Welcome to The OBay Shelties blog! Our blog is an honest diary of our life with our dogs along with news from Obay shelties around the world.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Time flies! Crufts 2014, Team GB, Gorgeous Shelties and more...

Where does time go? I had promised myself never to apologise for not updating my blog; it is not a job, I don't get paid for it nor do I make money from it. I always loved keeping track of people all over the world through their blogs; following their training and later enjoying their competition runs.  Yet I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for updating the blog and it became more of a chore rather than something I enjoyed doing.

I am not sure how to change that feeling but I will start just by doing a little catch up.

After Zaz had her singleton puppy "Z" her first competition back was Crufts 2014. I really love Crufts, it is my favorite competition of the year. This year Zaz qualified for two events: British Open and Agility Championships.   Little 2 year old Giz-mo was competing at his first Crufts in the Novice Cup. In addition there were three other OBay Shelties competing at Crufts this year. OBay Tiz Wild "Zev", OBay Itz A Secret "Zavvi" and OBay Tiz Zensational "Zeki". All three did well and helped keep the OBay flag flying! This was the first year that Dennis and I splashed out to book a room at the hotel on site at the NEC. Wow! That made my Crufts even more fun and relaxing. We have booked a room already for next year!

Giz-mo was a little star. I was so pleased with how he handled Crufts; he was so confident and full of his happy joyful Giz-ness! He is so much fun. A small error on my part in the jumping put him out of contention for the overall win but he won the agility section and went on become the Crufts 2014 Novice Cup Runner up winner.




Zaz was just a dream to run. She won every class she was entered in and following in her mom Zen's paw prints she became the Crufts 2014 British Open winner. To top off a fantastic Crufts 2014 Zaz went on to win her 3rd Crufts Championship in a row. Three times Crufts Champion!!

Here is her British Open agility. Yes I am lazy and don't put any effort in.....must...try....harder....



Here is our Championship Final. Running in the ring right before Best In Show is just the best adrenaline high! This course did not suit us as it was so fast and straight forward. I had to work on my mental game not to give up before we got out there. Our laziness helped us win again! :-) Sorry I don't have a video of Zaz's run on it's own. Our run starts at 10 minutes into the video.




After the excitement of Crufts we were right back to training to get ready for our Team GB tryouts. This year they tried a different way of choosing the team. A "squad" was chosen in January based on points accumulated during the year before. This squad then met a few times leading up to the tryouts in April to work on training courses and sequences. The choice of the final team would depend on your work during the "squad" period before the tryouts plus your results over the tryout weekend. Theoretically this would put less emphasis on a one or two day competition.

Even with less emphasis on the tryout weekend the tension and stress to do well on the day is so high! Zaz did well but the wait to hear if we made the team seemed forever!  Happily we received that call inviting us on the team and I am looking forward to the FCI 2014 World Champs in Luxembourg in September!

I am so grateful to have had two dogs that not only are amazing competition partners but also wonderful producers.  This photo is Grandma Zen, mother Zaz and son Z at 6 months old.

To be continued.....

2 comments:

Margit S. said...

Hello!
So happy that you decide to fill your blog again with live.
It is great that your are again at the WC in Luxenbourg.
It is such a fun to read it.
There are so much Agility compititors which forget the fun and love for dog and degrade them just to a tool.

Unknown said...

Just beautiful! Zen Zaz and Little Gizmo! He is such a sweet delight the singleton boy who is as loveable as EVER! and you are looking as gorgeous as ever yourself Bernadette! I cannot believe I let time and freelance stress allow me to miss out on so much of your blog. It used to be always a monthly highlight to see how your lovely shelties have been doing! Will be sure to stop by more often to catch on news from now on! Hugs and cheers! Love from me and Little E!