Grizedale Forest – Race Day

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Susan

We woke up to perfect racing weather – blue skies, sunshine and a sparkly white layer of frost. When I say ‘we’ I mean of course Paul and I. Beanie and Biggles grumbled about the noise then snuggled more deeply under the covers to grab an extra 40 winks.

The view from our hotel at 8am on Sunday morning

After a quick breakfast we headed back to the Grizedale Forest to collect our racing bibs and and attend the pre-race briefing. If I’d been concerned about the race beforehand I was even more worried when the organisers dropped the bombshell that it was in fact a 6k race (not 5k) and that it was rather hilly! The best I’d done in training runs was 4k on very flat ground. My biggest worry was that Beanie and I would be last over the finish line and that everyone would be waiting for us to finish so they could pack up and go home.

Eventually the race got underway. Competitors start at 8 second intervals and ordering is according to age and gender (that’s human age and gender – not the dogs). Paul and Biggles’ race number was 26 and Beanie and I were 41 so they set off about three minutes ahead of us. Paul had the video camera with him so the plan was that he’d film bits of his and Biggles race then catch me and Beanie at the finish line.

The route took us along forest tracks and trails and our effort was rewarded with stunning views. Every so often you’d turn a corner or reach the brow of a hill to see a stunning panorama of mountains bathed in golden sunlight. The hills were tough going and it seemed a very long 6k, but eventually we heard the cheers and music at the finish line and managed to find the energy to sprint to the finish line in a very respectable time of 43 minutes. But no sign of Paul and Biggles. We waited around for a bit then headed back to the car – maybe they’d gone to switch cameras? No sign. We headed back to the finish line just in time to see Paul and Biggles crossing the line slowly looking very dejected (well, Paul did anyway). They were last, and to make matters worse everyone was cheering and shouting encouragement as if Paul was some poor old codger having his first run.

It turned out that Paul had made a wrong turn and did an extra 4k. To make matters worse, at the point where he should have turned off the main track onto a rough path up a hill side the main track went steeply down hill for quite a distance. Paul and Biggles flew down the hill making great time only to have to turn around and complete the hard slog back up a couple of kilometers later.

So, Beanie and I weren’t last. But Paul and Biggles got the last laugh. There were only two teams entered in their category so Paul and Biggles got a second place prize and substantially more points than Beanie and I…..despite being last overall!

The video of Paul and Biggles race:

After the race we went back to the Cafe in the Forest for lunch (outside this time!) then another nice, long walk through the forest to stretch out all of our muscles before the trip home.

For most of the walk Beanie and Biggles squabled about who’d ran the fastest in the race:

We walked for about 10k and still only covered a tiny fraction of the marked trails in the forest.

We’ve got another cani-cross race soon in Fife. We’re all looking forward to it!

Grizedale Forest – Day One

Posted on October 26, 2010 by Susan

We spent the weekend at Grizedale forest in the Lake District. The main reason for our visit was a cani-cross race on Sunday, but we decided to make a weekend of it so set off at the crack of dawn on Saturday morning, arriving just in time for lunch.

The weather wasn’t great and the idea of having lunch outside the visitor center cafe wasn’t overly appealing, but then we spotted the following sign:

Yep, the Lake District is so dog friendly that doggies are even allowed inside human eateries. Beanie could barely believe her luck and insisted on reading the sign for herself!

Of course the sign only said that wet doggies were welcome. It didn’t say anything about dry but noisy Beagles. Regardless, we went inside, and things started out very well. We found a nice table, ordered our meal, and were able to consume most of it without any lightening raids on our plates. Things were looking good, but then another Beagle strolled past our table and Biggles’ woofer burst into action. In an attempt to distract him we turned him to look out the window. There was a moment of silence, then the woofing erupted again, this time fueled by righteous indignation. Not only were there even more doggies outside, but there were humies riding bikes and wearing silly hats. Outrageous! Beanie of course joined in the woof-fest, and we gulped down our tea and tried to make a hasty retreat through the busy restaurant with two crazy baying Beagles spread-eagled and lunging at anything and everything edible. Once outside they forgot what all the fuss was about and we headed off on nice long walk around the forest.

Part of the Go-Ape aerial assault course

The forest was beautiful even on a dull day, and filled with attractions both natural and man-made. What it didn’t have however was an adequate supply of poo bins. Beanie decided to make her first deposit well away from the start of the walk, forcing us to carry her potent air-defreshener with us for a couple of miles. Biggles didn’t want to be left out either, though his contribution was a bit too large to fit in a poo bag, so we checked that no-one was looking, and quickly left the scene of the crime!

Why would anyone make a wooden sculpture in the shape of a Biggly bottom sausage?

After a good long walk of about 10k we headed to our hotel in nearby Ambleside. As soon as we got into our room Beanie and Biggles lept back and forth between the twin beds trying to establish who was sleeping where….this should have given us a clue about what was to follow at bed time! They settled in right away apart from a bit of barking from the Biggly Boy whenever anyone walked past our room. We had dinner in the bar (a conerted stable) and found a nice little alcove with a strong iron ring to tie the dogs to. Bliss – a meal without having to contend with Beanie’s food raids. They settled down for a nice nap:

We considered letting the Beaglets sleep in bed with us, but given their tendency to hog the bed and the fact that we had a race the next day we settled them in their crates. This didn’t go down at all well with Beanie who kept up a steady whine for three or four hours. Eventually I weakened and unbolted the crates. They lept into bed and snuggled down for a deep sleep while Paul and I clung to the edges of the bed trying to catch what sleep we could.

Bloomin’ Beagles!

A Final Harvest and Embracing Technology

Posted on October 20, 2010 by Susan

It was a lovely sunny day today. We woke to blue skies, sunshine and crisp white frost over everything. We had a lovely morning walk in the country lanes around our house and the beaglets harvested the last of the blackberries.

We came home and had a fantastic agility practice session in the garden then indoors for a brekkie of lamb, garlic, sweet potato and courgettes. Now that’s what Beanie and Biggles call a great morning walk!

Both pups are doing really well in agility. We’ve been having a few lessons and Paul has now taken over as Biggles’ handler. We’re even thinking of entering some competitions but we do have some safety concerns.

Beanie and Biggles have had GPS tracking collars for a couple of years now. The collars can be used in lots of ways:

You can set a virtual boundary around your property. If the dog leaves your property the collar sends you a text message and switches into tracking mode – it will keep sending you location updates. Those updates are displayed on a map on your phone so you can quickly get your dog home safely.
On walks if your dog goes out of sight and you want to know where he is you simply send the collar a text message and it will respond by sending it’s location to your phone. Again, the dog’s location is displayed on mapping software on your phone so it’s very easy to find him.

Because of their capacity to get into trouble we prefer that our Beaglets don’t go out of sight at all. They’re always supervised in the garden and we simply don’t unclip their leads if we’re not confident that they’ll stay close. So we don’t use our collars in either of the above situations.

For us the collars come into their own when we do dog sports. In this situation we’re primarily relying on training – the dog knows it’s job and reliably follows our instructions. He *shouldn’t* go out of sight. However, we’re realistic. We know that it’s impossible to train away generations of selective breeding. No matter how well trained there is always a risk that a Beagle will revert to type and take off after a scent never to be seen again.

So, when we take part in sports that involve unclipping the lead Beanie and Biggles always wear their tracking collars. We rarely have to use them – we do our best to make sure the dogs are properly trained for their sports. But if something does go wrong and one of them runs off we have the peace of mind of knowing we’ll have them back safe and sound in minutes. This is particularly reassuring when we’re at events miles from home.

Paul hadn’t been keen on competition but he’s been enjoying working with Biggles and agreed at the weekend that he’d give it a try. But since looking into it more we’ve found out that there’s a bit of a show stopping problem. The Kennel Club rules state that the dog must wear a flat collar with no attachments or no collar at all (to reduce the risk of snagging on equipment). My guess is that the original ‘no collar’ rule is probably a throw back to other canine sports such as working trials. Gun dogs typically don’t wear collars because they have to crawl through the undergrowth and snagging would be highly likely. When agility was invented they probably ‘copied and pasted’ from rules from other sports. The risk of a dog’s collar snagging on agility equipment is negligible compared to the risk of a dog being off-lead in an unenclosed area perhaps miles from home and without a collar/id tag. Anyway, the ‘flat collar only’ rule was introduced a few years ago – BEFORE reliable GPS tracking collars were available. As the dog’s safety is the the driving force behind these rules I’m sure they’ll soon adapt the rule to include the use of GPS collars (I’ve contacted them to ask that it be reviewed). In the meantime we’ll try out a few charity competitions and see how the beaglets do.