Kennel Club Festival and Dogs In Need 2010

Our mega-agility week has past. I had certain expectations of what we would achieve and it just did not turn out as I thought! Certainly not as expected but not in a bad way...

Zaz came in season unexpectedly which put to rest all our plans of getting into the finals and Crufts with Zaz. I was disappointed not to be running Zaz but that is the life of running an intact girl. So how lucky am I that I also had Itzy to run!

Itzy really came into her own during the week of agility. She actually went a little agility crazy but she was such fun to run.



Zen kept up her string of clean fast runs and made it to the British Open Final. She finished up by coming 2nd in the British Open (2nd to a fantastic fast kelpie from France) which sends her to Crufts 2011 for the International Agility representing England.





All the Kennel Club Festival finals were fun to watch. There were quite a few OBay Shelties that made it to the finals but especially note worthy was Daniel and Bailey winning the KC Novice Cup!



Another great OBay win put Zeki into Grade 7! Champ classes next year for Nancy and Zeki!




Dennis stayed with us at the Kennel Club Festival and with 18 rings of agility to get around it was helpful to have him there! Sadly Dennis had to return to work after the KC show. So he drove me to the Dogs In Need show, set up the caravan and left me and the three dogs for the week.

It was even more difficult not to be able to run Zaz at Dogs in Need as there are less runs per dog at this show. Compared to our many many (too many!) runs at the KC Festival, the 2 runs per dog at DIN seemed easy. Of course nothing is easy when all 4 runs happened before 11 am each day. Ha! Still DIN is such a nice show and very relaxed and chilled.

Itz continued to amaze me with her enthusiasm and speed!



I was so excited to find out that Itzy made the Dogs In Need Novice final! Itzy went into the final as the top placed Novice dog and ran last. She put in a great run and we only had one baby mistake where she ran by the see-saw. She had taken the previous jump at an angle and I did not think to worry about her picking up the see-saw. But she is still a baby and it is in these little things that we both need to get experience to start working together as a team. It is for this reason that I was so glad to have the whole week of being able to concentrate on Itzy. I called it the "week of Itzy". LOL Do you remember the old show children's show " The Howdy Doody Show"? For some reason the song stuck in my head and everytime I went to the ring with Itzy I would sing "It's Itzy Bitzy Time" to the theme song tune of "Howdy Doody". Yes I am sad but it cracked me up! This little dog sure knows how to make me laugh.



Although Itzy did not win the Novice finals; the OBay Shelties did us proud again with Daniel and Bailey coming 2nd and Peggy and little Zoe coming 3rd!



In the Small/Medium Champ finals at DIN we had two good results. Nicky and Indy won the small Champ ticket and Karen and Todd won the medium reserve champ ticket. Congratulations to the OBay boys who like to prove that it is not only girlpower. This is Todd's 2nd reserve champ ticket so we know that the Champ ticket cannot be far away!



Zen also made it into the Finals for the Grade 6-7 dogs. She put in another clean fast run and came 2nd to Natasha and Dizzy. I never feel dissappointed coming 2nd to the World Champion and Zen still amazes me with how easy she makes it seem.

Overall there were 7 OBay shelties that made it into the small/medium finals at Dogs In Need!



So the mega-agility week is over. Out of our agility bubble we all emerge; back to reality. Can I go back please?