Thank You to Toni Mapes, Toven Shelties.

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!

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.....

Yay's first agility competition and Puppies 2013

My previous litter (the Boyz litter) was in 2011. So now my long planned Zaz litter is born and ta-da....ONE puppy......Geez...I guess the only positive note is that I won't be called a puppy farm. More about Mr. "Storm" in another post. He is gorgeous, happy and healthy and how can I be disappointed in this.

I have been neglectful about documenting Yay's  progress. She is still such a fun "puppy" to train but not really a puppy anymore! She is now 18 months and I entered her in her first competition. I am certainly not rushing Yay but this is more from sheer laziness rather than any planned schedule. I would normally have had her ready long before now but hopefully we will make up lost time during lots of winter training.

Yay and Giz-mo are such a pair. My little Yin-Yang of sheltie cuteness.

 I only entered Yay in a jumping class at Rugby as her running contacts are not finished. Dog walk is just up to full height and she hasn't started her A-frame yet. Funnily enough I worry more about the Aframe than the dog walk; I am stressing about how to start the Aframe as I have had mixed results with the buy-one-get-one free method.

  The video was edited because we stood on the start line for over a minute. I loved the chance to see her deal with the delay and hold her start line as self-control can be difficult for Yay.  It is a busy indoor show and it was great chance for me to see how Yay dealt with distractions. I would guess that most agility rings do not have judges dressed like snowmen, Christmas puddings, tigers and, my own favourite, St. Lucia.  So one run and it was all over too quickly! I knew I enjoyed it because I just wanted to do more! We were eliminated and it was totally my fault. I went into slight panic mode wondering if she could do certain moves (could she do an acute rear cross?  Could she send around a 180 degree jump sequence?). Silly really as I just should have done them as it didn't matter if we won or not but I am only human!

So here she is in all her gorgeous Yay-ness!

Chicken-topia 2013

This post is for another blogger who is thinking of changing her chicken enclosure.  Just for those who worry; my dogs are all doing great! I haven't given up the shelties for the chickens just yet.



Our chickens have just become part of our family. They are just as naughty as my dogs and regularly escape and mix among the shelties.  I have done  many a running dog-walk session with Yay with chickens pecking around under the dog-walk.



The design of chicken-topia has fluidly changed as we add more chickens and learn more about how to keep  them (and us) happy. I am sure there will be more changes as we go on but we are happy with the set up now. It is easy to collect the eggs and to keep clean. The chickens have a very safe enclosure for at night and for when we go away for a day or a night. What I like about this space is that it is fully covered so it does not get so muddy and wet. If we go away the chickens are safe for a day or two as they have access to food, water and can get in and out of their coop.  When we are home they have a larger enclosed area to scratch around, find bugs and make dust baths. Lately the naughty hens are escaping into the main garden.  I don't  mind this but, of course, this is when they are most vulnerable to predators.

This is the entire chicken "paddock" with the secure  enclosure in the back.

This is the chicken enclosure. It is approx. 5m x 3m and houses their plastic coop and plastic nesting boxes. It has both sun and shade and we also planted two shrubs in the corners.

During the day when we are home they have access to this large paddock. We also leave the greenhouse open in the winter so they rummage around in there when it is really wet out.

The interior of their safe run. Everything is plastic as I worry about mites. I wanted to buy one of the fancy plastic coops but they were so expensive! Instead we converted this garden box and it has worked really well. The chickens sleep in the converted garden shed and they lay their eggs in the 3 plastic nesting boxes outside. I need to add another nesting box as they sometimes queue up to get in and start loudly complaining if one chicken takes too long! They are so funny.

 

 

The enclosed run is made with very heavy duty (expensive!) wire. The original chicken wire was not as strong but was dug into the ground, so we left it and added the stronger wire fencing in front of it. The new wire fencing is bent out at the bottom like an apron for about 6 inches. This prevents the fox from digging under it. The fence is very high but to be extra secure we added a roof. Theoretically the enclosed run is 100% fox proof but it is still a worry.

 

 

 

When we did the extension on our house we had a trench dug to bring water and electric out to the chicken paddock. This makes taking care of the chickens so much easier  and gives us lights when checking on the chickens at night.

 

So we do our best for our girls and they reward us with gorgeous eggs and lots of laughs. I still cannot believe how much fun they are even with all the work involved.

Kennel Club International Agility Festival 2013

I have so much to blog about but have been trying to stay off the computer.  Instead of trying to cover everything (European Open, Fionia Cup) I thought I would start with the KC Festival.

The Kennel Club International Agility Festival is the marathon of agility! Almost 20 rings, 2000 plus dogs and 3 days of agility. I have a love/hate relationship with the Festival but I decided to go back this year since it was at a new venue and I had a chance to compete at the Novice Cup with Giz-mo.

The venue this year was much nicer but the walk to the rings was still crazy. Especially for those who had to day park the walk was so far; I would hesitate to go again if I am not camping. I think the only reason I would go again would be to compete with a novice/young dog for the Novice cup. I guess next year will depend on how ready Yay is looking! (yes hard to believe but Yay will be competing next year!)

I enjoyed the show because we had a decent hotel near the venue and had the chance to spend sometime with nice people. We even celebrated Dennis' 50th Birthday!

I had my goals set and focused on the important runs. I wanted to use the graded runs to get Giz-mo his 3 wins necessary to move up to Grade 6 and qualify both Giz and  Zaz for Crufts 2014.  I expected to miss a lot of my runs just due to the fact that the walk to the rings is crazy and I wanted to be focused for the finals (Novice, British Open and Nations Cup).

Well to make a long story short: all goals were met!  Here is the obligatory photo of Giz and Zaz with their Festival wins.

Here are Giz and his litter brother, Fuze, looking darn cute with their medals and rosettes.

Giz-mo had a great KCI. He got his 3 wins necessary to move up to Grade 6, qualified for the Novice Semi final and then won  the semi-final and qualified us for Crufts 2014! Giz is going to Crufts! By the way, is he not just the cutest sheltie boy in the world?

 

 His win was made extra special when I saw the Kennel Club trophy and the engraved plate. This is the memorial trophy that we do not get to keep; it is kept at the Kennel Club offices. The novice cup is becoming a family tradition! In 2005 Giz-mo's mother Zen competed in and won the very first Kennel Club Novice Cup. I was away at a family wedding so she ran for a friend and still won. That's my special girlie Zen; she could run for anyone and still gave it her all.  Later, in 2010 the Novice cup was won by Zen's brother Bailey (OBay Truly Daniel's Dream). Now in 2013 it was won by her son Giz-mo.  I am going to take a moment and be a proud breeder over that!

Giz-mo's novice Cup run. I am really starting to enjoy running this little guy; he is getting stronger and stronger at each competition. It is hard to believe that he has only been competing since April.



Finally my little Zaz-star won the British Open!  She is also following in her momma's pawprints as Zen has won the British Open twice at Crufts. 

Zaz's British Open semi Final run.  I was a bit surprised to win this final and even more surprised to find out that Zaz's times were faster than all heights!



I really enjoyed running Zaz at the KCI; as always, she gave it her all and I felt as if we were one for every run. I cannot feel anything but gratitude for this girl.

So I cannot promise another post but hopefully I will remember what we did in July and be able to get it into a post sometime soon! 

 

PS isn't this a fun app? It took my blog and made it into a word star!

An International Summer

The next two months have a distinct international flavour to them.

We leave  at 3 am on Friday morning for our trip to Denmark. We are off to the week long Fionia Agility Cup in Denmark. I am looking forward to the challenges of the European courses in helping me prepare for the European Open at the end of July.  I will be running Zaz and Giz-mo and bringing Yay along for the trip. It is always a great week of agility with so much to learn. The trip had a little hiccup when we found out a few days ago that our overnight ferry (England to Denmark) was cancelled. It seems they had an accident when docking and the ferry hit the docks at the end of a trip. A  hole in the side of the ship caused the ship to start taking on water! I am very very grateful we were not on that crossing! The ship is still out of service (not that I would have been keen to get on it!) and now we have to do the trip via the Eurotunnel and drive 9 hours from France through Belgium,Netherlands and Germany to Denmark.  A long drive rather than a relaxing overnight cruise but at least we can still get there in time.

Giz is coming on nicely; what a cool dog he is. He will be running in Class 2 in Denmark and I think he will be up for the challenge. When I originally entered the competition back in January he was not even competing yet and did not weave or do full contacts! So sadly I only entered him in the lower classes and did not enter him in the "open" classes which are the classes needed to get into the finals at the end of the week.  Silly on my part! I should have had more faith in my little guy! Even so he has 2 runs per day so hopefully we will make them count! Here is Giz at Lansdown running his last Grade 4 agility class as he moves up to Grade 5 at his next shows.




After our week in Denmark we head  back to England just in time to turn around and go back to Belgium for the European Agilty Open!  Zaz and I will be well and truly European.

I am really looking forward to the European Open. As the World Agility Championships will be in South Africa this  year I had no intention of trying out for the World Team. The European Open was the competition I wanted to focus on . Happily Zaz made the team and we are one of 4 British small dogs competing.  And to make things even more exciting the 2013  European Open will be indoors!  It is taking place at the same venue we competed at for the WAO 2012. How nice to feel relaxed and not to have to worry about the rain, mud or extreme heat!   It is also feels comfortable knowing what to expect at the venue; this takes away much of worry and stress of travel.  The only thing I am not looking forward to is having to travel there on a coach. I would feel much better driving in a car where my dog can relax and I don't have to stress about packing! Unfortunately I don't have a choice in this matter so we will just have to get on with it.  Dennis is not thrilled to be joining me on the coach as he knows all the horror stories of past Team GB coach  trips. The last time we both went on a coach together was about 10 years ago on a trip to Austria. We both swore we would NEVER do a coach trip again....uh-oh.

Anyway the EO should be an amazing competition this year.  Zaz and I are ready!

Zaz won her 8th Championship ticket this month at Thames Agility show. Not a bad  record for a dog that I do not compete with that often!

After the EO we return to England to compete at the KC International Agility Festival.  I didn't go to the Festival last year as I did not enjoy it two years ago. The ground was too rough and the day parking was too far away. This combined with the  death of a well loved competitor during the show and a horrible dog on person attack just  gave me a bad feeling about the venue. This year the show is a new location and I am going to give it another try.  I now have Giz to compete with in the Novice cup and a reservation in a nearby posh  hotel so I am actually looking forward to it! I have heard  that there will actually be American competitors coming this year along with competitors from more European countries. It should should be very exciting!

After all that European Agility it will be time for a non-doggy adventure! Dennis and I will be off to Italy for a holiday. I am really looking forward to that and working hard on my diet so that I can splurge on amazing Italian food and gelato!

So an exciting and busy July and August. We will be finishing up our International summer with a long awaited visit by some friends from New York! 

Old memories!

Now fingers crossed that Zaz holds off coming in season until late September and  then maybe we can add in another European trip for her.....

The only problem with all this travel is that I will miss my chickens!

Giz-mo the dude

Giz-mo has not gotten much attention on the blog but, rest assured, he is still here!  My little dude is just the cutest boy in the world; not that I am biased or anything.

Giz started his agility career in April and won his first class at his first show. I think he will take a little while to mature but that is OK with me.  I do find the girls easier to train and compete with but Giz is so darn cute that anything he does is fine with me! He now has about 5 weekends of competition under his belt and I am enjoying him so much.

Here is Giz in his first ever competition run.



And here he was two weeks later at his second show. Already we are both looking more sure of each other!



My goal for Giz this year is to move up to Grade 5 before the KC International Festival, get into the Novice final and qualify for Crufts. 

Two weeks ago I brought Giz and Zaz over to Jersey (Channel Islands) to compete. I was excited to have 3 days of competitions with Giz to start feeling more like a team with him. Unfortunately I was disappointed to find out that they would only have wood/sand contacts at their show. Giz has really only been trained on rubber contacts so I decided to only compete in the jumping classes rather than confuse him.

Luckily the team and pairs competitions were jumping only. I think Giz will be a great team dog as I can actually control him on the start!   Giz ran clean in both his team runs and in his pairs. His pairing with his brother Fuze came 2nd only to Zaz and her partner Smudge! Unfortunately no video of the pairs just a photo of four gorgeous shelties: Fuze, Smudge, Zaz and Giz-mo.

Giz-mo and I ran for the "Rest of the World" team as there were not enough small/medium English dogs to make up a second England team.  Giz and I were paired with two French competitors. Both girls were worried and kept telling me not to expect anything. I just smiled as they didn't realize how inexperienced Giz really was and how relaxed I am about teams.  Giz surprised me and was a little star who ran fast and clear in both the semi and the final. We were lucky that even with many faults in the semi-final our team scraped through to make it to the final on the last day. Then in the final our team ran 3 clears to WIN the final! Giz has now won his first Jersey Festival Teddy Bear!

The "Rest of The World" small/medium team Final run.



Happy team!

YAY! One year old!

Yay turns 1 year old tomorrow. She is a delight to own and I can honestly say it was worth all the stress bringing her over. These photos were taken last week in Jersey (Channel Islands NOT New Jersey!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While walking on this beautiful beach I had to get some photos of Yay. It wasn't planned....but when I looked at the image on the screen I just smiled....

Here is Yay on the beach in 2013.



And here is Joy on the Beach circa 1995. Just wow....

Just in case you thought Yay's 2 x 2 weave video was special; here is her first attempts at running contacts.   I don't think I should video when  training alone. LOL

Farewell to Monty

Toven The Full Monty

How can I explain who Monty was? He was a dog that belonged to many.

He belonged to Toni Mapes who bred him and loved him and gave him the greatest name: Toven The Full Monty. Right from a pup Monty loved to lie on his back and show the world he was a man.

Monty belonged to me. I saw him as a pup and fell in love with him. When Toni offered him to me to show almost 2 years later I took him home and trained him in agility. He liked doing agility with me but he never loved it. He was a lover of people and the girls and he preferred to flirt and play. Monty almost did not come with me to England; when we realized we were moving I felt that I had to  give him back to Toni. I drove to her house to return him and was just about to walk out the door when we both started crying. I didn't want him to go back and she didn't want me to leave without him!  I gave Toni a hug and put  Monty back in the car and happily planned for him to come with us to England.

 

He was always smiling.

 

 

 

 

Looking at this photo makes me realize how much Giz-mo reminds me of his grandfather Monty.

 

Monty belonged to Johanna who kept him for me when we moved to England; she showed him in breed and won two championship certificates and in agility where he went onto to achieve a Danish agility and jumping championship.

 Monty belonged to all the owners of the girls who bred to him. After Monty produced his first litter here in England it was obvious that he could produce lovely working shelties. He would never be used again in England as the English breeders would not appreciate him. So he went to Denmark to Johanna. Monty spent many years happily siring puppies for some special girls.  Monty was not over used; Johanna was very careful to try and only breed him to bitches owned by people who were carefully checked. This paid off as Monty's offspring were regularly running and winning at top International agility events. I don't even know all the statistics but just at the European open and FCI World Champs he has produced at least one Gold Medal winner, one silver medal winner and two bronze medal winners in his children and one Bronze individual winner in his grandchildren. He has  many agility champion children and grandchildren in multiple countries. 

This photo was taken in Denmark as we wanted a photo of True and Monty with their gorgeous and talented son Unique (EO Gold medal winner OBay Truly Unique).  I have just realized that I have no photo of Monty and daughter Zen together and that has made me cry again....

And finally Monty belonged to Marianne. Marianne borrowed Monty to run in agility and the two of them went on to do amazing things. Marianne brought the best out of Monty; she figured out how to make agility fun for him. More importantly she loved and cherished him during his last years and for that I am so grateful.

 

Monty at the Nordic Championship winning Gold along with his son Unique.

I  hoped to see Monty again when I came to Denmark in July. I had plans to try and get him together with his many children and grandchildren for a special portrait. I also wish I could have been with Monty at the end; I felt as if I owed that to him.  I am grateful to Marianne for calling me and letting me know how the end was for Monty and that he was buried in a special place. I couldn't stop crying when she told me he was buried next to his special friends and that he was buried with his bed and special agility lead and wrapped in a purple blanket.

Thank you Monty for all you did for me. Without you I wouldn't have had Zen, Zaz, Itzy and Giz-mo. Without you I wouldn't have had the opportunity to compete at those amazing International competitions with your daughter Zen and your Grand-daughter Zaz. You were just a little black dog with an amazing heart and we all loved you and will miss you.



How do you summarize 10 years of Zen?

Zen turned 10 yesterday. I wanted to do some incredible video montage or put photos to music or do a big party or just do something to explain how amazing this little dog has been for the past 10 years.....Instead we just spent the day out in the sunshine, doing a little agility and randomly hugging Zen for no reason.  Priceless.

Zen at 10 years old

 

 

 

Zen at 8 years old

 

Zen at 2 years old

 

 

Zen at 6 months old

 

Zen at 5 weeks old

 

10 years ago an TRULY amazing litter was born. Not many people know or understand the determination it took to produce this litter. Many people in many countries shared in all the planning, frustration, tears and then finally smiles, hopes and dreams.... It paid off and produced 6 amazing pups.  Happy 10th  Birthday to Zen, Unique, Chi, Bailey and Timmy. And special thoughts for  Lucky, gone but never forgotten.