Caerphilly Weekend

This was my first time going to Wales to compete in Agility and I had an enjoyable wonderful weekend. Eventhough Colin was very ill and spent the whole weekend sleeping but it was good to have him as a company and he tried all his might to film the dogs while we were running. He is a good husband eventhough his filming was poor!

The venue was lovely, I've never camp so close to a town centre before, there is a bridge joining the campsite over to the town centre and we have our own beach so Sing was in the water when he was not running! We went to a local Chinese restaurant for a meal on Saturday after all the runs and it was lovely to walk across the bridge to explore the beautiful town at dusk.

I like the view of the hills and the houses,

I spent most of the time enjoyed the scenary than the agility courses!!

This is the bridge joining the camp site and the town centre

the boys enjoying themselves at the beach and Sing loves swimming!

I think we did pretty well over the weekend, both Sing and Saturn came back with some 2nds. The Saturday started off nicely with Sing got a 8th in the Combined 4-7 Agility. I like the course as it needs a lot of handling and I was worried for a while as Sing has not seen a WALL before! I was wondering how should I tell him to jump over the wall, it wasn't a straight line, it was a pull through so he might have not pick up the speed to jump over it but he was good boy and when I told him to JUMP, he doesn't seems to bother by the existing of the wall and after the wall it is a split jump then into the Dog Walk ... we went clear and was surprised to get a place (there were 60 dogs in that class).

I was admiring the Dragon Trophy when they gave out the first lots of prize giving and I wanted to do well to get one. They only give the Dragon Trophy to the 1st in Medium classes and I was hoping Sing will win the graded agility and bring me one of those lovely trophy. Unfortunately, Sing only got a 2nd in the Graded 4-7 Jumping and another 2nd in the Graded 1-4 Agility, so NO Dragon Trophy from Sing!

Generally speaking, I think the courses in Caerphilly show were better, not a straight forward up and down courses, all of the classes I've been running need some handling and I was very happy how Saturn performed. He was a real good boy. He got a 2nd in the Graded 1-3 Jumping, behind Natasha Wise's super turbo Dizzy and he was 3 seconds ahead of the 3rd, so he wasn't slow. At the presentation, I was chuffed to receive the Dragon Trophy with my rosette. They were quite a high entry at Grade 3 Jumping so they gave the trophy up to the 2nd place in that class. I only ran Saturn in all Jumping classes, he was keeping his speed but got e'd in 1-7 Jumping and 1-5 Jumping.

This is the BEST trophy ever!

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention the Team Dash, Sing and Saturn were both in two different teams, Sing was with Joyce & Star, Katarina & her Terrier and Daniel & his Whipet. Beside the Whippet got faults on the weave entry, all the other three members went clear.

We have Lorna & Cadbury, Janet & Sally and Sue & Bug in Saturn's team. Both Saturn & Cads went clear.

We definitely had a great weekend! It took us nearly 5 hours to get home last night and we were out walking for miles and miles and hours and hours today ... will tell you more in my next coming blog.

Enjoy the video clips of Saturn and his team-mates, Sing will be followed later: