Bridgehouse

We had a lovely bankholiday weekend and the weather was great. On Saturday i drove Katie and Phoebe to the junior show at Chippenham. It was a really nice show and well organised, i had a lovely day sitting by the rings and watching the kids run their dogs, there are some great partnerships out there whome i'm sure are ones to watch out for as they get older. She took a pole in the jumping and the last pole in the power and speed, but she really helped us out in the one dog 2 handlers by not noticing the handler switch and winning the class by a tiny amount. Sadly they were eliminated in the YKC agility, she was the last dog to run and there had been no clears but i think this was a bit to much pressure for her, its hard to get a 10 year old to remember that she's only been running the dog since March. She has done so well to get in to 3 finals with her and to win the Agility Club under 12's final. I am really pleased that she still has next year in under 12's as Phoebe is enjoying herself SOO much and they are such great friends.

Sunday was Bridgehouse show at Horsham Rugby Club, i'd never been to this venue before but it was very nice and the show was very well organised and nice and relaxed. So relaxed that we even took some video! All the dogs were good, Fizzy is making a few baby mistakes and watching what her Dad does just a little too much but she redemed herself in the Grade 3 agility by doing a nice training round and still getting 7th.

The wonderful Dennis took these piccies of her, I'm not sure how she ever thought she was going to make this one but she looks determined! I have to say she looks just as determined after knocking the pole down.

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KC festival, birthdays and ducks

The Thursday we drove to the KC festival was Leslie's birthday a bit of a shame to have to get up so early load the caravan and drive nearly 200 miles but atleast he didn't get a chance to be bored! On the friday we went out to the harvester with all our friends and had a nice meal, it was great because we ate outside and the kids all had a blast without annoying too many people! Leslie also celebrated on the friday as Fizz won Gr3-5 jumping which qualified her for the Novice Cup final on the Saturday.



Sadly for Fizz the Novice final proved just a touch too difficult for a 20mth old Gr3 dog but hey she did great to get there. Well done to everyone who qualifyed for crufts, especially Nancy and Mark who were the only 2 clears. Good runs!

Another little pup who was determined not to be left out climbed on the podium himself but sensibly he decided to settle for 3rd as the climb to 1st place seemed a bit scary!


Tig and I just weren't on the same planet for the KC Festival which resulted in handling errors all over the place, poor Mr Tig. However we managed to pull it out of the bag for his last class Gr 6 Agility which he won by 8 tenths. In the words of lisa WOOT! WOOT! WOOT! Mr Tig is now GRADE 7!!! Actually i don't think it has sunk in yet. Sadly there is no picture I NEED A DENNIS TOO!

But i did take some pictures of Spike for Bernadette



The Friday after the KC fesival was my birthday so Mum and I took Dylan to see the ducks in Arundel fortunatly we somehow managed to keep Dylan from falling in.





CAUGHT RED HANDED!





Some sad news for CROC fans
Dylans Crocs are now a whole size too small for him BOO HOO. They have however been replaced by a very smart pair or red shoes that FLASH. After all Winners wear red! PICTURES SOON promise!

Ok update coming up!

A quick update from right back at Agility Club show where Tig was 2nd in Gr6 jumping i was really grateful to him cause i was half asleep and he got me out of trouble. I need to wake up quicker in the mornings, oops. BUT even better Dot was 3rd in the Senior KC qualifier which means she gets to go to the last day of the semi's. Yippee! She ran brill not only that she did the course almost twice as first time round a dog joined her at the end of the dog walk (#13) so we had to restart FROM SCRATCH. At that point i could have cried as i hadn't expected to get it right and never thought i could do it again. Extra treats for Dot that day!

The following weekend was Burridge and at last some time on our hands to do some video's. We really enjoyed Burridge show, they ordered great weather and sitting around one ring watching was really good and relaxing too. I would only wish that i'd brought my orange fence with me so i could have penned Dylan in, anyone who saw me running up and down the road all day will understand why!

I'm not sure being so relaxed worked for me and Tig as we struggled to get much right but it was a good chance to train his contacts which were brill so i guess we still got something out of it. I also learned that i NEED to work on my tunnel call offs when i'm left behind, but i think a hundred other people might also feel the same.

Dot was good and put in a FANTASTIC clear in Gr7 agility but missed out on the places by 1 place. But i was really pleased with the round it felt really good to me.

And Billy well never thought i'd say this but he was the SLOWEST clear in Gr7 jumping, i like to keep pointing this out to Leslie to wind him up but actually he was one of only two people to go clear so he was very pleased with himself.

At the end of the weekend was the team relay which we entered with Pam and Karen who live in our village. I think it would be fair to say that we entered for fun, so much so that i entered Leslie with Fe not Billy (i wasn't popular for this decision, hehe). Well low and behold we were the only 4 clears which was amazing

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

On the Monday after Burridge i took Dylan and the minded children to a farm, i'm sure Dylan though the black calf was Charlie (our rottie) as he climbed on the fence, reached out to touch it and said 'arlie' which was cute and fortunately the calf didn't mind. He also got very jealous of me holding a chicken so the bigger children could stroke it which was very funny, poor Dylan. Here's a picture of him meeting Sweet pea i'm not sure what he made of her!


Here's some other pictures of Dylan enjoying the summer.

Fathers day at Axtaine

Axtaine is such a lovely show everyone is camped close to the rings and the tannoy can be heard from everywhere which is great. Usually its way to hot for the dogs but this year we had a few showers to cool us down. Dot and Tig performed very well with Dot coming 4th in both Grade 6/7 jumping classes and Tig getting a 5th in Gr 6/7 agility. For some reason Tig stopped on the see saw so lost a bit of time there but apart from that it was a nice round.



Dylan as usual had a ball playing in and out of the caravan and with Sophie, Andrew and Keiren who are much older than him but VERY good to him. He has also made a new friend this week and has started to learn to be nice to her, sometimes he is a little too nice but she is very tolerant of him.



With the fence around the garden Dylan is able to wander in and out of the caravan as he wishes although i have started to worry that he will be out there taking something apart to see how it works, just like his Dad. He has such concentration when he's trying to do something and usually he can be found at the jockey wheel trying to figure it out.




Agility didn't quite go Leslie's way but at least he had a nice Fathers Day with Dylan, they both love spending all weekend together. All week long all i hear is Dyl shouting for his Daddy, he knows the sight of his van and when we go to get in the car he will take himself up to the yard shouting for him, he gets quite cross if he can't find him. Weekends in the caravan really are his favorite time.

Cheeky boy!

OK OK as i can hear my Mum shouting at the PC from 600 miles away i thought i better post some Dylan pictures.

Dyl is walking, running and climbing everywhere now. I don't think there is anywhere he can't get to and anything he can't get! Most of the time he knows to go backwards if he needs to get down from anywhere, but sometimes he forgets. Fortunatly he's a tough cookie!




Dylan understands a lot of what we say and responds mainly by running away especially when i say nappy time! If you say you have to go he says "bye" and he is always shouting for his DADDY! I think he is getting so hansom now but he still has such a cheeky grin!

Nine days on the road.

Well for our first week long show the weather wasn't kind to us NOT ONE BIT! We coped quite well though and people all around us were packing up and going home but we stuck it out and finished the week in lovely sunshine. As for the dogs they were real stars all week.

Phoebe had a great week mainly doing juniors with Katie and they came 1st in 2 classes (1 agility and 1 jumping) and 3rd in an agility with Katie putting in a quick save just before Fe disappeared over the wrong jump just before the last fence.

It was Fizzy's first time in the ring and I'm not sure a week long show is very good for an inexperienced dog so she only did one or two classes a day. On day 2 she got a 25th in a Grade 3 agility class and on day 4 she came 2nd in a Grade 1-3 jumping class winning her first ever trophy! Not bad at all!

Dot was a good girl, i trained all her agility rounds and we are starting to get things together, she got a 4th and an 8th in hard Jumping classes and a 9th in an agility. It seems we are good on harder courses, in fact the harder the better.

Billy was his usual self, when hes bad he's very bad and when he's good he is WICKED! But he finished off the week getting his last all important Agility win to put him ADVANCED (Gr7) so he can now compete in Championship classes.

As for Mr Tig well he could do no wrong he won 6 classes and got two second places (and a sneaky 4th and 6th in agility rounds where i trained his contacts).

The finals
For once we wolk up to wonderful sunshine which helped the trophies sparkle and boy was there trophies!


Phoebe and Kate qualified for the under 12 Juniors final and Tig and i qualified for the Gr3-5 (NOVICE) so nerves were on a high comefriday morning.

Juniors were first to go and i have to say for UNDER 12's this was not an easy course but Kate did well almost losing Fe in a tunnel but managing to get her back, however it wasn't to be and turning too tight after the weaves got them eliminated at number 18. They were in fact the best of the eliminated dogs so they went in to round 2 in 4th place so it was still all to play for, but i think this all got a bit too much for Katie as she forgot the course. I have decided that Junior classes are quite cruel as you end up with one happy kid and a lot of tears, but Kate has recovered from the trauma and she's ready for the next time so roll on KC Festival!

Apparently Mr Tig and i looked very relaxed i have to say this was all an act, i couldn't watch the dogs going in front of me and Eleanor kept Leslie and i apart for the last 10 mins or so. The Jumping course was quite naggy and i felt like i was going round in circles like a robot going "Tig, Tig, Tig, Tig, Tig, Tig" but it worked and he was a very good boy. This round put us in pole for the agility as well so once again we had the agonising wait that comes with it. No need to worry as Tig steered me round the agility course in his usual at ease way, as you will see by the video i didn't even push him over his contacts as i didn't want to blow it, also after the Dog walk there was a long jump and i didn't want him to tip it. So finishing off Grade 5 in style Tig won the Supadogs Novice Final.



As you can see by the picture Bernadette and Zen won the medium final, i saw their jumping round which was amazing to watch but i missed their agility as i was walking my course but i know they would have won it in style!

Here are some pictures of all our tropies and rosetts from Supadogs, WOW they do the best trophies EVER!





After Supadogs we went up to Hinckley to the most wonderful weekend show which is small and friendly but has some of the most important classes. I think Tigs luck was almost out and he was grade 6 now after all. He go a 2nd in Gr 5-7 jumping but nothing else we did was quite right. Leslie and billy put in a really nice jumping round in Gr6-7 Jumping in fact i think its the smoothest I've ever seen the pair of them run they went in to the lead but were pushed down to 3rd before the end. To end our stay away Leslie and Billy won the senior Olimpia qualifier (again!) which was fantastic and very exciting. This qualified him for day 4 of the semi finals so with days 3 and 4 all i can say is "Watch this space!"

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

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Bad Blogger

Well i'm officially a bad blogger when my Mum is telling me to update it! Trying to do anything whilst Dylan is up is way too difficult and i'm getting worn out watching him as he just doesn't stop, but here goes...