KC International Agility Festival

The long weekend is over now and most of my mates are off to Dogs In Need for the week and I just want to SWITCH OFF and have a quiet peaceful week with no training!! It was an exhausting weekend for me, we didn't get home until 11pm last night but overall I had a brilliant weekend.

We left home Thursday morning and got to the showground nice an early at around 2:30pm (we did get lost for a little bit!), set up the caravan and garden for the dogs, then took them to explore the showground. This is my first year at the KC International Agility Festival, the showground was massive and grand and I am impress and of course more NERVOUS! Eventhough the show is big but not over crowded, people are from all over the world and all the people were friendly and made you feel comfortable.

Novice Cup
I've entered both Sing & Saturn in the Novice Cup, so our weekend long show started on Friday with the Novice Cup Challenge. The Agility and Jumping heat were set up by Jo Sermon, they were very nice courses with some handling involved. Sing did a beautiful round in the Agility and we came 3rd; he is not a fast dog so we only got a 17th in the Jumping but both his round were clear and he was placed 5th in the Qualifier. As for Saturn, he was so naughty this weekend, we didn't have many clear but he was trying hard to listen to me. He had a clear in the Agility and came 15th; he had fault in the weave entry in the Jumping, this put him in the 15th placed in the Qualifier. The top 15 dogs go into the Final on Saturday, Saturn was very unfortunate to be knocked out by Jenny & Stella who also placed in the 15th, Stella has a higher agility points (she came 4th) and she went into the Final.

Saturday was the worst day of the weekend. Due to the Final, I missed all my graded classes with both boys. I was planning to rest Sing and work Saturn on the graded classes but somehow all the classes crashes with my Final with Sing so poor Saturn has a rest day doing nothing!

The Final was an Agility course set up by a Belgian judge, Michel Liekens. I have to say that was an evil course, I am not around the agility for long and I am only a Grade 3 handler, so that was definitely too much for me to cope but I was trying my very best. I do like that challenge, I thought it was a good course and could benefit Sing as he is not a fast dog. I walked at least 10 times to register the course in my head then only be able to work out how I will handle Sing. I must have walked the course at least 25 times! Guess what? My Crufts dream didn't come true! We've got an e'd but Sing did a fantastic fast round and I was so proud of him, he did a very nice running dog walk, exactly bang on! Well, there were 30 Large dogs, 15 Medium dogs and 15 Small dogs in the Final and only 3 clear rounds, 2 in Large and 1 in Small! There is NO clear in the Medium! All the top handlers in the Medium got e'd, that made me feel better. I was extremely exhasuted after the Final.

The course involved both physical and mental! I was totally crashed out after the Final and of course I was so depressed for a while as I thought I could get around it with Sing, unfortunately he performed too well, he was so fast (not his usual self!) and I won't be able to control him the way I used to be.

Nation Cup

(Jumping Judge: Michel Liekens; Agility Judge: Mia Laamanen)

On Sunday, our graded classes will not start before 12noon so I treat myself with a lie-in. About 8am, I was still dozing in bed, I heard the tannoy saying they just put up a list of the Nation Cup, and asked all the foreign competitors to go and check if they are happy to run in the team. I have to quickly woke up and rush to the marquee (it was a good 5 minutes "run" away from where we camp). I was very surprised to see they put Sing and Saturn down for 2 different teams. Sing was in Rest Of the World 3 with Johannah & One from Denmark and Evelyn & Kaister (the cute Italian Greyhound) from Belgium. We had a good run in both Jumping and Agility, Sing went clear in both and he is definitely going strong each time, he didn't slow down and he did listen to me. We came 4th in Jumping; 2nd in Agility and 3rd in the Final! Well done to my team mates!

Saturn was in the Rest Of the World 1 with 2 Spanish team members, one with Poodle and one with Schnauzer. I was feeling very sorry for my Spanish team mates as their two dogs did brilliant rounds where Saturn is inexperienced and messed up in both Agility and Jumping. We came 3rd in in Jumping; 6th in Agility and 4th in the Final. Well done to my Spanish friends!

Sing is a little star this weekend, bless his little legs, he worked so hard and

how can I retire him?

Saturn needs some serious training, he was naughty on all the contacts!

I toroughly enjoyed my weekend, it was a very good experienced for me. I love all the difficult courses, it made me think all the times how to attack/handle the course with one experienced dog and one inexperienced dog. After these courses, I think our English courses are peanut but again I am still a Grade 3 handler. My boys are not fast agility dogs!

Here is the Novice Cup Final, the only video of Sing I have got for this weekend, kindly video by Andy (Thanks, Andy!).