my little Sizz man!

The three hours journey to UKA National was quite eventful! Half way through the journey, my TomTom's battery went flat, this mean the incar charger is not working and there is no way we can fix it, it was 6:30am on a Saturday morning, I don't see we can find a shop on the motorway! We haven't got a map, so we have no idea where the venue is. I got very stressed and don't know which direction to drive. We managed to pull over into a service station and Colin found an instant mobile phones charger in WH Smith. That sort the temperory problem, at least it took us to the venue 20 minutes before the judging started.

The weather was rotten (rain on and off) and some parts of the showground was underwater, most parts are muddy and slippery; the steeplehcase and jumping rings are very slippery and muddy. I cannot run in my usual speed as I am afraid I would slip and the dogs might injure themselves. We decided we are not going to stay for Sunday eventhough the weather forecast for today is sunny and I have to say, the weather is lovely now! Bright sunshine with lots of breeze. It is a good day for a good long walk with the dogs!

It was not Sing's day yesterday, he was consistent but the eliminated way! He got 3 eliminations out of three classes! He was actually on fire in the first class (Novice Agility). I didn't expect him to run so fast and I was in the wrong side so he jump off the side of the see-saw and took the wrong jump. In the Steeplechase class, he was uncontrollable, he just shot down the line and went into the wrong end of the tunnel! In the Jumping class, he was better but I forgot the course and sent him to take the finish jump before we finish the course! Silly me!

Saturn was a good boy, he won all his 3 classes eventhough he got a 5 faults on the Dog Walk but there is no clear round in the class and his time was a few seconds ahead of the others, so he won it with faults. He also won the Steeplechase and Jumping.

My little Sizz man was great! He listened, he gave me his full attention when he is in the ring. I feel great when we finished our Steeplechase run. As he is only 16 months old, so he is only allow to run in the Beginner Steeplechase and Nursery classes at UKA shows. I have to say, Sing & Satrun's Novice Steeplechase is so much easier compare to the Beginners. Eventhough the course was set up in a couple of big loops but there are a few traps and some of the jumps were set in off angle and you need to call your dog or else a baby dog will normally miss it. I have seen most people started their dogs on the right and they did very nicely but I wasn't comfortable doing so. I decided I will go with my own way to start Sizzle on the left with recall then cross behind the jump #5. Luckily he was a good boy and our crossing behind was a good one. The red tunnel to jump #3 was off angle so I have to stay behind to call him to take the jump, that give me a good position to do my rear across at jump #5. I was disappointed with the finishing as it was jump-tunnel-jump to finish but again, the jump before the green tunnel was off angle and I need to call Sizzle to take the tunnel but this means I have to make sure he goes in the tunnel before I can move and I am not fast enough to race him to the end and you can see he was looking for me where to go there. I guess we need to practise more "go on" after tunnel?

The Nursery class is always a good one, it is normally up and down for the baby dog and it got no weave and no see-saw. I used this as a training round, so we go NFC (Not For Competition). It was good the way they set the Nursery course, so I can break it down to reward Sizzle at the A Frame, Cloth Tunnel and Dog Walk. My worries of him missing his running dog walk has disappear! He was pinging off the dog walk every single time at club training on Tuesday and I was thinking our running dog walk has now gone back to square one but after yesterday, my confidence is back again! WooHoo! I feel GOOD!

enjoy: