Team Players!

We spent Saturday with the Whizzers for flyball practice. Jordan and Magic were in the Starters class and both are now running really well. The purple and green Whizzers tuggy has given Magic a lot more speed on the run back and enabled Jordan to catch him more easily. Lian's husband, Colin, got a nice piccy of them so check out the Knight's blog.

Rupert trained with the team who will be running at Maidstone. Ray and Guy decided to do timings. I usually start Rupert right at the 15 foot marker so we can get him in without distraction. However we discovered he is much faster from the 25 foot. However the ******!!! cocker won't co-operate. He just wants to get all the balls for himself and that includes tackling the dog coming out for their ball. We tried running the team so the bigger dogs came out as he ran in. Size makes no difference, he still want sot take them out for their balls. So back to the 15ft marker and running as anchor dog.

We then had great fun with Guy's agility course. Magic ran the course beautifully. Rupert was his normal self. Messed me around and ran well with Jordan.

I really was cursing Rupert's lack of team play and bloody mindedness.

Sunday we left at 6am in gales, floods and pouring rain for the WAG agility at Minnis Bay. Despite weather we had J's bike. I was really pleased with Rup and J as they ran some complicated courses very well. Rup is now getting the weave entry left and right for himself. However he is now going too fast over the dog walk and missing the down contact. (He's also being bloody minded about it!!!) I might pull him out of agility to repair the run contact.

At lunchtime we braved the weather for a cycle along the beach - well J cycled along the sea wall with Rupert running beside the bike to look after him. I took Magic on to the beach with his wubba. Magic was happily playing when he suddenly saw flocks of seagulls. Now I thought I had spent the last 6 months desensitising him to birds. He now recalls in chase. Not then!!! He raced after a flock of gulls who took off in flight pursued by Magic. They flew quite low and he was able to jump up trying to catch them. In seconds he was literally at least 1/4 mile away and not coming back. He then found another flock of gulls and started chasing them out to sea. I was getting really worried as he was quite far out, not responding to whistle or anything. I was about to take my trousers off....to enter the freezing water. Suddenly I could see Rupert race down the beach and into the water. He swam out to sea in pursuit of Magic and started to drive him back to the shore. Once on the shore he gave him a real "pack" dressing down.

Well, Rup might not be a team player but he does pull his weight in this family. Magic spent the rest of the day shivering in Trover towels being a really miserable little ****. Oh well, it's back to the pheasant run.

Monday Magic started agility training at Surrey Weald with Jordan. He is still getting used to running non verbally but I'm really pleased. Some lovely weaving and handling. He has bold but careful run contacts and is a lovely little dog to handle over tricky jumping course as he looks for direction. At the moment he favours verbal directions but he is starting to follow hand signals. The only problem is archaeological digs for ancient horse poo during runs. He's definitely making his debut in the fun run at C-Side in March and UKA Waverunners. I think at UKA I'll enter him in the normal beginners classes as he can always run NFC if the course isn't appropriate. This means he'll get 4 runs to learn how to behave in the ring. At Waverunners, there will be birds...!!!!!....and the Thames.