Girlpower Pups at Thames 2010

Zaz and Itz competed at their second Kennel Club show this past weekend. Thames is a huge show with 13 rings of agility and big classes. The largest class the pups were in had over 240 small dogs and the smallest class had around 70-80 small dogs.

Friday started out with an EO training session for Zen. It was a crazy course designed by one of the EO judges. Zen did well and I felt like we could handle the course. It was a good feeling to run it clean the first time through.

On Saturday I had the opportunity to run 9 courses with all three dogs. I say the "opportunity" because I seem to always end up missing at least 2 walk-throughs and miss running at least one class each day! It is just too much like hard work to keep up with all the announcements and walking back and forth over 13 rings. When it comes down to it I don't mind missing one or two runs with Zen but I wanted to do all the pups runs to give us the ring experience. Gosh I just had a flash of how difficult the KC International Festival with 20 rings will be. Yikes!

Zen had some really good runs all weekend and just topped it off nicely (Thank You Zen!) by qualifying for the 2010 Olympia Semi-final. The pups just constantly amaze me with their confidence and attitude. It is always fun walking the course for the pups and trying to figure out what I need to do differently with each pup. I also have to laugh at myself as I walk the course thinking things like "they can't do that yet!" and "this course is HARD for them". It is so different than when I walk courses for Zen as I feel so confident and connected with her. I am looking forward to that feeling with the pups and I am enjoying the journey with both of them.

Results-wise all three Girlpower pups at Thames did really well. Zaz and Itz racked up a few rosettes and trophies between them. And Karen and Yaz won a class and came second in another. The best part is that all three pups are happy in the ring and continue to show joy in their runs. What could be better?

One of my goals this year is to take a photo of the pups with their rosettes and trophies after each weekend of competition. This way I can keep the photos as mementos rather than keeping all the rosettes and trophies. After moving house I realized how crazy it is keeping them year after year. This way I can keep the photos and donate the trophies and rosettes to be re-used by the charities or schools. I do love to compete and enjoying winning a class (or two or three!) but many times I wish I could donate the trophies back to the clubs to re-use as I know how expensive it must be for the club to offer these trophies. I do love to keep the special trophies and had many a sentimental moment over this past week taking them out of the packing boxes, polishing them and placing each one carefully in their special selected spot. With some trophies and ribbons I could remember every moment of running the course and receiving the trophy. There was one special box that I opened which contained trophies of Hex's last two weekends of competition....I actually opened them, looked at them and then let them go. My memories of her are firmly in my heart and soul and I did not need a box of trophies to help me remember her.

Here are a few of Zaz and Itz's runs at Thames 2010. I did better on the Saturday with asking people to video. By Sunday I seem run out of steam and hate to bother people. It is not easy as we end up having to queue for so long and it is hard to ask someone to wait ringside for the entire time.

I will try and download some more videos tomorrow.