Pug Party Mallorca 2012

This weekend we went to our first pug party in Mallorca!!! A lot of pugs, (overweight....) and happy dogs :)

A short video full of pug love!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS

From all of the flying pugs, we wish you a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year 2013.

Trip to Ibiza 2012

We went to Ibiza with the Flying pugs for 2 competitions in Ibiza and also to take a small break. 

Our first competition was our first FCI trial. After receiving Pancho's for his pedigree we started in grade 1. 

Then we had a trial in the open league and i'm going to be honest I wasn't impress with some things that happened during the competition with the judging. The only thing I'm pleased about was Pancho's sit/stay lol I think we got that sorted...

Pancho's year 2012

I made a small montage of Pancho's year 2012 with pictures and videos, enjoy x

As always I'm so proud of my baby boy.

First competition of the season 2013

After a very up and down year this is the start of (I hope) a new and better competitive year for 2013. I made a lot of mistakes and hasn't been happy with the choices I made in the ring.

Pancho has been a start as always and it's frustrating when your dog is a genius and your are not helping him.

On this video of our first competition for the season 2013, I had some good runs, the first one I had a big problem with the pull through but the rest as good.

Enjoy :)

Spanish championships 2012

Please find the video of my Pancho at the Spanish championships in Madrid 2012. 

I'm not going to say more, Pancho does all the talking on the video with his courage and talent.. Love you baby x

 

Enjoy...

Back to work

Today was our first day back after a well deserved rest for Pancho and also for me!!!The beautiful weather is really helping with our training.

Pancho was so excited to go back to work, I used that energy to train the sit/stay, he did a good job. Then we ran a fairy easy and fluide course to get back into it nicely and we also worked on our contacts. 

Wilson also trained well today, because of his bad eye sight he is doing much better when he is on my left. But I guess it is something we need to work on. 

Next weekend we are starting the new agility season 2012/2013 with Pancho in grade 2 and in grade 0 Wilson and Frimousse!!! Pepito will jump in grade 0 with his dad just for fun as he is now retired from competitive agility.

Time off

Since the Spanish Championships early this month, we've had some time off to rest our legs and paws. 

While Pancho was enjoying the sunshine and resting, I was busy getting things sorted for our new agility season. I had to have a new transport bag made for Pancho's plane travels.

Then I had to find some clothing as the weather is getting a little cold in the evenings. I went to our supermarket and bought some baby t-shirts size 12 months. I had to adjust the neckline because it was a little big with an elastic band and cut the body to size.

As you can see it's perfect!!! and very fashionable...

What's up...

We have been off for 2 weeks after returning from the Spanish open championships in Madrid. 

Pancho did me very proud and I can honestly say that we ran some of our best runs and despite some poles and a "some what" puzzling elimination, I'm very happy.

I will post the video sometime soon and I hope you will enjoy it.

Winter training part 3

This is our last bit of training before our big event of the year, the Spanish Championships in Madrid. This year we are going with lots of expectations. 
On the following video you will find of sort of handling manoeuvers from pull throughts to pivots as well as weave training from Pancho and Wilson.


Both babies are doing great it's always so enjoyable to train them... 
On friday Pancho and I are off to Madrid for the Spanish Open championships, we will keep you posted of our result as soon as we are back :)

Pancho's canine show

Pancho went to an international dog show in Barcelona to receive his recogniation paper for his pedigree. 

The judge signed the paper work without any problems and he even told me that it was a great shame that Pancho was castrated as he would have been a great show dog... Never mind we are agility dogs not show dogs.
This is the video of our day as well as the pug competition.
 

Winter training Wilson part 2

Wilson's training is really going well and he is improving all the time. He is as happy in the ring as his big brother Pancho. 

First we started with the dog walk, because of his bad eye sight, he got scared a few months ago and we had to start from scratch and in 3 weeks he has done brilliantly. We are also carrying on with our channel weave, getting the poles even closer week by week.

Winter training part 1

Due to the cancellation of our ferry we didn't go to our late competition in Ibiza. So our season 2012 is now finished and we can start our winter training!!! 

First we have Wilson with his fondation training and channel weave part 2. He is doing great and really enjoys his training.

For Pancho, after analysing our results for this year, I have to train and focus on the following with:
*Weave entrance and distance work*
*Brakes, wraps and pivots*

Competition Ses Barreres

Last weekend was our last competition in Mallorca at the Ses Barreres agility club. Frimousse and Wilson ran in grado 0 and Pancho in grado 2. We had some good runs but I made too many mistakes at times and it's annoying!!! 

Pancho finished second both day due to an elimination both days. Frimousse had a great run and Wilson too. With him I need to find the right handling due to his bad eye sight but he is doing really well.

We are nearly done for the 2012 season with one more competition in Ibiza next week. I just hope the weather is going to hold as we are going by ferry again.

I'm very much looking forward to our winter training after taking 10 days off to rest those little legs.

Competition Ibiza Pancho 2012

This weekend we went to Ibiza by ferry to compete for the Balearic league 2012 at the Eivissa agility club. 

On saturday we started with the agility run and finished with 10 points (1 pole and a missed contact at the sea saw) but Pancho had the 2nd best time over all. At the jumping a clear round with the 3rd best time overall and a superbe job from my Pancho. We finished 3rd of the day over all and 1st cat 30/40cm.

Sunday we finished the agility run with 15 points with 2 poles and a miss contact at the dog walk but again a good time. At the jumping, Pancho was brilliant with a clear run and a very good time. We finished 6th over all and 1st cat 30/40cm. 
We had a great weekend and we are back to Ibiza in 2 weeks time for the last competition of the Balearic league 2012.

Baby Wilson's training day

Baby Wilson has turned 18 months yesterday and he is training very well. We have done some jumps and tunnels as well as our first training at the channel weave. He is a cleaver little pug like his brother Pancho.

He does knock poles from time to time but after his 2 eyes surgeries he is doing great and I'm proud of my little black baby. No problems with his dysplacia even, I'm very happy.

Competition Ses Barreres 2012

This weekend we had a competiton for the Baleares league 2012 at Ses Barreres. Pancho, Pepito, Frimousse and baby Wilson all raced and Gordon was there for moral support. 

Pancho and Pepito raced in grade 2, Wilson and Frimousse in grade 0, all my pugs did a great job outhere!!

Saturday was emotional for me as it was Pepito's last offical competition. He is a great little athlete but the competition environement is too much for him and he doesn't enjoy it. We are keeping training as he really enjoys it but just for fun.

Pancho had 2 good runs on Saturday and finished 1st of the 40cm class, and Pepito 2nd of the 30cm class.

Sunday wasn't as good due to a few handling mistakes but Pancho was great and gave me 100%.

3 Courses

In the last 10 days we have been working on 3 differents courses. The first course is my own design and last 2 from the Thames agility trials UK. 

Course one is simple 3/4 of the way but the difficulties start from the A frame until the last jump. The second course is a grade 6/7 from Thames, we were eliminated at number 3 because Pancho didn't want to stay put, I know it's my fault I didn't teach him how to do it right. (The problem has been fixed now and Pancho is the king of the stay!!). With a good start it made the course a lot easier and more fun for both of us.
The last course is the Elite course with a lot of difficultes. I had to find a solution at the end of the course. Pancho was a start and did great...
 

This weekend we have a competition for the Baleares ligue with Pancho and my little Pepito will run his last competitive course and retire from agility.

Agility home training

Due to the hot weather I can't be bothered to go to the club and train so I use my own little ring at home with jump I made myself with PVC tubes. I really enjoy training at home I can concentrate on short strides and quick changes of direction. 

This is the video of our training and a fun time with all my babies.

Article about Pancho on Agility net

I'm very proud of the article about Pancho on www.agilitynet.com. Any pug mom would be proud and it will help us in our mission to show that pugs are also good agility and sport dogs... Enjoy!!

The little black flying machine...

Usually when you say agility dogs, most people think 'Border Collies or Poodles' but when you say Pugs, you should see their faces! Pugs have a reputation for being fat lazy dogs who can only jump onto the sofa. So when we met Laure Metairie and her all black pug Pancho at the Axstane show we were pleasantly surprised. So charmed were we that we asked Laure to write a few lines about their agility goals and experience thus far.

My love affair with pugs started in 2003 in England with Eastonite Gordon. Back then, I was the sporty one, racing long distance triathlons for Team GB, Ironman and many longs distance running events. The only physical activities Gordon was doing was to watch me on my home trainer in the winter!

Then in 2008 when I was living in Majorca, Spain, I got two eight week old pugs, Pancho and Pepito. It was like having evil twins. They never stopped running around, playing and jumping. I had to find an activity to burn their energy so I went to an agility club when they were seven months old to see if they liked it. Pepito enjoyed it but Pancho couldn't get enough. On his first try, he jumped everything he saw and did all the contacts on his own including the A-frame! I knew then that my Pancho was a little agility genius.

Is she joking?
On our first day of competition, you should have seen the looks and the finger pointing we received when I turned up with my four pugs. My babies did all the talking that day when Pepito won and Pancho came 2nd. On our second competition, Pancho won and Pepito came 2nd. And so forth and so on. It was the same thing over and over again wherever we competed but, by that time, people saw my pugs as real agility dogs. They even gave Pancho the nickname 'The Black Machine!'

When we started agility in 2009, I was new to the sport and I only had an equestrian background in 3-Day Eventing. At the time, there was a definite lack of good agility coaching in Spain, so I had to learn the basics on my own.

Can you compare a horse to a dog? I guess you can in a way. In both Agility and Eventing you need to be 100% in tune with your team mate. As many of you can relate, dogs learn quicker than we do so I decided to get some help from a top British trainer and handler. With the help of Dawn Weaver, we have shaded five seconds of our times since December 2011. My handling is much smoother and the understanding between Pancho and me on a course or at training is magic... at least 98% of the time!

Over the last two years Pancho has been my super star, winning the Balearic Championships in 2010, 2011 and 2012, the Spanish National Championships in 2011, the Balearic League in 2011 and, fingers crossed, again in 2012. On the international stage, both Pancho and Pepito represented Spain at WAO in 2011 and 2012. Pancho made the finals of the Pentathlon both years - and that is an achievement in itself!

In June 2012, Pancho and I went to the UK and tried to qualify for Crufts or Olympia. I knew it was a tall order, but if you don't try you don't get. I went there without any expectations, just to run to the best of our abilities and to try and learn from the best handlers there. We jumped in at Grade 6 level and, to my surprise, we didn't do too badly. We were missing around three to four seconds to be amongst the winners, but I was so proud of my black baby. Pancho was my champion. We even got comments from the judges like 'He is a cracking little dog.' and 'He is so fast for a pug!' or 'So pleased to see a pug in the ring.'

After three weekends of competing, Pancho had won a total of four rosettes:-  4th, 6th and 11th. The best prize of them all, however, was a 17th place out of 226 dogs at the Small KC Olympia qualifier. I loved the organisation of those events. The courses and the people were brilliant - such a change from what we have in Spain. There is so much more diversification of courses and style and much more fun and relaxation at British shows. I can't wait to return next year, maybe with my five pugs.

So what’s for the future?
First, on a purely practical basis, I need to get an FCI licence for Pancho because our options for doing international are limited as long as we only have an Open Licence.

My own goal is to run faster (smarter) because Pancho is still waiting for me. I would really like to qualify for Crufts and / or Olympia because I know in my heart that's where Pancho belongs.

Pancho is a great ambassador for all the pugs in the world. By winning more agility competitions, hopefully we will change people's attitude toward the breed and prove to everyone - including agility judges and coaches - that any dog can be the perfect agility dog as long as it enjoys jumping. As long as you keep your pug at a healthy weight (less than 20 pounds) and give him or her plenty of exercise, pugs are active dogs provided you want them to be. We hope to see many more pugs on the agility world in the future. That's all that I ask.

I'm starting to train Pancho's little brother Wilson, also a black pug who is now about 18 months old. He didn't have a very good start in life as he had two eye operations due to the lack of tear glands in both his eyes and mild dysplacia of both hips, After many months of physio-therapy and eye surgery, he is as strong as a rock and ready to go so you may see two black 'flying pugs' in agility trials soon.

You can follow our progress and have a few laughs by going to our blog www.theflyingpugs.blogspot.com. Enjoy.

About the author...
Laure Metairie was born in France in 1974. Her sporting career started at the age of seven with pony riding. Then she got her own horse and did 3-day eventing until the age of 19. She moved to the UK at the age of 20 and started Triathlon in 2000. She entered the GB Triathlon team in 2002 where she competed in three World Long Distance championships, one Ironman in Austria and many long distance runs.

In 2005 Laure moved to Majorca and started agility in 2009. She hasn't looked back since. She is very competitive and always wants to do the best she can which is probably why she is often picked to represent her nation at the time.

Laure'sdogs always give her 100%, and she gives them the same out of respect for their hard work.

Weave and pivots

This week we have worked differents weave entrances and hangles as well as the pivots (tight turns around the wings). 
Pancho is a dream at the weave entrance as long as I'm at the right place at the right time of course!!! 

This is the video showing Pancho's work and also a short course done by our baby Wilson, I'm so pleased with his progress over the jumps.

We are going to take 10 days off to relax a little with his hot weather.

Training 1st of August 2012

Today we had a hot training run, still 29 degres at 8pm... I'm very proud of my Pancho for giving me 100% at all time... We trained on a course with the usual handling crosses and a descrimination jump too at number 5.

I was so pleased with Pancho's work today, no hesitations at the tunnels, I think he could've waited a little more at the see saw on the second run. In the next few weeks we are going to do some short specific work on our contacts and handling to make us even sharper on turns. This is our video I hope you will enjoy it.

Pugs walk about in Mallorca

Last week we went for a nice walk in the country with our mama and papa. We had a great time and it wasn't too hot... 

 

Training and contacts

This weekend we ran a course that was very enjoyable where you will find a few difficultes from wraps, front crosses and rear crosses. 

 

We also worked on our contacts to show you that running contact are a good option for small dogs and this will allow the dog to keep running without losing speed. 

Competition july 2012

This weekend we went to the "centro canino Son Gual" for a competition for the Balearic league 2012. We haven't raced since our trip to the UK and we had time to work on the "sit stay" because that was a big problem over there. 

On saturday we had a beautiful clear agility round and a clear but a little messy jumping. Pancho won overall and I was so proud of my baby.

 

On sunday we had 2 eliminations BUT I was glad because we learned something new!!! I tried to handle a "SCOOP". This is when the handler is recalling the dog over a jump and almost passes the dog across himself from one hand to the other so he can shape the dog's corner on the way to the next jump, the handler needs to stand at the exact point where he wants the dog to corner. (From Dawn Weaver's book: Knowledge equals speed!)

Like is said "WE TRIED" but didn't make it the first time round because I wasn't at the exact point.. so we tried again and did it!!! The second elimination was my fault, I had nothing left in my legs and couldn't run anymore :(

Our baby Wilson entered his first infantil competition and he did great. At 16 months, we had to wait for his body to reach adulthood because of his displacia. The specialist is happy with the work we have been doing to get his hip and thigh muscles as strong as possible to allow him to jump without problems... 

I'm so proud of him and I can already see a champion like his half brother Pancho :)

Training july 2012

We have 2 courses this week, one for avdanced dogs and the other for lower grade dogs. First we have Pancho and you will see that at jump 2 to 3 we had the possibility to handle those two jumps 2 ways, so we tried them both for you. You will also see the very good weave entrance from Pancho.

Then we had Pepito run the easier course for you, no options there just run as fast as you can really and he did great.

Both Pancho and Pepito weren't that fast as it was hot that evening around 27 degres...
Video of both courses, enjoy :)

Agility trip to the UK

With my Pancho we went to England to compete at 3 agility shows, Hinckley, Thames and Axstane. 

We left Mallorca on the1st of June by plan to Lille then got a car to Calais to catch the ferry to Dover. 

We camped for the 3 weeks we were there and the weather wasn't very kind but we had a good time!!!!

Video of our runs at Hinckley, near Rugby: 02,03,04 of June 2012: 


Video of our runs at Thames, near Newbury: 09, 10 of June 2012:


Video of our runs at Axstane in Essex: 16, 17 if June 2012:


We had a great time and I'm very much looking forward to go back next year... In the last months, I've had enough of Spanish agility events with corrupted judges, stupid courses and the pressure of it all, so it was nice to run courses that were well thought out, well organised events and enjoying running with my black baby without any pressure. Pancho was a star by winning 4 rosettes and as usual I was so proud of him. 

A big thank you to everyone that has helped us along our journey: Barrie J, Dawn W, Marc S and Marta and her family. We have made new friends and hope to see them again soon. 
As for Pancho, he was a great ambassador for all the little pugs outhere and has also made a friend called "Where is the Pony?" He went insane every time I told him that, so funny.... 

 

Pugs rule!!!!!