Wallingford and BSD show

Not much exciting happening. Last Saturday I was at Wallingford show. First run was an agility with Twix. I think Twix did the worst dog walk ever! GRRRR it is soo frustrating. I know how well she can work yet I just can't seem to get her to dog the dogwalks she does at training in the ring!

Any way Twix also had another agility and I have to admitt her dog walk was much better. Still not like I know she can do them but better. Light at the end of the tunnel? I will have to get some video of Twix at training and shows so you can see the difference. Any way, I do know she has the speed to play with the good guys and girls in grade 5 as she has had a few good jumping places lately. She had a 2nd in 5 jumping at Wallingford. Good girl.

Jag was a good boy at Wallingford. I got us e'd in one of his agility runs, mainly because I got the dogs running orders round the wrong way and ran out of order! Oops. So I told the judge and she let me run NFC. Jag came 6th in his grade 7 jumping. The course was perfect for him, sadly I got lost and Jag must have read the numbers to get me out of trouble. So really we should have finished a lot higher but he was a good boy. I didn't do Jag's grade 7 agility. I was cold and just wanted to go home. I took one walk round the course and hated it so decided I would be doing more harm than good to try it. I really was NOT in the mood for it!!

I really wasn't looking forward to going back to Newbury today, not after last week. I think the cold really took it out of me. Any way forecast for today was good and to be honest the weather was 100% better than last week but was still windy but was at least dry and quite warm.

Both dogs had three runs today, two jumping and one agility.

Jag came 4th in his 5-7 jumping. Was a weird course, it flowed really well and wasn't particularly hard but everything seemed quite close together. When I came out I felt like Jag had run really slowly. But a few others said they had felt the same with their dogs. I guess maybe there just wasn't the room for them to open out. Was a nice course though. Jag had a pole down in his 6/7 jumping.

Hm now you have to appreciate there is a big pause in between the previous bit of my blog post and the next bit. Mad Karen on the phone telling me all about her obedience show!!! Yawn. Good job she is saving her sanity by going to Lewes tomorrow.

Any way right, Jag also had a pole down in his 6/7 agility. But they were our only two "mistakes" so he really has worked well. His contacts were great and he waited at the start. Ok not for long but he did wait for me to release him.

Twix had a great day. She had three clears. 4/5 agility, an ok dog walk. Not fab but ok. She came 10th so it must be improving as normally I am out of the places in agility at the moment. I am doing her contacts so that as soon as she is in the stop position and paused for a split second I release. Hopefully this will build her confidence of what I want and as she is a dog that feeds off of confidence, she will get quicker (cheers to Toni for that one, it seems to be working). So we are still wasting time and not running contacts so 10th really isn't bad. 5-7 jumping I was wondering down to the ring when they said the class was just about to shut. So I ran down there, couldn't remember the course, watched one dog and had to run. Twix was out of the places but only 2 seconds behind the winner which is not bad. We had some nasty wide turns... but... weirdly in my haste and rush I "forgot" to baby her quite so much and pushed and she really felt quick. So may try a bit more pushing next time but not forget to work my turns next time. Twix came 3rd in grade 4/5 jumping. A lovely David Isbister course that was a good balance of requiring turns and long stretched out bits. The two dogs that beat her had much wider turns but more ground pace. There was .02 between Twix and 2nd place dog. So lots to be pleased with there.

Tomorrow is a day off!! Nothing at the weekend next week but Vyne on bank holiday Monday.

So lots to be pleased with over the last couple of weekends. I seem to be able to handle both dogs relatively well at the moment! Last year it always seemed to be one or the other and never both. Looking forward to the rest of the season now.