One Day at Watford

Just a single day show at Watford today - the hottest day of the year so far so I wasn't 100% sure we would go at first - but with Kiah's cool water bed, lots of refreshing water, her cool coat, lots of shade and the car's air conditioning, we decided that it would be a good day to go. So three runs for us today, one very early on which Kiah was running perfectly in with brilliant solid contacts - just me missing a not so obvious trap and sending her back on the see-saw for a big elimination 4 jumps from home, D'OH!!! Jumping was a bit of a disaster, awful timing so we won't mention that one... but our second agility I was really pleased with - a great run just got an E by going the wrong way over a jump, but some great weave and turns from Kiah. It would have been great to get a clear in apprehension for next weekend, but I think we're ready nonetheless - we're going to be up at Tuffley and it's Kiah's first G6 show, exciting!!!

Thames Weekend

It is a huge show - probably one of the biggest ones there is and yet I never fail to enjoy it, I guess it makes it easier only having one dog to fly around the 13 rings with, but it is nice to see so many people enjoying themselves and such a busy, vibrant, friendly and well organised show, aside from people speeding (grrr, again) I don't think I heard any complaints at all! We had a fab saved camping spot near to a load of great friends, and with a brill view to a lot of the rings - it was still a long way to the other end but I think everyone was in the same situ - but such a great atmosphere, pretty good weather too, just loved every minute!

What added to the enjoyment was three clear rounds - a little messy but worked at rather than giving up - from Kiah and I resulting in a 6th and a 10th place receiving two beautiful rosettes, and therefore a little bit of consistency too!! We have an unintentional 2 days off this weekend (forgot to enter anything!) so will be chilling with the doggies, shopping, and looking forward to the lie in - but not for too many weekends otherwise Kiah and I start to get agility withdrawal symptoms!

Dartford & Keston - Kiah Goes G6!!!

Had an awesome time at the show this weekend, some brilliant and careful but amazingly fast work by Kiah - resulting in two fab achievements; winning G5 agility on Saturday by over three seconds, and coming second in agility the day after, bringing home two trophies - one on each day, I think that's fair! Looking back especially on our winning run, and hearing such positive comments about our run from onlookers and the judge about her speed and spot on contacts - as well as that Kiah nearly fell off the dog walk three times before safely making it to her touch point, makes me so proud that tries so hard for me, and all for her smiley face, pow-wow juice and raggy toy reward at the end.

I was just as grateful for our second place the day after - it was our last run of the day and a lovely technical but flowing course set by a top judge. I loved it and so did Kiah, it was just her type of course allowing her to stretch out and enjoy it, but also in a couple of places it showed that we had a couple of great tight turns - I only messed up in two areas - but Kiah helped me out there. I'm going to need to start upping our game in G6 with getting myself more fit (!) and training the turns we need to work on! But for now, we came home on a bit of a high following that weekend!!

Quite a lot of other people with brill results over this and the last few weekends so well done - Jo with Ronny AND Keisha (fab!!), Therese and Lizzy, Marian and Tia, Sarah and Rex, Andy and Thor, Helen and Zeus, Caroline and Puzzel, Sue and Jinx, Tanya and Myst, Mac and Bex and loads more. Congratulations everyone, there's obviously something in the air!!

This weekend is definitely one that's going to be easy to remember but hard to beat for more than just a little while, never thought we would make it as far as grade 6 so it really is a great achievement for us - and very pleased with my girl, lots of spoiling for her!! We are off to the Thames show at the weekend for the first of a couple of 'freebie' shows (maybe a few rounds to practise some of our contacts) - until the first week in July which is our first official G6 show, exciting but a bit scary!!

Quick Packington Update

Part of the reason we went up to the Packington show was to hopefully qualify for the ABC semi finals - well that didn't happen but it was a really nice show, if strangely quiet and laid back, but with brilliant company and great laughs all the way through. Kiah and I were working reasonably well together - apart from left meant right and right meant left oh dear! We ended up with a 6th in G5 jumping that I was really pleased with - and more importantly there was also a very amusing clear round where I had to save the round from disaster about four times thanks to my rubbish directional skills!! We got a huge round of applause for making it around clear, and bless her somehow ended up 13th which I was so pleased with as there was a LOT of wasted time. My biggest disappointment though was me messing up a course three jumps from home where Kiah was just amazing - but I won't dwell on it, just realise how amazing my little Malinois really is when she shows me what she can do.

Brilliant BATS

Nearly everything about the BATS show was just brilliant, a stunningly hot and cloud free day (not quite so good for the doggies but they were nice and cool in the car) and our first run of the day after boot camp - ending in a brilliant result. It was a grade 5 jumping course, quite a challenge but nice as it was very different to what I've seen before - but certainly not the typical style that I would expect us to get a good result in. Anyway we were running order 28 so didn't have to wait long especially as there weren't many people queueing, and using some of the knowledge that I'd hopefully picked up from boot camp - it was what I thought was a reasonable run - we went clear and straight into the lead and stayed there, resulting in her second grade 5 jumping win!!! Even managed to get the round on video thanks to Alex!

Our other runs weren't quite as good (not easy to beat!) but some excellent work in the novice qualifier by Kiah and brilliant contacts, unfortunately just a tipped wing of a jump resulting in 5f, and an E in the ABC class as our pull in didn't work quite as well as expected! So overall a very good day, really pleased with our second win (though at risk of sounding ungrateful, honestly I'm not) it does put us one step closer to grade 6! That is/would be a great achievement but I really like the challenge that grade 5 brings at the moment and I'd love to get a couple more good agility places too before we go anywhere.

The only negative point to the show - that seems to be appearing a lot more recently - is cars speeding through the show ground! I know it was a publicly accessible venue so there may have been a minor few of the 'joe public' people there, but the amount of people that we saw quite clearly doing a LOT more than 5mph on the way in and out was just crazy. Admittedly there weren't any speed signs but people should be more than well aware of it, if not by going to shows previously then by simple common sense! I don't understand why people need to go so fast, does it make them feel better? And to be honest it barely saves a minute or two, and I'm sure that if heaven forbid anything happened to end up under the wheels :( then they'd feel a whole lot worse. Slow down people, what's it going to take! So onto more positive news... that we are off to the Packington show this long bank holiday weekend coming, can't wait!!!

Boot Camp 2010

As mentioned in the last line of the post before, the next amazing agility journey was to be Boot Camp, and it really was just fantastic - and easy to say that it was even better than last year. It was in the same format as before with three days of five hours agility and jumping training, with each part split equally between Leah and Nancy who are just the best, most patient, fun trainers to be taught by! Its mentally and physically tiring but great fun and so relaxing at the same time due to the brilliant location, fab weather again, and great company of like minded people to enjoy it with.

There were lots of high points to remember about boot camp this year - seeing Kiah have such a good time, seeing all the rest of the dogs enjoying themselves, learning SO much and seeing the results, as well as catching up with old friends, making new friends, relaxing in a beautiful setting, and hundreds of photo memories. There's even a couple of crazy ones - like Kiah touching the A-Frame once and landing on the floor the other side, as well as charades one evening in the club house! As a sentence to sum it up - While having the best time with your best friend, boot camp is an amazing learning and social experience to never be forgotten.

Oops - Overdue Update!

First a quick note on the show in the second week of May which was Tunbridge Wells - it was a pleasant enough show and fortunately wasn't too miserable while we were doing some ring party on the Sunday, and being local was a bonus too as it was rather cold at times! Kiah and I had a nice day on the first day as Alex was working with a friend and took the two boys with him, so it was just me and her which doesn't happen often but we both enjoyed the time together. My timing was still not quite right (no change there!) but we had some really positive work - a very scrappy clear round, but also hardly any poles knocked, brilliant contacts, awesome weave entries, so very pleased and a very fun weekend.

We've also decided that we've well and truly caught the agility bug... from a hatchback car to an estate, and now to a van, all for the dogs we must be crazy! We are keeping my estate car though, as we need two vehicles for commuting. So in the week after this show we picked up our new blue VW Transporter van, which will be caged out soon and the dogs will have even more luxury than usual and travel in style - I can't wait to start kitting it out with new vet bed and accessories!

And then onto our next adventure - BOOT CAMP!!!!! It gets a separate post as it deserves it :))))))