Our first week in the forest was rather wet. In fact, very wet. On the first Saturday I can't recall having seen such heavy rain. I thought the awning would collapse under the sheer weight of it. The dogs normally get at least two walks a day when we stay in the forest but that first week they got only one walk a day as we couldn't face cleaning them up more than once per day. It took over an hour to towel them down and then hair dry them so that they could come into the caravan. Not my idea of fun!
Over that first weekend Al and Tracey, Dan and Mac and Terry and Jackie arrived. Al had his new puppy, Mist, with him. She is a very cute little tri coloured border collie. She was very well behaved throughout the holiday.
On the second Saturday the campsite wardens held a party to celebrate the site's 30th anniversary. It was good fun with lots to eat and drink and some rather dodgy entertainment. Judge for yourselves ....
Oh boy; what's in store for us?
Dan and Tracey share a joke - is that really Rod Steward in the background?
Rod Steward - yeah right!
Mr Scrumpy
Dan & Bill share a tender moment. Bill really looks as if she's enjoying it!
Elvis is in the building, well campsite!
Not part of the entertainment; just Mac and Terry relaxing and being themselves!
OMG Meatloaf has arrived!
Our lot line dancing.
Don't even ask!
Mac having a giggle - see below (and above) for reason .....
The Rocky Horror Show
Second instalment "Walks in the Forest" to follow ....
Autumn is well on the way now, we are bracing ourselves for the massive fall of leaves. It has started but just gently, in another week or so we will be knee deep in leaves. Whether they will be golden and crunchy or brown and sodden depends on the weather of course. Whichever it means there'll be loads of work to do trying to keep things under control.
We've been back from our holiday for nearly two weeks now and I've yet to do a posting about it. I will do that because it was a nice holiday and we had lots of fun. Watch this space!
I really haven't felt like posting very much just lately. The loss of Hex has shocked and deeply saddened us all. I always remember when I lost my very first dog (Lizzie), I felt that the world should stop; how could people keep getting on with their lives; how could the radio keep playing music and so forth. You realise of course that life does go on and it will do so this time. However, within our circle of agility and blogger friends, I do believe that time stood very still for a few days out of respect for a very special little dog and out of love for Bernadette and Dennis during this awful time. Hex will always have a special place in our hearts because she was our introduction to the Obay shelties. She was one wicked little dog and we will miss her very much.
This coming weekend I'm going to the Norfolk show. I'm lucky enough to be staying with Terry and Jackie for the weekend and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm taking Niamh and Poppy. Andy is staying at home because Kizzy is in season and he has chores to be getting on with (I have written him a very long list.) He is going to keep Zeki at home with his three. Poppy and Niamh will have a lovely time without the "little noise box" in tow. I shall miss her though. She is very special.
Hope all our blogger friends are well. I think this is the longest gap I've had in posting since I first set up the blog in 2006.
How could I forget Poppy. She won the old timers jumping at the Summer Show and then the Allsorts Agility (yes, it was agility so she was very happy) at Letchworth. My dear little Poppy she so loves to do her classes.
The breaking news though is that Becky ran a novice jumping class at Dordale where there were only six weaves (Becky only ever does 1o weaves) and she got 16th place (the last place in the class). She is such a sweet dog but just slightly ever so dumb! Here she is doing her stuff.
That really is it, we're off for our holiday. Wet gear and umbrellas to the ready me thinks!
I didn't like the Summer show which was held at Ely. I'm sure it would have been better if we'd been in the main field with the rings but because we weren't helpers we were put in the back field which was surrounded by housing and right next to the leisure centre. Loads of public wandering around and kids playing on motorcyles etc. Not my idea of fun. We had to lock the dogs in the car whenever we left them. Niamh was a good girl and got 2nd in the G6 jumping and had a nearly round in the agility but I pulled her off the A-Frame. If I recall the A-Frame and move to soon she strides over so I must do more training of this. Kizzy had a 4th in the Eukanuba qualifier but blew out on her graded classes.
We only did one day of the summer show (Friday) and in the evening off we went to Dordale. This was a gorgeous venue up on hill with panoramic views across the valley. The classes were great and I got some good places with Naughty Niamh but still not the elusive 1st place in G6. Kizzy had three wins at Dordale, one of them being a G1-7 agility so Andy was very pleased with that. Kizzy qualified into G5 at this show which was Andy's goal. Back to the friendly rivalry between Andy and Neil - they are very supportive of each other but also have a good competition going to see who can win most in one day/weekend. Dordale was Andy's show but look out at Chippenham/Gillingham - Bex is going very well!
We absolutely loved Dordale and will go again. I had one bad experience which involved a very stupid person who was using a spray collar on their dog at ringside. Niamh freaked and I was very cross and had a row with the man's wife. I still ran my dog because I didn't want to impose on the person behind me in the queue - had I only known it was the person with the spray collar so I should have let him run. I ran the round really badly and it was a course I really fancied. Hey ho! Saturday night was rather sleepless due to an all night rave somewhere in the valley. It was very noisy and most people were very tired on the Sunday as they hadn't slept well.
Letchworth was great. Lovely show with loads of different trade stands. I have been getting very anxious about winning a G6 with Niamh and it was starting to spoil our enjoyment so I decided to back off for the rest of the season and instead concentrate on getting my contacts really solid ready for Olympia. She has, as always, responded brilliants and her contacts are the best ever. I semi-trained a G6 agility at Letchworth (just the A-Frame and Dog Walk) and ended up 4th. I was really pleased with the contacts but couldn't help wishing I'd gone a bit faster, I didn't expect to end up 4th with such solid contacts in a G6 class!
Andy spent quite a few classes working on Kizzy's contacts. They have gone a little OTT shall we say. She's doing them great at home and at training but this hasn't quite transferred to the ring. Much work for the winter is required. I believe Dennis has a very good shot of her orbiting from the dog walk!! Kizzy did win a jumping class at Letchworth to make up for all the agility rounds that Andy trained!
We came 2nd in the mini/mixi pairs at Letchworth which hopefully might give us enough points for Crufts, we have to wait and see.
We travelled home Saturday afternoon and on Sunday went to Trent Park. I really enjoyed this show despite getting three eliminations. Andy got 11th in the Eukanuba qualifer and won his jumping class. This brought her total number of wins in Kizzy's first season to 20! What a good little thing she is.
Niamh did a lovely G6 agility but I was too complacent about a wrong end of tunnel after the weaves. The gap seemed large so I thought Niamh would just follow me to the wrong end but she didn't and went in the wrong end of the tunnel. It was a shame as there weren't many clears as a tricky choice of jumps after the dog walk was catching out a lot of people. Because I was training Niamh's dog walk it wasn't a problem and the rest of her round was so neat. Never mind.
In her G6 jumping we had a lot of fun. Toni and I bet each other on who could get a front cross in after a long run down hill. I think we were both mad as there was no way but I was so stubborn. I'm not sure who got E'd more, me or Toni but we both made a pig's ear of it. I can't remember who won the bet - it must have been me. Mand had a go with Jag and actually made the front cross but it caused Jag to have the pole down. Then Karen went with Jess and very wisely put in a rear cross and ended up coming 2nd! Well done.
That's about it for now. We're off on holiday to the New Forest for two weeks. I think it's going to be very wet but I'm still going to enjoy it! I have some video of other runs and will put that on the blog after the hols. Right now no more time left!
Here are some lovely pictures of Niamh which Jay took at Dordale. She is my gorgeous girl.
Well, poor Zeki hasn't had a look in on the blog for ages. When I look back and see how much stuff we wrote about Kizzy it makes me feel very guilty. I guess the main difference is that Kizzy was a winter puppy and therefore I had more time to update the blog whereas Zeki was a spring puppy and the agility season has been in full swing throughout her puppyhood.
Zeki and I have been busy with lots of things. She's had plenty of socialisation in all sorts of situations and has also benefited from being allowed to wander round the agility rings since she was four months of age, so this started at the Rugby show.
She can do quite a few tricks:
Shake both paws
Turn left
Turn right
Recall to front
Recall to each side
Recall to between my legs (ready for startline routine hopefully!)
Jump in the box and sit in it
Sit on the box
Elephant Trick (still in progress as she won't do it daintily and insists on hurling herself round the box by spinning on her front legs)
Round the cone on either hand
Weaving round two cones
Touch her nose to a target on either side of me and in front of me, always facing away from me
Jump into my arms
Basic heelwork on left and right with turns away or into me on either side
Just started teaching her to beg from a sit position
I have to confess my recalls are not very strong if I don't have food. So there is much still to work on with these. That said I am happy with her progress and am working a lot on her tugging which can be good and sometimes is not good at all! Most of her tricks are much stronger for food but I'm gradually introducing more of them for a tuggy or ball reward. She is starting to get the idea and it has the added bonus of strengthening her tug.
Here she is lounging in the awning. I was cooking some supper and peeked out the caravan door to find her curled up in my lounger. Cheeky little madam.
She is a lovely girl and the most cuddly, affectionate dog I think I've owned. She loves nothing better than to be in your arms or on your lap and is very content just to be hugged and kissed. If I talk in a baby voice to her she pushes between my legs just like a cat. I haven't done any decent shots of her lately because her ears are still glued and it don't look too pretty! Once the glue has finally grown out I shall give her a good bath and then get Andy to take some proper photos. I'm really hoping that her ears won't have to be glued again now that she's finished teething.
Often at weekend shows she has a bit of time in Aunty Jan's garden and loves to play with Teazle. This little video shows her playing at Dordale. We arrived quite late and Jan had her in her caravan and garden whilst we set up the caravan. Zeki and Teazle were having a great game in the garden but as always they stopped really playing when I tried to film them.
And here she is peeking out of Jan's caravan window
I have been a very bad blogger over the last month. So much has been going on and I just haven't managed to get round to updating the blog or downloading any of our video runs from the camera. I hate my blog being so out of date so here we go with one of my megga updates!
We've had a good time over the summer with both our dogs running really well. That's not to say we haven't had glitches and issues but overall they've been little super stars.
I've lumped together Aylesbury, KC Festival and DIN as we were away from home for all three of them! I won't go into too much detail about Aylesbury other than to say the camping and running ground isn't for us. Bit too rough. It's a shame because the club obviously put a lot of effort into organising what would otherwise be an excellent show but the ground lets them down (IMO). I didn't run Niamh the first day as it was wet but I did a couple of rounds on the second day without any success. Kizzy clocked up two wins.
KC Festival
This was a blast. I love this show even though it's absolutely huge. It's well organised and I think the committee do a terrific job of running a really professional show.
We arrived on the Sunday straight from Aylesbury in order to assist with marking out the camping. We were part of a decent sized team and everyone worked well together so the task was good fun and we got done in very good time. This meant we had chill time on the Wednesday before we had to get set for receiving campers on the Thursday. It was lovely having the venue to ourselves and I got loads of recalls done with Zeki which was great.
On to the competition itself, Niamh ran well the whole weekend. I was so happy when she qualified for Olympia as this was totally unexpected. I hadn't really bargained on her getting to any semi finals this year so to qualify was just fantastic. She also got placed in both her British Open qualifiers and made it to the final. I think she was the only G6 dog in the final and came 6th on a really quick course. I loved the semi final course which was judged by John Gilbert. There was quite a bit of handling in it and it suits me much better than some of the faster courses. I had one dilemma which was whether to pull and send over the jump after the dog walk or do a complete front cross (reverse turn in old fashioned language!).
I was lucky to be running quite late in the competition so I walked it both ways and decided if there were loads of fast clears I'd go for the quicker method of pulling and sending, if however there were only a few clears then I would go for the safer option of front crossing. In the event quite a lot of people made mistakes on the course (several at this very place) and so I decided to go with my safe option. We almost had a disaster at that jump as Niamh contemplated turning into me at the jump but then realised I wanted her to flick away from me, I can't tell you how close it felt to her back jumping that fence. Luckily for me she is an honest girl and did her job. I love this series of pictures which Dennis took of our dog walk. My face is a picture (not a particularly pretty one at that!) I love the way Niamh is focusing down to her target point. I think I slightly over cooked the dog walk final position but who cares - we qualified! Nobody could doubt her down dog walk that's for sure!
Here is the film of Niamh's run in the Olympia semi and the KC British Open. I am very proud of her in both of these runs.
On to Kizzy. Well, she had a mixed KC Festival. She had two wins and a second placing and managed to scrape into the final qualifying place for small novice final. Her round was going really well with only five obstacles to go. For some reason she shot past the A-Frame to follow Andy. It wasn't a case of her old injury re-surfacing just one of those things. Andy was very disappointed as up to that point she had been going so well. The only consolation was that our friend Neil won the final with his gorgeous little spaniel Bex. They are a partnership which is developing really well and at a rate of knots! More about their friendly rivalry later!
Dogs in Need
We arrived at Ipswich on the Monday morning and got set up. It's nice to get there and plug the caravan into the electric hook up. Wonderful. I like this show as it's quite relaxing with only two runs per day. That said when you've only one dog it would be quite nice to have three runs a day. I didn't enjoy the show quite as much this year as I found a few things a bit irritating: the prize givings which didn't seem to run too smoothly; the cars speeding down the road which runs behind our pitch - this was worse than ever and lastly the trophies for the finals were a bit disappointing.
As already mentioned Kizzy was a little star and won the small novice final. This went a long way to making up for not going clear at the KC final. I know we're in difficult times but it is disappointing to get a glass plaque rather than the usual crystal that this show has provided in the past. I suppose it's even harder for us because we've both judged their finals and handed out the lovely crystal, so expectations are high and it was a little bit of let down. Last year Niamh came 2nd and we got a beautiful decanter. Never mind, it's the winning that counts. In addition, take a look at this lovely trophy that our friends bought for Andy and Kizzy after winning the small novice final:
So tasteful (not!)
Here is Kizzy's final run. As you can see they had a glitch at the end of the collapsible tunnel as Andy took the safe option for a pair of jumps before the tunnel and it resulted in Kizzy thinking that he wanted her to turn left towards him instead of right. Just shows you what a quick little dog she's become as she won by a good margin despite the error.
During the week Kizzy clocked up 3 wins and 3 2nd placings as well as her finals win. Pretty good going I think.
Here are a couple of photographs of Kizzy in the final. If you look at #1 you'd think they should be handing back their trophy, thankfully Jay also captured the moment just before that photo was taken and in #2 you can see they did deserve the trophy after all!
She missed it!
Oh no she didn't!
Niamh was a good girl but we just didn't get the places in the right classes. She led a G6 agility right up until the last dog and got beaten by 2/100ths of a second. Damn! I so want a G6 win and just can't seem to get it! I blew out in most of her qualifying classes so no DIN final for us this year. I was disappointed but not too much, still being on a high from the KC Festival helped!
We had a good time at Dogs in Need despite the niggles I mentioned and I guess we'll go back next year as I still thinks it's a really good event.
Take a look at some of the candid shots captured by Dan and posted on his blog.
We had a great time but it was exhausting for us and the dogs. I am going to do a full update but haven't the time now as we're off again for another weekend of agility. We are truly mad!
Very briefly, Kizzy was a little star and came home with a ton of rosettes and trophies. She got into both the finals but unfortunately blew out in the KC final but more than made up for it by winning the one at Dogs in Need.
Naughty Niamh and I qualified for Olympia (way beyond my dreams) and she also qualified for the British Open at the KC Festival and came 6th overall - I think she was possibly the only G6 dog in the final. She's a very special girl and I so love running her.
Loads more to report and some videos to do when we get back from the weekend at Dordale.
Meantime here are a couple of pictures of our two little stars!
Naughty Niamh and Nancy after qualifying for Olympia (thanks Dennis for the picture)
Super Kizzle after winning the DINAS Small Novice Final with Andy and judge Nigel Staines
We're still working on the garden in different little areas. We have (that's the royal we) started to create a bog garden. Andy our gardener is bringing us cuttings of plants from his bog garden plus we've moved some plants from other areas of the garden into this new project. It's very much work in progress but I think it will be lovely one day. Andy found loads of iron stone in the garden and has used it in the bog garden and also to create a water feature in our fish pond. We had a pathetic little pump that barely trickled into the pond. Now we have a lovely waterfall made from iron stone and the lovely sound of water to boot.
Here are some pictures and a little video of the water feature. Next project is the long border (see photo and what a mess it is!) plus the rose over the archway needs major attention. It's all good fun I just wish more time was available!
The new bog garden - work in progress
Part of the long border. Needs much work to re-structure the planting.
The archway which needs a good haircut and re-tying.
Finally, the water feature -turn up your sound to get the full effect. I love this as I can hear it through the stable door into the kitchen and from the small sitting room. Very relaxing.
Here is Naughty Niamh in her two classes on Sunday. I forgot to take the video for Kizzy's runs so no film of her two wins. Damn. Instead is the film Dennis took of her jumping win at Rugby which I forgot to publish.
Take a look at Niamh in the G6 agility after the second huge spread (#3 in the course) she takes a real tumble and recovers so quickly I didn't even notice on the day. It's scary as it looks a horrible tumble, I can't believe I didn't notice it. Just shows you what we don't notice our dogs doing when participating in this sport! I didn't much care for that big gap to the tunnel after two big spreads, one on the turn.
Today I received some lovely flowers from Lisa and Tony, here they are with the remainder of the flowers Karen gave me. It's so lovely that people are thinking of you when you're having a hard time. I thought I take a picture of these so I can remember them once they've finished.
Below is the lovely rose that Sara and Steve bought me. This will be planted by the gardener when he next comes as I want to make sure it's done properly and in the right spot. I'm not very good at this sort of thing!
Another hot day, in fact hotter than Saturday (boy was Andy glad he wasn't judging!). I had a couple of courses to walk early with early running orders but Andy had nothing to walk which was just as well as he awoke feeling very sick. This continued for most of the morning and I kept making him drink lots as it was obviously heat stroke from the day before.
Niamh and I were done and dusted by 9.30 am as we had only two runs yesterday. We got a clear in our KC Olympia class but not fast enough for a decent place (we came 26th). It was a very fast and relatively easy course. Lovely for the dogs to have a good stretch but not enough in it for us to do well. We need to make up time with turns and a bit more technical stuff. Not complaining as it was a lovely course and I thoroughly enjoyed the run.
Then we did our G6 agility and I mis-handled tunnel to weaves (which was very similar to Andy's tunnel to weaves in the champ jumping from yesterday!) Just as well I wasn't in that then! We didn't get faulted, just wasted a bit of time and then I went into my "training" mode which irritates Andy so much. Having decided I'd made too much of an error to do well I tried to layer a sequence. It was over ambitious and we got eliminated! It was quite a tricky course and had I pushed on I probably would have got a half decent place. I must stop this behaviour but it's very hard! I would love to win a G6 class now so I think I'm getting a bit up tight about them. I'm very relaxed when we go into G6/7 classes as I don't think we have much of a chance to do that well (and in fact we do reasonably well, most probably as a result of me being relaxed!) The joys of competititve agility!
Onto Kizzy: she had a great day with two wins. First off was her G3-5 agility where she put in a really smashing round. Neil and Bex came second behind Kizzy and Andy also with a lovely round, they are going so well at the moment and we might have to start hexing them! Only joking of course, it's meant as a compliment!
Then she did a lovely round in her G1-3 jumping and won that by quite a big margin, can't remember exactly what that margin was. Gran'Ma was there to see the jumping round and I have to say the language was a little strong at times ; she finds watching Andy and Kizzy rather stressful as Andy has a habit of putting front crosses in places that she (Gran'Ma) just can't fathom. Andy is finding it quite hard to get some of these front crosses in now as Kizzy has speeded up and it's amusing to see her bark at him if she feels he's getting in her way.
Kizzy almost did a great run in her G1-7 KC Olympia class. However, her pilot got a little too close to the A-Frame and had to veer out around a jump wing. This brought Kizzy cutting into him and in pushing her away over the next jump created a bad angle to the weaves and she just missed the entry. It was a real shame as I think she would have got a very respectable place in this class.
Kizzy was also drafted into the team and did a lovely clear. In this round Andy put a front cross in at a straight pipe tunnel and Gran'Ma became very agitated and once again the air turned blue. I had to calm her down and take her back to the caravan for an iced drink.
All in all, Kizzy's best day yet! Go Super Kizzle!
I've previously mentioned that Kizzy was running by the A-Frame rather a lot and this was causing us concern.
So whilst Andy was out in Germany at the EO I took Kizzy to an excellent physiotherapist. After going over Kizzy with a fine tooth comb, she identified an injury in Kizzy's thoracic spine (T12) which she believed Kizzy has been carrying for a little while. She came to this conclusion as Kizzy's muscles were better developed on one side which indicated she had been compensating for the injury for some time. The injury was treated and it was amazing to see the relief that Kizzy got from the treatment. To begin with she was showing all the usual signs of pain when the injury site was touched but after treatment she was totally chilled and it was so clear to see that the pain had disappeared. On advice we kept her quiet for a week after the treatment and then she had one training session on the A-frame at home.
The difference is amazing as can be seen by her results at the weekend. Thank goodness we got her checked out and discovered that the reason she was avoiding the A-frame was because of pain or discomfort. Thanks to Gran'Ma for suggesting we go down that route and to Karen for recommending such an excellent physio. The physiotherapist we normally use was on holiday so it was great to be able to see someone else so quickly.
Now we're back home and have loads to do this week work-wise and in getting organised for our next trip out in the caravan. We're off for a couple of weeks from Friday. We're going to Aylesbury show for the weekend with Jackie and Terry (looking forward to seeing them) and then off to Peterborough on Sunday evening to help mark out all the camping for the KC Festival and then straight off to Dogs in Needs. Yikes, I don't know where I'm going to put all the stuff in the caravan now we no longer have under-bed storage!
I didn't much fancy going away for this weekend but Andy persuaded me it was a good idea so off we went on Friday afternoon.
I am glad I went as doing something certainly takes your mind of things. I had a few upsets over the weekend when anyone said anything nice about Abbey but it'll get easier and to be honest I need to hear these nice things even if it does make me blub.
Saturday was a very long day. Andy was judging the large championship class followed by the Agility Club juniors and starters finals. It was very hot so I took an umbrella to the ringside so that I could scribe in the shade. We were really lucky as lots of friends helped on our ring. It's amazing how many people put their names down to help (and in the case of the agility club get cheaper entries) but then don't turn up! Leah and Jay worked all day, Bernadette did a big chunk of scribing and Mac Card also helped with setting up courses and pole picking. Lynn and Mark Sheridan were brilliant also, they were on the ring all day long and in Mark's case right up to the end of the finals. It was Lynn's birthday and she didn't get to open her cards 'til 5.00 pm! Thanks to all our friends for their help on the day and of course to the rest of the ring party, especially Raine who I forgot in the first mention. She, Jay and I had a good laugh throughout the day!
The champ class ran well although I found the timing rather slow. We used the big display timer which is fantastic for the spectators but it is very slow to reset to "zero" and this means you have to keep the competitor waiting before you can set them off. I hate this because they are stressed enough in a champ class without extra hassle. I think they got used to the system but it isn't ideal. What we really need is a digital timing display linked to the usual timing boxes. Hopefully someone will produce one in the near future.
The courses were pretty technical with a few "European" features, hmmm wonder why!! When someone ran them well it was spectacular but they were the kind of courses that if a mistake happened then it was very difficult to pick up and finish the rest of the round smoothly. There were lots of subtle "alternative options" for the dogs to choose (I use this term as I hate the word "traps" in the context of course design.) I would love to have tried running them with Niamh as I really like lots of handling rather than courses that are too straight forward. I particularly like the jumping course as it was interesting. I always prefer to run agility over jumping classes but every now and then a jumping course catches my eye and this was one of them. Here are the courses in case anyone would like to try them!
The final was exciting to watch and I think everyone thought Nic Jones and Caleb had done enough to win until Lee ran with Bold. Their round was foot perfect and won the ticket; a very worthy winner over three challenging courses.
Now, in the words of Bernadette - rant coming so please don't go any further unless you want to! Actually is isn't a rant really, just my viewpoint (nothing to do with Andy):
The only downside of the class was that Andy had to eliminate a competitor who turned up late for their run. Some champ judges don't give a minute's waiting time and eliminate competitors immediately moving on to the next handler in the running order. Andy always gives a full minute waiting time for each competitor. Unfortunately the next competitor was also missing and so the second minute of waiting time was started half way through which the first competitor arrived on the line. Their ticket had already gone back to the tent with an elimination marked on it. Andy felt really bad saying that the individual couldn't run and made a point of finding them to say so later in the day. I agree with his decision; if you make exceptions for one individual then you are left in a position of having to do this for everyone who might turn up late. For the judge it's a no-win situation. The lesson learned from this, should Andy judge champ again, is that he will probably not give the minute's waiting time. That way, if someone doesn't turn up then the next competitor will run straight away and there can be no argument about missing the run as it will be obviously too late.
The saddest thing (and the reason for my rant) was that someone was overhead to say that it was just a case of Andy flexing his muscles, that's so unfair because it wasn't the case at all. He was simply abiding by the briefing he had given and in doing so attempting to be fair to everyone and not just one individual. You try to do the decent thing by competitors by giving this time and still you are deemed to be mean when you carry out the decision. That kind of comment makes you wonder if it's worth the effort of judging. You give up your time to try to design interesting courses, you give up your day's competition, your dogs have a lousy day without you and in this case you stand out in the baking sun all day long and end up with heat stroke. There you go - my mini rant is over! This is in no way directed at the individual who missed their run (thought I'd make that clear!)
Moving on, after the champ class was finished then the course had to be set up for the Juniors and Starters finals. These ran until nearly 7.30 pm so it was a very long and tiring day. I felt so guilty about my poor dogs. They didn't have much time from me at all. It was very hot so they were probably best off resting in the shade but even so they didn't have much company.
Agility wise: I ran Naughty Niamh and she got clear in the Crufts singles but out of the places because I made a couple of handling errors which cost us time. We missed the weave entry in our G6 jumping (my fault as I got right in her space) otherwise she worked beautifully and in our pairs we had one pole down. Poppy got clear in her allsorts although it wasn't very smooth as she was wild!
Phew, what a long day and not one to be repeated in a hurry!
Oh boy; what's in store for us?
Dan and Tracey share a joke - is that really Rod Steward in the background?
Rod Steward - yeah right!
Mr Scrumpy
Dan & Bill share a tender moment. Bill really looks as if she's enjoying it!
Elvis is in the building, well campsite!
Not part of the entertainment; just Mac and Terry relaxing and being themselves!
OMG Meatloaf has arrived!
Our lot line dancing.
Don't even ask!
Mac having a giggle - see below (and above) for reason .....
The Rocky Horror Show
