Ribble and Welcome to Baby Bear

Ribble was a nice show - I had a lovely uneventful journey there which after the week before was a relief! Even though I might try the "up north" mad trip in a day after it actually went ok the previous week but I already had a dog friendly BnB booked with deposit paid so went up the afternoon before.

Roger only had a couple of runs and as most of our dogs were not competing he stayed home as it is not a very nice venue for the non-competing dogs - no proper exercise area as such as the fields they can use are usually under water.

The pairs......mmmm well the least said about that the better! It was a dippy judge who really has not competed much for a while and it was supposed to be 1-7 and it was more like 7..! There were nearly 200 pairs entered and there were I think only 3 double clears and someone I know came 17th with 15 faults....

Josie and JaiJai were entered together as it was Josies first show back after her spay - she seemed fine but did not seem jump fit knocking a few poles down so it will be good for her and Roger to get back to training. Sue kindly volunteered to run JaiJai and I set off first with Josie who got an E and then we eventually got back to the box....well could I catch the darn merle NO! It seemed like ages and JaiJai is the kind of dog to get in a tizz and he did set off with Sue but only did two jumps and then came back to me! I forgot Josie has to go second as she does not do a changeover well...

Fleet was with Tatts and we were going ok and then I was dippy and got Fleet a 5r and then I was pleased he did the 7 weaves to nowhere and relaxed slightly so he popped an extra jump!

The only other run that Josie and JaiJai had was combined 1-4 Jumping - Josie flew round lovely and just had 2 poles down. JaiJai was going great guns but at the tricky bit right near the end I could not stop him going straight on out of the pipe tunnel.

Fleets Grade 5 Agility was an interesting course and the start really needed a good recall, Fleet and I have worked on recalls all through the Autumn and Winter and he did a lovely wait and then lovely holds on the contacts and came 6th.

The Grade 5 Jumping really was a bizarre course and it did not appeal to me at all and so not surprisingly Fleet and I went wrong. Really pleased that Matt and Buddy came 3rd in this course. Buddy is a handsome blue/tri smooth collie with one ear up and one ear down.

I really enjoyed watching Iain Frasers Chum course (sorry not Chum anymore KC Olympia Grade 6/7!). It was an interesting course which looked to have been really well thought out. Forum Fiona did a course plan and I think it looked pretty spot on.



I really missed Cadbury and Kaiser pup and the other dogs as that was the first night I had been away from Kaiser since he came home.

Sue White does not have her own Blog (nag nag come on Sue everyone has one these days!) but today she got her new pup Bear so I thought I would post a couple of photos of Bear to welcome him to her household and to the mad world of Agility!



I really must try and get some video done for the Blog - some of Kaiser playing and looking cute and also I have been spurred on to try and do the 2 jumps exercises with Cadbury as demonstrated by Bernadette and Lisa - I worry I may fall over tho!

Kaiser Puplett :)

Well Kaiser is now 14 weeks old. He and I have continued our little adventures together along with his first trip to a show (schhhh only went in the car park!)

He is such a cheeky little character and always full of beans - he has done the occasional walk (on lead) with the other dogs and it seems he might be another Fleet-maniac....most of our dogs are mad about Fleet....weird!

I have done a little bit of clicker training with him and he is getting qood on sits and downs.

Here are various recent photos. I must try and remember he has big ears and to make sure I get all of them into the photo!!

First Show of the Year

Well I have been to my first show of the year - Wilmslow at Myerscough. I had a dog friendly BnB booked and set off just after lunch. Took the route to avoid the A34 which always seems to get jammed where it meets the M40 on a Friday afternoon, so went M4, off at J15 and then A417 between Swindon and Gloucester where I would get onto the M5 and head northwards.

Little Kaiser was coming along for the ride and I took Cadbury, Fleet, Rip and JaiJai. There were no classes for small dogs, Rip was going as he had Veterans and I was not sure about jumping Foggy without him having done any jumps for such a long time as he can then misjudge so he was not entered and Josie was still having time off after her spay.

Anyway back to the journey! Well it started to snow, and was settling in the fields but not the road so no real problem there and then the traffic on the dual carriageway stopped....and an hour and a half went by and we moved about 50 yards and the temperature was dropping - it was 5 degrees when I stopped and was now minus 2....the dogs and I were warm enough as I of course had the heating on the van.

The snow was now settling on the road and getting thicker and thicker. The radio was not saying much about the traffic so I thought I would ring Gloucester Police - well people ring Surrey Police who I work for!! They advised there was 12 miles of queuing traffic behind a jack knifed lorry and that the traffic was going nowhere for many hours.

Well my one criteria for going to northern shows is that I won't go if it snows as I just hate driving in snow and ice. So I rang and cancelled the BnB and came off at a tiny side road by a pub and went in there to ask how much further to the nearest junction where I could turn round and the kind lady in the pub explained a quick route on the now very heavily covered in snow side roads where I could get back on the other side of the dual carriageway and head home - so 6 hours after I left home I got back home and the snow was localised to that area so certain friends did not believe me and all I took was one photo:-


Some friends drive all the way up to Myerscough and back in a day and they are about 40 mins nearer than me so I thought I would set my alarm and give it a go....

So at 3.30am on the Saturday morning questioning my sanity I set off - lovely clear rounds, no traffic and no SNOW!

It only took me 3.5 hours to get there and I had a nice day at the show as did Kaiser who got to meet Flash his black brother.

At the show my only clear rounds were a 7th in the Veteran Jumping with Ripley - he flew bless him and had a great time and whizzed through the 6 weaves, and Cads who came 1st in the 4-5 combined Jumping - he did a lovely run so I was very pleased with this result - there were only 19 in the class so it did not feel such a big achievement as say winning a class of a couple of hundred with one of the big dogs but bless him he can only beat those that are in it! That is his first win towards winning out of Grade 5. Just baby and handler errors in the other 2 classes Cad was in - he did some nice bits though.

Fleet did some nice bits including a 2 jump recall in 2 of his classes - he and I have worked hard on this over the winter as we went for quite a few years with no wait and I thought we would give it one last go and yippee we are getting there.

Some random photos of Cads and his 1st Place Trophy and Rosette - I will post again with some newer photos of Kaiser :)



Actually Cads does not look at all impressed!!

Growing up!

That's Kaiser not me I am not growing up yet that's dull !

Well Kaiser is going to be 12 weeks old on Saturday. He has had both his jabs and was so sweet at the Vets even on the second visit wagging his tail so fast even though the vet was going to jab him :)

Kaiser and I have visited lots of places and Thank You to Helen and Nellie-Bean (a lovely Fleety Niece) for the reminders on their Blog of things to do to socialise a pup, a few places we have been to are Pets at Home (a few times - well a boy can never have enough toys and treats!), Tesco, our local shop, down the road to visit the house with the Christmas lights, the garden centre nearby, we have watched traffic and kids playing ball and making lots of noise so hopefully all this has been a good learning time for Kaiser and he has taken it all in his stride. A little chuckle he has been out in the Smart Car for most of the trips - I can fit a cage in the back and its a good car for him to see whats going on around him as we have travelled about.

Cadbury continues to think his new best mate is brilliant except.....when he grabs his ear and won't let go! Cads is learning to be a little more assertive to let Kaiser know that he does not like that kind of game and I make sure that Kaiser is not allowed to annoy him.

Our elderly neighbour has been poorly recently (they are both in their 70's) so I have not seen them much - I saw Joan and was asking after her husband Joe and had Kaiser with me out the front of the house and they did not know I had a pup and Joan said that Joe who has been housebound had noticed I always seemed to be in the back garden!

Christmas and New Year were ok - nothing very exciting happened - at work some sad and mad stuff but that's normal! I was working Christmas Day, Boxing day, New Years Eve (only till 6pm) and New Years Day so not much of a Holiday for me - I tend not to ask for the time off as feel its more important for my colleagues with children to be allowed the time off. Roger visited some of his family and my Mum and Sister visited us on Christmas evening. I think my 2 nicest pressies were a lovely soft lilac FatFace scarf from Claudine and a lovely purple Kipling bag from Sue.

We had lots of fireworks round here on New Years Eve and I am glad we stayed home with the dogs - only Josie and Rip are very worried - the rest of the dogs look a bit concerned at the very loud bangs. So it was Jools Holland on the TV up loud to try and drown out the fireworks!

Its been nice to be able to do some different things - we have been to dinner with friends, I went for a girls night out to a friends and we had a takeaway and I went for a lovely long walk with Sue and Duessa at the Lookout.

I Hope everyone is well and that you are all having a good time with your families and dogs.

Kaiser now has "proper" Kelpie ears :)

I know he is a scruffy Muffin but I do like this photo of Cads