait to see it next year, very powerful!

In the afternoon we focused on contacts. Position, behaviour and reward... Following through and maintaining criteria. We focused on the end of the dog walk and how we can gain maximum speed into position and reasons for rewarding in certain places.

In the evening we had a room party and god knows what was in the drinks but they were good!

Thursday
Thursday was my last day of teaching and throughout the lessons we focused on legwork and co-ordination. So exercises that required more thinking than speed. Thinking about where the dogs are placing their feet. Then we worked on how I teach a wing wrap command, teaching the dog how rewarding it is to put that extra step in as apposed to jump long. Next we looked at the See Saw and how we can make the end as exciting and fun as possible!

The seminars flew by! In the evening we all sat round a little fire and cooked our sausages on sticks washed down with lots of wine :-D Magda then came out with a gift a Camp T-Shirt and a card signed by everyone and invitation to teach their camp again next year :-) So 30th April, I’ll see you guys again for a whole week this time! :-D
　

　

I’ve been really busy this week and teaching today and tonight. It’s the last session of prep for a W.A.O Team member Karen Marriot and Puzzle. Good Luck :-) And have lots of fun in Belgium :-)

Tomorrow it’s a 2.30am start and drive up to the ferry for a long weekend, teaching and judging in Ireland. I’m taking my dogs with me as I’m going to see one of Ben x Maizie puppies in Scotland on the way back. He was sadly attacked by a Staffie nearly 2 weeks ago and gained some bad puncture wounds. Ashleigh gained injuries too. It will be good to see both Ashleigh and Key as I haven’t seen them since I moved back from Scotland. So it’s been a fair while, and I am also looking after another Ben x Maizie puppy 'Ronnie' as Allison is undergoing a knee op. Ashleigh has inever met Ronnie so it will be good to reunite and get some pictures :-)

Handsome Ben =~P

Lucy Osborne

www.agilitybuds.com

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Box Of Tricks - Agility Voice (May Article)

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Box Of Tricks

Having trouble with waits? The equipment is just too much fun? How about another ‘Box of Tricks’ Wait Game.

So over the last few months we have looked at rear leg lifts, front and back leg box circles. This month we are going to use the box as another way of teaching the wait behaviour.
Below are the two starting positions that I may choose for my dogs. The sit and stand are just positions that I prefer. They are the positions that will be shown within the pictures throughout this article.

If your dog breaks the wait behaviour there is a good chance that your dog either doesn’t know the behaviour/fully or there is not enough value for the position! The wait I feel can be the most boring thing to teach, especially for an unmotivated dog. People tend not to want to teach a wait because the dog lacks the enthusiasm on the release. So why not spice it up and make it a fun game and reinstall or install the basic criteria with your box!
Ok so to start off what is your definition of wait?
Personally I do not have a ‘wait’ command. I will give you a definition of my commands and see if you can guess why I don’t use or need a wait command.

Command	Definition of behaviour
Sit	Bum on floor, no movement.
Stand	Stood, all four paws on ground, no movement.
Down	Lay on floor, no movement.

So if I had a ‘wait’ command the definition would be ‘no movement, stay in the position that you are in when I say the wait command.’
From what my sit, stand and down commands mean do I actually need a wait command?
No, because I say sit. Sit means ‘sit with no movement’ therefore this is a sit wait, I don’t need to teach the ‘extra’ command or say the extra verbal.
I try my very hardest to keep my commands as easy a possible so if something is similar I will look at loosing the command.
So first of all we need to mark the position that we want our dogs to stay in. You can either do this with the dog sitting in the box or on the box. If your dogs don’t understand the wait behaviour at all then sitting them in the box may be easier as they have to lift their leg up and over the box to get out.

So I am going to reward my dog for getting into/on the box. Once the dog is in/on the box I will then ask for the behaviour and reward. I will reward the dog for maintaining the position. First I will not move away, just side to side. If the dog gets up I will withhold the food/ reward and wait to see if they offer getting back to position. (in/on box) You may have to re cue them to do the sit, stand or down behaviour but wait it out first (see if they are going to offer it)

I start teaching my waits around the agility equipment, not always in a field with no distractions. I will have interesting things that they may like to investigate, but I wouldn’t start practicing it for the first time in a class full of dogs doing agility. That may be a bit too distracting!
In the case of the dog pictured in this article he already has some understanding and reward value for jumps and weaves so they may be very interesting, if the handler were to move towards them. So the wait value needs to be higher, therefore a better reward. Don’t be boring, get exited!

So I may then start adding in movement around the box. Here is a list of things I want you to try before you start adding distance from the box

Arm lifts

Clapping

Star jumps

Spinning in a circle

Lifting your legs

Running on the spot.

So why would I do them before increasing distance?

(Only when the dog has had a high level of reward, for maintaining the position with you moving from side to side.)

I would do them near the box because I can quickly get a reward in for my movement and the dog holding position. If I do this further away and the dog holds position when I throw the reward they are going to move! (Unless you have a perfect throw and a dog that catches perfectly. I’m ruled out of that one! I’m sure 99.9% of people and dogs are too!) If you move away, straight away and do the above list, the dogs will most probably keep getting it wrong because they have not had the consistency and understanding that moving from position makes the treats disappear. Doing this close to them first means they get a quicker more accurate reward for movement so they should get an increased level of reward. If your dog is moving at this stage I would go back and make movement a bit slower. Let your dog start to understand that although their handler can be an absolute nutter your erratic movements boost the amount of reward.

I would then start to tease them with anything they already have value for i.e. equipment! (For those agility dogs that don’t wait) it could be toys or other dogs. Remember don’t throw them in at the deep end. You need to increase the interesting other objects slowly and increase the reward for maintaining the behaviour.

Build on this session by session, I wouldn’t try the whole lot in one session!

So get to that piece of equipment and then go through your movements and get the reward back in. I would then decrease the box to a mat and then decrease the size.

Even the most boring things can be fun!

It’s all just another trick

Lucy Osborne.

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Box Of Tricks - April (Agility Voice Article)

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Box Of Tricks
This month I'm going to again focus on another rear leg awareness exercise and a front leg awareness exercise. The first exercise is great for not only rear leg awareness but for building muscle too. Again, just like last month you must remember to do this in both directions, clockwise and anticlockwise. You may find just like humans that your dog will have a weaker side. Don't give up. Work hard and up your game a bit slower.

Think, Plan, Do

This is an excellent way of training Think what do you want out of the session, Plan the session and then do. This way you know what you want to do and shouldnt accept a left spin if your after, in this session teaching a down. Break the trick down into sessions. I dont plan to achieve a whole trick in one session. id rather the dog understood the movement to the trick, So i up my not up my game twice in one session. Each box session I do will last for no longer then 5 minutes (Normally 2-3 minutes) I want to finish with the dog wanting more not with them deciding they are no longer interested! You can increase the time if you need to.
BOX CIRCLES

Box Circle trick 1
So for this exercise all you will need is a box. You don't need much space at all either. You will need to turn the box upside down so that the flat surface is at the top for the dog to put their paws on. I have a rubber surface board on the top of my box, just helps stop their paws slipping.  I start by standing near the box. If my dog doesn't offer to place both of
their front paws onto the box I may show them by showing them a treat. I will then mark the behaviour once in the position. I will mark it followed by a lower value treat.

I will then begin to move around the box. I will take one step and then wait to see if my dog offers to move. (with their rear legs, around the box.) I will reward after the first 1-2 steps that they take with their rear legs. If they are understanding this and offering the leg movement I will then up my game. If not I would move around the box myself a bit more. But don't start by making it too easy see what they offer first.  Upping the game. Now I am going to only mark and treat the dog for taking 3-5 steps. I will then up my game again and only reward after every full circle my dog makes around the box.


Easy? Want to up the game even more?
Now see if you can start with your dog on one side (your left) and see if they will offer moving around the circle, (without you moving)all the way round till they are on your right side.

Ok so lets swap it about, time for Box Circle trick 2 .
You will still need your box upside down but for this one you need your dogs back paws on the box and the front paws on the ground! Below is a picture to show you the position and posture the dogs should and shouldn't be marked in its ok for the dog to sit whilst doing this but keeping them out of a sit and in a stand position makes them think about their rear legs (that stay on the box ) as they will need to move them too when they move around the box on their front paws. If they are in a sit they will twist round and have to raise to change positions anyway once their have moved the front paws have moved ? of the way around the box. I do not reward or mark the behaviour if my dogs are sat whilst doing this or have a sneaky leg off.

I will again remember to mark the behaviour once in the position.  I will then begin to move around the box. Exactly the same as the first trick. Remember this time your rewarding movement from the front paws which should be on the ground , the back paws should stay on the box.

* Reward 1-2 steps - Until you feel the dog understands it is being rewarded
   for moving their front paws.
* Hold back the reward until the dog moves 2-4 steps, then reward.
* Hold back the reward for half a circle, then reward.
* Hold back the reward for a full circle, then reward.


Easy? Want to up the game even more?

Now see if you can get your dog to move round the box themselves with their back paws on the box and their front paws on the ground. Can you get them to move around the box without you needing to use your hand as a lure or you moving around the box with them.

Enjoy
Lucy Osborne

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Toby -Collie looking for a home .

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Well guys this is Toby.

He is approx 12-15 months old and is truly fantastic.

So why is such a fantastic dog looking for a home?

He has simply being unlucky with his owners! There is nothing else too it! They didn’t expect him to get so big and didn’t think he would need as much work. (a walk!)

So here is my honest opinion on him to give you the best understanding of him.

He is truly fab and if I was looking for another dog he wouldn’t be still looking. He has a fab temperament greets dogs, adults and children all very well. And is very toy orientated, food is ok but toys at the moment are better. When he is settled and everything around him isn’t all SOOO new and exciting I think the treats will become as valuable (Good ones)

He has very good toy drive to a dead and moving toy. Loves a game of ball and tuggy and he does not bat an eyelid at being touched, inspected, eyes, ears, legs, mouth and collar grabs are no problem at all.

(as you will see in the video) There is absolutely no food aggression in him at all.

Work in progress

He isn’t to keen on cars travelling from behind of him but after 5 minutes sat by the road he soon learnt it was far more rewarding to keep his eyes glued on me.

He met horses today, I believe for the first time. He was a bit barky/unsure when they moved (Scary things) but as soon as the toy or reward came out the more beneficial thing was to work with me and he continued a game of tuggy and walking through them with no problem.

I have had him in a harness as he pulls on lead. I don’t want him pulling on his neck and haven’t had much time to do much with him but again I don’t think he has seen a lead much. He has no problem with anything being put on him and with a bit of time he will fab.

　

He is such a friendly dog and just wants to play and learn. I have been completely honest with you all on how he has being with me. He isn’t tubby (I think he looks it on some pictures) very lean in fact, just a lot of coat. I know he is slightly older then most working home handlers would like but he has so much to give and will make someone a fantastic dog. He is so easy going and affectionate. He is only on a longline as i was unsure what he would be like and their was dogs on the field when we were working. He was fine :-)

There is a video of him below on his first outing with me.

If this video won’t play or you would like more info please contact me

Lucy Osborne

lucyosbornedogtraining@hotmail.co.uk

07904439004
Please pass on this and share the blog if you know anyone that may be intrested.
Thankyou :-) x

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Agility Voice Article 1 - Box Of Tricks - March

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Box of tricks
There are many tricks we can teach our dogs that have a big relevance to agility. You don’t have to use agility equipment to be training for agility! Through a series of articles I aim to give you something to train with your dog, without having to even go out of the house. A new trick, each month that, over the series of articles will be aimed at different aspects of agility preparation and training. From body and self awareness to strengthening muscles and toning up. This is not just something you can do with your young dog try it with your competing dogs too.

Training sessions should be no longer then 5 minutes long. Which isn’t very much time IF you don’t plan what you want to get from the session. However, you shouldn’t expect the end behaviour within the first session. Break the sessions up. I have always got better results from a shorter planned session. Plan what you want to do, write it down, then train and look back at what you have done. Have you accepted something different and gone off on a totally different tangent? I will show through pictures and text the stages in which I mark ’click’ the behaviour and then how I progress it after each session. You should see this through the articles.

Rear Leg Raises

How do we start? Above I said that it is important to plan. To plan you need to see in your mind the finished look and what the description of the finished behaviour should be. Then in stages think about a not confusing and fun way in which you can teach the behaviour and more importantly getting the dog to understand and learn the behaviour.
I’m going to start with a box, it doesn’t have to be a special size, style or be decorated. Mine was picked up from the local fruit and veg shop, something that isn’t too high/deep.
Before I begin the actual training for this trick I’m going to let my dog investigate the box, let them have a sniff. And walk them through the box, I won’t train my dog with a ‘prop’ that they are not comfortable with. I will reward my dog for interaction with the box. Once my dog is comfortable with the box and walking through it I will then begin my training. Stage 1 In the first session I am going to reward my dog for splitting his rear leg over the box. I won’t reward highly for this. I would reward this with a mediocre treat. Once the dog is splitting its rear leg over and out of the box I will then move onto stage 2. Some dogs may get this in the first 5 mins others may have to do a few sessions before their dog offers the behaviour. I am not going to use a clicker for this as I just want my dog to be aware of the movement, I will use a clicker in the next stage. It should look something like the pictures below.

Stage 2
My dog is now comfortable with stepping out of the box and not jumping out, now I want to start to mark the behaviour that I am looking for , which is the leg lift. I use both a clicker and the word ‘Yes’ to mark behaviour. They both mean the same thing but my dogs are more relaxed when training with a clicker, I will use the vocal marker once my dogs understand the trick. The marker to my dogs does NOT mean end of exercise it means ‘ That’s the behaviour I want, keep showing me.’
Below is a picture of where I would click and where I wouldn’t.

I am going to click when the dog is lifting his leg at the point that the lifting leg is as far away from the ground, as the dog is going to lift it. Click and reward with a higher value treat. You do not want to click when the dog is putting the leg down as shown in the above picture, next to the cross. This would be telling the dog - I’m rewarding you for the behaviour of putting the rear leg down and not the lift.
Make sure you practice the lift on both of the dogs rear legs. The picture above should illustrate this enough .You will find that you dog has a weaker side, just like humans. Help the dog even out by practicing the weaker side too.

Stage 3 - Holding the lift.
If your dog understands what they have just been getting clicked for they should begin to start to offer holding the behaviour if you withhold the click slightly. If not have you been rewarding in the right place? This is a good indication that there may need to be a few more sessions marking the lift.
Gradually start withholding the length of the click once they are holding the positions and not lifting and putting back down.

Mark each increased hold with the highest value treat followed by lots of praise and games.

Don’t ask too much and expect your dog to stand there for a minute. I have taught Stig to hold for about 3 seconds he will hold for longer but it’s not necessary for me to have him holding the position for longer.

Here is some pictures showing the stages in which I trained this trick to another dog.
For a dog who’s being shaped the 2on2off contact position I feel this is the easiest way in which to teach it.
First I’m going to reward one leg lifting to the box no clicker or vocal just a treat.

Once the dog is consistently touching with one leg I’m going to click the lift. Only the lift not when he is touching the box. I am then going to move the box away and reward.
I can use this trick for numerous different things
1. Rear leg awareness
2. When warming up my dog
3. Keep my dog focused and thinking about his rear legs in a long queue by the ring.
4.Putting on and taking off my dogs coats
5. Clipping his claws.
6. Looking in them or pulling something out.

Its not such a pointless trick after all!

Lucy Osborne

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Blog Slacker

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Geez I have been a Right Blog Slacker, I cant believe that a month has gone since I last updated. I’ve been very busy teaching and trying to find time to train my own dogs. So a quick catch up is needed, I think! What I have actually managed to do with my dogs, appart from walk them Hummm this should be short!

February 4th Dave Munnings had organised a training seminar with Kamal Frenandez and invited me on it. I didn’t know much about Kamal at the time of the event and with being in South Africa and then very busy when I got back I never had the chance to even ‘google’ him and find out some info first which is unlike me. It was then the 3rd. Dave had just told he that Kamal competes in Champ level obedience and was fantastic at shaping, and getting focus so I was interested. I didn’t really know what to expect and being fairly open minded to what the day was going to entail so packed the notebook and pen to take as many useful notes as I could. I set off very early on the 4th to get there. After my Sat Nav decided that it was going to take me to the middle of a single track road and say ‘Destination’ hummmmm thanks for that TomTom! I managed to find the location and be 30 mins early, god only knows how that happened.


So the session started and Kamal asked everyone for a BRIEF description of what everyone was looking for and about their dogs.
STIG - Gets a bit too excited about working, need to gain more controlled focus in new environments, looking for more rear leg exercises.
Fairly brief for me! The session started and all the dogs came in and we played a few games which were really good. I was pleased because some of what Kamal taught in his ‘games’ were similar to my ‘Games’ just different names. One of the games what I don’t do but certainly am going to now made me more aware of Stig following body language more then the command. So I was straight back to the note pad writing what I needed to train and work on so i didnt forget.
I feel that in agility and me not having the fastest legs in the world! my dogs need to understand verbal aswell as body language so I have been working on verbal commands only and testing them without body language as back up. ie. Pull though command, Left, Right, Come, Go, Wing Wraps and I’ve put a note in March training exercises to go over it again.


Kamal wasn’t talking about agility when we were all playing that game it was general sit, down and stands but that’s the secret and importance of a notebook and pen, You can jot it down go away and think back over the training and plan how it can help in other areas too.It definitely made me think. Thanks for that.
One2ones I had a one to one with Kamal in the afternoon, we focused on rear leg work, I’ve done a lot recently with Stig because of his pole knocking last year. Kamal recommended grids first which I have tried with him and not just for a week either I have tried to stick to them and followed and researched methods but after a month he was getting worse, grids, they wind him up so much. because once he knocks a pole he get more wound up and tried to try harder but because hes getting wound up he forgets then about everything else. Nutty dog!


I wanted something I could do in the house, where he would be calmer to learn it and then I could it take outdoors. I couldn’t see what I was meant to be marking so Kamal worked Stig so that I could observe. I wanted to be clear and to be marking the behaviour correctly and know what I was to be looking. Watching stig work really useful.
I’ve been working on the exercises Kamal gave me and they have been FANTASTIC. I am now doing the exercise in my warm up routine and he is lifting his rear legs now. Whereas before he would hit one pole and plough down the rest now if he hits one he is really trying hard with his rear legs and thinking about them more. There is massive progress.
So all in all that was a really beneficial day for me and I’m glad that I went. Being able to watch the other one2ones were great too because I could observe how Kamal would teach other behaviours. Most, I had already taught to my dogs but its good to see other methods and to have them stored up as a plan B if plan A doesn’t work when teaching.
I have asked Kamal to come and teach at my venue and I have managed to get him on 6th and 7th August, if you click on the picture below it should enlarge. There is info on there about Kamal and how to book your spot.

I then had two weekends of one2ones and classes at my own venues And resumed my weekly classes after a month off.. Can safely say all of the dogs were off their heads, and had missed it.


I have had some training evenings over at Halifax and at my venue . The Fun Filled Puppy Foundation went down really well and I received lots of good feed back so im now running a Fun Filled foundations class every other Wednesday. So much fun shaping and teaching new behaviours getting out young agility dogs as confident and bullet proof as we can before we bring them into the agility world.

I managed to squeeze in time to train my dogs and have just being going over awareness exercises. I’m trying to retrain Bens A-Frame, its proving harder then I thought. And its taken me a month to convince him not to stop and him not to think I was testing him. Bless him
I was then over in Northern Ireland teaching for the weekend, it was another fantastic weekend as it always is over there. I stayed with Kirsty and Irene Jess. I went out Saturday evening with Kirsty and Curtis Mullan. I had a fairly sensible night and only had a few drinks I wouldn’t possibly think of anything worse then teaching with a hangover and lots of noise. So a sensible night… The music was so loud my ears were ringing until Monday. Some weave training, foundation training and advanced training. Cant wait to get back over there in May Judging and teaching.

This weekend I was at Dans’ teaching Foundation/ Drive work then Foundation weaves and independent weaves following my system, some good reviews and more people going to teach my method. I then had a Super see saw session which had a mixture of breeds and lots of talented dogs .
                                                      

I have started writing for the Agility Voice too so I will post my articles on here once the edition has been sent out.


 So its Crufts next week, I’m not competing this year, I’m glad in a way because otherwise I wouldn’t of had time to retrain Bens A-Frame I’ll just miss the A-Frame out at the coming shows. I’m going to cheer on some students and catch up with some friends. It will be strange not beeing it agility etire.

Looking forward to the start of the show season now! First KC show is on 17th of this month so not long now.

Lucy Osborne

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