Dogs In Need

Kiah and I had a wonderful week at Dogs In Need (DIN), camping in with Lisa, had such a good time seeing all our human and canine friends, we had never stayed the whole week before and I must admit we both had a great time and looking forward to next year already!!

It is a shame to have to mention it (but it is England after all) but in the week we did have a rather 'mixed bag' of weather to say the least! Torrential rain and wind was the order of one of the days, however there was more than a reasonable amount of nice warm sun though, and so I can't complain. Only once did Kiah get drenched (bless her) she was not amused!!

We only got two runs a day at DIN so the atmosphere was nice and relaxed, so had a lot of time to spend lots of quality time with Kiah, and also managed to find time for my other hobby - taking photos, of Kiah as well as lots of my friends' dogs. The pic here is of Kiah in her little agility harness which she seems to love wearing, as well as not hurting her neck if she wears a collar and throws herself about getting all excited watching agility!! The only reason it was taken in slight shade is because the sun was out that day, and if I take pictures in direct sunlight, her eyes either look very light (and she has beautiful dark eyes) or the shadows cover her face and you can't see her eyes properly and her lovely expression.

Over the four days of competing we only got one clear round, which was in Kiah's Grade 2 Jumping, so we now have two wins towards going up to Grade 3. So in theory, whatever her next win is (agility we would move up anyway, or a third jumping win) would take her into Grade 3. I think we are ready to move into the next grade, just to have some more challenging courses and more complex handling for me, though we will get our win whenever it is time, I'm not going to push her as Kiah is doing fabulously well anyway. So that was our holiday away from work for a week, lovely break and doing something I really enjoy with the best dog in the world.

This weekend we have a breed show coming up fairly locally (about an hour's drive away) which will be good, we will get to meet up with a load of the Bonvivant Belgians and Kiah's breeder Jan who it is always nice to catch up with. Hopefully Kiah will show at her best, and the judge will like her, as she is looking amazing at the moment.

In the middle of September we have an agility show relatively nearby - again about an hour's drive away and we get to catch up with some other friends that I haven't seen in ages. Here we get three or four agility runs a day including a pairs run with our friends Jo and Ronny who is even more amazing than Kiah, but when they run well together it is great to watch!!

I will update my blog a little sooner than last time (well, its only a month, it has been longer!) and let you know how we do at both the breed show and the agility show too.