What a week!

I really want to talk about our amazing time at the IFCS World Champs last weekend but I just can't do the videos right now and take the time to sort out my thoughts. Hopefully I will still remember everything in a week or so. Short story is Zen was AMAZING and came away with three medals out of the 13 medals our team won. We were in an agility bubble for 4 days and it was great.

We have gotten in to the new house and all systems are GO with painting, clearing agility paddocks, cleaning, plastering, carpeting ect ect ect! Dennis has been away for the last 4 days so it has been extra work for me. Not that I mind as I am so happy in the new house but, seriously, I am a terrible painter! I did one closet and I think I should not be allowed to hold a paint brush again. Where are you Ann Marie??? I need some closets painted! :-)

So off I go again today to the house loaded with shit in my car that I really should not move with again! The charity shops are getting lots of donations this week. Honestly it is good to move just to clear out your house and de-clutter!

Since Dennis went to the house early this morning, I got some sneaky relaxing time on the internet catching up on my favorite blogs. These "ADS" from Team Small Dog just had me on the floor this morning. Laughter is a great way to start the day! Enjoy!

It's all about Zen-star: IFCS World Agility Championships

Zen, Zenny, Zenny Zenster, Zen-Star. It is all about Zen this week and Zen obviously agrees with this. LOL We are off to the IFCS World Agility Championships. This will be Zen's 5th time representing Great Britain in International competition.

Since I have been spending alot of time training the Zitzy pups these past few months; Zen training may have seemed to have been neglected. But these past two weekends have proved differently! Other than one error last weekend; Zen has run nearly 100% clear fast runs over the past two weekends of shows. At Tunbridge wells on Sunday she ran 100% clear runs and came 3rd in both the Olympia Qualifier (darn only the top two go through!) and 3rd in the Crufts Singles and both had class sizes of over 100 dogs. Both times beaten only by much bigger border collies. She cannot beat these dogs on time; it is physically impossible. But her consistancy and talent still amazes me. What a little star she is.



I have had no time to download videos from the past two weekends as we moved into the new house on Friday! All systems go as we get things ready to move the furniture in in two weeks. Meanwhile, thanks to Lian, here is a video of our Crufts Medium team running at Tunbridge wells. Zen is running last and since we already had one of our teammates eliminated I decided not to run the startline but try and get her to wait even though it was a relay. Zen knows when we are doing relays and has learned that startlines are not necessary in those classes!


We leave for the WAC 2010 tomorrow early and I am so psyched I can't wait! I just love competing at these events with all the pressure and excitement. Life is good!

UKA May 2010

We had a great weekend at the GT UKA this past weekend. The weather was nice for the first two days and then the rain and cold hit. Brrrrr!

I skipped quite a few agility classes with Zen and the pups once it started raining as I was not prepared to risk them on the contacts. Sadly one of the runs was Zen's Masters Agility run that took place when the rain was going sideways and there was random gusts of wind. One fall off the dogwalk was enough for me and Zen; so I pulled her from the class. I walked away from winning another £100 but that did not really bother me as my dog's welfare comes first. Little did I know that because Zen had won the Masters jumping and all the other medium dogs ended up eliminated in the agility; all I needed to do was put her over the start and finish jump in the agility section in order to win the £100. I know now for the next time but it was frustrating to hear this after the fact!

I trained the pups in their nursery class but they only got to do Nursery once over the weekend due to the rain. I do love UKA for having this class. Zaz and Itz did great contacts in this class and it is fabulous to be able to reward them in a competition environment. Thanks to Gordon for taking these photos of Itzy for me. I just laugh everytime I see the photo of Itz flying across the dogwalk with all four legs in the air!





We got some video of Itzy running but it involved me falling down at some point so I am going to skip posting that run! Instead here is a nice run of Zaz is Novice Steeplechase. What the video doesn't show (except that you can see the judge in her raincoat) was that it was raining and the running involved a few up-hill runs into the tunnel. I was really proud of both Zaz and myself for dealing with those uphill straight tunnels!

Birthdays Sad and Happy

I have never been good at remembering dates of birthdays; but I had some special dogs born all within the same week in different years.

Joy was the beginning. From my very first sheltie litter she was born on 2nd May in 1992. She was so special and so much FUN. I wish I could have her all over again.



My gorgeous perfect Hex even had the most perfect birthday 05/05/05. She would have been 5 years old today. It still seems unreal that she is gone and I still have trouble looking at photos of her without crying.



But a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my Zen-star. My smiling crazy girl who still takes my breath away when she runs and who has taken me all over the world. Born on the 30th of April in 2003; Zen has now turned 7 years old. Happy Birthday sweet girl.



I am blessed with having had the chance to own each one of these three special shelties. All three different in their own unique way but all three have stolen huge pieces of my heart.