Front Cover Star!

Cadbury is on the Front Cover of the Agility Eye :)

Sam a girl I know from a Border Collie Forum asked if I had any photos of my dogs doing Agility and not just collies as her Mum was doing a new cover for the Agility Eye. I have some Fab ones that Lynn Sheridan took so I checked Lynn did not mind and sent a few to Sam and then many months later the Eye has a new cover with Cadbury in the corner and JaiJai jumping across the front!

The photo shows the July issue but it did not come out till the August issue as the printers got flooded.

It will be lovely for our copy of the Eye to arrive each month and to see Cads and JaiJai!

Dashin and DIN

Well we had a great if tiring time at Dashin and DIN. I judged for a day at Dashin which I really enjoyed and lots of people said they liked my courses which always makes it more worthwhile!

Cadbury was a good little chap at Dashin he gained 1st x 2 (one Jumping one Agility -the Agility win taking him up to Grade 5), 2nd x 3, 3rd x 4, and a 4th.

We were helping out so took hardly any videos - luckily Roger got Cads Jumping win

My Montage 8/22/07
The rest of the dogs all got a few places across the Dashin days except Jaf who had a sore toe so was resting! The best places for the other dogs were Josie 5th, JaiJai 7th, Fleet 5th x 2, Fog 2nd in Veteran Pairs and Rip 6th in Veterans.

Roger went home at the end of Dashin as he had to go back to work, he took the oldies Fog and Rip with him as no classes fro them at DIN and also Jaf who was still resting his toe and I went onto DIN.

Blimey there were a lot of Medium Dogs at DIN compared to any other show this year!

Cadburys Classes were all Combined 1-5 and there were up to 130 dogs in the classes and 4 of our 8 runs were qualifiers for the DIN Medium 1-5 Final - I did not have high hopes to do well against so many good dogs but Cadbury was a good boy and had a 9th, 6th, 10th, 12th and 15th and also a 4th in Medium Pairs.

His 3 places in the qualifiers put him in 4th place out of the 15 dogs that qualified and in the final he did a lovely clear round and came 4th - I was sooooo proud of him. Amanda bought me a lovely photo of him and I kept proudly showing it to everyone!

Thanks to Dennis for the photo of Cadbury in the Final :)

Mark Douglas videoed the Final at DIN so hopefully I will be able to get a copy.

I enjoyed running Fleet, JaiJai and Josie at DIN. I think the weaves had to be re-pegged after each of JaiJai's runs as he is such a whirlwind through them - he had no clears but lots of stunning bits. Fleet had a 10th, 12th and a 5th on a very hard jumping course which started jump pull though and I went the long way round jump one so did no pull through chuckle!! I only had 4 runs at DIN with Josie as she is allergic to contacts at the moment - we managed a 17th with a detour on the course!

Returned home to loads of washing and was worn out, have been letting the dogs especially little Cads just chill for a couple of days with no training and just gentle walks.

Well Done to everyone else who did brilliantly with their dogs - I tend to think that good results are a sign of a good partnership between dog and handler.

Off on Holidays (again!)

Well it does not seem that long since we went to the Lake District for a week and now we are off on holiday again!

We should have gone already going up to High Peak on the way to Dashin Dogs but High Peaks was cancelled due to flooded ground, to be honest that one made me a little cross as they cancelled very early "just in case there was more rain" and more rain was not expected and now we have a heatwave!!

On a more serious note and of course a huge amount more important than Agility there has been F&M found local-ish to where we live - I hope its able to be dealt with in the best possible way.

So off to Dashin Dogs shortly, the competitions are Mon/Tue/Wed and Thursday is a day off, then competing again Friday, Saturday, Sunday and then on Monday I am off to Ipswich for DIN with some of the dogs and Roger is coming home as he has to work, he chooses Dashin over DIN as for his dogs the classes are better (and I get more holiday from work!). He is taking the 2 old chaps (Rip and Fog) home with him as they have no classes at DIN and its less dogs for me to share my time over but blimey I will miss them!

At Dashin I am Judging on the Tuesday so I am looking forward to that, and on Wednesday evening there is the Final of the Lazer Pairs and then on Thursday morning the Final of the Team Dash - I like watching Finals :)

We are due to help out a bit at Dashin, ring managing one day and helping another day as well as the Judging, Emma and Nigel who run the show are really nice and they do look after the people who help.

Good Luck and have fun to all our agility blogger friends in the meantime. See some of you at DIN.

A photo of Cadbury when he was younger.