Why Warm Up?!

You'll often hear us at Dig It telling people to warm up their dogs before agility training, and indeed before an agility competition run.

But why is this so important?! Why do we need to warm up, not only our dogs but also ourselves!

Here are a few reasons why:

• Reduce risk of injury
• Increase blood flow & nerve stimulation
• Improves mobility & performance
• Creates a bond between dog & handler and encourages focus
• Improves hind end awareness
• Massage reduces warm up time
• Reduces stiffness
• Keeps joints supple and counteracts tension
• Increases you & your dogs speed
• Tighter turns
• Increase body awareness
• Improves the dogs use of its body 
• Improves jumping style and ability

At Dig It we will give you the information for why and how to warm your dog up, but at the end of the day it is your responsibility to ensure you are taking care of your dog. It is only you that can make the decision to warm your dog up properly.

Daisy Peel is coming to Dig It!

DAISY PEEL

August 3-4th, 6-8th, 2015 

Dig it Dogs, Sandbach, Cheshire CW5 6DY
and
Cheadle, Staffordshire

"Advanced handling is merely more precise application of the fundamentals"

Daisy Peel is known worldwide as a leading instructor and competitor in the sport of dog agility. She has represented the USA internationally over a dozen times, across three continents, with three different dogs; four times at the FCI World Championships, three times at the European Open Championships, twice at Crufts, twice at the World Agility Open, and twice at the Americas and Caribbean. She has placed individually at the European Open and at the FCI World Championships, is a WAO World Champion, as well as an Americas and Caribbean Gold Medallist. Daisy has won three AKC National Championships, and three USDAA World Cynosport Grand Prix Championships, with two different dogs. She has been a Finalist at the AKC Nationals and USDAA Cynosport games numerous times, and has won numerous USDAA Regional Championships.

Daisy is also recognized worldwide for her abilities as an instructor. Her students have excelled at the top levels in AKC, USDAA, and AAC (Canada), and have themselves been selected to represent their countries at international events. Daisy’s thinking that “advanced handling is merely more precise application of the fundamentals” means that she is dedicated to the improvement of handlers at all levels, regardless of their current level or goals and aspirations. Daisy teaches students of all ages and stages around the globe, in person and through her Online Classes, and is dedicated to helping people further their self-improvement through better training, better handling, and better mastery of their mental game.

 Videos of Daisy Peel:

http://www.daisypeel.com/videos/youtube-videos/

 I have had the amazing experience of representing the United States of America for a number of agility competitions.  Each experience was an amazing one that has been a large part of who I continue to become as a person, and I’m proud to be able to represent the USA. 

•   USDAA Grand Prix of Dog Agility World Champion (2009, 2010, 2013)

•   
AKC Agility National Champion (2007, 2010, 2012)

•   
World Agility Open Individual Pentathlon World Champion (2012)

•   
World Agility Open Snooker World Champion (2013)

•   
FCI World Championships USA Team (2007, 2010, 2011, 2012)

◦                   
3rd Place, Individual Standard, 2010 World Agility Championships, Reiden Germany (link to video)

◦                   
6th Place, Combined Result, 2010 World Agility Championships, Reiden Germany

◦                   
4th Place, Individual Agility, 2012 World Agility Championships, Czech Republic

◦                   
5th Place, Combined Result, 2012 World Agility Championships, Czech Republic

•   
FCI European Open USA Team (2011, 2012, 2013)

◦                   
2011 European Open Individual Agility – 2nd Place

◦                   
2011 European Open Team Agility – 1st Place

◦                   
2012 European Open Individual Finals – 5th Place

•   
FCI Americas and Caribbean USA Team (2011, 2012)

◦                   
2011 Bogota, Colombia – Gran Jumping de las Americas Y Caribe 2011 Champion (gold medal)

◦                   
2011 Bogota, Colombia – Gran Agility de las Americas Y Caribe 2011 Champion (gold medal)

◦                   
2011 Bogota, Colombia – Americas Y Caribe 2011 Open Team Champion with Jester, and Linda Mecklenburg and Wonder (gold medal)

◦                   
2012 Chile – Americas Y Caribe Individual Gold Medalist

◦                   
2012 Chile – Americas y Caribe Team Bronze Medalist with Solar/Juno, and Linda Mecklenburg and Wonder/Scopey

•   
USDAA Grand Prix of Dog Agility Regional Champion (2004, 2009, 2010 (x2), 2011, 2013)

•   
USA Representative at Crufts (2011, 2013)

◦                   
2011 – 1st in Agility, 3rd in JWW, 2nd in the Finals

◦                   
2013 – 1st in Agility

•   
AKC Rose City Classic ISC High Combined Winner (26″) (2010, 2011, 2012, 2013)

Monday August 3, 2015.  

12noon - 6pm 

TRAINING TROUBLESHOOTING SESSION: how errors in reinforcement affect weaves, contacts, start line stays, etc. 

£80 for £10 working spots, £40 for auditing. 

Sandbach inside.

Tuesday August 4, 2015.  

10am - 6pm 

GRADE 7 COURSE HANDLING AND TRAINING.

£100, 10 working spots. 

Cheadle outside.

Thursday August 6, 2015.  

10am - 6pm 

GRADE 6-7 COURSE HANDLING AND TRAINING.

£100, 10 working spots. 

Cheadle outside.

Friday August 7, 2015.  

10am - 1pm 

CHALLENGING JUMPING SKILLS, push your dog and your handling skills over some tricky jumping exercises to improve your dogs jumping and your timing. 

8 spots, £50  .

Sandbach inside.

2pm - 6pm

GRADE 1-3 0R YOUNG DOG WITH EXPERIENCED HANDLER, important handling and training skills needed for agility progression.

10 spots, £50. Sandbach inside.

Saturday August 8, 2015   

11am - 5pm 

GRADE 3-5 HANDLING AND TRAINING

£70, £10 spots.

5pm - 7pm 

CLEAR MIND, sports mental management directed towards agility, organizing and clarifying your goals, skills and focus as a team to achieve success. 

Unlimited, £25 per spot. 

Sandbach inside.

ANY AUDIT SPOTS ARE £30 PER DAY

*Note Monday's sessions will have a 30 minute break, Tuesday and Thursday a 1 hour lunch break.  Please bring snacks and drinks, for you and your dog :), thank you.

Booking via email: training@digitdogs.co.uk

Book now to avoid missing out!!

Winter Is Here!

Our Winter Series shows at Alsager Equestrian Centre started this month!

This year we are keeping the shows to two rings only and have limited entry numbers to allow for a suitable finish time, car parking spaces and to release pressure from the exercise arena.

Well it was a little weird at first! Where is everyone?! It's a bit quiet! It was compared to last Winter, but it was perfect! The day ran like a dream.

Also new for Winter 2014, a sexy new scoring system! Katie and Ruth took scoring duties for November and there were lots of excited sequels and high-fives happening as they figured out the ins and outs of working the new program. Lydia wasn't quite so keen on the high-fives...

Big thank you to The Undesirables and FAB Agility Club for running the two rings. There was a fair amount of rivalry between the two parties, who could finish first, who had the better ring. Midway through the day The Undersirables presented a list of demands to Lydia; massage chairs and hot water bottles to name just a few! These were quickly denied with an effective Computer Says No.

The atmosphere at Dig It Winter Shows are always great and everyone was in high spirits and having a lot of fun. 

A few club members were bringing out their young dogs for their first shows or training in the ring after their first summer of competing. Sarah and Lola managed a 1st place at their first ever show! It's so exciting to have seen this dog progress all the way through the Dig It Obedience classes, from Puppy to Gold and then into the Agility ring! Deb and Beanie pulled a 1st out of the bag and everyone took cover while Lou and Paddy went for a Jumping run... he always manages to complete about 20 extra obstacles on his 100mph lap of the course! 

A lot of people are now progressing up the levels from previous Winter Series and some secured their final win this month to now move up. Don't forget: 2 wins in Agility or Jumping and you go up! The Intermediate and Advanced competition is starting to get really exciting.

Thank you to our Judges; PJ, Audra, Rob and Bex and to all who were involved in making the day a success, as always.

We'll see you next week for the December Show!

Summer Fun Day!

This June we opened our doors and welcomed everyone to our Open Day and Fun Dog Show.
Have a go agility, have a go rally and have a go flyball. All for free! We want to encourage as many people to try something new with their dog and have a go at a dog activity.

The Dogs Trust attended to provide free microchipping and advice and a total of 20 dogs were chipped!

Our Fun Show started at midday and was very popular! Judge Dawn from The Paw Wash Groomers had a tough decision to make. As we rolled through the classes every aww'd and coo'd as we reached the Pleasant Puppy category. Aaron Roscoe, Signal 1 Producer, came along with his tiny pug puppy and they got 1st place! Everyone was nodding in agreement, she was just gorgeous and so well behaved. 

It all got a little silly as we got to best 6 legs and the deserving winner was a spotty dalmatian and its spotty legged owner! Now that's what you call Best Spotty 6 Legs!

The show finished with a great laugh in The Egg and Spoon Race! Hold your spoon and your dogs lead in the same hand and race to the other side. Such fun!

Once the fun show was finished there was still lots for everyone to do and we must thank Oscar Pet Food for kindly sponsoring the whole show. Monkey Dog Wear brought their great selection of collars and leads to sell, plus Windyways and Instructor Bex successful made a good amount for their fundraising with their table top sales. Of course we can't forget Bret in the Brunch Box who completely sold on of burgers! I'm glad I had mine as a cheeky late breakfast before the rush.

In the afternoon the Carrry On flyball team gave us a great demonstration and Lydia & Freddie got to show us that they are not only amazing at agility but flyball too!

We are pleased to announce that the Fun Show raised a whopping £100 for the Dogs Trust and thank you for everyone who came and participated in the day! The weather was glorious and we hope that you all enjoyed your day.

Check out our full gallery here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/digitdogtrainingclub/sets/72157645069884742/

See you next year!

Joyful June: Can You Dig It Show

A lovely quiet show this month for our unaffiliated Can You Dig It Show. The weather decided to kick start June with a glorious sunny day and pale, white legs appeared for one of the first times this year.

Newly qualified Judge PJ set out her Intermediate & Advanced Jumping course which the Dig It Instructors handled nicely. Katie & Bonny, Avril & Oakley and Avril & Dodger all managed 1st place in their classes. Sue & Rosie were narrowly beat in every run leaving them with three 2nd places from the day! Great to see some tight competition in the Advanced Medium runs.

Oscar Pet Food came along and kindly sponsored our Veteran & Anysize classes with some lovely prizes. Bex was selling some yummy homemade treats and running a tombolal, fundraising for her conservation trip to Mexico, not long to go now Bex! And of course we are always pleased to see Bret in the Brunch Box for some yummy lunch.

As the courses changed to Beginners Jumping we saw more success from Sue & Mia, earning 1st place and Katie & Milo getting 2nd! Plus Luna, not to be outdone by big brother Dodger, had a cracking run (helped by Adele of course) in Beginners Agility. 

Quiet entry numbers brought an early finish to a fantastic, relaxing day. It is nice to see people coming to Dig It when there is so much choice for shows over the summer nowadays. We hope that everyone enjoyed themselves! Next month is UKA!

Mild March: Winter Series Show

March is upon us and spring is definitely in the air! I thought I was late when it was light and I was still at home but no, thankfully the sun is starting to peek its head out for longer each day!

Lou had staggered out of hospital and right into the show on Sunday, looking a little green around the gills, but stubbornly Judged for half of the morning. We were all pleased to see her up and about although also pleased to see her go home to rest at lunch time.

Three rings were running once more with FAB and On Track Agility Clubs taking charge of a ring each. The Show ran quickly and smoothly, although the exercise arena was a little stretched at times with some of the little dogs being run over by 100mph collies.

Avril championed the day by doing the triple with her youngster Dodger! Agility, Jumping and Steeplechase Win! Adele and her newbie Luna also performed really well and Rachel and Daisy got 3rd place with Daisy's first show on Standard height in Beginners Jumping. Wowie. It's so heart-warming to see dogs that have come through Puppy and Bronze Obedience at Dig It now starting to find their confidence and produce results at Agility Shows.

One of the comedy moments was Christina running Echo for Rachel! Poor Echo did a lovely stop contact on the dog walk, and Christina, not expecting it, was looking all around thinking she'd lost him! Her fellow Advanced competitors were very... supportive?! (We're laughing with you honest!).

Quickly we were finishing up and the scorers were struggling to keep up! With the night still light we had packed up and gone home for a reasonable finish time!

Only one more show left to do and at the end of March our Club Competitions start outside. Winter shows are brilliant for training and keeping our dogs fit, but we're all itching to start getting out onto the grass!

Fantastic February: Winter Series Show

What's this, no rain! February brought the sunshine to our show, but of course we couldn't avoid the mud. Three rings were opened up with FAB Agility Club and Tailwaggers Agility Club running a ring each, the show was nice and relaxed! Big thank you to them for their fabulous ring parties!

Becky Sargent honoured us with her first time judging and said she loved seeing the high standard and different breeds in Beginners Agility. We gave her a bright rosette in her favourite colour!

It was nice to welcome back lots of stalls and we even had a charity selling cute little fluffy chicks and cream eggs! The atmosphere was friendly as always and Bex was approached by a stranger and asked to run her dog which she thoroughly enjoyed! Oscars became our new sponsors of the Veteran and Anysize class and the rosettes looked great with printed tails.

Deb and her youngster Beanie managed half a clear round which was met by much cheering from Lou, be it quiet and collected cheering! There were many new entries and it is always a pleasure to see new handlers and dogs starting their agility journey at Dig It.

Nick was back on the scene and Lydia set him to work scoring on the laptop, without telling him much about what to do. Despite this he took it on like a pro! Watch out Ash, you may be getting replaced.

We finished in style at a reasonable time, with all hands on deck to pack away. Don't forget you get half an hour free arena hire if you help to pack away and unload at Dig It, plus half an hour if you help to set up on the Saturday!

See you in March! Our Club Competitions start in March also, last Friday of the Month!

Christmas Show and Party

Our Christmas Show signals the end of the year and a time to be merry and high!

It was a quiet start with the jumping ring inside whizzing through Intermediate and Advanced classes. Onto the Beginners and we were pleased to see a lot of first timers. Lesley with Buster from Bex's agility class was one of these newbies and they only went and got placed in every class! Bex was really excited.

The Obedience Hall was transformed into a Fun Games Arena - Temptation Alley, Fastest Retrieve, Fastest Recall and sausages galore were enjoyed by over 50 dogs and owners alike.

Sue's spaniel Rosie had us all amazed as she ate (more like inhaled) a bonio in 4 seconds to be crowned the winner of Fastest Bonio. Even the labradors' couldn't keep up with that!

Diane's collie, Jess, won Fastest Recall in an amazing 1.99 seconds and Amy's Jess won Fastest Retrieve at 5.26 seconds. Arthur, Tess and Bella all tied at the Tennis Ball Catching with a huge 17 each.

There was punch, food and stalls for dogs and humans alike and we hear Judge Sally was on the mulled wine in the afternoon! Good job that wall was there to keep her propped up!  ;)

The traditional Fancy Dress competition was well-attended with angels, elves and a burnt Christmas Pudding! Diane and Jess returned to fight to retain their Championship and won it for a second year running!

Although consolation places were given to Woody and the Elf-Dogs for also having fantastic costumes.

The agility stayed very relaxed throughout the day with everyone in good spirit. Jenny's Poppet decided to aim for the "wrong" end of the tunnel each time during her run and I found myself running over a jump by accident, leaving Guinness wondering if we had switched job roles!

The day finished nice and early and we presented Lydia with her Christmas present, a canvas picture of her dogs (taken by Cat's Dog Photography) which she was very impressed with. 

Merry Christmas everyone and all the best for 2014!

Remember November : Winter Series Show

The first show in November marks the start of Winter and it was a tad chillier than anticipated! We had a busy show and due to someone not being able to count (Lydia) we ended up with more entries than planned so opened up a third ring for Steeplechase.

There was cheer and laughter in the air (very loud laughter from Avril) and a number of instructor misfortunes contributed to the enjoyment. Sue never made it to the show due to her house mate leaving for Birmingham with her car keys! Then I covered myself in hot chocolate while doing the drinks run and had to lose my jumper (brr). Lastly Katie's Springer, Milo, jumped up at her and ripped a big hole in her jeans and she had to wrap a jacket around herself apron-style to hide it!

There were plenty of mishaps in the ring too! Rob and Buddy (famous from previous posts) had a cracking run until Buddy somehow mistook a jump and got stuck with his front legs on one side and back legs behind, with the pole under his armpits! He eventually managed to scramble over and didn't even knock the pole down. Lou's dog Twiggy somehow got in between the timer and the jump wing (no one quite knows how) and then her other dog Poppy had a wild run; firstly self-releasing off the seesaw and then running off the dog walk and over the finish jump, leaving Lou stood at the second to last jump waving goodbye!

However it wasn't all bad. Intermediate was definitely the busiest class this time and it's pleasing to see that a lot of dogs have moved up the grades during summer. The show still had its beginner appeal and Deb had her first run in a new place with her youngster Beanie and they did really well. Bex and Gemma got placed in every run. Katie and "baby" Milo got a 2nd on his 2nd Birthday! Sue, Avril, Lou and Sheli all got placemets with their dogs and Adele and Oliver beat Lou to 1st place for once!

We had some great judges putting together lovely courses and we all really enjoyed running Emma's Steeplechase. Rachel ran Emma's dog Tess, but half way around she realised her mum was in the ring and had to run over to say hello! Poor Steve our website designer then got bullied into scribing for Judge Emma, who happens to be his daughter.

Away from the agility everyone couldn't help but notice the new added muscle to the show in the form of a tall welshman! It was a great help having two guys at the show and Nick (Mr. New Guy) and Ash are always a welcome sight when it comes to packing away time. Even if Ash was wearing a very bright, pink hat. It clashed a bit with his ginger hair!

It was a late finish but the spirits and atmosphere were high as usual (although I think it's safe to say we all collapsed once we finally got home at 8pm)! December will be back to the plan of 2 rings and away before 6pm!

Open Day

Wowie what great weather we had for our Open Day today! This is a new event that we've not done before at Dig It and we haven't done anything similar to an Open Day for some years.

Have a go Agility, Have a go Flyball, Have a go Rally! All free of charge. Plus a Gundog Scurry that you could try out for free then enter a Scurry Competition. It was a fun filled day to encourage people to try out new activities with their dogs plus learn about what kind of classes we have at Dig It.

The yummy Brunch Box got the saliva flowing, plus the dogs thought it smelled pretty good too, and Eddie the Toy Man (that's his official nickname) was there with some great toys and treats for sale.

Also throughout the day we had several workshops running such as Tricks, Clicker Training and Agility at Home. The tricks workshop was particularly busy and everyone came out smiling and showing off the cool new things they have taught their dog!

Special guest Mike Crawford from Cheshire Canine Services ran the Gundog Scurry for us and he had a good crowd of people watching and having a go. Mike is running some gundog classes at Dig It over the winter and a lot of people that are booked on enjoyed their chance to try out what they will be learning.

A number of Flyball dogs were here and the Scurry started to develop into a competitive flyball feel, with fast collies coming first and second! Huge congratulations to the fantastic Steve who runs our website for coming 3rd with his Cocker Spaniel Digby! Mike later tweeted saying flyball collies are banned next year, teehee.

We saw a lot of new faces as well as familiar ones, and everyone said how much they had enjoyed the day. Rosettes were given to anyone who completed all three stations and many dogs were seen proudly sporting their hard earned prize.

Maybe we'll do this Open Day marlarky thing again?!