The show season has started

Pleeeeeeeeeeaaaaase can I go jumping now?

Well the first show of the year has been and gone! And what a show it was!!!!!!!!

Amazing time, amazing dogs, amazing friends J

Please also note our very nice new fencing in the photo above :) Thank you Feroda Agility

To say we were all a little over excited at the prospect of the NADS UKA show last week is probably something of an understatement; some of our camping group were packed and ready to go by Monday! 3 of the 6 groups camping together were there at 2pm as stated on the schedule and we were all set up by 4.30pm.

I forget how tiring UKA can get, we have 3 dogs competing and run 4 classes a day each, so 12 runs each day, plus I was in the Pairs class on the Sunday 3 times.

Add in a little Phaze time around the rings and we pretty much didn’t stop from 7am until it finished at 6pm each day. So not a gentle introduction into the season but a very fun one!

Thai was a good merlie and won his Senior jumping, his Agility run on Sunday was FAB, very difficult and tight push round a jump for the 2^nd obstacle (which I don’t think Cruze would of actually fitted through!), I remembered my training with Toni and instead of trying to always move towards the next obstacle I looked at the dogs line and used a should turn into weaves, lovely contacts, rear cross the tunnel at the end and pull to a jump to the left, with a jump to the right sitting very close by……….or in my case pull him completely off the left jump and make him run round it!!!! Oooops! I E’d Thai in one of his SC classes as didn’t call him off a tunnel but I was really pleased with how he opened up on that course. Another SC and the one pole-itis monster reared his ugly head for the first and no doubt not the last time this season! Then GAMES classes….I have no idea how to run Games classes – but I wanted to get Thai up into Champ and the Games points is what is stopping me……..and they have still stopped me! We were doing quite well in Snooker, I’d reached the colour sequence section and then let Thai sail over a jump instead of calling him into the weaves and that was the end of that!! Gamblers I am a little more capable of, I seem to be fairly accurate at working out where I will be at the end of the 30 seconds and we got the 15 point Gamble and came 3^rd.

Thai ran pairs with Wren, we were clear in the jumping part but unfortunately Wren heard Tunnel and went for the tunnel, she was meant to hear A-frame but never mind!

Cruze was a little over excited at being at a show, he had started whining on Thursday when we were packing the van and not really calmed down since then!

We managed a very messy clear in the Jumping class, wasted about 5 or 6 seconds, completely my fault, added a switch in to makesure I could get to the right end of the tunnel and ended up getting in the wrong place and making it much harder than it would have been had I not swapped sides!! Ooops again! Cruze was also clear in a SC and came 2^nd J. I was generally very pleased with the speed of Cruze’s contacts over the weekend so hopefully we can get it together this weekend.

Cruze was in the pairs with Magic, Magic competed the Agility section beautifully, baton change and let go of Cruze………………..and he was GONE!! Cue a little hectic screaming from me and being the idiot that I am I lost him as trying to turn for the weaves and he missed the entry L so 5 faults, we qualified these 2 last year for the Final but then couldn’t go so it was a real shame that I messed up this year as we have a very good pair here.

Magic was a little star as always. One of Dan’s goals this season was to get her up to Champ SC; well that goal was comfortably achieved with 2 wins on Sunday, one by 4 seconds! Magic also gained a 4^th in a SC class on the Saturday, some people think UKA is not as competitive as KC but Magic came 4^th in this class 0.28 seconds behind the winner – I’d say that’s fairly competitive!!

Dan has been retraining magic’s contacts over the winter so this was the first chance to see how she was coming along. Some were lovely, some not so great – so a bit more work to do this week. Magic’s agility rounds were lovely, just an accidental extra jump on the Sunday, which was a real shame as she looked very good over a handly course and first try of rubber contacts. Magic took to the rubber contacts much better than either of the boys, Thai slipped as he hit the up on the dog walk and then crawled over it L Cruze tried to slide his seesaw – something I have spent time over the winter training – and came to an abrupt stop L

I also had the privilege of running the very handsome Harrjak Tigger

I ran him in a SC class, where he only had one pole down J My fault as I realised how long he was jumping and thought he might miss the last 2 jumps that were slightly off angle and caused him to catch the pole as I said ‘Tigs’ to get him to check in with me and see the jumps slightly to his right. It was an amazinf feeling running him though! I hope my little Harrjak will be half as drivey as Uncle Tigger.

I also ran Tigger in the pairs class with Pat and Dooley and Tig was FAB and went CLEAR!!!!! It was quite a handly jumping section so I wasn’t sure that I would be able to control Tigs well enough having only blasted him round a SC previously, luckily the really fiddly bit was after the weaves so I had him with me and at a slightly slower pace (well for Tigger anyway!) and we got home clear! Unfortunately Dooley had suffered a slight pilot error so none of the 3 pairs I ran in made it home double clear L but it was a very fun and fast class to take part in! Thanks again to Lolly for letting me run her gorgeous boy – and here’s to the teams in a few weeks where I get to have another go!!!!

After running Tigger at the weekend I am no longer going to look at pictures of the Tigger pup I know of that is available, as I liked him already, but I suggest you all do!!!!!!

So first KC show on Sunday J Carn Brae here we come!!!!!!

Spring is here :)

I can’t believe it is March!!

I wrote a blog a couple of weeks a go and completely forgot to post it  (ooops)so catch up for several weeks.

Firstly I’d like to thank everyone for the positive comments I received re. my earlier blog, it’s always nice to know you aren’t the only one thinking these things!

It doesn’t seem long ago that we were all moaning that the show season was over and it would be FOREVER before next season – now it feels like the new show season will be upon us very soon.

Phaze attended puppy class a couple of weeks ago and enjoyed herself immensely – and let everyone know about it!!

What I am pleased about is the fact that although she was hyped up and rather loud; she completed every exercise asked of her with lots of drive and enthusiasm and total concentration on me and the task at hand.

Phaze and Tarn had a lovely play after class; they look quite similar other than Tarn being a good couple of inches taller.

We attended a small Limit show at the end of February, I like to begin the show season with limit show and UKA (where we get the chance to train if we need it) so we can see if our winter training has been successful or not without putting pressure on ourselves.

Well the merlies could probably be considered to be slightly over enthusiastic about being at a show.

I felt like I hadn’t done any training over the winter! This is why it is nice to go to a couple of shows that don’t matter so much – Easter is typically thought of as the beginning of the season where there are Qualifiers galore – so you don’t need the added pressure of big classes on top of a rather wayward dog – so it really is nice to compete at a couple of small shows beforehand!

I was pleased with Thai’s contacts in the morning but that was about it. I knew I was in trouble when Cruze was running backwards shouting and twirling in front of me to get onto the start line. He is vocal around agility but generally locks onto me once I take his lead off and he knows he is going to the start line – but not this time!! 

The boys had calmed down a little by the afternoon and Cruze came 2^nd in 6/7 jumping with Thai closely behind in 3^rd.

Magic looked really good in all her classes – just a split second timing issue in the jumping which resulted in a pole and Dan being slightly too laid back for a wing wrap in the agility. We both find it takes a little time to adjust from our lovely dogs at home training who will turn on a six-pence for us to the wild excitable beasts we take to shows!

Didn’t take the video camera with us which was a shame as they all had some really good bits but that’s just another thing we need to get into the swing of – TAKE THE VIDEO CAMERA TO SHOWS!!

It was also really nice to see Holly, Phaze’s other sister, as I had not seen her since she was 7 weeks old. She is looking lovely, but bigger than Phaze! So I have gone from having the largest, fattest pup to the shortest one! We have all said that this is such a nice litter we would all of quite happily taken home any of the litter as they are all such nice temperaments and markings. So maybe I should of picked one with legs!!

The weekend just gone Dan and I did something a little bit different – still agility related but VERY nerve racking! We are now the proud owners of 2 certificates each stating that we are allowed to Judge at KC shows J

Chris Huckle and Bob Griffin ran the 2 day course and they were really very good at putting us at ease and conducted the course in a way that made it easy to learn but also giving us some insight into real life experiences – including the advice of how to judge when there is a punch up going on!!!! So by the end of the weekend we were all wondering why we wanted to do this!!

Everyone on the course passed so I look forward to seeing everyone’s first course when they have their judging appointments – I think most of us wanted to invest in the very cool miniature equipment we used during the course design part of the course as it really helped us see that what looks good on paper doesn’t necessarily work 3D!

I am looking forward to our last full weekend at home this weekend until sometime in October! Unfortunately that pretty much means the last lie in I will get until October too! I think a trip to the beach will need to be included and hopefully some photo opportunities.

Next weekend we have another training session with Toni at Rexon which we are both looking forward to, and then the weekend after it is our first camping show of the year at Newbury!!! Think we might go buy some more thermals!