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.

Happy 2nd Birthday Cadbury!

Wow the little man is 2 today - the time has just flown by - blimey he was small in that picture - I could not get him to stay still so tied him to a bench to take his photo on one of his first ever walks!

I love the little furry scruffy chap to bits he really is so cute and so comical and the fact that he also enjoys his agility is a bonus.

He is currently asleep on my feet under the computer chair - bless him. They broke the chocolate mould after this one was born and I am very lucky that he is my little chocolate dream.

Another Cancelled Agility Show

What a shame Derby Show is cancelled. I was looking forward to Judging and had spent some time planning my courses, this was the 3rd time they had asked me - the previous 2 years I had reasons I could not Judge there and this year I said Yes and show is cancelled due to a flooded venue - which of course is the most sensible decision for the club to make.

Also Fleet was due to be in the Adams Derby Final (for those who have not seen it a Power and Speed for Large "Novice" Dogs) and not being the sort of person to qualify for loads of finals I was really looking forward to this and was very proud of Fleet that he qualified. Maybe the Final will be re-scheduled :) Photo below is Fleet in the Final last year (he came 10th with one goony moment!)

I have loads of things to catch up on at home and will take the dogs for some nice long walks. Roger is at the Agility Club Show on Saturday - I had entered JaiJai and Josie there for him as he is due to Judge the Finals of the Easter Celebration Gamblers and Power and Speed. He will just go and run JaiJai as Josie has been in season the last few weeks. I was asked on Thursday evening if I would like to go and spend the weekend ring managing at the Agility Club Show as someone who was due to couldn't as they had a back back, I declined as going and watching other people run their dogs when I would like to run mine just did not appeal!

Digit the Smart Car

This is not really Cadbury related but he has been in my car! In fact I can fit a cage in the boot area big enough to hold both poodles - but its really not big enough for my collies!

Where I work at Police HQ the parking is very difficult with cars everywhere and not enough spaces and so having a very small car seemed a good idea so about 4 years ago I bought a Smart Car. These cars have to have a name (it says so on the websites I visited!) so mine is called Digit, getting the name as his colour is called numeric blue as he is covered with numbers.

Today Digit had to go to the garage to have a service, MOT and a few other bits done - blimey the bill was £696 !!! Ah but Digit is worth it as it is much easier to park at work and he gets me safely to work from Farnham to Guildford every day! Here is Digit:-

Newlands Part Two

Yippeeee the Show was able to go ahead, the main field was rested for the rest of Friday and all day Saturday with no vehicles driving on it and we only had a little more rain and it dried out really well. On Saturday we even carried all the Premier equipment from the hard standing to the 7 rings to save the ground from their 4x4's.

I help in the Secretaries area in the barn and do nearly all the announcements- I used to get cross that people made very poor attempts at the dogs names so I got the job!

Very pleased for our Blogger friends that did well especially Nancy and Niamh with a 1st, 2nd and 3rd and going up into Grade 6, Bernadette with Hex and Zen getting 1sts and other places and Lisa and Chi with a 2nd and Karen and Corrie with a 3rd and Lian and Saturn for 5th x 2.

Roger got 7th in Grade 3 Agility with JaiJai so he was pleased.

My dogs did not get to see me that much and I felt bad about this and it was rather a surprise to me that I did ok with them, a couple of courses I did not walk and others I only whizzed round once as I just happened to be nearby.

This was Cadburys first show in Grade 4 - it did not really make a difference to his Sunday classes as they were Jumping and Agility Combined 3-5 - he did a lovely run in the Jumping and came 2nd - the Agility I was a little unsure how to handle the part after the weaves as I had rushed to do the run and was last to go and had no-one to watch and I think I made him pop out the last weave so I just took my own line to the finish.

Rip bless him came 2nd in Veteran Jumping and and little red boy Fog came 6th. Jaf had a nice clear in the 3-5 Small Jumping.

Fleet was a very good big red dog with no "goony" moments - he came 7th in Grade 5 Jumping and just knocked a pole in his agility and he came....1st in the Grade 5 Helter Skelter - it really was not a Fleety course - lots of switch behinds and call over jumps which can turn him into a barking spinning dog - I was very proud of him :) He last won a class in July 2006 (a Novice Jumping). The course is below as best as I can remember it (thanks Lian yep just click on the course to make it bigger!)




All the organisers were very tired and I sat at work on Monday (luckily its my short day at work!) willing my shift to end so I could go home and chill out! We normally train on a Monday, but not the night after the show so it was nice to spend an evening at home.