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)