Agility Club - Starters Challenge

We qualified for the starters challenge over a year ago at Wellingborough 2012 and Ive been sooo nervous about it ever since and it was finally the day over the weekend! We were lucky to have Rhoda come along with us which was great for the support and definitely kept me from worrying so much. Thank you!! Im very lucky to train with people who have qualified themselves so got lots of bits of advice but oh my god I was nervous. Its seems to be a J9 thing to do well in the starters after Rhoda and Matthew both having done it and done well with Brax and Brodie as well as Paul and Chester winning it a couple of years ago! So I really wanted to do reasonably ok. We also had Chantal and Savannah the lovely tri sheltie bitch who is great in the final as well so it was really nice having someone else we knew in it too!

We finally got to the show after having to take a bit of a detour going the wrong way around the M25 because of an accident, first up was sheltie team. Rommy wasn't in it but Rhoda and Toad were with some other great shelties! I always love watching shelties run (obviously lol) so it was really nice getting to see a whole team of them :). They had 15f in the end so didnt qualify for crufts but I enjoyed watching them anyway. Maybe Rommy will get to have a go one day!

I'd entered Rommy in a couple of classes 3-5 agility and 4-6 jumping in the day as I knew the starters wouldnt be till late afternoon/evening. I know he needs to run some of the crazy off before he settles for some good runs. Unluckily enough the only 2 runs were on at exactly the same time and even though it was expected to rain it was blazing hot so by the second run his brain was gone. He ran the jumping first which was a really fast flowing course with quite a few trappy bits and a pretty tricky weave entry. My only really aim was to just send him in the weaves and hope he got them and he did! was so pleased I forgot I had to pull him off a jump after and got him E'd lol. Ooops oh well, he was a good boy bless him! The agility wasnt good but he did a lovely seesaw and the first time doing his running aframe to weaves in the ring and he got it perfectly so not all bad :)




We had A LOT of waiting to do after that as the final wasnt on till 6-6:30ish but I got to see champ! I have definitely been living under a rock somewhere because I hadnt seen Champ before in person and it was great! so many amazing dogs and handlers. the courses looked reaallllyyyyyy hard but it was really great to watch :D. I was really pleased in the end that a sheltie won the medium ticket! go shelties :D. One downside to watching the champ was the size of the crowd and it got me really worried about the starters. It did look like it was going to rain by then so I was still hoping a lot of people would leave and not bother staying to watch.

So after a lot of waiting it was raining and the starters was on, it was a really nice startery course and Rommy was on 5th and I was just really hope he didnt run out the ring... Turns out he didnt (YAY!) but he didnt go clear. He missed his weave entry because he was too busy looking at the judge in bright pink hahaha. Silly puppy lol. But I didnt give up! I kept running like everyone had told me too and as there was only 2 clears he ended up 4th! Bless him he tried so hard and he really did love the crowd. I think he thought he had a fan club lol.


For being such a good boy I bought him a hoof. Hes only ever had a hoof once before but i thought he deserved one and omg he loves it! He wont leave it anyone for fear of me steeling it lol. Wow it stink!
:)

Billingshurst

So last weekend we were at Billingshurst 50th anniversary show at Cranleigh showground. It was a ridiculously hot day but I was one of the lucky ones that wasn't in the ring first so I got there at a leisurely time of 9:15. Even luckier got to park under a massive tree in the shade which actually stayed shady for the majority of the day. So first class up was C1-4 Agility which was a really nice course, really nice and flowing. If I had to pick anything that wasn't so great it was the weaves were REALLY close to the edge of the ring and a photographer. We didn't have for a while so I hard a nice load of time to get Rommy ready. He has really surprised me these last couple of weeks how well hes coped with the heat, as long as he has his swamp coat on and stays in the cool car between runs hes been his normally nutty self in the ring. One thing I was kind of hoping I might see a bit of a difference with was his focus this weekend because hes been on Calm and Focus powder for about a month now and 4 days before the show  I also changed him onto Burns Alert for working dogs so I was hoping having both together would make a difference and to my surprise I actually think it did! So we finally had our run in the agility, it was a nice straight line (I got a wait :D) into the tunnel and then onto the dogwalk so the plan was I could get ahead to help Rommy remember to stop and it worked! He wasnt expecting it so pretty much fell off the end because he was going too fast BUT he immediately tried to put himself back on! SO HAPPY! Considering this is all I've been wanting him to do for months it definitely made my day... after that he had a few issues with weaves missing them and then really wasn't very sure of himself in them. But after that he went on to do some amazing contacts, flew his aframe and did it perfectly and then straight onto the seesaw and did his 2o2o again.... yes it was a bit to the side but I'm really not going to be too picky at the mo then he had a bit of a slip on the last 3 jumps but he was fine and I was just SO pleased with his contacts.

Videos thanks to Rhoda and Matthew :) 

Next was the c1-4 Jumping which was a bit of an weird course...  nice but I thought it was a bit tough on baby dogs!.... dunno if you can tell in the video but the first line(ish) of jumps are all at really odd angles and for fast dogs it was really hard! SO anyways... Rommys run it was great apart from the weaves, he just didn't slow himself down enough for them but on the upside he was a lot better in them than he was in the agility. But again he worked so hard in it and really focused and I got a wait which I REALLY needed!

Last run was a really nice 3-5 Agility. Unlucky for us it was really soon after the jumping so he didn't get time to cool off properly. Don't have a video of him in this but his seesaw wasn't as great as the first one BUT then I managed to get ahead of him on the dogwalk again and he really slowed down and thought about what he was meant to be doing and got his position perfectly! After that he seemed to have got his confidence with weaves a bit and got them and popped out at the 10th pole because he saw the tunnel trap sitting there for him but put him back in and he did them fine and even let me front cross out (hes only just started letting me do it in training) but then after this we came completely unstuck. Rommy was just too hot and even ran past the a frame to finish :( managed to get him back for the a frame which he got another great contact and last 3 jumps which he did really well and finished. Definitely lesson learnt with letting him cool down enough between runs! Bad Jenni! But he was such a star, I was so pleased with him. No clears or places but I really don't care if he works so well. It turned out to be a really nice show :).

Nothing to go to this weekend. Really glad I've for the weekend off after all this bloody hot weather. We really are winter beings Rommy and I. Next show is Agility Club for Starters Challenge Final! EEK! getting kinda nervous now but hopefully it wont be too bad! Wish us luck!