All Stitch-ed up at BHC Show!

Finally after much hard work and training Stitch was ready for his first show so we packed him into the van on Sunday feeling excited and with Mum feeling a wee bit nervous – Stitch was oblivious that the day would be any different.

His first run was the Graded 1-4 Agility and he was CLEAR, he ran cautiously, kind of ‘am I really allowed to play this time’ around the course, and Mum worked his contacts but he still won the class by 15 seconds! In his next two runs he was much more confident, in fact a little too confident because he wasn’t thinking about his weaves so rushed them and made mistakes. But we are still very proud of Stitch Grade 4 after only 32 seconds on grade 3!

Hex – 2^nd in Grade 4 Jumping

I let Hex down in her other classes with my crappy timing, but she was flying!

Kif - 3^rd in Grade 5 Jumping

I feel he would of had a really good place in the Combined 5-7 class, it’s was a fantastic course by Barrie James, but Kif ignore my ‘here’ and the arm telling him to jump and decided to do the weaves so we were E’d at Jump 3, but the rest of the course was a dream and worth a mention.

Sarah & Jemma came 11^th in the Combined 1-4 Jumping. Speedy Jem, Well done!

Honiton/Devon Dogs

I think I’ve come to the point in the season where things start getting worse instead of better, it’s certainly time to slow down and embrace the upcoming break.

I consistently let Kif down and Hex was just mental and kept having poles (really enjoying her first G4 show!) – I’ve said this over and over but I need to spend more time with both Hex and Kif getting my timing sorted again, they're both so different and I'm so busy teaching, I don't have time for my own guys - it's not fair to leave them in the van all day and just get them out for 30mins at the end of the day when I'm knackered. I need to sort out a new routine! But along with the motivation to sort my life out we did go home with some pretty ribbons:

Me & Kif with Mike & Rio - 3^rd 1 -7 Pairs

Hex – 5^th G4 Agility

Sprite – Clear Anysize Jumping

Jane & Boot – 7^th G3 Agility

Well done to Jo as well cleaning up in the medium classes with Fluke

It is well and truly October – the weather today was really yucky, but the dogs were fab, lets hope we don’t get this wet every weekend.

Everyone should now have an email about the Xmas Meal – let me know if you’re going to be there. And I think we are literally days away from having access to embroidered merchandise!

Where was I? - Oh yeah - Blackdown

This will learn me for leaving blogging to until the end of the week – I’m struggling to remember what went on!

I was really looking forward to Blackdown, with lots of A-SITters there and a number of SWATties there too, I thought it would be a good fun day out – only one problem – my back gave out.
I was stiff and sore after the Fun Day at the field and by Sunday I was just in pain! It was Hex’s last show as G3 so I really wanted to run it and gave it my best shot.

Sprite’s run was first thing, he did a lovely clear, only a slight deviation when I thought he was looking forward... but with only one eye, he was actually looking left – whoops! Blackdown only do clear rounds for veterans, they say that offering places encourages people to push their old dogs too hard – whatever! So he got a clear round rosette.

Poor Kif – he is so in tune with my body – so when I can’t move properly, he can’t run properly. I also missed walking one of his courses. Every time one of my dogs made a mistake, even if it was just a pole, I was making a quick dash to the finish line – I didn’t need to be running around any longer than I had to. But we did manage a 3rd in the Rescue Tunnel Fun class.

Hex cam 7th in G3 Jumping with me, but that was right at the start of the day, one of the courses was one big blast, I knew I’d never make the finish, so I asked Mum to step in – needless to say she jumped at the chance and did a very speedy clear so came 2nd in the G3 Agility. Although got a lot of stick for not ‘working’ Hex’s contacts – bad Mummy!

So A-SITters went home with the following rosettes under their arms:

Sprite
Clear – Veteran ‘Clear Round Only’ Jumping

Kif
3rd – Rescue Tunnel Fun

Hex
7th – G3 Jumping
2nd – G3 Agility (with Mum)

Emily & Alfie at their first proper KC Show
2nd – G1 Jumping

Sarah & Jemma
2nd – G2 Agility
3rd – G2 Agility

Well done everybody!

I taught my last evening lesson of the year tonight and am now going through the process of trying to find everyone regular day slots for the winter – which is proving challenging!
Also on the verge of sorting our Christmas meal (either the 12th or 13th of Dec – pencil it in!) and embroidered club wear.
Now off to bed, more lessons tomorrow then Honiton/Devon Dogs this weekend for the last camping show of the year.

A-SIT Fun Competition Day

The sun was shining! Hip hip hip hooray!

I don’t know about everybody else, but I had a great day today! It was so nice to see so many people and their dogs relaxing at the field, and very exciting to see some of the new up and coming dogs strutting their stuff and doing their Mum’s & Dad’s proud. And so many personal goals achieved too; dogs that didn’t go home with any rosettes but achieved targets like running a whole course, running in front of other dogs, NEARLY getting clear rounds – so many near misses. But this is definitely something I would like to do again next year – so we can say ‘maybe next time’!

So here are the results:

Pre-Comp Agility:

1^st – Gail & Stitch

2^nd – Anthony & Amy

Competition Agility:

1^st – Sarah.L & Ru

2^nd – Jeannette & Tess

Trophy Dogs Agility:

1^st – Sarah.C & Jemma

Clear Round – Jane & Boot

Pre Comp Jumping:

1^st – Mum & Stitch

2^nd – Sadie & Carmen

Competition Jumping:

1^st – Alex & Sonny

2^nd... Everybody else got E’d!

Trophy Dogs Jumping:

1^st – Mike & Rio

2^nd – Jane & Boot

Well done everybody! And some special thanks to Sam for judging, Mum for her help with the paper work, Sarah, Mike & Abi for their ring partying and my fella Matt for timing.

Thanks Eveyone!

Gillingham

I only spent the one day at Gillingham, but that was fine cause I still got to take some pretty ribbons home! And it was great to have my Mum back again... even if it did mean we had Stitch noise pollution ; ) ...which we’ll forgive him for when he’s competing – less than 5 weeks now!

Hex came 4th in G3 Agility (Club friends Mel & Lucas came 3rd – Well done to them!)
Hex was mental in her other runs and had 1 pole down in the jumping and an ‘up yours mummy’ E in the other agility – b*tch!

Kif cam 5th in the G5 Jumping – which I never would of expected at a champ show – very proud of him - it felt like I was running a 'normal' dog : )


Sprite had his first run since his op and he loved it – I mucked it up which is annoying because I was on his good side the whole may round until I said ‘go’ when I meant ‘here’, but I was very nervous about running him and I’m just pleased he was having a good time!

Jill had her first KC show with Jonah and he did her very proud, no ribbon yet, but not far off. He had killer contacts and some really smooth runs – next season he will be one to watch out for!

I FINALLY got time to have a sports massage from Tamzin Grimes at Body Mechanics – If you’re ever at a show and she’s working – book a slot! Seriously amazing job she did on my back. So I left the show happy, relaxed and ache free.

Not long now until the fun show (you A-SITters play nice with the Little Orchard group!) and then Blackdown where we have a number of A-SITters competing – exciting stuff!

(Ooo and I've started looking at Christmas Menus for our Dinner *dribble dribble*)

Just a quick catch up.

I was at Prestbury Park this weekend, it’s a great show with a great venue and some really beautiful trophies... which I just missed out on 3 times!!!

Kif had a 4^th with the SWAT Dashin’ Dogs Team. He ran the fastest he ever has teamed up with Raq, Boo & Buell – Good Times!

Hex had a 4^th in the G3 Jumping & G3 Agility, unfortunately I can’t blame her for our lack of trophy, my handling was a little panicky and she did everything I said – I was just wrong. And my timing is still off with Kif, he got a couple of Clears in the G5 classes but he wasn’t fast enough because I wasn’t smooth enough – my poor dogs!

HUGE Congratulations to Jo with her SWAT Spaniel Fluke, for winning G4 Agility and going G5, I saw the winning round and WOW – you go girl!

Karen & Molly have been busy bunnies elsewhere over the past couple of weeks, well done for:

3^rd in 1-2 Jumping @ Bovey tracey

1^st in 1-2 jumping @ Cornwall

4^th 1-2 Steeplechase @ Tarka

And a 4^th in the 1-2 Helter Skelter and 3^rd in the 1-2 Jumping @ Dartmoor plus the cup for highest placed members large dog on the day.

Gillingham this Saturday and then the Fun Show – Rossettes have been ordered and courses planned so we’re good to go!

Dashin' Dogs!

So I struggled to sum up the 3 day KC Festival – How am I supposed to sum up Dashin’ Dogs?!

Dashin’s Dogs is one of my favourite shows of the year and once again my other half, Matt joined me, much happier this time as we were in a caravan, not a tent this time J

We set up in the pouring rain on Thursday and it was pretty darn windy too! “If the caravan’s a rockin’, don’t come a knockin”?.... Well everyone’s caravans were rockin’ and no-one dare go out of theirs to go a knockin’!

Friday

Competition started, we were eased in with a half day of competition and reduced runs.

Hex opened her week with... you’ve guessed it – 5 faults! Not cool! And then another 5 faults – surely not!! I said to myself before we left for DD that I couldn’t take a WHOLE week of just 5 faults and as pleased as I was with how she was handling, and she really was handling well, I couldn’t believe our luck – why couldn’t those poles just stay up?!

Kif on the other hand had a fantastic start to the week – 14^th in the Combined 3-5 Jumping! The biggest class of the day and he was up there in the places.

Saturday

I shouldn’t of b*tched about 5 faults – today was the day of 10 faults from Hex – grizzle grizzle.

A 6^th in Veteran jumping from Sprite.

Sprite has slowed down a tad which was to be expected, running half blind. But he was still super speedy, his main time was lost when he lost me, this was either when he came out of a tunnel, if I did a reverse turn or on tight corners when I was on his blindside. Later on in the week he mistook the judge for me following a tunnel, but generally he would either get E’d by just doing what he could see or would lose time going wide or hesitating while he found me. But we’re adapting our partnership to cope and hoping for courses when Sprite’s on my right! We did get a couple more clears throughout the week, but only in the anysize classes where younger, faster dogs just kept pushing us out of the places.

Sunday

Things started looking up!

Hex gained a 5^th in the G3 Agility. Unfortunately I was handling like a numpty. I had stupidly started a count down of how many days I had left competing this year to go grade 4 and was also walking my agility courses thinking ‘this is the most important course of the day, I NEED this’. So my mind was in conflict – did I walk my courses ‘safe’ and concentrate on just keeping every pole up, or did I walk it to win it and take risks? When running courses – should I work my contacts assuming the fatal pole would fall or do quick releases to gain time, but lose consistency? I was totally over-thinking and when in the ring I was unable to breathe and my limbs were visibly shaking – what was wrong with me putting all this pressure on myself and a young dog?

Kif managed a Clear in the G5 Jumping but my timing was off with him all week, I cost him so many places, either miss timing manoeuvres or sending him wide and costing him time

Monday

The day off. A day of stinking weather to sit around wishing we were running. I got serious Cabin fever!

Tuesday

Another Clear with Kif and an entertaining run with him in which a small ‘hurricane’ hit whilst he was in the ring, everything we approached blew down and we were dodging wings left right and centre, if I hadn’t bodged his weave entry I think we might of got a nice place... mainly from the time we saved not having to actually jump 4 obstacles! Nothing with Hex though – Back to our 5 faulting ways – so frustrating! Also a rather surprising refusal. She nipped under a jump to get to some weaves, she just didn’t see the jump, whipped her round to try again, she did it again! She just wasn’t seeing the jump, so I set her in a wait and she did it... but all the poles stayed up – so this got me doing more dangerous thinking – when we made mistakes – were the poles staying up cause I was handling differently, or were they staying up cause she knew she’d gone wrong so therefore was running with less throttle? Or was it all just a happy coincidence? I never managed to answer this question because on

Wednesday

She got a 10^th in G3 Jumping (really rubbish course walking from me!) and a 2^nd in G3 Agility! – Yes another 2^nd, her fifth one – so close but yet so far and she was leading the class for so long *sigh* and we were only off by something like 0.221 of a second.

Matt dedicated today to agility (he had spent most of the week being sensible and hiding in the caravan with a book... and cooking me yummy meals), but Wednesday he made a vow to watch every run of mine and he was true to his word he became my lucky mascot and kept control of the ninjas (don’t ask!), as a thank you I gave him the last run of the day with Hex – The Flick-Flack challenge; Now as most of you know a flick-flack, or ‘snake’ is not the easiest of exercises for a ‘newbie’ to master and the course consisted of 4 snakes made up of 4 jumps each. Matt has probably only mucked around at the field with Hex twice, but he took his instructions and did SUCH a good job. All the SWATties gathered round to watch and he did himself and Hex very proud, he just sent her wide round number 2 so she missed it out, but he picked her straight up for number 3 and continued to do the rest of the course fast, tight, and clear – if he hadn’t made that initial mistake I’m sure he would of made top 5 but it was not to be which is a shame. I wish I’d recorded it, it was a thing of beauty... unlike Kif’s G5-7 Flick Flack challenge – Yvonne Goode set a wicked course, I arsed up infront of the tunnel, managed to save it after Kif span and barked at me a number of times and then bodged my way round the rest of the course, I wasn’t even sure when I’d finished if I’d completed the course correctly – but I had and he came 12^th... no thanks to me!

Thursday

FINALLY it all came together!

After my success with Matt watching the previous day I insisted that he come watch at least Hex’s runs on the Thursday (superstitious, me?!), armed with a clover (just a 3 leaf one – don’t ask, the weather made us all a little crazy).

Hex’s first run of the day was G3 Agility in ring 1, it really wasn’t a Hexy course, minimum distances, on a steep slope, and her first run of the day, which is usually the most mental. I was queuing up with Matt and voicing my thoughts, I told him I’d walked the start to play it safe and that I apologised if it looked a bit messy, he said ‘I thought you were in it to win it?’, to which I replied ‘I am! But I need to go clear’, but the seed of doubt was planted and now a decision had to be made with 4 dogs to go... and I’m VERY indecisive, out of the blue I say to Matt ‘pull her, or push her?’ referring to the safe (pull) or the risky (push) option – I expected him to just pick one, not really knowing what I wasn’t talking about, but he asked me what I meant so I explained so he answered ‘ it’s your last day, go for it, PUSH!’, I looked at what I was going to be asking Hex to do, the pole before the A-frame was a huge risk, I was worried she either wouldn’t see it (like so many others), or would smoosh it (like most of the others)..... ‘mmmm, okay’ I answered, but decided not to watch anymore dogs running incase my mind was changed back.

So I pushed, and was in total shock as she cleared all the jumps leading out AND the risky jump before the A-Frame, sh*t, now I’m on the wrong side, a quick rear cross fixed that and into the weaves, wow that was a speedy see-saw, now when I walked this course I didn’t think I could get there but.... hey yeah, I’ve got time, across the face of the tunnel I whip and on to the dog walk, wow she’s moving – O man, down hill minimum box work with an A-Frame trap, the familiar sound of a toenail on a pole – it’s still standing! Don’t rush her, a wide turn – 2 jumps to go – Clear! ‘O wow, wow, really nice’ said the scrimer to the scorer behind her. Poo, I thought, that means I’m in the lead which means poo, I’m going to come 2^nd again. I didn’t tell Matt what was going through my head, just that I was pleased with all but the wide turn and thanks for his help.

Later on in the day we ran Marie Douglas’s Agility and went into 3^rd (we ended up 4th), I waited till I was alone and went down to check Ring 1, my ticket wasn’t on top, O well, I thought, 2^nd again, let’s see what that wide turn cost me, I flicked on to my ticket in 2^nd place – HEY! Wait a second! My time was faster than the dog on the top of the pile by half a second! – I pointed this out to the scorer, she corrected her error – I was back in the lead and there I stayed!!! Winning the class by just under half a second. Matt and the SWATties came to my presentation as did Hex (I always take my dogs up to collect their prize if the win), although she wasn’t that impressed to be ringside in her ‘posh’ clothes, with no work to be done teehee.

Dashin’ Dogs have their announcements on tanoy and over the radio, lots of people heard and congratulated me, but it still didn’t sink in until I was home – We’d finally after so many near misses, achieved our first goal – to win up to G4. : )

Phew, now I might actually start running like a normal person again! I have some new bits and bobs I’d like to work on with Hex, so must find the time before our first run at G4 – Devon Dogs/Honiton – Bring it on!

Away from the rings I had a great show, with great company, Abi and I enjoyed some entertaining walks, Matt & I enjoyed some fun nights in and out with the SWATties, celebrating their many successes. Alot of you know Mike & Rio – he gained enough points to go Grade 5 and won a fair few trophies along the way – we drank to that!

The weather wasn’t great, but I don’t think I spoke to anyone who didn’t enjoy their time there.

I’m just sorry that there are no videos to view, but here's my Baby looking beautiful with her win out trophy.