Cadbury, Sparrow, Merlin, Swift and Me
For the third year running I qualified for the Beachside Finals at Waxham Sands. This year I had Merlin and Sparrow running, both in Novice grade but different heights. Beachside is the show where the journey began for us back in 2013 when Merlin started competing. I always feel at home with the Beachside team.... Continue Reading →
Tuesday night means Broads night, which has got to be just about the best evening of the week. Heck, we even had coconut tarts to munch on between classes! Two smaller courses had been set up to test us, each one having enough sneaky traps and variants to keep us busy. As there was a... Continue Reading →
https://youtu.be/xIdbD6qVcMY When Sparrow recently had her birthday I decided to make her some extra special pupcakes to celebrate. I often make pilchard cake for the dogs as training treats, so I adapted the recipe and gave it a few extra ingredients, while also keeping it as healthy as possible. I used soft cheese for the... Continue Reading →
Shaping is a method of training using a clicker. Instead of luring or showing the dog how to do something, the behaviour is developed through clicking and rewarding desirable movements. The handler gives no verbal cues and the dog is effectively leading the trick training. To make things more interesting there are two types of... Continue Reading →
Easter weekend and time for the first big Kennel Club show of the year. I woke excited but then the nerves kicked in and by the time I was at the showground I had managed to knock my confidence by stressing about the day ahead. Not a great start and my tension fed straight down... Continue Reading →
Running contacts are not an easy thing to teach, but I am determined to succeed with little Sparrow. We have gone from flat work to now being on a full-size dogwalk set at a low height. Sparrow has been doing good, but on our Wednesday session I was concerned she was over-reaching at the contact,... Continue Reading →
This week at Broads we were working on various sequences. The first was a series of jumps that could be done in a variety of ways, and the trainers certainly found some inventive layouts! I have been working hard on my body language for Ketschkers. In all honesty in has taken me two years to... Continue Reading →
What a fab way to spend a Monday afternoon, training with the amazing Helen Anderson! Both Merlin and Sparrow had their turns. Sparrow is working on tunnel avoidance and it was clear her issue was understanding turning away from the tunnel. We worked at breaking down the exercise and we achieved some success, but have... Continue Reading →
When I was a kid I didn't realise that some people didn't live near the sea. The ocean was such a big and seemingly permanent part of my life that I just assumed it was the same for everyone. As I grew older, I learned that not only did some people not live near the... Continue Reading →
Today I spent some time training with Helen Anderson. We were working on turns over jumps, and one of the things I wanted to look at was Sparrow's tendency to go wide after jumps. I basically wanted to know if it was something I was doing or a training issue. Helen had me working on... Continue Reading →
Team Jackson 