Scotts 1st & 3rd

I am just back from WBSDS at Newbury, and it has been a great weekend.

Scott won grade 5 jumping and was 3rd in the grade 5 agility! His other runs were all brilliant but mainly consisted of 1 pole coming down each time.. 1 more win to get now for grade 6.

Che and Jack had several top 10 places between them, on some very testing and fun grade 7 courses this weekend. Che beat Jack a few times as he had some very efficient turns and runs.

In fact, Che and Jack had 6 clears out of 6 runs each. They were faultless and I am very pleased.

I am going to off to relax now. It has been a long day and I have a training day in Wales Monday afternoon/eve!

Lee

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

Update

Hello,

Apologies for the lack of updates recently, this is due to our phone line being down for the last 5 days, it is finally fixed now, but made life very difficult. My mobile broadband has also packed up.

Last weekend I was at Walingford Agility show, and we had a successful time. Jack had a 5th & 8th in two grade 7 classes, and most impressively, Scott & Drift WON the knockout pairs class. I was very pleased that Scott kept virtually all the poles up at the weekend, and had some excellent runs, but the pairs win was very enjoyable. Lyn and Drift handled very well. Well done to Anna and Dot also for the 2nd in grade 6 jumping on Sunday at the show.

My weekend was made even sweeter by the fantastic FA cup win for Everton over Manchester United on Sunday.

I have been busy training again, enjoying the hot weather. This weekend is WBSDS show, back at Newbury Showground.

Lee

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

Well done LGT at TAG

I arrived back from Sweden last night.

I would like to say thank you to everyone who organised my trip, and the students on the seminars. We did some fantastic work and it was really fun being your instructor for the weekend.

We trained on Sunday and Monday, looking at key area’s which were:

Body language & Distance handling

Contacts

Obstacle Discrimination

Decision Making

I will get some of the training plans up here at some point, but today I am busy with lessons and posting out a backlog of DVD orders!!

I have to say very well done to David, Miranda, Wendy, Gina, Ceri, who all WON classes at the weekend. Also to Lyn, Alice, Clare, and others who had top 3 places and high places at the show. I am still not 100% sure of all the LGT peoples results, so if I have left anyone off it is not on purpose! Well done to you all, it was great to receive your texts in Sweden! See you at training.

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

www.agilityzone.co.uk – order the freshest agility magazine, out now!

Sweden - Saturday Update

Hello,

This is my live update from the show, sat in the organiser’s office on my laptop. I have lots of topics that I could write about, but best had start with the agility. I have judged all this morning, and 4 classes yesterday.

Yesterday was a fun day. I saw many people that I knew from Dania Cup last year, which was fun. My first class was agility1 small. In fact my whole day was judging small classes! In Sweden they have policy where one judge can build a course for Large/Medium/Small class, but may end up only judging one of those sections. I judged small jumping 3 and small agility 3 yesterday, but neither were my courses. I was learning it while the course walk was happening!!

Similarly a judge from Denmark had the pleasure of judging my courses for large and medium.

Today was slightly different, as I judged straight all morning, class 3 agility small, medium & large. It was a course with a flavour of England about it, especially after the dog walk, where I had countless eliminations, especially in large. The dogs all wanted to take the jump 11 rather than 10. I spoke to some handlers who confirmed what I thought myself. Because the nature of handling is to move with the dog, standing still and brining the dog round proves tough, especially stepping off the dog walk.

The course was a really challenge and I enjoyed judging it a lot. It certainly proved a test for the handlers, with many rushing the tunnel dog walk section and the jump after the seesaw. A few were clear until this jump as they pushed the dog away round it.

I have some pictures and here is the course plan, as requested by a few people at the show also.

One of the biggest things I have noticed so far on my trip is the use of digital technology within the sport. All the rings are electronically linked from the hub, each course has a computer, giving all the class details, starters list etc, which is in turn linked to the timing. So as each dog runs, the score is automatically calculated (along with the time) and the current up to date results are displayed on big screens that all can see (even me as a judge). It cuts out virtually all human error. No mis-recorded times, tickets in the wrong order or anything like that. It is brilliant. I am sat here now with the organiser of it all, Thomas Szabo (Tiabo) who has much experience of the world championships, and the costs involved are basically transport & time.

Thomas assures me that this system will spread quickly due to its ability to 100% calculate results and current places. Times are never written down wrong (there is a huge LED display for all to see around the ring) and the dogs score is automatically updated.

This really is a marvellous system, however we are at a 2 ring show... So I proposed to Thomas about a 15 ring show at Newbury or the 21 rings at KC festival. He said it would be a challenge, but something he would like to embrace. There is no reason it cannot work on a bigger scale. We will see, or maybe we wont. We Brits are a little stuck in our ways at times, and I personally can see one major flaw. Here everyone runs in their start order, all ready pre-set on the data base, of course in England we don’t stick to a set running order (except Championship) so we would have to devise a system where dogs could be identified by the computer (or start gates) as they enter, or we would spend even longer selecting the right ring number from a very long list!!

Okays, this is possibly the longest blog post I have ever written, but I think it rasies some decent ideas.

Before I go, a huge well done to the LGT members in the UK at TAG show yesterday and especially Miranda & Fly for their win in 3-5 agility, fantastic. I have heard bits and pieces and look forward to hearing more when I get back on Monday evening.

I have two days of training ahead of me Sunday and Monday, should be fun, I certainly now have some idea’s of what we should practice now have judged this weekend.

Everyone here has been so welcoming and it has been really fun so far. Last night we ate a traditional Swedish Easter dish of Herring (starter) and Deer (main). It was really fun and I have certainly met some nice people here.

Best wishes from Malmo – Sweden

Lee

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

Off to Sweden

Today I am flying to Sweden, ready to Judge Friday and Saturday. I have a range of classes to judge. Starting at 7.30am and 7.10am each day!

Good luck to everyone from LGT competing this weekend. I would also like to say a special well done to David with Cae, who last weekend won grade 5 agility, winning themselves into grade 6 in a fantastic 10 months since they started in grade 1. Keep up the great work!

Good luck for the LGT teams running in the team classes at TAG this weekend also, I will be waiting to hear the results!

Okays, I have a flight to catch now. Good luck to everyone at their various shows around the UK this weekend.

I have a camera and will try and update this blog as much as I can!

Lee

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

Scunthorpe Review: Jacks 3rd in Champ class final

Saturdays show at Scunthorpe was brilliant. I had a very successful day, culminating in Jack finishing 3rd in the Championship agility final. A fantastic run, and a close thing behind Alan Bray and Lorna Peachy who both had great final runs. It was Jacks highest placing in a Championship final class, and I was very proud. Jack was the only dog of the day to have 3 clear runs in all of the Championship classes also, which is a nice statistic.

The Jumping section was first. Che decided to only weave 10 out of 12 weaves, but Jacks run was faultless. He finished 5th in that class. In the agility class he came a respectable 9th, but overall was 2nd best qualifier, meaning we ran 2nd to last in the final.

The other runs of the day were almost playing second fiddle. I did not even walk 2 of Scotts classes, so he had an excuse for knocking a pole down 2 jumps from the end of the jumping class, as I put in a pointless turn that was not needed. However we did get round the agility class, finishing 9th, I had to hold the contacts for an age as hadn’t seen too many clears, but we were 3 seconds of first place when I checked.

I have also brought a Wall Jump for our training venue, which will be great for the dogs to practice on. I carried it up today after 7 hours of training... I am just about ready for a long sleep!!

This week I am again busy with lessons, before jetting off to Sweden on Thursday to judge at a show over the weekend. I am looking forward to the trip very much. I will also be doing a training day at some point whilst I am over there.

Best wishes to all – Lee

www.leegibsontraining.co.uk

Friday 3rd April

I am looking forward to Scunthorpe show tomorrow, and am busy training today.

I have three runs with each dog. Che & Jack have Championship class, Scott has the regular grade 5 classes.

For anyone who has not signed up for their subscription of www.agilityzone.co.uk magazine, the first issue is out in April and looks fantastic. My article of course being the pick ;)

Dont miss out and visit www.agilityzone.co.uk now!

I will review Scunthorpe show on Sunday.

Regards, Lee
www.leegibsontraining.co.uk