The A Team

We were very proud of how quickly we settled in on moving but I noticed that there were still 4 boxes in the garage that hadn't been done. I found great treasures in old photos, records and achievements. I will take my time sorting these out to display more of them.

Clearing the garage highlighted a hidden idea of Mark's. He thinks it will be great fun to park the van in the garage. Then when we go to a show load the dogs into the van and burst out the door in an A Team style.

Yes even Mark can have moments of boyishness.

In 2013, a crack agility unit was sent to live in Nottinghamshire for a crime they didn't commit. These dogs promptly decided to go to agility shows in their van. Today, still wanted by the Kennel Club, they survive as Grade 5 to 7 dogs. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team.

We have even decide who is who:

Devo is always rushing around trying to keep charge of any situation and will think of ingenious things that he thinks we need him to do to sort things out - so without a doubt he is Hannibal. He loves it when a plan comes together.

Rhyme with his good looks and charm has to be Face. He certainly conned Mark's Mum when she was staying and has been declared her favourite which gains him many advantages. He will have no qualms about becoming anybody else's favourite when they come to stay.

Torro is an unusual dog and it is easy to match his personality to Mad Murdock - weird but totally loveable and a good guy deep down. When there is something on the course that needs attacking Torro is your dog.

So who could be our BA? Well that would have to be Oddjob. He is the first to react to any noise and has a natural bring it on stance. He'd probably also look cool with loads of gold chains but that is not happening.

Dreams really do come true

Crufts is labelled as the greatest dog show in the world and having not been to any others I can only confirm that it is a great event if you are interested in dogs.

As well as the top breed dogs the Kennel Club have gone a long way to include many other dog activities that all dogs pedigree or not can have fun with.

I was told Wag and Tone would not be able to be included in displays as there are no rules and as such it is not governable. Part of the essence of it is that it is non competitive and everyone and dog can work at their own pace. The dog would never be under pressure to perform better than it wanted to. It may be that somebody will come up with some kind of competition equivalent as has happen with Rally O. For us it will continue to be marketed as just fun


Mark and I had a busy week starting with the arrival of his parents for a couple of days as they were looking after our boys while we were away. The down side was preparing extra bedding and cooking for more the total upside was they not only love dogs - they love gardening too. With the great weather we had the dogs spent all the time out in the garden and our garden is ready for spring.



Crufts had many areas for us -  Agility 1st has been awarded KCAI preferred educational provider status and we had a pod on the KCAI zone, watching the squad preform ready to help Mark's decision on the Teams had the Performance weekend and the Wag and Tone ebook was featured on the dogbooksonline.co.uk stand. Possibly a good thing neither of us had qualified this year 

Agility was in the arena and the KCAI zone was in Hall 5. They were at opposite ends of the NEC so we had plenty of exercise going between them. Saturday was too busy on the Agility 1st stand to be able to see any of the agility at all.

Mark was given passes to get into the collecting ring so was able to observe how the squad was doing. Very interesting viewing. I try to keep a relative low profile.

Greg had 2 dogs in the singles and as I know them and his requirements I gave a hand by holding Rehab whilst he ran Detox. It is great knowing you played a part in someone's success. A few years ago we looked after GT whilst Greg was away and so also felt part of that win :)

It is great for Team GB that 3 members of the squad won the main events. 

There was so many great runs and the atmosphere was brilliant.

It is all over so quickly and it's all back to normal except for the inspiration given by those fantastic dogs and handlers to get out there and do the best with our own dogs and who knows next year.

From having a long old nearly forgotten dream of being an author come true with help from my friends I know anything is possible.

Amongst all this excitement I had my birthday celebrations. Mark had arranged a lovely hotel with flowers, champers and chocolates plus a lovely meal (sorry to turn you down Howard). We had cake on the stand and then on Monday we had a meal with our closest friends and another cake.

My niece Donna also sent a cute photo of my great nephew but forgot to write some important words on it. I'll forgive her this time.

Oops I did it again

Well we usually do Ribble show to try and get the Olympia Qualifier done. So far we have never qualified there but there will be a first time.

Mark is running Torro Laker for me this year. Well I say for me but to be honest it is also for himself. Torro is 8 this year and is looking good. Having two dogs to run in the same course can be an advantage plus Torro is always fun. He tries his heart out every run, growls with excitement and never takes himself seriously. Sometimes he doesn't take his handler seriously either.

Mark set him up on the start line and you could tell from Torro's face that fun was the only item on the agenda.

Devo is another matter - all he wants to do is work. He is so intent on the start line, watching Mark and ready to follow his every move. With a dog like that you can't afford to be rusty (well maybe just for Olympia LOL) and unfortunately a bar came down followed by Marks concentration. Never mind, it is early in the season and with only one semi to go for now I'm sure it might be a bit boring to qualify too early :)

So that leaves me and Rhyme in the graded classes. Well at this time of the year Mark and I are busy doing his Psychology Seminars with all the talk of goal setting etc. Over the years I have found myself to be a process driven person and so getting a clear round is my main objective, especially with a young dog. Getting sucked into writing outcome related goals was my downfall. It seems with a well trained and motivated dog winning up to Grade 4 at this time of the year is not as difficult as I thought it would be. Oops there goes the first short term goal and now I need to think of another one. It is scary how my mind is like a sponge. The down side is that it also absorbs some negatives and eats into my confidence as the season goes on. So more work will be done on my mental skills this year to ensure I keep my dog where he belongs - at the prize givings :)

In case you missed it on Facebook here's the run :-

Rhyme Ribble 15/2/14 Grade 3/4 Agility 1st place

Walking Advertisment

It's obvious that I'm going to be proud of my husband but talk about a walking advert for his own products and a little bit of mine too.

We didn't write much about the not so good a time we had with our change to a new home preferring to write positively.

One thing that changed was our ability to use the field behind our house. That plus a couple of weekends spent doing things for other people meant Mark & Devo had very little opportunities to practice in the month or so before Olympia.

I did a programme using Wag & Tone exercises for them to work on core strength which they did a few times. Mark thinks Wag & Tone is great if a little girlie and thinks the name could be changed to encourage men to try it. He suggested in a not very pc moment that something along the lines of farts & boobs.

Other than that the main exercise Devo got was road walking followed by free running on Pewsey hill. He also had a few days with Ruth MacGill who even got him doing some canicross.

Devo likes to run, run everywhere. He is either running or stopped.

In order to help him develop better quads we made him walk on a harness. This did seem to work as unlike many he did not drop a jump.

For the last week before Olympia we did not even have a jump to practice on. Thanks to the people who did offer use of their equipment locally but time restraints made it not possible to do with moving our main priority.

We moved into our new house on Wednesday 18 December. Our equipment was being brought up from storage with Linda & Tony the weekend after Christmas. So a lovely flat field to use but still no agility

All the dogs had been great at my sisters and when we were in the States and they are generally ok left in the van overnight or daytime at shows. We thought freedom to settle into their new home was more important than me accompanying Mark. With the limited preparation leading up to the event it would not be surprising to see him back by lunch time.

Well although Mark & Devo had not any recent practice we are strong believers in lying a solid foundation before starting on equipment. Once agility training starts we focus on consistency & relationship. Marks training on concentrating on just the events/wins he wants means he never compromised on training for quick gains as their partnership developed.

Setting goals is important and doing it in a structured way will show the best results. Mark is a strong believer in you get out what you put in. His goals for the year helped him achieve qualifying for the event and the foundation and his ability after years of practice to be able to focus on his performance when it mattered ensured that clear. So the scene was set.

A brilliant dog and a bit of luck got him to the final. (Those at recent seminars will laugh at that one).

Once in the final anyone of those dogs could win.

Running first puts added pressure as you're off the course after walking it and then straight into your run.

Great dog not to lose it and good mind strength to keep it together.

I didn't even see it and didn't know the result for ages. Selfish to say 2nd was best result for me. How bad would I have looked to have missed being there for one of his greatest achievements?

Guaranteed I am going next year LOL

Home Sweet Home

We moved in the week before Christmas. We didn't actually complete until the Monday after but............ well, it's been a long story.

Mark & I worked very hard & amazingly were ready for Christmas & our first visitors the day after Boxing Day.




Mark even squeezed in a little trip down to that there London village with Devo & came back with a lovely little trophy :)

It was unlike us to have so many problems with things and this moving lark was unusually difficult.

I suppose it wasn't actually moving as that went like a dream in the end but the buying & selling of houses.

Now we are in we are so glad the other properties fell through. Yes I know there we're many of you that kindly listened to my woes and assured me that it would all end well. Thank you :)

So now to decide shall I reveal all now or keep you all interested with a couple of pictures a week.
Not one to spoil things or to show off I go for the latter.

Here's a couple of moving in clips including improvising went you can't find the scissors :)

Rhyme and Kodi help out

And once he saw how it was done Oddjob perfected the technique

And here's a sneak preview of the garden and paddock beyond

In a Nutshell

At last a few moments to catch up with the blog J

So much has happened. To be fair it has been a while but I think even if I had blogged every day there would have been enough to fill a full page each time.

The précised version and not necessary in chronological order is

• ·      Sold house and moved out
• ·      Passed UpAndOver on to a dedicated committee (& boy are they dedicated to UpAndOver)
• ·      Publication date decided and ready to go on Wag and Tone eBook
• ·      Dogs kept fit and happy and enjoying break from agility
• ·      First article published in a Pug Bulletin
• ·      Found a lovely house to buy and just waiting to exchange contracts
• ·      Preparing for Seminar in Houston, Texas
• ·      Weekends for 2014 filling up with seminars, family and friend visits and GB Squad events
• ·      Mark sent out invites to candidates for GB Squad
• ·      My son Michael settled in Australia with a promising job in a Restaurant
• ·      Accounts done
• ·      Further inroad made into ICAT canine remedial massage theory plus 3 dogs massaged
• ·      People I trained qualifying for various finals and moving up grades
• ·      Some enquiries relating to me continuing to train when we move.

All in all there are so many things moving in the right direction and promising a great year in 2014.

The only 2 things causing worry is Flint and Tim. They are two of my best friends. They are both doing a brilliant job of fighting cancer and both continuing to enjoy life in spite of it.  So many bittersweet moments of spending time with them savoring every moment whilst trying not to think about when they go.

Flint does not know so he is just being his usual happy self and enjoying doing dog things.

Tim and Sharon are an inspiration in positivity in the face of it all. Helping all their family and friends to deal with it along the way. 

Moving away from them will be very hard. Using their positivity I will look at it as a new way to explore the different communication forms out there, writing emails, skyping etc and of course looking for opportunities for those memory days (or weekends) that they having cleverly come up with to make the most of the precious time Tim has.

It's Not All About Pugs

Well  2013 continued to throw it's unlucky 13ness at us for a while to the extent that even I managed to lose some of the positives. Well most of them to be fair.

I also got some kind of virus that left me feeling exhausted and achy all the time. Luckily after heaps of tests it is nothing serious and I'm well on the road to recovery except along the way Mark ran Torro a few times for me and the decision was made that he would have him again next year to run in champ while I concentrate on Rhyme. Torro is such fun to run and I'm sure he'll do very well with Mark but I feel a bit of a traitor. 

We share caring for our dogs and exercise but tend to just agility train the ones we run so Mark is training Devo and Torro. Torro doesn't mind one bit and loves going that bit quicker that Mark runs compared to me. He is still my dog in every other way.

So whilst I was feeling life wasn't as great as it had been I didn't keep up the blog. Writing can be cathargic I know but for blogs I prefer upbeat and postivity. Any way I'm now back with that upbeat and positive frame of mind :)

Our initial house move failed and we had to start again. Our buyer lost their buyer and crazily although the house we originally had been going to get had been on the market for over a year it sold immediately our sale fell through. so the great news that we found a new buyer just over a week later was of no help.

So the house hunt was on. we have now found a lovely house in a different part of the country so closer to our families but still more central to cut down on overall travelling. 

As we now know nothing is set in stone until all the paperwork is signed and it is still 2013 after all so we're not saying too much. Here's a sneak look at our possible view if it goes ahead.

Our son Michael is well on the second part of his travels now in Australia working. He spent his hard earned savings on a trip of a lifetime a trek of South America. I am looking forward to seeing his photo's. Although the video of him cycling down Death Road in Bolivia were a little scary to tell the truth.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10201189162704866&set=vb.1044467302&type=2&theater

Our other "child" UpAndOver Agility Dogs has also flown the nest. Well it has now become a committee run club. Not nearly so scary as Death Road cycling :) We are very proud of how quickly they have taken up the reins and it has all run so smoothly. We are still a large part of it with Mark as Chair and we are both still instructing there. The new club can be found at www.upandoverdogagilityclub.co.uk/.

We are not about at shows much at the moment giving ourselves and our dogs a little agility break. So much so that our thoughts turned to a non agility dog and you can follow the results under the Wagsnort Skyfall blog.

We had hoped to have moved and settled by now and ready to advertise any winter or autumn seminars. As this hasn't happened we will just go ahead and take bookings and fit them in around moving so please contact us if you want to book us for agility seminars, Mark's Coaching or my core stability classes (Wag and Tone).