Tuesday 11 August 2009

New painting completed.

This is a commissioned portrait of a deceased flyball dog. Her name was Fizz and she was owned by Sue at Doncaster Bellestars.

I'll be taking this with me to the Summer champs this weekend to hand over to Sue.

Wednesday 5 August 2009

Flyballing at Wirral.

Saturday, I had both Sleet and Wren racing at Wirral. Sleet on the Riders team and Wren on the starters team. Starters were racing first thing so it was a very early rise to get over there in time. It started off a bit wet but gradually dried up through the morning and wasn't too bad at all for the rest of the day. It was quite close even with a lot of cloud so it was probably a good thing that it wasn't sunny and TOO hot.
The starters team consisted of my sisters dog Storm, then Wren, a younger dog Mackley and then a dog from Tyne Tailwaggers to make it 4 dogs. They were all running great that morning and won all the races. So far so good.
A little later and Sleets team were in which consisted of 5 dogs including my sisters dog Monty, Nell, Max, Libby and Sleet running last so there was a little swapping around between dogs. Sleet was also running great that day and I was quite proud. She didn't try the usual running out in warm up and seems to be gradually getting faster with experience. Her only real issue now is not doing a little detour around the dog she's changing over with. Something we'll have to work on in training. Her team also won all their races that Morning.
Afternoon racing came around and, again, Wren ran great...just missed the ball on the box a couple of times but has got it off to a fine art in grabbing it as soon as possible before returning back so didn't lose much time at all. Her boxwork is pathetic anyway with a two paw slam when there's nothing there to make her turn...more work at home will be needed for her. We won each race again until the very last one when the dog from Tyne started dropping the ball a bit too early a couple of times and Mackley also started to lose his focus...seeing a guy at the side of the ring that looked like his dad and running over to him rather than going down the lane to the box. He was sent again and did it right that time but we'd lost the race already. He's got plenty of time to improve his attention span as he is only 13 months old and considering what it was like a few months ago..there's massive improvement anyway.
Sleets team came up again for their afternoon racing. We won all the races again although in the last races, the whole team went to pot a little and gave the other team a head start. On the second run, a ball from the other team rolled right into sleets path from nowhere and stopped...and me knowing that Sleet would probably just go and grab that rather than going down the lane tried leading her past it and ended up letting her go way too late and also throwing her off and she tried running out. She came straight back and did a correct run but was too late to win the leg. Sleet was pulled even though it wasn't really our fault about that damned stupid ball and they managed to win the rest of the races to get us first place in that Div. Sleet getting her first rosette and it being a 1st made up for having to miss the last races.
Wrens team got a second....her team always seems to come second, it must be her number, lol....so, overall, it was quite a successful day for once especially regarding Sleet who's team haven't really stood a chance before now due to being stuck in the wrong division.