Over the week up in the Lakes I made the final decision NOT to try-out for the World Championships this year with either dog. I had been pretty sure I was not going to try-out with Zen as I really did not want to fly her in cargo again. But I was so tempted to try-out with Hex as I could fly her in cabin if we drove out of England to France or Holland.
But at the end of the day, not matter how we tried to work it out, it was going to cost anywhere from 1000 pounds to 2000 pounds ($2000 to $4000). This is just something I was not prepared to do for a few agility runs no matter how important they are. Next year it is in Austria and the following year it is in Denmark; both drivable from England. So I will focus my energy on those World Champs and just support the British team this year hoping that there will be one or two other OBay Shelties on both the british team and the danish team again. It was a very hard decision for many reasons. Zen is now 5 and at her prime. Hex is just 3 and running so well. It would have been so cool to have TWO dogs qualify! And I just love competing at the worlds; the atmosphere is great.....I will miss it this year! But life goes on and I am hoping the European Open fills the void for me!
So the agility while we were up in the Lakes was really enjoyable. Some different types of courses to enjoy. There were a few "themes" to some of the courses; things we do not often see down south in the small and medium classes.
We didn't get video on the first weekend; Dennis mostly took photos. How is this one? Notice he doesn't get many good photos of my dog! Just other people's dogs! Arghh!
As for the courses; one theme was pulling thru two jumps to get to another obstacle. Not a pull thru but a go between; kind of a thread the needle type thing!
Like this
and This
And tunnel wrapped under A-Frame like this (Ok-you can see this on the video)
and This (didn't like this one as it made a really bad angle for the little dogs to scramble up)
Here a video of three different courses; I found it interesting because Zen and Hex ran the same course (just over different heights).
5 comments:
..You make it look so easy! like a nice sunday stroll. Thank You for sharing this with us all.
Shame you've decided not to try out for the Worlds but I'm sure you'll enjoy the Europeans as much.
Sounds like you've had a really good holiday combined with some excellent agility makes my Cranleigh in the rain sound so boring :)
Good Luck at the EO with sexy Hexy! I love to try to run the 6-7 & 5-7 Jumping, they looks very interesting especially the 6-7.
Interesting course sections. Thanks for posting them. And lovely to read about your trip to the Lake District and see the photos.
In case I do not write to your before: I wish you the very best of luck and fun at the EO!
And I look forward to reading about it and seeing your runs on the blog later.
Best wishes,
Nanna & the mad tris in Denmark
One American's viewpoint here: what was that jumpers course shown in the middle of that video!? In a word, yuck!!! How tedious and trappy.
Of course, I always see a course through the eyes of a big dog handler as well as a smaller dog handler (since we get the same course for all sizes here.) I certainly hope no large strided non-BC dogs had to run that course. It would have demotivated my GSPs in a nanosecond. Or they simply would have run amok and ignored me. :-)
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