Supa Zenny!

This was Zen's week for sure! It was not what I expected and I must admit I thought it was going to be HEX who would win the Supadogs final! But I underestimated my Zen as usual...

So we went to Supadogs for three days; one of them being the qualifier day for the Friday finals. There was ALOT of rain and alot of mud but it was still a good week. Zen struggled a bit against some of the faster medium collies but she still pulled off one 1st place, two 3rds, two 4ths and one 6th place. Hex was a superstar and came away with one 1st, two 2nds, one 3rd and one 4th. The funny thing is that both of them got a 1st over the same jumping course and got E'd over the same jumping course!

On Tuesday, the qualifer day, both Zen and Hex ran clear in the qualifer jumping and agility classes. There was 165 small dogs in Hex's classes and 128 medium dogs in Zen's classes. These clears qualified both of them for the Friday finals! Hex was actually seeded 1st in the finals for having the highest placed double clears of all the small dogs!

These were the trophies on offer for the Supadogs 2007 Finals. Aren't they gorgeous? I took the photos so that I could mentally picture one or two of them in my house. haha I have my own version of a mental management program!

We arrived on Friday for the finals with NO cheering crowd! Dennis was home putting up caravan security thingies and Lisa was home preparing for our long trip up to Hinkley. So it was me, Zen and Hex all by ourselves! Luckily Sue also qualified for the finals with her Novice dog Millie so that I had Sue and Barry to sit with, video and cheer for each other.

Here is Zen and Hex in my little car waiting to run in the finals.

My old girl Pax qualified for the Supadogs finals twice. The first year she got 4th and the second year she got 5th and we always missed out on the good trophies. Last year Zen qualified for the first time but ONE knocked bar in the second round put us out of the trophies again! I was determined this year to win one of those Supa Crystal trophies! I was so focused on Hex winning as I did not think Zen would win on the flat out open courses against the faster and larger border collies. But luckily one of the judges put up a suprisingly tight little course that just suited Zen down to a tee.

Unfortunately that tight little course caught out Hex and I and she got Eliminated on the first round. Boo hoo. She did redeem us by flying around the second round agility course and she was over 3 seconds faster than any other small dog in the final. Of course it was a bit of coulda, woulda, shoulda! She ended up in 7th over all in the small dogs finals.

Here is Hex flying in the finals.

Zen won the first round which put us running LAST for the final agility round. No pressure! I liked this photo of her even though it was taken from behind her. It shows her grace and drive.

Here are some cool photos of Zen jumping. Notice how her front legs are crossed and she seems to be turning in the air over the jump. She is so incredibly agile.

In the agility round I played it safe and actually held her contacts! Sue thought that was quite funny but I had the champ show the next day and that was more important to me. Luckily Zen had been in the lead from the first jumping by around 1.5 seconds (I found out later) because one of the super medium collies had a faster agility round by a full second. So in the end Zen won the Medium Supadogs Finals by a nice margin of .5 seconds! Whew!

Here is a photo of a happy me and a Zen who hates having photos taken after agility!

Finally here is a photo of Sarah Osbourne's Touchango Top Gear (Tig) with Zen. Tig easily won the Supadogs Novice Final which was a fitting end to his fantabulous Novice career! Sarah and Tig also train with Lesley Olden so we wanted to take this photo for her. Lesley has kept us on the right path in training our dogs. I must say that Sarah looked as cool as a cucumber in that final! Way to go Sarah and Tig!

Daniel and Bailey at Supadogs

Here is a little video of 9 year old Daniel running his OBay sheltie Bailey. Daniel and Bailey did so well this week at Supadogs coming home with quite a few trophies and ribbons. This was the only run of his that I got on video so I had to share it with everyone! Aren't they a cute pair? I have been promised photos of Daniel and Bailey with their trophies and will post them as soon as I get them.

Dennis was in a rush to get ready to head back to New York tonight so there is no music on this video. You get the luxury of hearing our "yeahs" at the end of Daniels run! hehehe

Cippenham Agility Show 2007

Supadogs is such a huge show. 12 rings of agility each day and agility for 7 days straight! I think I am pretty agility addicted but it is even too much for me! I was entered for 4 of the days and only ended up showing for 3. I am glad I did not compete everyday! It was muddy and wet for many of the days and the week didn't start out great for me on Saturday. But luckily we were not camping at the show this year (stolen caravan and all that!) and I was glad to go home each night to take a hot shower and collapse in my bed. But more about Super Supadogs later!

On Sunday instead of going to Supadogs I went to a more local and smaller (5 rings) show at Cippenham. Well that was a very good choice on my part as we did much better there. The reason may have been that I was more relaxed because the show was smaller. It certainly was not because the weather was any better as it rained there too! Anyway at Cippenham both Zen and Hex were little stars with each one winning all three of their classes! (Zen's classes had around 60 medium dogs and Hex's class had over 100 small dogs) I must say that was the greediest we have ever been at an agility show; winning 3 out of 3 with two dogs. 6 trophies and 6 red rosettes! This also put Hex 1/2 way towards her advanced status!

Here is a photo of the two winners smiling!

Who are now very bored with photo taking!

This show was made so much nicer because Liz was there with her mom and they set up ringside with a tarp over the cars and a nice dry place to sit and watch some runs. Liz even brought a super picnic with fresh salad and veggies from her garden. Now that's the way to enjoy an agility show!

The best part of the show was seeing Liz get her first ever agility trophy with one of her super Golden retrievers named Archie. Archie got third place in a jumping class of almost 200 dogs. What a fabulous achievement for a handsome SHOW bred golden retriever! Liz has been getting such nice comments from the judges on seeing both her goldens running with such enthusiasm and attitude. I wish I had some of those runs on video but it was too rainy to bring the camera out. Liz also did well in a subtly tricky ABC agility with a 4th or 5th place out of 100+ dogs. I think Liz was pleased to run some nice courses that actually required some handling challenges for her and her dogs. It is boring for some people stuck in Grades 1 and 2 to always have to run straight up and down courses. She trains her dogs well and loves to have some good challenges to be able to show off her dogs strengths. Her goldens will never beat the super fast Border collies on straight lines but they can do some nice work and love to show off on the more tricky courses. I really enjoy seeing judges that can design fun courses for the dog but that challenge the handler. It is a real science to designing those types of courses. Once I get my computer back I will try and post the ABC course as it was also the same agility course that I ran with Zen and Hex.

I will post more about Supadogs later; it was an action filled week of mud drenched agility!

Photos of MACH 2 Presto

Here is a slideshow of photos of Presto (Jordan's little boy) done by his owner Eleanor. I have to say I am glad I didn't go to Supadogs today as it is raining hard! Time to catch up on things around the house and on the computer!


Presto running agility 5/11/2007

Ups and downs and queuing in agility

Last Saturday began the week-long agility event called Supadogs. I was pretty down on Saturday after a fight with jet-lagged hubby on Friday and then a 5 minute walk back and forth to the day parking at the show on Saturday. I was just about ready to pack it up and go home! Added to the stress I had offered to help and ended up as a "caller" for a ring. Remind me never to do that job again! I think every person running in agility should have to work at every job at least once. Then they can understand WHY things are done as they are.

At a show like Supadogs with such distances from parking and camping to the rings it is really hard to tell someone they cannot queue. But when the queue is 12-25 dogs long is it right to let people queue up when they are not really due to run? What does that mean then for the people who are scheduled to run, show up at the correct time and then still have to wait 30 minutes standing in line? It was such a tough call as I really sympathized with the people who had just walked miles only to find out that it was not their running orders yet. I felt like a mean person! Should I have just let anyone run in any order?

The excuses I got for running out of order were funny at times. Almost all centered around the fact that they did not want to walk back to their car or camping. While I fully understood their dilemma; did they not realize that everyone had this problem? As usual I got one or two really grumpy and down right rude people. I was proud of myself though and just ignored them and didn't stoop to their low level. For the most part people, after their initial begging, were understanding.

Anyway no more calling for me! I will stick to judging, scribing, pads or poles! :-)

So obviously we had no luck at the first day of Supadogs in our own runs. Some close calls with Hex who was an absolute star but we just had some minor errors. Zen was the worst I have even seen her and I had to carry her out of the ring at one point! I have never ever had to do that with Zen before and hope to never have to do that again. She usually tries so hard for me and I do not know what went wrong that day.

BUT there was some really positive great news from the first day at Supadogs! Two of Zen's brothers had some fabulous runs and results:

• Bailey (Obay Truly Daniel's Dream) run and trained by 9 year old Daniel had his first ever 1st place!! Since Saturday he has put in quite a few clear rounds during supadogs week and has had even more placements not only in his junior classes but also in regular classes competing against the adults! This is really a special achievement as his mom, Linda, runs and organizes the Supadogs show. At such a huge event Linda is busy 24/7 and how wonderful for her to be able to award her own son a First prize! She was starting to choke up when reading out his results and I, of course, started crying also! Daniel and Bailey have such a special relationship. I have been promised photos and also have a video from later on in the week.

• Lucky (OBay Truly Lucky) started later in agility as he was focusing mainly on obedience. Recently he has started to be trained in agility by a young handler named Catherine. They have only been working together for around 2 months. Catherine is running Lucky this week at Supadogs and on the first day he won his jumping class! Lucky is a powerful dog and when he gets it right he will do fabulous and Catherine is just the right handler for him. He has had another clear (2nd place) and few near misses during the rest of the week but is getting great experience and now Catherine knows what he needs to work on.

So I was grateful to Lucky and Bailey (and Catherine and Daniel) for improving my outlook on Saturday! Sunday and the rest of the week at Supadogs turned out to be much much better! More news to come.....

Yoga today

Bridge, Reverse triangle, swordsman and fig tree. Those are the only ones I can remember today!

I was so tempted to skip yoga this morning and was feeling lazy. When it is over I am always glad that I went; I just have to get my enthusiasm up to get there. What I do for dog agility is mind boggling! Unfortunately it still doesn't help me run faster....

Supadogs Agility Week starts on Saturday. We are not camping (obviously as we have no caravan!) but I am planning on going Saturday, Monday, Tues and Wed. I have my fingers and toes crossed that Hex can win 4 classes this week and move up to Advanced. It will be tough as Supadogs usually attracts EVERYONE! We will do our best!

Good news on the caravan front. The insurance has gone thru and we can order a new caravan. They promised us that we will have it on the Thursday before Thames. So hopefully we will get it home, load it up and head out to Newbury on that Friday morning. The following week we are off with the new caravan for our holiday up to Scotland. No rain please!

Eastbourne show

Yesterday I took Zen and Pax to the Eastbourne show. We went there rather than BATS because it is much closer. It was a nice show with only 2 rings! Fantastic! Such a nice change from these huge 12 ring shows. It was nice to just sit ringside and watch some runs. Unfortunately it was quite windy and that got annoying after awhile and finally had to go sit in the car to get out of the wind. Luckily it wasn't a strong wind and it didn't affect the dogs.

Zen was running nicely after coming back from being in season. Hex has to stay home for another week and will be back out at Supadogs. I can't wait to start running her again. The courses were definitely geared towards easy at this show. I do wish judges would learn how to set simple courses without putting straight lines in. I know that many people would like courses with small challenges even at the lower grades. Give them something to do rather than run in straight lines up and down the ring. And that doesn't mean pull-thrus!

My medium and small classes were geared correctly for the lower grades (small and medium classes were open or Grade 1-7 so it had to be simple courses) but that doesn't mean that we necessarily run clear on them. haha

In Zen's jumping she ran lovely but after the collapsed tunnel she did something weird and actually ran BETWEEN 13 and 14. If I had tried to do that I couldn't have as the gap was pretty darn small! Oh well no clear in that class. Zen did win the pay-on the day jumping which was also pretty simple except for a three jump pull thru which she handled well. She also won the agility which was a very simple course but involved a 5 JUMP sprint down the long side of the ring (in a very BIG ring) at the end. I think these judges are out to kill me.

Here is a rough draft of the jumping course.

I am not sure why I entered Pax except that I knew it was a small local show. She was glad to be out running but I still think I am going to restrict her only to jumping from now on. She fell off the dog walk yesterday and that really worries me. I do not think it was the wind but a combination of her just not getting alot of training, losing her balance and a bit of the wind. It is quite a long way down from our dogwalks and she hit with a thud. She got up and shook herself off and seems fine; but she will be 11 in September and I want her sound in her old age. I have been lucky in that she has not had any lameness in her entire life and never had any agility-related injuries. Joy was the same way and she was sound and agile up until she left us this year. I don't know if it was genetics or just my being careful with them but I want the same for Pax. So no more agility classes for her and only the occasional jumping classes to keep us both happy. It was nice to have her out around the rings and playing with her; she is such a fun dog.

Today no agility for us. Hopefully a nice long walk with the dogs and I think the sun is shining. Hurrah!

Bitches in Season

This is the first time I have had so many intact bitches at once. It is got me thinking about bitches in season competing in agility.

I can understand not letting bitches in season compete at every show; but it is really necessary to stop them from competing at major finals and championship classes? They do allow bitches in seaons at the World Agility Championships. I wonder if it is worth putting forward a proposal for the same in England for major competitions. (Olympia and Crufts)? How can someone who wants to breed from bitches who compete work this out? My options are:

1. risk missing out on Crufts, Olympia, Championship classes ect.


2. spay the bitches and not continue a line of working dogs


3. Only breed from non-working bitches


4. inject the bitches with hormones to delay the seasons.

Obviously I pick number 1 especially for bitches that I want to breed that year. I am unsure what to do about Hex. She will not be bred this year or even next but I am really concerned about the side effects of the hormone injections. I must talk more with people who have used them and then had succesful breedings. I will have to make a decision soon especially if she qualifies for Olympia this year.

I am always planning litters and puppies in my head. I saw a gorgeous tri sheltie boy 2 years ago at Clean Run Camp. and luckily he belonged to a good friend of mine. Jif comes from show breed lines but has some good working dogs in his pedigree. But the reason I liked him was that Jif himself is a super worker with intense drive and speed and had good structure and type. I also met his brother, Spooner, who was the same way. That really excited me as it shows that the drive is genetic not trained! Now Diane just sent me this link to a video of the third brother in that litter. Wow! Now I am even more determined to breed Hex to Jif. It will, of course, produce another ALL BLACK litter! hahaha I am doomed! Check out the video of Jif's brother Seeker in Round 5 of the USA World Team Tryouts .

http://www.abctc.com/WorldTeamVideos.htm

Here are some photos of Jif. The funny thing is that I first met Diane back in 1994 or 1995 at the Boston ASSA sheltie national when I saw and liked another one of her male shelties called Teller (Ch. Aylmere Premonition). I ended up breeding Joy to him and that produced my soul-mate Pax. So maybe it is fate that I have fell in love with Jif. Or maybe we just have similar tastes in shelties! haha

Dennis is off golfing in France for two days, the lucky boy. He deserves a little break as he has been stressed about work lately. I have been doing too much gardening (Who needs trees they take up room and I always need more room for agility equipment) and have been very achy yesterday and today. Yoga this morning helped a little. We did:

• Open and closed sitting spinal twists
• Rocking horse.
• Warrior and Archer
• swordsman
• Fig tree

Now my instructor is about 70 years old and can do everything! What's my excuse?

Beacon Grade1-5 jumping course

We may have cracked it! Hope you can view this course. It wasn't as easy as just saving it as a jpeg or bmp because the CRCD wouldn't let me do that. Maybe because it is the older program? Anyhoo....we had to actually copy it and open it up in another program (we used Paint) and then paste and save as a jpeg. I have to thank my wonderful marvellous genius of a husband for figuring it out. Yes....he made me say that!

I do not think I quite have the exact spacing correct and I have to work that out as sometimes I design a course and then it just doesn't fit as I expect. It may be my lack of "spatial awareness" as Lisa likes to tease me about. The same reason I sometimes run into agility obstacles and knock them over or trip over my own feet! HA!

The course did run well and I liked it better than some of the straight up and down courses I sometimes see at the lower levels. The dogs that won had more independent weave pole entries which shaved time off of their runs because they didn't need to push the dogs forward and waste time. There were almost no dogs eliminated by going into the tunnel after 5/9 or by going in the wrong tunnel entrance. The majority of eliminations were from lack of start line stays and dogs blasting over #5 instead of turning right to #3. And the majority of 5 faults were due to knocked bars and incorrect weave entries. I should have written down the numbers of clears, faults and eliminations as well as winning times but the weather was so bad I didn't have the ambition. I just wanted to get back on the road for the 3 hour drive home!

No more judging for me this year as I want to concentrate on Hex and Zen and getting ready for the try-outs. I have printed out some of the USA world team tryout courses and am going to set some of them up. I would think that they put sequences in that they felt were representative of what they will see in Norway.

Congratulations PRESTO!

Congratulations to Presto on his MACH 2!

Congratulations to Eleanor and Presto on Presto's second Master Agility Championship!

Presto is now MACH2 O'Bay Dunstnburgh Rapid Tempo. I do not think Presto cares if he is Mach 1, 2 or 100 he just loves to do agility! Presto is one of the special ones; he inherited Jordan's sweet temperment which also makes him a great therapy dog as well as a fantastic agility dog. What a good boy! Rock on Presto!

how do I post agility courses on the blog?

I'd like to start posting some courses and sequences on the blog to discuss. Any clever people out there that can tell me how? I have the old clean run course designer. I am sure it has something to do with saving it as a jpeg....but I opened my course up and there doesn't seem to be that option.

Judging yesterday at Beacon was good . Unfortunately no one else should ever ask me to judge again as I think it always rains when I judge! I seriously (except for the Sheltie of the year show which was indoors) think every show I judged at has been rained on. And not just light rain but heavy downpours! Lisa has this fancy long wax coat that has now been dubbed "the judging coat" as I think the only time it is worn is when I judge. I don't even think Lisa has ever worn it for judging as it doesn't rain when SHE judges.

Since my good rain hats were stolen along with the caravan I had to make do with an older wax hat. Not a great idea as 1/2 way thru the class it soaked thru and I had rain dripping down my face. I had to switch over to Dennis' hat and that just about lasted until my last few dogs. The long wax coat kept me pretty dry and warm but even that was starting to get soaked thru by around 2pm.

So I think I judged about 350 dogs yesterday. 268 in Grade 1-5 jumping and 80-ish in Grade 6-7 jumping. I was happy with both courses but especially the Grade 1-5 course. I still think the Grade 6-7 course was almost too easy but at that point it was so wet that it was probably for the best. Once I figure out how to post courses I will try and post them here.

I enjoyed watching the dogs weave yesterday. Since it was jumping classes I could just position myself on the side of the weaves and really watch the action close-up. The cool part is that, even though alot of dogs missed their entries, once they got in very few popped out. The weaving action of almost all the dogs, including the novice dogs, was phenomenal. I has some super gundogs in my novice class (pointers, German shorthair pointers and vislas) and they all had great weaving style.

Unfortunately I did not know most of the people in my classes as they were from UP north. So I don't know who won the classes or if some of the gundogs placed at all. I do know that in my 6-7 class the top two places were won by the same guy and the 3rd and 4th place was won by another guy. Isn't that strange that 1/2 was the same handler and 3/4 was the same handler. That is pretty consistent! I guess my courses suited those two at least!

Caravan news......Well hmmmm.....got a call on Friday that the caravan had been "found". Turns out it was being sold off some dodgy lot in Bedfordshire. Some guy went to see it and was interested in purchasing . So he took down the VIN number and checked it out with the caravan club and, of course, it came up as stolen. So they asked the guy where he saw it and told him it was stolen and not to go back to the lot. Now the insurance company "investigates" it and brings the police in on it too. The police do not go in as we would do in NY with sirens blazing and cops with guns descending on the place. No way.......they check the place out and decide it is too RISKY and DANGEROUS for the police to go in! So the police have to get "back up" and search warrants and by the time they go back on Sunday the caravan is no longer there. Arghhhh!

The positive news is that the insurance company has been good in keeping us informed so that makes us feel better. But they would not tell us where the caravan was nor does the police contact us at all. All in all a very frustrating experience and , if our caravan doesn't show up again, still no idea when we will be able to get a new caravan.

Now Hob-b makes three!

Ok I have heard that bitches in season will bring other bitches in but this is crazy! Now Hob-b is in season! Three bitches in season in one house! And Zen is the worst as she wants to hump everything in sight!

We went shopping today so I didn't feel sad about missing ANOTHER champ show with Zen. Retail therapy! I actually bought a dress; I am not sure why but it was pretty. I need a friend to have a proper English garden party as it would be a good dress for that. Any takers? A jug of Pimms and finger sandwiches would be perfect!

Tomorrow off up to Beacon DTC to judge. It is a 3 hour drive up so we have to be up at 4:20 am. Uggghh. Best laid plans and all that. We were originally going up on Friday, camping at the show, competing in Champs and then hanging out and relaxing to judge on Sunday. NOT! First Zen in season, then caravan stolen, then Hex in season....Now driving up just to judge. I better not get any complaints on my courses or I just might lose my temper! Hehehe Actually I am really hoping they enjoy the courses I made as I did test them out in my backgarden and feel pretty comfortable with them. Fingers crossed!

The USA has now picked their world agility championship team. It is really cool that another Long Island person has made the team again with her papillon. Congrats to Andrea and her little papillon Chase. I am now starting to get excited about our own GB tryouts and being able to try out with TWO dogs!

mellowed out

I have thought about it during Yoga class this morning (when I was supposed to be emptying my thoughts instead of thinking) and have decided that I am now glad that Hex is not yet advanced. Well...not actually glad but more accepting.

Really she just turned 2 and has been competing in all of EIGHT Kennel club shows! What is my rush? We certainly have lots of training to do and stuff to work on. So no more moaning (well about that anyway!) and lots more training for me and the Hex-ster.

Now lets have no rain today so we can go out and train straight lines and pull-thrus and serpentines and push-thrus and contacts and dodgy weave entrances........HA!

I am sure to be sore later as we did the bridge, the dolphin, the frog, the warrior (my fav), the cat, the swaying palm tree and the dog in Yoga class. I am writing these down because the instructor will say things like "Ok we are going to do the Dolphin and you ALL remember how to do the dolphin, right?" And I am like looking around trying to copy what everyone else is doing because I have NO idea how to do the dolphin! But I hope that if I start writing them down in the blog I will start to actually remember. Or, at the very least, when Lisa says "what do you do in your yoga class?" I will actually know what to say.

Dennis should move out

Our house is way too full of female hormones! Hex came in season on Monday. Now I have two bitches in season which I guess is almost easier in some ways. We don't want to discuss what Zen and Hex have been doing to each other and poor Hob-b! Thank goodness I don't have anymore male dogs in the house.

So I am now missing MORE agility shows! And to make my moaning worse, our next show was to be Hex's first official Grade 6 class (where she can finally have her wins count towards Grade 7-advanced). She has been stuck in Grade 5 for the past two months. She has won 15 classes including 4 "intermediate" or "open" agility classes. So not only was she blocking lots of other Grade 5 dogs from moving up(and I did feel bad about that!) but if this was last year's rules she would already be advanced and able to compete at Championship classes.

I think I will be voting for allowing dogs to move-up up to 10 days before show date ! I hope it comes up this year for review with the Kennel club. This rule about not being able to move up if the show has already closed is crazy. I remember very well (not so long ago) how disappointed I was when I started out and Pax would get 2nd in starters to a dog that had already won out. So I can understand how people would be disappointed to get 2nd to a dog that could have easily moved up two months ago! I do realize how lucky I am to have such a special dog in Hex which is why I would love to see how she does in the upper classes not stuck doing courses that run up and down in straight lines.

Speaking of straight lines........what can my sweet Grade 6 Hex not do? FIVE straight jumps in a row! Hahaha Both jumping classes on Monday had 5 jumps straight down the long side of the ring (what is that 100 feet?) to finish. THAT she cannot do. SIGH. Guess what we are training this week once the rain stops? And for all you who say I should learn to run faster.....I say pssh

News from Denmark is that Monty has sired another litter of 5 this week. Yeah go Monty stud- man! In Denmark stud dogs are limited by KC law in the amount of litters they can sire in their lifetime. If I am not mistaken it is 25 litters for shelties. Monty is soon reaching that number so Johanna now has to start restricting his fun! I think Tazz is more than ready to take his place as the super stud dog!

Of course no news on the stolen caravan. Yet each day Dennis and I realize more and more things that were in it. I am hoping we have a new caravan in time for the Thames agility show; as that is the next one we planned to go camping. Yet I have a bad feeling that is being too optimistic!....

Bob (Lucky's human dad) is in the Brighton hospital. He had his surgery on his abdominal aorta today. I spoke to Sonia and he is out of surgery and all seemed to go well. If all goes to plan, he can be home by the weekend. Fingers crossed he is back home soon! And hopefuly Lucky will do what he can to help Bob's recovery. Even though Lucky can be quite strong, he is also so sensitive to Bob and Sonia and I can imagine he is missing Bob terribly. Get well soon Bob!!!

Here is a photo of Bob feeding Lucky birthday cake at Lucky's 1st birthday party. Do you think Lucky is spoiled or what? Ha!

Hob-b and the Antique Motorcycle Show

So I didn't go to the UKA show on Sunday. I am glad I gave Hex the day off and did not push her. It is hard to miss a show but there is always another... On the plus side I almost have my full set of 1st place UKA wine glasses to replace the stolen caravan ones! Hex won one on Saturday and Nicky and Indy won so many on Saturday and sunday that they donated some to our cause! So maybe by the time we get a replacement caravan we can have a full set of UKA first place wine glasses to put in it.

Dennis and I went to the Antique Motorcycle show at the Amberely Working Museum. What does this have to do with shelties? Well,of course, we had to bring one along for the ride. And how cool is that being able to bring your dog to a museum? That would NOT be happening in New York!

Hob-b got to spend the day out with us. She doesn't get as much attention as Hex and Zen because I have not started any training with her. Yet she is so easy going and fun to take anywhere. This was a good opportunity just to get her out alone without the other dogs demanding our attention. And, when necessary, she is quite portable! They have a cute little steam train that goes around the museum and Hob-b was quite good sitting on my lap for the ride.

We just had to pose Hob-b in the phone booth that was in the communication section of the museum.

Just in case there are any motorcycle fans reading this....here are some motorcycle photos.

I liked the motorcycles with the side cars. Some of them were really interesting in how they had them decorated; many had the cute old straw baskets on the back. Perfect for a sunday afternoon out with a picnic lunch? You can just picture it.

The thing that I don't understand is why I could not pose Hob-b in the side cars of these old motorcycles? Dennis wouldn't even ask! What is the point of photos without a cute sheltie in it? Geesh!

Now I may have done a silly thing on saturday! I made a deal with Nicky and Indy. And considering Indy just about won EVERYTHING this weekend I think I may have to pay up eventually. I told Nicky that if Indy gets to the World Agility championships this year in Norway and wins 1st, 2nd or 3rd in individual she can have her next OBay sheltie for free! Uh-oh! There was a witness so I cannot back out. hahaha

Dennis' agility debut

For the first time Dennis went into the agility ring! At the ESSC Working Section Agility show last week he ran Pax in the Helter Skelter. He was dissapointed that he didn't get a placement ribbon but he did get a clear round ribbon. Pax enjoyed herself and at 10 1/2 years old she still loves her agility.

Hex's monster name and her 2nd Birthday!

Get Your Monster Name

I found this on another blog and it is way too funny. And amazing what can cheer me up! Try and put your own names in! Hex is as close to a wicked monster as you can get being born on 05/05/05. We are just lucky it wasn't 06/06/06 or could you imagine how evil she would be then? I do adore her and can't believe she turned TWO today! Happy birthday Hex,Indy and Max. Such a special litter to almost be born on Joy's birthday.

We spent yesterday looking at caravans and trying to remember what was in our caravan before it was stolen. I had just put my bag of rain gear in it and so there went my raincoat and rain trousers, goretex rain hat, scarves and gloves. But worse, the bag was something that was handpainted by a sheltie friend when I left New York. It had "OBay Shelties" handpainted on with a sable sheltie. Boo-hoo! I have had that bag for 6 years and loved it! One of a kind! And all my sheep fleeces that we put to cover the upholstery. I had some great stuff that had waterproof backing that was perfect in the caravan for those wet doggie feet AND it matched the caravan! AND my set of 6 UKA 1st place wineglasses that I was saving just for the caravan. Priceless stuff! HA!

The caravan that we had (2006 Sprite Alpine fixed bed 4 berth) has now been changed for 2007 and NOT for the better! So we are hoping to get a Bailey Ranger instead. It is the same price and the same layout as our Sprite. Fingers crossed that things don't take forever as we were looking forward to camping at Thames next and then Scotland. We were resigned to missing this weekend at UKA and Vyne and next weekend at Beacon; but really don't want to miss Thames and Scotland.

Today Hex and I went to the UKA show at Newbury. I probably should have stayed home as I was not really focused. Hex ran OK in the morning, but not as good as she could. In Steeplechase she knocked one bar and thus I am STILL stuck in Novice steeplechase forever. Moan moan moan.... In senior jumping she did nicely but not as fast as she could. But no problems as it was an OBay Sheltie sweep with Indy 1st and Hex 2nd. Hex did win 1st in the senior agility with a really good round.

In senior gamblers all was going smashing until Hex decided to cut in front of me and I stepped on her! Poor thing let out a scream and held her leg up. Oh shit! After she finished telling me off, I picked her up and checked her leg. She was fine but truly pissed off at me. I put her down and finished the last tunnel and jump and took her for a walk to cool her down. Popped some arnica in her mouth and after the walk let her rest. About an hour later took her out and she seemed fine but the poor thing had grass stains on her leg where I trod on her. I am going to rest her tomorrow and skip the show just to be sure. If she seems ok tomorrow I will do the Vyne KC show on Monday.

All in all a good OBay Sheltie birthday show! Indy won three of his classes! He is just on fire and running fantastic. Hex won her agility and 2nd in Jumping. And the biggest news.....tada..... In Denmark Johanna had a clear run with the One-derful One! Wahoo! One-bunny is a bit of a handful but with all the right attitude and speed; just always having something go wrong to prevent a clear. The boys sometimes mature slower and I think One is finally maturing. It might have something to do with the obedience he has been doing lately I think!

I saw Fat Boy Todd today. He is so cute! What a gorgeous boy he will be (if those darn ears stay tipped!) and so outgoing. Todd's "dad" owns a fancy sportscar called a Lotus. He kindly let me pose Hex in it for some photos. I think we definitely need to park the car in an open green field and do a proper OBay photo session and get a new potential calendar photo. Dennis will touch this photo up later but I thought I would post it now.



Since we are skipping the agility show tomorrow I will take Dennis to the Amberley Working Museum which has an Antique Motorcycle show on this weekend. We have been trying to go to this museum since we moved here and never had the chance.

Birthdays and goodbyes

Today would have been Joy's 15th birthday. So last night Dennis and I took all the dogs up to Bignor Hill and spread Joy's ashes. There is a lovely spot up there with a large open field and great 360 degree views. We spread her ashes in the same spot that we spread Noel's ashes a few years ago. This photo of Joy was taken at Bignor Hill in 2003 when she was 11.

This stone used to be at Bignor Hill. I remember when Dennis and I first saw it and we tried to figure out what it meant. I do not know why the stone was there and it is now gone. When I read it for the first time my heart broke for whoever put the stone there. The words are " You shall wake grown young with perfect sleep". It turns out to be from a sonnet by Belloc.

I can imagine Joy grown young again running thru those fields herding sheep as that was her favorite thing to do. The spot reminds me of where I used to take Joy herding upstate NY when was just a baby. We would train with Jackie and the farm was just beautiful. Although we did alot of herding and training; the real reason I went was just to enjoy watching the dogs run run run in open fields and countryside. This was something they did not often get the chance to do. This is the same reason why I now love England.

These are sheep at Bignor Hill. God help them with Joy loose and chasing them for all eternity. She did not quite understand the clear distinction between herding and chasing. Bless her!

So today Joy's littermates, Bell and Dash turn 15. Happy Birthday Bell and Dash! Eleanor sent me some photos of Dash taken this week. (ps eleanor who did his ears?! - see even at 15 years old I want to groom my puppies!) Eleanor says Dash is doing well; he is still always hungry as shelties tend to be and still enjoys being fussed over. A friend of Eleanor's brought a cake into dog class to celebrate Dash's birthday and he got to eat some icing. Dash was always a gentleman and quite the social butterfly so I am glad he got to spend some time being fussed over.

Yesterday we also said good-bye to our caravan. This was not planned and it was stolen right off of our front drive. I am remarkably calm about it and thank goodness for insurance. When I pulled up at the house and realized that the caravan was missing I just started to shake. All I could think about was the dogs in the house. Thank God the burglars just took the caravan and never went into the house with the dogs. Caravans are replaceable.

Good Bye to Yogi

Ann Marie and Norman made the decision to end Yogi's suffering last night.

Good bye sweet little Yogi. You were such a sweet golden boy and you have left us way too soon. I will miss you and your little chirps.

Please keep Ann Marie in your prayers this week. She will need all her strength to get thru this.

Weekend antics

We had a busy dog weekend. On Saturday was a nice local agility show. Haslemere is held at a garden center which is really pretty. You would think we would have all day to socialize and take photos at the garden center wouldn't you? Well no, as usual the day passes way too fast and we only get to chat to people in passing. I am glad we had Avril and Richard for dinner the night before as it is so nice to chat without having to keep an eye on the dogs and wondering if you are missing your runs.


Lisa judged all day and I scribed part of the day for her. Well I will certainly help at that show again! The judges and scribes got super lunches at the garden center and they had yummy pecan pie. My mom always made fantastic pecan pie and I have to admit that this was the first time I have had pecan pie almost as good as mom's! Plus the club also gave the scribes some cash and dog toys. Cool!

I was particularly glad to be back at that show as they had not had classes for smalls and mediums for the past 3-4 years. This was the first time back there for us in awhile. I think they had some teething problems as they didn't expect such large entries. But overall a good show for us with Hex going 100% clear again. Two runs and two first places for my wicked one. Zen did well also with one 1st place in agility. Which run was she eliminated in......Lisa's course! Figures the one course I should get right after watching 170 large dogs go round in the morning while scribing! Nah, I still got it wrong! I blame it on Lisa, yeah that is it, it is her fault! haha Oh and the trophies were great. They were silver photo frames engraved with "Haslemere Dog Training Club: 1st Place". Now I have to actually print some photos to put in them; something we rarely do these days with all the photos on the computer.

I was determined to get photos of the three Zen puppies that would be there on Saturday. They turn 6 months old this week so it was the perfect time for photos. Yeah right. ...Try and get three groups of people and three puppies together at one agility show. I was dreaming. But we will definitely blame it on Mary as they left the earliest. We went by the pedigree van to grab her for the group photo and she was already gone. Bummer!

But we did eventually get some photos of the pups, just not all together...

Here is Oz looking especially pleased with himself. I cannot figure who he looks like; he doesn't look like his Dad Tazz. I am wondering if he kinda looks like his grand-dad Monty.



And here is Mary demonstrating Oz's heelwork.

Here is Zen and little Zoe. Zoe seems to be the smallest at this stage; she is very fine boned and petite. But she has all of Zen's mannerisms and is very...hmm.... how can we say politely... manic!

But the most photogenic and the most like Zen in looks is Kizzy. She is the spitting image of Zen at the same age.

Sunday was the ESSC Working Section Agility show. It is so fantastic seeing so many shelties doing agility. I hope to post some vidoes soon. The best one will be an OBay FIRST......tada......Dennis actually ran a course!! He ran Pax around a simple Circular Helter Skelter course. It was so nice to see Pax out running again and Dennis running with her. We tried to get Dennis to run Zen on the same course but he chickened out!

We didn't get many photos at the show as we were busy running the sales stall (which did really well). But be sure to check out Lisa and Chi's blog for a photo montage and Lian's sheltie blog for some chat about the sheltie show.

Moan and complain!

Ohhh darn! Zen came in season today! Her pups turn 6 months old anyday now so it is not unexpected.... The good news is that her next season should be after the World Championships in September and the Sheltie International Agility Show in October. The bad news is that we are going to miss TWO championship shows in the next two weeks that we have already entered and PAID for. Arghhhhhhh!

It would be so much easier to have a spayed bitch!

Happy 4th Birthday to a great litter!

HAPPY 4th BIRTHDAY

30 April 2007

From left to right in a photo taken Sunday at the English Shetland Sheepdog Agility show:

• OBay Truly Taking A Chance "Timmy"
• Ag. Ch. OBay Truly Balanced "Zen"
• OBay Truly Lucky "Lucky"
• OBay Truly Focused "Chi"

Happy Birthday also to Ag. Ch. OBay Truly Unique "Unique" who is in Denmark. And OBay Truly Daniels Dream "Bailey". We missed you two!

I cannot say this was the BEST litter produced here at OBay.....I think some people would argue that point! hehehe And I have been lucky so far in that almost all our litters have had special dogs in them! BUT how special was this litter which includes my girlie Zen? Really truly special! All from True's first litter here in England. Thanks again Truly mom. And, of course, not forgetting our little stud man and father Monty. Monty you did good!

I am so grateful for this litter. It gave me Zen but it also gave me great new friends added to our extended OBay family. We love you all and thank you for giving these pups such great homes for the past 4 years.

Puppy sitting

I spend Tuesday night and wednesday puppy sitting at Lesley O's place. The pups are only one week old so there is really not much to do. I got the easy job. Lyn and Les are watching the pups when they are around 5-6 weeks old. HAHAHA Little do they know!

I was planning on attending the Susan Garrett jumping seminar on Tuesday. But whent the alarm clock went off at 4:30 am I just couldn't do it. The thought of driving 3 hours at that time of the morning by myself was not attractive at that point. Plus I would have had to leave early to get to Lesley's by 5. It just seemed like too much for one day and a recipe for disaster with me tired in the car. I know I will be kicking myself that I missed it but hopefully she will be back.

Lesley's house is surrounded by nothing but fields. My idea of heaven. Dogs can bark and no one can hear or complain. But.....that little guard dog rottie of hers....Bling barked the whole night! Little witch! But I must admit she is awfully cute and I could see myself with a dog like that. Just watch out anybody who tells me I cannot park where I want when I have a butch dog like Bling! hehehe

Beanie is the perfect mother very attentive and sensible; so I had lots of time to do some writing, reading and paperwork. Even better I had time to take Hex and Zen for nice long walks in the fields. It is great to be able to just walk out the door and walk anywhere. We did little bits of agility but not too much.

In the afternoon I took Zen for her swimming appointment at the Doggie Pool down the road from Lesley. This is her 5th time swimming there and although she tolerates it she does not love it as much as Hex does. They suggested I bring Hex in to help Zen get more relaxed which was really nice. I just adore Hex she is up for anything. I popped her in the pool and she swam around, grabbed a toy and proceeded to do laps around the pool. Zen looked at her like she was crazy but started swimming with a little more enthusiasm!

This pool is raised above ground which Hex first found confusing. The pool that Hex learned to swim in is set in the ground so that she can dive in and out on her own. Yesterday after I took Hex out of the pool to give her a rest; she ran around looking to see how to get back in. She realized there was no ramp, so she put her feet up and looked over the top. Once she realized it was above her head she took a flying leap, perched on edge and decided that was the way to get in! That's my Hex always gettting what she wants!

How can I not post some puppy photos? Here are two of the three black and white pups. Nine pupppies total! Damn Lesley is lucky!

And one of the 6 red and white puppies. Awww!

Agility shows, ranting and puppies

Last weekend I took Zen and Hex to a KC agility show. At the last minute the club put out a desperate request for helpers. So I offered my help even though I do not know anyone in this club. I don't mind helping if I can as long as my dogs don't get left alone too long. I enjoy meeting people at different rings and placing names to faces.

Anyway I got to the Wallingford show and was directed where to park in a special helpers area. I put the car along the edge of a fence right next to a row of parked workers cars. I got out started to set up my reflective sheets ( it was going to be a hot day) and was ready to go walk my first course which happened to be team. By the way, please remind me not to organize teams again! haha Way too stressful!

So being slightly occupied the next thing I know, one of the club members come running at me and starts yelling at me from across the way "ARE YOU BLIND?!!" I had no idea what she was talking about, like... WTF ....(see I have been hanging around Lisa too much and now type in funny text speak)... how is that a way to speak to someone you do not even know? She then tells me in an really patronizing tone that I SHOULD have seen the words painted in the grass along the road. It was written "Zoe". Well, excuse me, I was parking next to other people and didn't feel the need to look in the grass for names! Either way, all it required was a polite "Sorry you cannot park there it is reserved for so and so". At that point I really just wanted to get back in my car and leave. Added to the stress of trying to organize a team it was not a good start to the day!

I think I handled it all right. I didn't get too pissy with her although I was "thundering wild" as Sue likes to say. I think I asked her for her name hahaha. Like what was that going to do? It was all I could think of at that point other than saying to her that I was really glad I offered to help her club! I moved the car and ran off to walk the team event. Very confusing event when you have to try and replace team members. Next time I will know that we need to fill in reserve members on the entry form. I must admit I did rant and rave for about 1 hour afterwards about this lady as anyone that was in my vicinity will testify to! hehehe And I still remember her name!

My two teams did not place but it was fun running anyway once the organizing bit was over with. The medium team was an awesome team and could have definitely smoked the competition if we had all clears! But that is the fun of running with fast dogs, anything can happen! The small team was pretty darn good too but 2 mistakes (one by me and Hex!) put us out of contention.

The rest of the show was good. The weather was darn near perfect, sunny yet breezy. I worked on one of the rings for the entire morning and enjoyed it. My favorite dog's name for the day was a little yorkie called "Dinky Doughnut". Is that too cute? This little yorkie was super fast with a good handler. It will be a team to watch out for. Hex and Zen both did well. Hex came home with two 1sts and one 2nd place. Zen came home with a 2nd and a 3rd. The 2nd place was on an agility course that I was not sure we could run clear in. I liked the course as it had some handling in it and I was able to try out some moves that I have been working on. Zen was out of 1st place by 7/100 of a second behind a super fast border collie, so I was well chuffed!

I went for a lesson with Lesley O on friday and did some good work with Hex. I also got to see Beanie's (4th in the world agility championships 2006!) NINE puppies. They looked really good and healthy at only 3 days old. She had 7 bitch puppies and 2 boys. Some were red/whites and some black/whites. I love watching puppies grow up and see how they develop even when they are not mine. I am going over to Lesleys tonight to watch the pups while Lesley is away in Ireland for the day. It will be a good chance to get some cute puppy photos! I will bring Zen and Hex and have a chance to train some tomorrow on Lesleys equipment.

I had to show you all this photo I took today. Hex actually sits at the window in the living room and looks adoringly out at the agility equipment. She can sit there for quite a long time!

Hex's new Bling-Bling wardrobe

Like any posh girl Hex has to have a special wardrobe. She just got her new Bling collar and she wore it for the first time at the agility show this weekend. We have gone thru ALOT of collars for Hex. At first I got her a nice red Bling Collar but it was not right for her. Then I tried a nice pink Bling collar and that was not right either. None of them really suited her. In reality there is only one color for Hex...BLACK! So we tried an inexpensive black rhinestone collar. It was OK but it just did not suit her either. Finally we found the perfect agility collar for her at Pet Needs. It is a lovely black leather with swarovski crystal and has a matching lead. She looks great in it!

I spoke with the guy who makes the collars and explained that I wanted a flat tag rivetted onto the collar. In agility they are allowed to wear collars but cannot have dangley (is that a word?) tags attached. The flat rivet-on tag has our mobile number engraved on it in case of emergency. It makes me feel better having a phone number on the dogs collars. Having done sheltie rescue for so long makes me aware of just how often shelties can get lost. A lost sheltie goes into a panic and can run for miles. Collars with tags are the one way you are almost sure to get your dog back if it is found. Microchips only work if the person knows to get the dog scanned. Luckily most people will check a collar for a tag and call if your dog is found.

Hex does have her special collar and lead given to her by Dennis. Her Harley Davidson "Bad to the Bone" lead and collar will be saved for a special occasion. Maybe her first trip to the World Team tryouts or The World Agility Championships?

Hex at UKA Prested Hall Essex

We went to to Wallingford KC show on Saturday. It was a good show in most ways but I will talk about that one later! Plus we went to a Susan Garrett seminar last week AND we saw Beanie's NINE puppies on Friday. Cool! I will give more details later.

On Sunday we went to the UKA show in Essex. It was a really small show but in a nice location and very relaxed. We had some mixed results but overall a good day. Here are some of Hex's runs. She runs funny over the UKA heights which are just under 2" lower (12") than KC heights (14"). She does these funny little bunny jumps instead of extending out. I guess she feels she doesn't need to put as much effort into it! Now if I want to try out for the IFCS world team (thru UKA) I have to move her up to the 16" class. That would be about 2" higher than she jumps in KC. I am not sure if I will do this mostly because I don't think she would be competitive at that height against dogs the size of Zen and larger. We will see; first we need to get her up to the champ level at UKA and that seems to be taking forever.

Hex is running to Dennis' choice of music which is most befitting to my little wicked witch!

UKA this weekend at Just Minis Agility Club

Hex, Zen and I went to the Just Minis UKA show this weekend. I got a funny reaction when I first got there. When I got out of the car and walked to the rings people kept asking me "WHY was I there?" haha I tried not to take it too personally! Well... the reason is that although there was also a KC show this weekend, it was miles away. So I decided to stay local and support the Just Minis club. Plus I do like the UKA shows because, at the higher levels, I am finding the courses just that little more difficult and challenging.

And this is what we need! I don't need to run straight up and down courses that some judges put up to be "nice". It has nothing to do with running clear or not or winning or not. It is because I need to work on difficult sequences to see if we can do them! And if we cannot do them...well we need to go home and work on them! I can bitch and moan with the best of them when I walk a course but it is because I like to psych myself up and not take the course for granted. The more I worry about a certain section of a course, the harder I work on handling it! This is why I am always the last person left walking the course until they kick me off. HA!

The Just Minis show was really nice as it was small and compact! Since we had 8 runs each day (4 with each dog) it was nice to have the car parked close and not have to walk miles back and forth to get the dogs before each run. The weather was HOT HOT HOT! Gosh I certainly don't miss that hot weather that we used to always train and run in back in New York. YUCK! I will take good ole rainy cool England for agility anytime! Give me the wind of Newbury and the cold rain at Ardingly over the hot humid sunny weather of the Tri-state NY/NJ/PA anytime! And don't remind me I said that when I am moaning about the rain at our next agility trial...

We had some really good courses to run this weekend. I loved the two jumping courses that we had on Sunday. They were really difficult! Yeah! Hex and I almost got thru the senior jumping but I had a brain freeze at a certain section. Hex is running so FAST lately that I have no time to think. Hurrah! But I was pleased with her run and was able to go back and rework that section and did eventually get it right. (too bad we can't have do-overs). Zen ran the champ jumping under the same judge. It was very similar to the senior course. She ran great and we ran clear with first place. I HAD to do a few front crosses on that course. They don't come naturally to me; I would rather handle her from behind. But these courses needed a few front crosses. They weren't perfect but we did them.

The only course that I said "No" to was the last steeplechase course of the weekend. It was HOT by that time and I was tired. The course was HUGE and involved two straight side by side tunnels and uphill straight line finishes. No thanks! Not for me! If only I could have brought in a subsitute long legged fast running man (hey dennis) to run for me! So Lisa and I left on a good note and went home for a BBQ!

As for results....

• Zen finished her UKA Championship and Win Championship. Titles are CAP and WCAP. They somehow don't carry the excitement of her KC Agility Championship but, hey, a championship is a championship!



• Zen, Hex and Chi all won their respective Royal Canin Agility qualifier classes. It was the same course for each level. Chi and Zen and Hex were all tenths of seconds apart in times. Chi was the fastest of them all! Go Chi, the stud man!



• Although she isn't running her OBay sheltie yet (well Todd is only 4 months old!) Karen won TWO of her Royal Canin Agility qualifiers. She won both with her little poodle and with her BC. We mention her on this blog because she is a Budding OBay Sheltie handler.(note new term "BOSH") hahaha And we can mention her husband Chris, who won HIS Royal Canin agility qualifier because he is the husband of a Budding OBay Sheltie Handler.



• Hex also moved up from Novice on Saturday to Senior on Sunday. She ran really well all weekend. But not as good as Zen who ran 3 out of 4 clears on Saturday and 3 out of 3 on Sunday. Go Zen!



• Lisa had a good weekend also. Billy ran one run in senior jumping and ran clear. This moved him up to the Champ level which was Lisa's goal for him. Go Billy! OK he is not an OBay sheltie but we call him an honorary OBay. Well more often we call him Billy the Bastard but that is another story..... Lisa also ran Chi and they had some great runs and I think won two classes each day.

We arrived home early on Sunday and were able to sit out and enjoy the nice evening on the deck. Dennis and Tony barbequed for us and we had a relaxing evening. Oh and I got to drink some yummy Toasted Almond mixed drinks in my new 1st place UKA glasses! Much better than spending hours driving home from Shuttleworth show....now you see why I didn't go to Shuttleworth??

And to end this very long post...look what Dennis worked on for me this weekend!

More Zen runs from Easter Celebration

Dennis videoed a few more of Zen's runs at Easter Celebration and I love the song he chose for them. What an appropriate song for an agility team. I hope I always DO praise Zen like I should, she deseverves it!

She was a star also this weekend at the UKA Just Minis show. But more about that later! Right now it is time to BBQ and relax.

OBay Shelties at Easter Celebration Agility Show

Zen, Chi, Hex and Timmy (all are True pups) running the same agility course at the Easter Celebration Agility Show. I love to watch all of them run!

Horses, Eggs and Caravans

What we do on Easter...to my father's horror it wasn't going to church......sorry Dad!

One of the best things I like about agility in the UK is the camping. It is so nice to set up the caravan and "garden" and have all the comforts of home. Of course this weekend it helped that the weather was glorious!

The dogs become very relaxed and comfortable. I think we all perform better at the shows where we camp. We can easily bring all the dogs and get a chance to take them out for socialization and walks. I think Pax and Jordan especially enjoy getting out since they don't compete anymore.

We got to the showgrounds on Friday and had time to set up and relax before the agility show on Saturday and Sunday. Even better we stayed until Monday so no rush to break down the caravan and leave Sunday night. We had a nice time camping next to Andy and Nancy and little Kizzy. It is nice to sit around after the show and chat while drinking and eating. What could be better? Talking dogs and agility and a nice glass or two of red wine! I had a chance to groom Kizzy's ears and spend some time with her. We let Zen and Kizzy play together. Zen isn't so impressed with her children at this moment but she did allow Kizzy near her and let her run around while playing ball.

On Monday (which was a holiday in England) there was a Horse parade. They had fantastic horses and carriages/carts all going by our caravan! We had front row seats. You can see that Hob-b was interested yet not worried in the least. She is such a sweetie and is fun to take anywhere.

Here are some photos of the horses.

At the end of the weekend we had lots of ribbons and crystal. Even better we won Chocolate easter eggs! Zen is wondering....if she did the winning......why doesn't she get the chocolate?

Easter eggs!

Just a quick post to catch up on this weekend. I will post more details tomorrow when I can sit down and type type type!

Good things:

• Nicky and Indy went Advanced! (grade 7!) I am so proud of them.


• One of Monty's pups in Denmark (Sunny) won a Best of Breed at 12 month old! Beauty and Brains!


• Zen had 6 runs this weekend and went clean in everyone! 100 % clear runs! She won me 4 easter eggs (we got huge chocolate easter eggs for every 1st, 2nd or 3rd place. Zen won 2 first places, 2 second places, 1 fourth place and 1 sixth place. I was so pleased as there was some great competition on the medium classes this weekend. Her three Crufts team-mates were all there competing and they are all so very very good! So I felt great accomplishment to place well in that league of competitors.


• Hex was WICKED GOOD! Not as consistant as Zen, but only due to some minor errors. She ran 3 clears out of 6 and all three were FIRST PLACES! (and three easter eggs) Again she was running against some super dogs and I was so pleased to see how she compared against the big guns.


• We camped at the show and had a great time seeing Marion and Tim and catching up with Andy and Nancy. Dennis BBQ'd all weekend and relaxed which he needed.


• Dennis took loads of photos of both our dogs and other dogs. I need to go thru them and figure out whose dogs they are! Some of the photos are breathtaking.


• I got to see Zen's babies Zoe and Kizzy! AND Hob-b's baby boy Todd.

Bad things:

• Lian's little sheltie Titan was injured. Fingers crossed he will be ok.
• Coming home to find a large bird got into the house thru the chimney! Bird poop and broken items all over the dining room and hallway. How does one clean bird poop off the carpet? Arghhhhhh! And sadly a dead bird at the end of it all.