Sunny Spring at Shuttleworth

What a lovely weekend it has been at our first 'proper' outdoor show, run by the BSDA of GB up at Shuttleworth college - a lovely setting. It commenced with an early 5am start on Saturday morning but with a pleasant, beautifully sunny and quiet drive up with Kiah and Davy (Yahoo had stayed at home with some friends) - we always find the roads are so much quieter in the morning rather than hitting the end of the rush hour the evening before. So once we got to the show and found our camping spot (which had been kindly saved for us - thank you!) it was time to get into the swing of the show with 4 runs a day.

It didn't start too well for us on the first day with a typical case of good dog... very bad lazy handler, not once but TWICE - on nice flowing courses that really suited Kiah - I forgot to move, both times ending in silly refusals that I could have easily avoided. Anyway more learning and effort required on my part there. The last run of the day was the graded 1-7 BSD agility which was another fab course and so I thought I would try to get it together for Kiah's sake! Well she put in a stonking round to win the class by over 4 seconds, my clever girl, lovely trophy too!

So onwards and upwards from the day before - there were a couple of courses with evil angles which I always think are unnecessary and potentially dangerous, and a slight miscommunication issue about where I wanted Kiah to go (!) - but lots of positives to take out of today with no poles down and some good contacts. It was again the last run of the day that was the gold star for us though - grade 5 jumping was a challenging course with a 'pick the correct end' of the tunnel from a long line of jumps which I would be nowhere near; Kiah and I had agreed that we were just going to have fun and we would accept whatever result that happened! Well when Kiah picked the correct end and I was still lagging behind I thought I'd better get a move on - to then finish with a good clear... though I never thought we would win the class!!!! Two firsts in two days is a brilliant achievement for us, am so pleased! Alex got some brilliant pictures over the weekend, here is my little star Kiah coming over the final jump in her winning round!!

A New Addition

As of a couple of days ago we have a new addition to the family, in the shape of Davy who is an incredibly handsome rescue border collie - who we met and fell in love with at the weekend, and then after lots of discussions we brought him home. He is starting to settle in with Kiah and Yahoo and hopefully we can be his forever home. And before anyone says it, yes I KNOW he is a collie, no one be shocked (!) and does it matter... we think he is lovely, we got him for who he is and his nature, not what breed he is!

He is going to be Alex's dog and hopefully one day may start doing agility, but he is sooooo laid back he might not be interested - and if not then he will just be a lovely biddable boy loved all the same!! Yes... he isn't a Malinois and I'm sure I will get another crazy belgian at some point when the time is right for us all as I love them - but I don't want to compare, and want to concentrate on Kiah at the moment. And in addition to that - nothing, no-one, anything, anywhere can live up to what little Number One KIAH is to me, and what we have together, my bestest girl!!

Easter Celebration Day 2

Another good day yesterday, a bitter wind and not quite so sunny but no huge downpour, however not so positive on the results front for me; with one very messy clear in agility and two eliminations - on silly things I knew about from watching others, and should have handled better. I do love running Kiah, whatever the outcome! Anyway I was still pleased with our clear, good contacts by Kiah, even though our time was a few seconds off the pace due to me having to 'save' the round twice from Kiah turning the wrong way over a jump and possible back jumping - its usually me that causes the elimination!

A couple more Well Dones!! to add to the list for today's great results - Nancy with Zeki, Karin with Indy, Vicky with Molly, and Nat with Kai - and anyone I've forgotten! Overall a really good and enjoyable weekend for me and for lots of others; am looking forward to the next one - that one step closer thanks to Monday's bank holiday making it a 4-day week yay!!

Easter Celebration Day 1

A positive first day so far on all counts - firstly the weather stayed reasonably warm and apart from a few spots of rain it really was a lovely chilly spring day, the show was only 20 minutes from home which is always a plus point when you don't have the tired long drive home afterwards, plus the show organisers did really well making the decision to move the whole set up around so the show could continue, rather than just cancelling it. There were lots of people with brilliant results today too - Dave & Rusty getting 4th in the power and speed, Lisa and Wish getting 4th in their first ever show, Caroline and Puzzle with 11th - her first placing, Ryan and Fizz getting another G3 win, Debbie and Scooby with 3rd - and many others!!

The biggest bonus of the day though had to be little Kiah... in only our third show of being in G5 we got our first (two!) clears on one day - coming home with a 3rd in agility and a 4th in jumping! I was never sure if we would be able to get anywhere in grade 5 or if it would just be a step too far - but these two places at a big competitive show has made me so happy and boosted our confidence a bit too. Roll on more fun tomorrow, and more sunshine please... fingers crossed.

Belgian In Springtime

We have no training until next week and no agility shows either... but as its been a busy week at work, I thought that I would take Kiah out for a really long walk - just me and her. It really was very pleasant and so warm too its lovely to be in spring and see all the daffodils and crocuses flowering and the grass looking lush and green, we even saw a couple of ice cream vans!! I even thought that this may finally be the end of the rubbish weather, ready for a few shows that we're going to in April - but then this afternoon it has decided to bucket down, and the Easter forecast predicts snow, so now I'm not so sure!?

Crufts Update

We all had a lovely time at Crufts this year, again it was over so quickly, some stunning dogs in the best in show! The difference in traffic is so noticeable when you are attending on a Thursday instead of one of the weekend days - the roads were empty apart from a little bit of rush hour traffic in the last 10 minutes. Oh and the usual queues into the NEC that weren't anything major - but we left with plenty of time and parked in the first car park we got to as its just easier - that way Kiah got a nice leg stretch walk up to the halls.

Anyway onto the breed show judging, Kiah was in her usual Post Graduate class and bless her we came last our of 4 but we don't mind! Alex videoed our moment of being judged in the ring and I was pleased with how Kiah showed, very pretty and straight 'stand' and I always think she has a nice gait - even if she does sometimes try to run instead of trot haha! Considering we had to wait til about 3.30pm til we were even in the ring I think Kiah did well overall, she was very tired from lots of hanging around, and she certainly had her "hmm no agility here, boring" face on more than once! In the afternoon we did get a chance to have a proper look around, and do a little bit of shopping, Kiah got spoiled with a new toy, a jacket for warming up/down at agility, and a new fleece jumper for sleeping in when we go camping... after all she does deserve it :)))

My 100th Post

I couldn't think of a post title to incorporate the couple of things that I'm going to write about, but I think its a bit of an achievement to have made it to 100 posts without getting bored :$ of my blog... but then again its all about my favourite thing - the world of dogs - so I guess I can see why hehe! Anyway our first news update is about the World Champs second selection day - we didn't qualify but I was pleased with our progress from the previous day, we still got E'd quite a lot (lol!) but Kiah and I did some awesome work together, great contacts, a bit of going on ahead on contacts, all weaves done perfectly and most importantly... NOT ONE POLE down over the whole day! I must however say a big well done to Dave and Rusty for once again showing how much of a different class they are in sweeping the board with a brilliant 8 out of 8, and also to give massive congratulations to Jo and Keisha for qualifying in third place - this was the very first time they had gone forward so watch out Germany, the Mallys are coming, very best of luck to the whole team!!

Our next post is about Crufts which we are off to with an early start tomorrow morning; even though its not our favourite sport of agility - we're looking forward to the whole experience, especially the shopping ;) and Kiah will be spoiled rotten as usual! Alex is coming up too - he hasn't been to Crufts before so I think he will definitely find it something to remember! Poor Kiah really doesn't have a lot of coat at the moment so we will see how she does, of course I always come back with the best doggie. Best of luck to all my friends that are competing at Crufts this year; in agility, flyball, breed showing and YKC, can't wait to hear about all your brilliant results!!!