World Championship Tryouts

I'm a bit late posting on this event as it happened a week ago today. We didn't qualify for France but we had a damn good try; I really enjoyed the event and it was good practise for the forthcoming EO's. Although they are very different events you are still having to work your dog under pressure which is good for me and the doglets.

The venue is quite small but very nice and I really liked the surface. Both my girls ran well and overall I was happy with our performance. I think if I had kept my wits about me then Zeki could have qualified but sadly I made two silly mistakes which cost us dear. Both girls got into the final round which I was thrilled with. The only run I was unhappy with on the day was Niamh's final run where I think I had just run out of steam. It was a very hot day with lots of pressure and eight runs. So all in all not bad and I will definitely try again next year but only with Zeki. It was too much, for me, concentrating on both dogs when they are so very different.

In round 3 with Zeki I had done all the hard work and just failed to call her to the jump so she picked up the weaves having already done that loop once when the weaves were the correct obstacle. I didn't turn my shoulders enough and didn't work the turn, I just started verbally cueing the left turn for the jump without thinking about getting her to the jump in the first instance! I have to admit I could have cried after that round, very rare for me to feel like that but I was so angry with myself. My happy, noisy little dog soon saw to it that I wasn't unhappy for long though!

In the final round I simply lost my spatial awareness for the front cross and ended up in a position which cued Zeki to do a go round rather than take the jump naturally.

Niamh did some lovely runs but for some reason we are having weave problems. She has suddenly started breaking out of the weaves and I'm unsure why. I am doing some training with her at home to try to resolve without make to big a deal about it. So far it isn't working very well but I am determined not to get up tight about it. We will sort it out with patience and reward!

Natasha Wise set excellent courses which I thoroughly enjoyed running and which I felt were a good test of various skills required for FCI type courses. The only thing that she was unable to test us on was the size of a typical FCI course but that was due to venue constraints.

Well done to everyone who qualified on the day especially Bernadette with Zaz and Dave with Rusty.

Here are all my runs, the good, the bad and the downright ugly!