Bigi's New Do

What do you do when changing from one climate extreme to another? Shed continuously of course! That had to be stopped and HRH was also having a little heat trouble. Who you gonna call? - the mobile salon of course! Ear flap windows - genious!

 

 

A few episodes of bad behaviour later and VIOLA! a whole new velvet you!

 



Dogs Down Under

OK, so we have been here for SOME TIME and there has been no post since we were up over. We have been busy adjusting etc, but a quick review....

Bigi and Sen endured prison life tolerably well. Bigi was unimpressed and Sen was toughened up considerably. Byford Resort was ok but FYI Byford, it is possibe to not wet the dog bedding when cleaning, and yes there is a chilly wind in your kennels.

Life on the inside was like so:

 

A rather dull affair, with totally weird new animals outside. The excercise yard was somewhat better, with its own lemon tree and REALLY BIG cones:

 

 

 

Finally we was busted out of the joint, only to find we are surrounded by a distinct lack of grass. Fortunately there was also no white stuff.

 

 

Oh well, we continue to explore just what can be done around here. See y'all soon!

 







Ta-daa!

Who'd of thunk it - not me at least. Bigi won an A3 competition! Not only that, but he had the second-fastest time of all dogs from all height classes. Strange things do happen :)

Action man Bigi :)

Here's a few action shots from Bigi's first international class coompetition two weeks ago!

Bigi's agility year in statistics

Once a scientist, always cursed. Anyway, ever since Bigi's first agility run I have been trying to keep some stats on his progress with, among other things, the most time-consuming obstacles - weaves, dog-walk, seesaw. Here we have some results calculated from competition run videos (which are not a representative sample of all runs, lucky for readers as this saves you from having to suffer further analyses :) ). The chart represents the last year but only around half of our actual competition runs(time on X axis).

We can see that there is hope - small man is becoming faster, as the lines of best fit show. For comparison I add my measurements of what top small dogs are doing. These are my own measurements from selected videos (WC, Crufts, etc) and are somewhat slower times than what are sometimes quoted as averages.

We see that Bigi's seesaw was doing mighty fine at the beginning of this year (around time "15"), but is regressing for some reason now (I think this is just bias as there are not many recent recorded runs - mostly the seesaw has been quite good). Dog-walk times are improving but still at least one second slower than ideal. No worries - running contact training still needs some work, and we have gained at least 1 second on average since starting it.

Weave poles appear to be the worst of the bunch, with Bigi's time on average around 1 second worse than those at the top. I put this down to his lack of independence (my fault of course). For interest I tested out what his backyard time is for weaves. I found that there too, the average time was over 3 seconds. The record best backyard time was 2.4 seconds, but this was a rare time. The only good news from that exercise is that Sen's regular time was also around 2.3 seconds, which is KICK ARSE. Now I just have to transfer it to competition - easier said than done!

Fantastic plastic!

Finland is a country known for its appreciation of design. I'm not sure if this applies to dog sport prizes, but you can be the judge of that. While packing our takings from Finland, we took some time for some posing:

Bigi -  master of the universe (in his imagination at least)

Sen - a somewhat more modest haul. However she did get the best prize of all - a healed leg that lets her walk and run normally :)

Hooray!!

Today Bigi got his first pass in jumping 3 (highest class here in Finland). I'm very proud of my boy - you've come a long way baby!

Bigi's agility ranking 04.2012

684 out of 1018 mini teams (last month 768)

April competition report

We trekked to 3 competitions this month (10 starts). I am happy to report a HUGE improvement in speed, which at first took some getting used to :). We completed some courses which I thought were very interesting and challenging, and as a team we are clearly moving forward. What we really need right now is sequence practice, but the weather is against us there. The only chance we get to run at the moment is at competitions.

Runs with results (time faults only :) :)):
1.4.2012 agility, +0.11 (unkind electronic timer! and a new Bigi-speed record of 3.57 m/s; 10th)
7.4.2012 jumping, +1.88 (18th)
14.4.2012 agility, +4.60 (8th; a very over-tired dog, speed 3.29 m/s). I was especially pleased with this one as it was a super-difficult course!, although 3 starts in a cold place after a 5 hour drive is clearly too much

Here's a picture (by Ari Korteniemi). I believe it shows Bigi eagerly on his way to an off-course tunnel - his in thing at the moment :) I am happy that he eagerly goes anywhere :)

Agility Sports Bulletin - Feb 2012

You can learn many things from agility - that's what makes it so interesting! For example, you should do your best to remove bad photos of you from general circulation, or the hands of any publishers. Pekka found this in the February addition of Agility Sports Bulletin (nice to get a mention, but that picture - scary scary)

Bigi finds TOP GEAR

Yesterday we had 3 agility starts in Oulu. I have to report that it was very shocking! Bigi was so FAST that I was completely shocked and unprepared :). Seems now I have me a new challenge. Happy days :)

We also had a most fine weekend with Tarja - many thanks for the videos and company! Meanwhile more portraiture was happing, with Miss Sen siting for Tuuli:

Schipperke of the Year Comps - Bigi's Results

Schipperke Club of Finland Schipperke of the Year competitions:
3rd, Agility Schipperke of 2011
2nd, New Agility Schipperke  of 2011
4th, Show Schipperke of 2011

Humble beginnings: Part 2

Bigi's agility ranking 03.2012:

768 out of 990 mini agility teams :)
19 out of 31 mini Schipperke agility teams :)

The only way is up, baby! (at least we hope....:)

More Finnish agility stats for your pleasure:
number of mediun teams: 755
number of large teams: 1193
number of starts and most common breeds in 2011:
small = 19,036 (16% Border Terrier + 16% Sheltie)
medium = 15,042 (21% Sheltie)
large = 24,187 (33.6% BC)

Humble beginnings

On Saturday we had our first "serious" competition, and more importantly a very nice weekend with Satu, Hannu, Vilma and Siru (paljon kiitoksia teille!). The best rsult (5th and only slightly overtime) was quite good considering that we are talking about Bigi:

His overall speed was much better. During the first run his brain was visiting a parallel universe, but things improved as the day went on (once again we have shown that we are NOT morning people!). We had 4 refusal faults on the day which is somewhat unusual. The cool thing is that we scored our first ranking points - all 8 of them. As they say, you have to start somewhere!:

On Sunday we had a great walk on the sea ice, and along Siru's own private forest path! Check out those giant snowflakes!:

A really NICE week

The past week has been really nice dog-wise. On Thursday night Bigi offered his graduation cake to his training buddies; on Saturday and Sunday it was warm enough for long off-lead walks in the forest ;););

On Saturday we also went to train in a new hall (things you can do with a trotting track tote office that is not in use - fill it with agility equipment!), and picked up Bigi's SKK show dog of 2011 prize! Sen also had a really nice training session in a strange place, with strange dogs, and strange equipment :). On Sunday afternoon we went to a dog massage lecture - on more thing to feel guilty about not finding time to do with your dogs!

Bigi makes the BIG TIME :)

In his own special way of course, with -0.07 seconds to spare! On Saturday Bigi earnt his last certificate to pass to Finnish agility class 3, the highest level here and the level at which he is eligible for international competitions (not that we will be seeing any action of that sort any time soon). We look forward to trying more challenging courses and to the talented competition at this level!

Getting Bigi to agility has been a long process. He may just have the most unsuitable personality for the sport that he could have. Its always nice when you go to a competition and you see all those happy relaxed dogs, wagging tails and being friendly. That, is NOT Bigi's style. He has never really managed to overcome stress and over-reactivity, but these days he tries his best to be more normal at any given time and place and for that I am VERY PROUD

Plebs with celebs

Had a rare treat last week - the chance to train with a real agility instructor, two days in a row even! Here we are with said instructor (Lee Gibson). I might post some video if I can get over how bad our efforts were. The dogs did some good stuff, some bad stuff (involving their teeth, mainly the Miss Thing), I did lots of bad stuff - business as usual! If only we could have a coach things might look up!

"Now here's how this is going to work! Look at me, look only at me, do as you are told!"

"And you will suffer as you awaken to the shear magnitude of your ineptness, but after that you will all be happy!" (photos stolen from Lee's blog)