Laura Chudleigh's Agility Blog: Laura's Agility Blog

Here is abit of my life story, to bring everyone up-to-date :)...

Hello, my names Laura Chudleigh and I am 20 years old. Currently living in Maidstone, Kent. I am studying at The European School of Osteopathy. I live with my two dogs Phoebe and Rodney, and three other first year students.

I am very lucky that Lee Windeatt lives near me, so we train on my equipment which is located on the grounds of my uni. He is a brilliant handler and trainer, however I really must stop advertsing him, because otherwise he will soon be too busy teaching others to teach me (and I need as many lessons as I can get.)

I am hoping I can use this blog to keep a record of my training and shows, also to keep a check on rumours, I am always hearing new ones about who im supposed to be sleeping with or who im up to something with. 9 times out of 10, they are totally incorrect, most rumours are quite funny and I like them, one because I know they are not true and two, guess I like the attention lol... notice how I said 9 times ;)!!

As I am sure most know (or my friends which will read my blog will know) I am attempting running contacts with Rodney... scary! You may ask, why??? Why on earth try running contacts, Rodney is only my second dog, my first proper one (first border collie) and lets be honest for a moment, does anyone in the world have a good consistance running contacts WITH turns?? No, is the answer to that! So why try? Honestly im not sure. Charlotte Harding and I used to speak about them pretty much every day about 24 months ago, then when I got Rod I chickened out and said I couldnt do it. Then after I began training with Lee in Sep just gone, I started to get alot more confidence in training. We had began teaching Rod stop contacts on the A-frame like how Lee teaches his, however Rod really wasnt getting the whole stop thing too well, he also likes to stalk quite abit. Basically I was bored of the idea of stops, and the idea of running started to play on my mind. I think it was the 4th of Jan, I was at uni one morning, Dave Munnings and I had had a conversation about running poss being the way forward if someone could do them correctly. That afternoon I wrote up a method, and emailed it to Lee, he was of course unsure but said he would help and support me regarding them as much as possible. Without Lee's help there is no way I would of been able to do it!!! I also better take this moment to say I used alot of Silvia Trkmans ideas off her website. What I love about her website is the fact she tells everyone everything, she keeps nothing a secert, again wouldnt of been able to do my contacts without this website.
So as I am sure you can see, I am pleased with how they are going so far... if they work in the ring consistantly is another matter. I am hoping I will be able to be consistant enough in the ring like I am in training to maintain them though. Rodneys first show is Rugby in about 3 weeks time, I am really looking forward to it, will be his first big test! He has however done 3 days of UKA and got another day this Saturday, so fingers crossed he will be fine.

Here below is Rodney at his first UKA show, not that fast, but I am hoping he will speed up :) Thank you Lucy Clifton for videoing and putting online :)