Ben's first win

I don't want to talk about competitions only, since there are lots of interesting things besides agility we've been doing lately... But I still have lots of work on tricks video I'm preparing, besides, I've pushed hiking aside a little because I've had to study hard lately, so there's not much to say... I should be studying now so it seems a perfect excuse to write something - anything! - so that I can escape books for a while.

Ok, so Ben won the last competition on Saturday in Slovenska Bistrica. We had two clean runs, which means that we also passed our second exam for A2! Jumping run was really nice, it could hardly be better. I need to learn to pull ahead and not wait for him, though, to improve his speed even more. Agility run was nice too, but we had one enormous turn (I was too slow at the beginning and I should have started calling him earlier). However, contact obstacles aren't looking any good... His contacts are close to perfection, but the problem is speed. He's not slow on the dog walk or A-frame anymore, but it's not even close to what we've been training, he needs WAY more confidence on new contact equipment, his jogging over it is not something that would satisfy my taste :)... He does pull ahead in the middle of the dogwalk though and runs full speed over the down ramp and always hits a beautiful contact!

We've also started training turns after the dogwalk... We'll be progressing very very slowly, Ben is very sensitive to changes and I just don't want to ruin his perfect contacts by going too fast, because even the slightest change makes him jump. We still have sooo much to train, sometimes I don't even know where to begin :) I just love it when I find something new to train, it's not a nice feeling when I can't think of anything or any new trick to train, it gets boring...

This is a video of Ben's first four competitions
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a82GKxbxnAc

rainy days...

Ben and I are a little bored in this creepy weather. We've been learning some new tricks lately (quite a few of them), but they're most of them still in progress. Ben finds one or two of them extremely difficult, but I can already see a light of success :) and that's basicaly it - tricks, cuddling and some short walks, that's all we can afford in this pouring rain, which hasn't stopped for two weeks now.

However, a new period has begun for us - since we started to go to agility competitions our lives have changed and Saturdays are always long expected! Competition is a place where we can do what we both love best: run agility, do tricks, meet new people (or dogs! :)), meet old friends, cuddle, play, take a walk, enjoy the nature or simply observe other people and their agility runs... It's not at all like competing against others like people usually think... It's more like giving it all to your own performance and whenever I get that wild attitude out of Ben, when I can hardly run the course without losing him, I feel like winning. And this Saturday for sure was a big win for us! I sometimes joke me and Ben will only start to compete (like tigers!) against others if the organizers change the winning cups for toys, we sure need new toys, never enough of them :) :D But as long as the winner gets a cup, no fear for us starting to be competitive :) Ok, so Saturday competition definitely turned out to be a big win for us! You could tell Ben enjoyed the run and he even took me by surprise by jumping into my arms at the end of the course, without telling him to do so, so I could hardly catch him. No, we didn't win officially, we went off-course on both runs thanks to my handling... But that's not the point, the point is I've never been so proud of my little Ben before, running so bravely in such a distracting enviroment, not even getting scared of a completely new dogwalk and A-frame with an extremely rough surface and even his FIRST see-saw was perfectly done! And this time, he WAS running fast! He did get scared of one tunnel though, but well, it's so dark in there! :D