mandag 22. april 2013

Springtime's Biggest Adventure - AOH - 20-21.04.2013


A dream doesn't become reality through magic; it takes sweat, determination and hard work. - Colin Powell

After two weekends of great results, a booming self-confidence and HUGE expectations to the first run of the weekend, Leija pulls out the sign of all signs; "Lower your expectations and have fun"!!!!

She shows me with her entire bodylanguage and behaviour that she thinks I am to serious, and I refuse to take the signs. I've got my head on the "clean-run" goal and I am dead-stuck on it. No one can convince me otherwise... We will win this course and show everyone that we have improved alot.

Honestly, in retrospect, I see all the signs and I see all the mistakes I do in the run..



First of all;
- I start her with my body totally the wrong way, "forcing" her to get a refusal! Did I do that in the course-walk? NOT AT ALL!!!!!
- Between 6 -7 I was planning to do a front-cross change, but got a back-cross change instead, which gives Leija the excellent line towards the A-Frame that is on the outside of the course. I of course react wrong to that, getting really frustrated and I show this very clearly to Leija.
- I use the wrong hands and body position to guide her into the weaves, showing Leija that she can do the weaves from whatever entrance she wants. I do the same when I make her start again, but she luckily for me goes in correct.
- I go too far out after weaves to generate a turn, due to the fact that I was trying to safe-it in the weaves, deliberately not going "lefty" on weaves..
- Because of this, she just runs into the tunnel where she is not supposed to be.
- Result; Disqualified

After a few hours contemplating my actions, getting my head out of my ass, and relaxing with Leija, we tried again in the agility-class. I started the warm-up period a little bit to early with Leija, thus burning some of her energy before the run. However, I also see that Leija is skeptical on going full speed in this run, and I think this is because of my reactions earlier in the day. I see that very easily in the movie, where her speed picks up greatly at the end of the run, when we just run for fun :)

One key note to bring from this competition and one of the main focal points for our training in the time forward to our next competition, is zee-zaw practise. Some how there is some sort of phantom-syndrome going in Leija, which I have no clue how got there. She practically refuses to go over the zee-zaw and it's difficult to pull her across. We have our biggest time-loss on this stuff.

However, we got some good results from this run. The movie I haven't got yet, but I will add this to this post as soon as I get it.


The result list from this weekend then looks like this:



We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort. - Jesse Owens

Tommy & Leija

mandag 15. april 2013

Stavangerstevnet - 13-14.04.2013


"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress." - Barack Obama

The second competition of the season... How to capture the feeling I have about how things are going at the moment with Leija and me???
We had another great weekend in the agility ring. This time it was back at our home club, Sør-Rogaland Brukshundklubb, and it was the Swiss judge Bea Tanner who was in charge of the courses.

On Saturday we started with Agility, and the course was a fun, fast-flowing running course which presented a few challenges that I feel we handled in a good way. Video of the run is below:



Second course of the day was a very fun jumping course that we definately NAILED!!!! We basically beat everyone.. And what a great feeling that was. And finally I'm starting to relax in the course, and stop caring if I disqualify or if it turns out in a different way than I planned in the course walk. Video can be seen below:




On Sunday we had the same schedule as Saturday. In the first run, Agility 1, we disqualified because a stupid handler mistake after 5 obstacles, but I am super happy about the psycho speed that Leija is showing. I know that she is becoming more and more secure in her running and speed, because I am more calm and relaxed. I spend more time before every run working with Leija, and I make sure I spend time reqarding Leija after every run, regardless results. Of course things can be improved on, but I will focus on the positives, as that is what makes me want to practise harder :)

Unfortunately we haven't received the videos for our runs on Sunday, but the results and courses can be found below:

Agility 1:

Jumping 1:

Our list of runs complete with results are listed below:


Thanks for the read,
Tommy & Leija

Vossastevnet 06-07.04.2013


"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success." - Henry Ford

Now our first official competition is over. How did it end, you might ask?!? Well, let me illustrate with a picture:

The competition for myself and my self-confidence was a major success. After almost a year of no competitions, rehabilitation and meticulous training, we started in our first real competition. This happened in Voss, a place mostly known for their excellent skiing facilities and strange food habits. (Basically they eat a full sheeps head)..

The trip to Voss started on friday 05.04 as Team Speedfreaks picked up "The Chiquitas", that being Team Isabelle/Bella & Team Maia/Zita. We got on the way, had a pitstop in Stord to get the alcohol purchased, before we continued our way to Voss. The weather was really great and we had a great trip. We even got to see what happens when someone eats a donut which tastes like pear, then you mix it with ice tea, laugh and then magic will happen :p hahah...

The competition was judged by the Danish judge, Regin Reinhardt. In my opinion this was a judge who produced very interesting and fun judges, with good lines and excellent speed for the dogs. It was a good judge for Leija and me, and I really, really liked his courses.

First run of the day was Agility 1, and it started very good on saturday for me and Leija that ended with a thrid place finish and 15.00 fault points, but 10sec below the standard time due to some propblems with the zee-zaw. Movie is below:


Second run was Jump 1, and we finished better than the first run.


On Sunday we started in the opposite way, with Jumping first and then Agility after:

We disqualified on this run, 100% handler error and showing her the wrong way to run.

Luckily I was able to reset myself and get my mind set on the proper channel again, giving us an ok run for the agility, even though Leija got the "ghost" symptom on zee-zaw and dog-walk:


The total "scorelist" for us this weekend can be seen below:
That's all from 'Team Speedfreaks' for now. Talk again soon :)

Tommy & Leija

tirsdag 2. april 2013

"One important key to success is self-confidence. An important key to self-confidence is preparation." - Arthur Ashe


So, this coming weekend will be our first competition in almost a full calender-year. We've spent alot of time this winter to train the basics, focus on teamplay and contact and connection together as a team. Hopefully this has evolved into something that we can use for our first competition... Atleast that is my hope!!

We will "debut" in Agility 1 Small and Jumping 1 Small on saturday 06.04 for judge Regin Reinhardt from Denmark.


"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure." - Colin Powell

This coming week will be spent preparing and fine tuning our cooperation together, before we travel to Voss on Friday with the Chiquitas (Isabelle & Maia with Bella & Zita). It's going to be a fun trip with loads of new challenges, mostly positive I hope :=)

Yesterday we had our first focused training of the week together with Roy/Bella, Isabelle/Bella, Maia/Dewey & Kahrma, Ine/Enja & Cecilie/Ozzy.
I sat the course and it was, for me, a challenging speed course of 15 obstacles.
- We did a forward change between 2-3, got a very good entrance to weaves, but I need to remember maybe slow down Leija before pushing her into the weaves.
- Forward change before 5, and then a Jaako-turn on 7.
- Back change on 10, and a pull towards 5 on 11, and then a back change between 13-15, which gave me a very good finish and better "time" from 10-13.

Main focus for remainder of the week; wheel, flat tunnel and weaves.

I finish this post of with a quote from one of the most famous people in the world;

"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success." - Alexander Graham Bell

Tommy & Leija