Next and last show in August was Letchworth which was at huntingdon racecourse. Id never been there before as last year the show was at Shuttleworth college. I was really suprised how nice it was the exercise area was right in the middle of the race track with a nice little lake/pond in the middle. Really nice. Where the rings were was also really nice and flat, it was a bit of a walk from the car park but still really nice.
I had entered all 3 days of Letchworth with Rommy so I knew I had lots of time to practise our contacts in a show environment. Hes been getting so much better but theres always room for improvement because sometimes hes just so wild he just cant slow down enough. bless him. The first run was G 3-5 jumping which went Rommy ran well but I left him too soon on a 180 from a long jump over to a normal jump and he pull off the long jump I thought hed get a refusal for it but for some reason he didnt and just wasted loads of time but ended up in 2nd place!
I had heard there was a practise ring there on the friday which i thought would be perfect, unfortunately when it came for our go there was a massive gust of wind and my little man got blown off the dogwalk :(. Its never happened to him before so we were both really shaken up by it.
I was really worried hed hurt himself but luckily our amazing physio Sally was at the show to check over him and said he was fine. So we went in for our agility which I really didnt expect anything from him given his accident and i thought his confidence was knocked a bit so I just wanted him to have fun. He was definitely slower than normal and more clingy but he went clear and got a 3rd place. SOOO proud of him.
The rest of the weekend we spent working on contacts, he got a place (cant remember which) in a helter skelter class and our last run of the weekend was pairs with Chantal and Savannah. Rommy and Sav are both nuts and had never run together before so we didnt really know what theyd do but they were amazing we had a bit of a bad batton change but they got a double clear and got 2nd place! Clever little shelties!! They loved it!
Im getting good at all this catching up stuff. I'll have more for you soon little blog. Then we can get onto the fun of winter training :D
Byeeeeee
Hello little blog! I know.... Im not very good at catching up with everything but here we go. Lets give it a shot.
So all the way back in August we did the Kennel Club International at Rockingham Castle. I had entered Rommy into the Novice Cup qualifiers on the Friday in the vain hope we might go clear. In maybe one round, never mind two.
As well as that Id entered into some normal classes on the saturday.
So anyway, Day 1 Friday. Our first class was the Novice Cup Agility. It was a nice course but I just went in to it with the main aim of just making sure Rommy his dog walk. So to my suprise my little man went and did a cracking run and went CLEAR! Stopped his dog walk just like hes supposed to! Ive been holding all in normal runs this year just to make a point to him really. The first clear round he'd had in an agility since May! lol! I was sooo pleased with him, it was such a suprise to me and that really just made my day... I really didnt care what he did for the rest of the day after that. It was a massive class with over 100 dogs in but my the little dude only went and got 6th!! SO pleased with him. We then had a to wait a really long time to do the Novice Cup Jumping and it was a really nice fast flowy course. He was such a little star and went clear AGAIN! I handled like an idiot at one point and stood right in his way and made him do a REALLY wide turn around me but he came 6th again and there was less than a second between him and 1st place!! We had a double clear! there werent many at all so I knew we might have even have got lucky enough to make it through to the Novice Cup Final in the big ring on the saturday but I needed to make sure and then came a VERY long wait to get the combined results but we did it and we qualified for the final the next day! EEEK! I was so proud of him to get us there. I knew the top 4 would go crufts but considering I didnt think we'd get as far as we had I really excited to go in the main ring.
So onto day 2! I was SOOOOO nervous by the next morning our morning runs hadnt gone well, I think Rommy was just really tired from being so clever the day before to be honest. I didnt get to walk the course until lunch and we would run just after lunch. There was some definite trappy bits around!! Thanks to Rhoda for helping me walk the course and for the moral support otherwise id have been a nervous wreck LOL! So the time finally came and Rommy was soooo gobby and pushy on the startline and I had to set him up twice! Cheeky! But off we went, it was going so well and then we got E'd. I sent him over the wrong jump :(. My shoulders were all wrong. Oh well. We tried our best and had a great time doing it!
Thanks to Lian for filming :)
So things ive learnt from this years KCI - Rommy LOVES a crowd and finals in big rings really arent so scary and i shouldnt get so nervous because its acutally really fun :) after all its only agility, right?
