So on Thursday I headed off to my first International KC Festival, where do I start?!
The show was huge, really, really HUGE. There were people camped only rows away from me that I didn’t see until I went to leave. There were 17 rings, 18 if you include the practice ring!
When I took Hex down through the caravans for her first run she was her usual mental self, bouncing back and forth tugging her lead, then as the caravans cleared to reveal the rings she dropped her lead and just stood there open mouthed and looked at me as if to say ‘woah!’. I laughed out loud at her, scruffed her head and headed off to our first run.
Hex worked so well at this show, she was really driving on when on the straight and responding beautifully to my shoulders and arms, even when it got to slippery for me to run to where I usually would, she listened to her ‘go go’s’ and followed the line that my arm sent her in. Unfortunately though, she was still clipping the odd pole and when she picked her feet up, I let her down; the competition at the show was soooo hot, I was aiming for the tightest turns and twice, I called her off route too soon. She did however manage to go clear and come 20th in the qualifier and the course was the stinkiest I have ever run with her, I was so nervous I just aimed her at each jump and didn’t work any corners and she was still fab. All I had to do was go clear in the jumping round to qualify for the final – I have never been so nervous with her and it got the better of me, I swung around from jump 2 to 3 so quick she didn’t see it and picked up on the long jump – it happened so quickly I wasn’t even sure she had missed it so carried on and got E’d, but the rest of the run was clear and accurate – I just spent the rest of the show kicking myself. Kif was a speed demon and had 2 out of 4 clears, he was running his fastest, but unfortunately for him, at the KC fest he still wasn’t quite quick enough.
There were no veteran classes for Sprite so I brought him a ‘Dog Tornado’ to play with, it’s a treat based toy he has to learn how to operate in order to obtain the treats – he is supposed to use logic to locate and obtain the treats – he is just enjoying bashing it at the moment : )
Thunder, lightning and rain kept crossing the show ground the whole weekend, but it didn’t seem to dampen the atmosphere until a collie got spooked in one of the storms and did a runner, everyone rallied together to search for him, fortunately he turned up 8 miles away and was returned to his daddy the next morning.
I would really recommend the KC Festival, I wouldn’t want to run anymore than 2 dogs at it and I advise that if you are camping then you should volunteer to help for a day, it drastically improves where you are situated for the rest of the weekend and you get a T-Shirt, lunch and raffle entry.
I’ll leave you with some of Hex’s highlights:
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