Hinckley, Thames and Axstane

Well after the wet weekend at supadogs, all I wanted was a nice dry Hinckley!! Went up on Friday. Toni drive me up there (Lee followed Sat am). We had a nice journey up, always seems to go quickly, mainly because we seem to manage to chat all the way. Set up the tents and then sat down to drink. Had a pleasent evening chatting and drinking.

Sat was at least dry! Champ, hm didn't go well. Actually Jag just had a pole but with something like 43 clears in the jumping we had kinda got no chance. Twix for some reason felt very slow. I was told I was babying her too much. So in her last run I made an effort to be a bit more pushy and it worked. We did get an e but she felt so much better (looks like Toni was right again!). Best result of the day was Jag's 4th place in the Crufts singles qualifier. Nice to get some points under my belt.

Toni won the medium ticket with Minx.. yipee.. another one. Was really pleased for Toni. They are working so well together.

Sunday I was judging a 3/4/5 agility. Was pleased with how the class went. There was a nice tight bit and then a flowing finish. Course below. I was pleased with the way it ran. There was the normal mixture of good and bad handling but was quite happy with the winners run.



On to Thames. Went up nice and early on Friday afternoon, was set up really quickly and was sat drinking rather early!! As for agility, some more Crufts points for Jag. Clear in the Chum but a very competitive class and due to a turn in the wrong direction, Jag was well down the places. Twix had a couple of nice middle of the road places in agility with trained contacts. Missed out on Novice chum because of a pole. Champ was pants again... will I even make a champ final this year. Hm!

Saturday night at Thames is always fun. And that is as much as I will say. But I did feel slightly tired on Sunday and had a slight headache. But nothing to major.

Axstane is a lovely show. Always enjoy it. Jag had a 4th in his agility on Sunday with nicely held contacts. He came 8th in the celebration connection class. Which very scarily qualifies him for the final. Gulp! The best result of the weekend had to be Twix's 5/6/7 jumping on Saturday. She finished 3rd. Now I know there weren't a huge amount of grade 7 dogs there, but the first two places were good grade 7 dogs and there were several good grade 7 dogs behind her. Twix did the best round I think she has ever done. Amanda Rodgers was the judge and course was big and flowing. Not the sort of thing I would expect Twix to do well on. I was very chuffed with Twix after that one. She seemed to work really well all weekend and I had lots of people commenting that she suddenly seems to have gone up a gear. Which is what it felt like running her. So long may this continue. Oh and just for good measure, her dog walks were great!

Axstane and Thames were also debut shows for 3 of the dogs in my puppy class. All three have had clear rounds and these shows and a few places to boot. Is really nice to seem them out there running and work well.