* * * * Latest News * * * *

January 2010: Firstly we must wish everyone a late Happy New Year and hope you all had a nice quiet christmas. The dogs have all had a long rest over christmas, longer than we planned actually as two our our sessions have had to be cancelled due to the exceptional weather conditions, snow everywhere a freezing cold conditions is no way to travel to training or to train itself.

We are however back now with our first session after Christmas being 23rd Jan. We got together for an easy session with some play for the dogs to get used to being back. Both Hendrix with Colin and Emma with Wellington managed to successful negotiate the dog walk for the first time having several goes at it which was fantastic especially for Wellington who has been a supporter of the floor for so long, he finally overcame his anxiety and went for it. Well done guys, I'm really proud of you.

Our next session is in two weeks time so anyone who wishes to come along to visit or take part please contact me in the first instance to make sure that we are there and that you have a place booked in first.

Until next time. bye for now, LATG.

November 2009: Well we are back in the training barn doing what the dogs just love to do. We started back at agility practice on the 7th November and all the dogs did really well considering we have not been training since May. The dogs remembered most of their training and we warmed up with some easy jumps and tunnels, then progressed on to some warm up exercises for the handlers. Our next session in on Sunday 22nd November and Bonnie will lead the session for the day. Our training times have changed slightly and we now start at 12 midday and continue in groups of 3 dogs for 1 hour sessions until 4pm.

We have two new dogs join the group this year, Lacey now comes and as our youngest member at 8 months old is taking it easy and learning the ropes gently as a puppy should. We also welcomed Hendrix to the group and he did very well for his very first lesson.

Anyone interested in joining the Leo agility group please contact Becki for further details.

I have managed to take a few shots of the dogs in training so please feel free to take a look in the gallery to see the fun we are all having.

Until next time. Bye for now. LATG

September 2009: With the cooler weather well on the way and with Wet Leo's coming to a close the Leo Agility Training Group are getting ready to take to the 'Land' based equipment again. We have our next set of training days so visit our training times page for the latest set of dates. If you wish to join the group and come along and give agility a go, get in touch with me and I shall add you to the list ready for November.

We shall be starting off with a refresher for all the dogs and handlers as it will have been 5 months since our last session. I know the dogs will be fine and the owners will soon remember what to do. We will be focusing on handling at the first few session and re-visiting all the equipment. We also hope to do a few session of flyball to add to the dogs fun packed day, flyball is a fun and quick sport that has been very successful in the UK, dogs love it and whilst Leo's are not the quickest dogs in the world they absolutely love the fun this brings to their lives.

Come back soon to see our latest news and hopefully some new photo's in the Gallery.

Until next time bye from the LATG Leo's.

May 31st 2009: The group has now finished agility training for the summer, with the hot weather making it too uncomfortable for the dogs to train we have postponed further training until the cooler weather and will restart training on October 24th. All the dogs have achieved a lot since starting our training in January. All of them have achieved a fantastic standard and have managed to cover all the elements of agility. Now all we have to do when we restart in October is to refine what they have learned and practice so that the dogs and handlers gain more confidence in their abilities with more complicated courses.

You might think that the dogs and handlers will have a well earned rest, but you would be wrong, most of us will be donning our wetsuits from now until the end of the summer in the sister group to this one, the Wiltshire Wet Leo's, so the dogs will still be training but just not on dry land.

Anyone who would like to join the Leo agility group can do so by contacting me, Becki, and I shall add you to our list ready for October.

Take care until then. The LATG Leo's.

April 30th 2009: Our group took most of March off due to our chosen venue being fully booked. We came back with a vengeance in April and the dogs have done very well, they have forgotten nothing and worked very hard.

We now practice small courses with the pieces of equipment they are used to, this includes A frame, jumps tunnels (both soft and rigid) and the long jump.

We continue to practice new pieces of equipment with the dog walk, all the dogs have done well on this quite daunting piece and the weaves being being a piece for slow and steady work with great patience being our main focus, the seasaw will be one of the last pieces we shall attempt to teach the dogs

The puppy group is doing well, the pups are now quite big and they are finding their feet with new handling instructions learnt all the time.

We hope to have some new photo's for you to see from some of our training sessions very soon and also some short video clips of some of our training as moving images are so much easier to demonstrate how well the dogs are doing.

Anyone who wishes to come along to this group is most welcome, just send me a quick note so that I can forward all the relevant information you will need.

Until next time, keep jumping. LATG.

February 28th 2009: Our group has had a wonderful month, the dogs are doing really well in their training with everyone achieving a very high standard and everyone is having great fun which is what agility is all about. All the dogs and owners have achieved the following after just 4 sessions:

Jumps to 1, 2, 3 and 4 in a row

Jumps to 2 in a row with a Left and Right outside and inside turn.

Contact, circle and distance control work

Pull through's with 3 jumps

Diagonal jumps and directional changes

Tunnels - straight and curved

A frame, Weaves and Longjump.

The total dedication shown by the owners and dogs has been wonderful to watch and all should be very proud of the progress they are making.

Fiona took some lovely photos of one of our sessions and I have put them up in our gallery for you to see.

Hope to report with more news in two months time as we have only one session next month. Until then, bye from the Leo Agility Training Group.

January 31st 2009: We start the year with some good news, due to the exceptional response to the offer of a Leo only agility group, I had more members than I could fit into the 3 planned session I had booked, so I set about negotiating for a further 2 hours so that I could fit in one more training session and I am happy to report that the extra 2 hours we needed to run a further training session were secured for the whole years dates. This means that we can run 4 groups in one day.

We had a great start to our Leo only agility training group with our first two training days on the 18th and 31st of January. We had complete attendance by all members for all group sessions with a total of 17 dogs and 12 owners for the first session.

With the group starting at 9am in the morning we had 3, 2 hour adult sessions and a 1 hour puppy group session in the middle, I was exhausted by the end of the day but it was wonderful to see how well everyone did and all the dogs and owners left with smiles on their faces and a little more tired than when they arrived.

We started our training with the basics, long distance recall, circle training and contact work, each dog then progressed and learned how to complete a set of 1, 2, 3 jumps, and in some cases 4 jumps, and use of the hard tunnels too which the puppies just loved, and considering most of them had done little or no training in agility at all they all did brilliantly.

On their second session they also started to learn about turning left and right while directing the dogs over jumps, so progress is good. Learning how to use shoulders and hands for change of direction.

It takes a lot of skill and patience from both dog and owner to achieve so much in just 2 sessions and I was very proud of everyone who came as they all achieved a high standard for their first days of training.

The puppy classes were lots of fun, socialising and starting to learn the commands they will need to do agility in the future. The beginning of their training was concentrated on some very easy exercises which we kept short and fun so that we didn't loose their attention. They all completed the tunnel which was really fun for them and none were worried about going through, they ran down the middle and in between jump wings with the jumps themselves lying on the ground so they were easy to just walk over and then they learned all about sitting and waiting to be recalled, which is very difficult for a pup to do. After all their hard work we then allowed 10 minutes of open play and they all ran around and played very nicely together having lots of fun. It was a nice way to end their day and most left very tired but happy.

It is a long day of training for me, but with Bonnie, who is being trained up to help take over puppy classes and training when I am not about it will take some of the burden off me, so thanks Bonnie for taking on this task, your help is invaluable to me and the group.

We also have a waiting list for places when they become available so I think we can say that the launch of the first Leo only agility group is a big success.

I have collected a selection of toys and equipment for the group borrowing some of the items collected for the Wet Leo's group that will be useful for this group. This will help utilise equipment that wouldn't normally gets used until April and will save this sister group some money on purchases that are not necessary.

Our next training session is on Sunday February 15th. If you are interested in joining our group please contact me in the first instance so you can either be added to the waiting list for adults or join in with the puppy group where there are still a few vacancies.

Until next time, keep jumping. LATG

* * * * * * * * *

December 2008: Welcome to the first entry of the Leonberger Agility Training Group. Firstly we have people to - thank, the LCGB for helping with insurance for the running of our group, and the Breach Lane Equestrian and Small Animal Centre for allowing us to hold our training session at their venue and being so supportive of what we are trying to achieve.

Well we have our members all signed up and ready to start in the new year. Our first training day will be January 18th. I had so many wanting to join that I have had to split the training days into three groups, with a hopeful 4th group if I can get a few more hours our of our venue. We hope to have 3 groups of Adult Leos who will start to learn the handling commands and how to use the agility equipment and also a puppy group who will come to learn the handling and commands for agility and to use the low level agility equipment like the tunnel for fun until they are mature enough to take on some of the bigger equipment.

Our training times and dates are up so take a look, and when we have some images to add we shall put them in our gallery, which I am sure will expand as we hold more training dates. For now we have a few images taken by members who have already given agility a go at some level.

If you wish to join please contact me in the first instance, as our membership is now full, please let me know if you wish to be added to the waiting list for extra classes or a place when it becomes available.

That is all our news for now, I hope to be able to update the website once a month so come back in January to see our latest news. Bye for now LATG