Dartford & Keston shows

Started ok this weekend, nothing first in the ring for Kiah and I, so a chilled out walk for the dogs, and waiting for a few classes before ours. Bless him Alex had been really busy at work so slept in the van in the morning!! We had a couple of really frustrating runs first off, Kiah forgetting what her 'steady' command means, its irritating cause if my timing isn't spot on, then she doesn't respond! I think its down to me not quite teaching her correctly, so more practice required on that. Anyway we had a nice run in the connections (thank you Emily for explaining!) just had a pole down on a turn which threw me completely but pleased with that one. Then another nice run in the jumping class, shame we got E'd on jump 4 but that was cause Kiah just couldn't NOT bounce the jump where we needed a pull in! Other than that though it was a nice course and Kiah did some nice send on work which was nice to find, as it was a bit less nag and more fun!! The sun was even out on the Saturday it was lovely so sun cream all around - see picture of Kiah in her cool coat, such a fab invention and really good for her especially, she really feels the heat with her dark fur coat.

Sunday was good too, with a lovely course to start with, quite different to the 'standard' courses, with pull rounds, pushing out from a flat tunnel, dog walk in the middle of the course and then a send on to then go to wrong end of tunnel. Kiah started really well in this course, and then when we got to the pull off a tunnel, I called a bit too frantically which I know I didn't need to as she is so responsive!! Anyway after a bit of mis-communication she went in the correct end of the tunnel, and we went clear!! I was really pleased as we ended up 5th, and only a second behind the winner so its nice to know that even though its not a huge show, her times are still up there when I get it right!! In the mid afternoon we helped Lisa and Caroline pack up the caravan as they were kind enough to have done breakfast/dinner for us over the weekend, but we abandoned our last run and started home as the rain was just horrid by this point, the ground was slippery so becoming dangerous, so we finished on a high of our 5th place, in the dry!

A pleasant show overall, nice showground and fairly well run apart from the timing having serious issues over the two days and the tannoy announcements on the first day being so bitsy - I think both of those weren't helped by the wind. We will be back next year still, as its a nice show, and only about 45 minutes from home so even better!

Off to the Thames show this weekend, an evening journey for us with the caravan - just waiting for the dreaded M25 to (fingers crossed) quieten down so we can take it easy, and going tonight so we don't rush in the morning. Its always a very busy show anyway, I think even more than normal due to the evening entertainment and the amount of qualifiers that they hold. Even the 6/7 classes have been split into two parts, that's almost unheard of at most shows, nonetheless we're looking forward to the challenge, and hopefully some nice courses!!