WBSDS Weekend

Wow it has been a tiring weekend, very glad to be home and to my proper bed and shower, as much as the caravan was very comfortable (and the fridge worked, phew) its just not quite the same!! It was an easy and fairly quiet traffic wise drive to the show on Thursday and we quickly got to the showground and set up our 'home and garden' for the next four days - it sounds very trivial but when you're there for the few days over a weekend, its enjoyable sitting out and letting the doggies relax too - even moreso when the weather was SO hot all weekend!

So Thursday afternoon and Friday morning was setting up the show, most things were done in a team so it wasn't too frantic, quite enjoyable at times! We were helping out with the traffic management and it still makes me wonder how people in agility speed down the drive in when everyone knows that the limit is 5mph, if it was just one dog that ran loose and something happened - so why not just slow down and pretty much eliminate the risk!?!? The main slog of the work was Saturday and Sunday working on the rings all day, it was a challenge and incredibly tiring - and our ring finished first on BOTH days, a bit of an achievement, but it was difficult too; for Alex - he helped out loads at the show, but also took the worry away from me as bless him he was looking after the dogs and managed to get a few nice photos, and for me; to be able to give it my all when running Kiah.

So over the whole weekend we had some positives and some rubbish bits too in our agility, and in most of them we just had some really silly mistakes, but I was pleased especially on Saturday with how we did. Some excellent work by Kiah and brilliant turns she was really listening to my 'steady' command, just a simple mistake of a missed weave where she was just going too fast, some issues where my handling let us down, and poles down mainly, just due to her crazy enthusiasm!

Sunday was a good start, we had a careful and not too rushed ABC run which got us 5th place, really pleased with that - Kiah's solid contacts and weave entry - it wasn't as easy as some people thought! One of the courses we ran I'm not sure why I did, as I said before there's nothing like a challenge, but it was all 'go rounds' and didn't have much thought in it, we messed it up but I could never really see us getting around it in the first place. Fortunately the second course in the same ring was slightly better - however I let my dog down big time. I have stopped kicking myself, but Kiah was just brilliant - powering down a line to spot on straight into the weaves from a flat tunnel, calling off a long jump perfectly.... and then I think it was one course too many after being on the rings all day as I had to stop - as I was completely lost. It was a shame as I think we could have got a good place as we had wasted no time otherwise, and of course Kiah got her toy reward afterwards, but slightly frustrating for me. A good but hard work agility weekend, it was nice to have the additional bank holiday Monday so we have spent today not doing a lot at all, letting the dogs relax too I think they need it as much as us!

There were some brilliant results from other people this weekend too so really big congratulations to everyone - Jason and Stihl who qualified for the ABC semi-finals; as well as Jo with her trophy haul from all three dogs but mainly Ronny getting another win towards G7; Lisa winning into G5 with Meme; Leah and Herbie, and Dave and Rusty for G7 wins; Candice for a place with little Tia, and some brilliantly run rounds from Tracy, Jo and Vicky with their gundogs, well done everyone!! Now... for a short three day quiet week at work, and then another weekend, two days of chilling and then one day of agility yay, I don't wish my life away as the week day evenings are far lighter now, but I do enjoy my weekends an awful lot!!