Holiday time....

Well holiday, judging and some competing in agility thrown in!

We are about half way through our agility break having done Hare n Hounds at Barnard Castle, I judged on a really hot day (I'm not good with the heat!) but it was still a good day.

Kaiser had forgotten how to weave but luckily remembered later in the show, he and Cad are just doing agility runs now (well Cad does Champ jumping), they both got a few places, Kaisers best was a 4th and Cad had a 2nd.

I had decided that I wanted Bex to stay in Grade 4 until I was better at running him in jumping classes. That's me not Bex lol, just didn't want to do well in one agility run, move up a grade and then be facing harder jumping courses so the plan was working ok and some of our jumping runs have been getting better and Bex got a couple of nice jumping places at this and previous shows and then at Hare n Hounds in Graded 4-5 jumping which was quite tricky he did a lovely clear and he won and also beat the time of the Grade 5 winner, so well pleased with that and proud of the young merlie boy :) we also had some graded 4-7 courses that were really hard and I was pleased with how we did them. I think the other grade 4's must have found them hard too as Bex got 2 top ten places with 5 faults (a pole in one and came out of the middle of the weaves to get 5 in the other).

A couple of photos - Bex with his first place and Bex in one of the exercise areas on the hill overlooking the show.

We are now at TAG at Uttoxetor Racecourse, competing and I'm judging here too. Hope everyone I know is having a good August :)

Small Catch up

With so much getting posted on Facebook these days sometimes things on a blog seem "old news"!

A zillion things have happened since I last posted photos of snow!

The most recent and really sad was having to say goodbye to Foggy, my first collie and the lovliest little fella you could wish to meet. It's such a long time to spend with a dog but I'm trying not to let the sadness of the passing overshadow the happiness of 15 years together :)

Bex started in Grade 3 and didn't stay there long winning 3 Grade 3 Agilities and getting a handfull of 2nd's in Agility and Jumping. It's a learning curve as he is faster than Cad and Kaiser so he's fine it's me that needs the training lol, the clears we have had in the few shows we have done in Grade 4 have given us a 2nd and 4th in Jumping and a 4th in Agility. Quite happy to stay in Grade 4 a little while as want to gather experience for us both along the way :)

Cad and Kaiser have been competing well too, they both mostly just do agility now as that's what they stand the best chance in and I didn't want things to be too hectic with three dogs to run.

A few shows got cancelled due to the weather, perhaps Summer will carry on into September and October... I'm not holding my breath but just not having constant rain would be good!

TTFN

Snow and a little agility

Firstly I really do luv the snow when it's fluffy and new and I can walk over to the Look Out which is miles and miles of woodland :) but..... when the darn snow hangs around for ages and keeps half thawing and freezing again and then it snows again, well it just gets annoying lol

Some photos from our first snowy walk - apologies to those on Facebook who will have seen these already!

The little bit of agility is that we went today to a training in the ring thing at Lesley Oldens lovely indoor school, you get 4 runs - 2 jumping and 2 agility. Thanks to the people kind enough to offer their video services after my last post today I nabbed Neil to video me - thanks Neil. Bless Bex he took the tyre out so Neil stopped filming while we composed outselves and of course checked Bex was ok - he seemed fine the tyre is a soft one I think he just took off too early - I could have edited it but it's all a learning curve! More practice needed on tyres at speed!




Hope everyone is staying warm as it's been sooooo cold!

The journey started :)

I like to think of starting competing with a young dog as a journey, so much to learn and so much to look forward to. After having no competitions for what seemed like a long time we have had a full weekend!! Saturday Winter League - Cad won the medium section of 1-7 Agility, Kaiser was 4th in 1-3 Agility and Bex's first time running at Winter League and he had two messy runs and then two lovely runs, 1-3 Agility he came out of the 8th weave pole and then his last run of the day a stunning clear round in 1-7 Agility - just out of the 6 places all of which (I think) were taken by grade 6-7 dogs.

So an early start today to go up to Solihull to Midlands Border Collie Club, a mixture of courses but hey that is the variety of agility!

Here is Bex's first run 1-4 Agility - loads of good things to take from this run - even if it was an E :)

We then had a jumping run - no video - same course as in the video of Kaiser - Bex ran past two jumps - all due to my timing not being right!

Then the last run of the day 1-3 Agility - I am not knocking the judge but the jump where I went wrong was a really tricky bit for this grade and the ending was hard too - nothing dangerous about it so no reason not to have a go (no weaves used in this side of the arena as they can't peg them - we can't peg at our show but use weaves with a heavy base that don't move much at all - I do like to see weaves in a course!)

If any of my Blogger/Facebook friends see me at a show with a video camera and don't mind doing the occasional video I would be sooooo pleased :)

A Kaiser Video

I hardly ever get any videos of my dogs (sad face :(..) so as Bex is just starting out I thought I would try and get some (not an easy task!) so starting here with a video of Kaiser today at Midlands Border Collie Show - 1-3 Jumping, no weaves and he was just out of the places. To think he could not even concentrate all the way round the course at one time (and still has some lapses of concentration lol)