Zen is 11, Yay is 2 and Dania Cup 2014

My lovely Zen turned 11 in May. Zen is retired from agility not due to injury or illness but just because she is so awesome she deserved an early retirement. She spends her days hanging out in the garden, occasionally running around a small agility course and teaching puppies how to tug. Here she is with her three children Giz-mo, Zaz and Itz. I loved that the chicken photo-bombed the photo!

My gorgeous sable fluffiness Yay turned 2 in May. I am just enjoying her so much. She started competing seriously in March and even with limited competing and a month break for being in season she quickly moved up the levels into Grade 5.

Yay has only been to about 10 shows before we left to compete in Denmark at Dania Cup 2014. Dania cup is such a fabulous competition that I have blogged about previously. A wonderful atmosphere, great courses and fantastic handlers. I love it! I was happy to be running Zaz and Yay this year (you can only do 6 runs per day so you need to limit the number of dogs you can compete with). Yay would be starting in Class 2 which equates to her Grade 5 here in the UK. Zaz would be competing in Class 3 which will give us a great warm up for the World Champs in September.

Zaz ran well and we won a few classes and placed top 3 in many others. It was such a great experience for us being able to run European courses day after day. I just love my Zaz-star! But it was Yay who really surprised me! She needed 6 clears (minimum 3 in agility) within the top 20% of the placements to move up to Class 3 and she did it! She had some great runs and won many classes. I feel as if we are starting to be a better team together. She is different to Zaz and Zen as she can easily get over excited but she is still such fun! Yay did well in not only her graded classes but also did well in her "open" classes which qualified her for the Dania Cup 2014 final!!! The final was a great course and Yay handled it well but our inexperience as a team caught us out at obstacle 15. I was so proud of her and know that this won't be our last experience running a major final! She has so much more to give. Here is just a sampling of Yay's runs at Dania Cup.




The greatest part of this show are the trophies! There are none! Instead you get to pick of great useful items or vouchers towards items from the vendors on site. Here is our winnings for the week!

So that is my update for now. Thank God everyone here is well: people, dogs and chickens. Life is Good and may it long continue!