Olympia Small Agility 2007 with videos

Well my 2nd Olympia is over. Hopefully we will return another year! I cannot say this Olympia 2007 was as successful as Olympia 2005 when Zen won; but we had some good moments!

Wednesday was spent bathing and grooming Hex in preparation for her first time at Olympia. We did a little training; 2 or 3 contacts and a few big snakes. It turns out my premonition about snakes (serpentines) was correct and we saw quite a few in the two courses on Thursday.

Off we went on Thursday morning; luckily able to leave after rush hour as our first run wasn't until 1:30 PM. The day started off well as we were able to stop at STARBUCKS on the way! Hurrah! But then the day started to go downhill a bit as Dennis began to complain about not feeling good. Turns out there is a 24 hr stomach bug going around his work and guess which day he decides to come down with it? He was sick all day and even missed work the next day which is rare for Dennis. Lisa was better today; she was in pretty good groom mode although a few pints of beers put her into orbit before the evening performance. She also was sick with a cold. God knows how I will get thru Christmas without myself getting sick!

This Olympia 2007 Final will turn out to be remembered by me as one of the best moments as a Breeder; so that is not too shabby!

The morning performance was Small Pairs. We are paired up randomly; we do not choose our partners. I do think this should be evaluated for the future (here I go again always opening my mouth!) because it can theoretically be dangerous with the hyped up dogs. In the semi-final back in August they also do pairs and there was a scarey dog fight as one team crossed the line to finish and the other was waiting to go for the baton change. Pairs is fine when the dogs and handlers know each other; but in these pairs finals/semifinals the dogs are paired up on the day and do not know one another. Luckily at the Finals at Olympia none of the dogs seemed to have any problems; but it is just a thought for the future.

Hex and I were paired with Sharon Brewster and her adorable little poodle Ruby. They both ran clear and fast and we were in the lead until the last team ran. Up steps the last team, guess who it was?? Yes TEAM OBAY (sable division) with Peggy and Timmy and Nicky and Indy. Now do I root for them or keep my fingers crossed that Sharon and I stay in First? HA!

Well this Olympia is looking quite Deja Vu for me. As with Tuesday we ended up 2nd in the afternoon performance; meaning no trophy! "Darn" and "Yeah OBays!" all at the same time!

We then had a long wait (5 hours) before the next run. I did a little shopping; but everytime I left Hex I got worried and had to go back!God I adore that dog! We also took Team OBay (hey I like saying that!) for a walk to a local park. That was really good for the dogs to get out of the venue to stretch their legs and have a sniff and a pee. I was a little worried as we were counting on Lisa to find the way there as by now Dennis had turned white in the face, had chills and was sick as...well a dog! But Lisa came thru; she is actually very good with directions and we found the park after a nice stroll thru some pretty London side streets.

The evening performace started around 7:30 pm. The walk thru this time seemed even shorter and this was definitely my down fall. I had two plans for the ending sequence and just didn't have time to work thru the 2nd option as the course did not end up being as big on the ground and is looked on the paper and the final sequence was alot tighter than I expected. So again, unfortunately I made an error only FOUR obstacles from the end! Oh well at least in theory I got further than I did with Zen where I made the mistake FIVE obstacles from the end! HA! This is very unlike me; but as they say "There ya go!". Not much else to say about it except that I find it really cute that when you go wrong the British agility people are so sweet and they all say "Hard Luck" to you! I just want to say thanks for that! Although I know it wasn't hard luck but lousy handling! haha!

Anyway enough about me! Although just to say that I was so so very fricken proud of Hex. It is like running a dog on auto-pilot; she just reads the course. Her snakes were so damn cute! Her contacts were perfect and fast and her weaves were awesome! I just love this dog! (did I say that already?) She is only 2 years old and I feel as if I have been running her for years. I can honestly say that if we never did agility again I would be happy just being with this dog. She is my heart and soul dog. (and she likes her drink!)



Now here comes the best Breeder bit! Peggy and Timmy ran first for the shelties. Peggy was so nervous yet it did not show in the ring. After all the start line problems she has had with Timmy over the years; she finally seems to have it sorted! And she had the guts to work it thru at Olympia! I was so proud of her and Timmy strutting their stuff! Timmy put in a nice fast clear; losing time only on his contacts. I think Peggy was so happy to have crossed that finish line that I wonder if she realized how good he had done? He went into 1st place and held that up until Nicky and Indy ran. Indy the pocket rocket is probably one of the smallest dogs in this competition. (The smallest by far would have been Dave and teensy poodle Libby who unfortunately had to pull out because Libby was in season! Now that was a damn shame!) But The Pocket Rocket never lets his size stop him and Nicky and Indy went for it! A little hestitation at the end but it still put him into 1st place! It would have been nice if the competition could have ended at that point with Indy in FIRST and Timmy in Second but alas we still had a fast poodle left to go! Chelsea never looks that fast but Dawn is a great handler and Chelsea is so smooth. The running contacts and the long legs of Chelsea make her a great dog for this venue; they clearly won by full second. Really cool run!


So there ya have it. Another Olympia done for us.

Now we just have to wait and hear how the big dogs do today and Saturday. Fingers crossed for everyone!!

Here is the OBay videos....

First is the OBay Shelties running in pairs.



Second is the three OBay Shelties in their Finals runs.



If you want to see all the dogs in the finals check out: Olympia small pairs on Youtube.

If you want to see all the small dogs in the finals check out: Olympia Small Agility Final