a little bit of crazy and another bit of relaxing & fun weekend

We had a mixed weekend. Saturday was all crazy. I have entered Worcester, God knows the venue was 3 hours drive away from home and it was the 8:30am starts. I have two classes to walk, this mean I need to get there before 8am so I can walk the dogs (yes, new rule. I have to walk Saturn as he keeps running away from Colin!) then walk my classes. I had booked the Holiday Inn Express at Droitwich M5 but after reading the rules carefully, this hotel charge £10/dog, this mean I have to put at least £30 on top of the room rate. After enjoying a dog stays free at Walsall the weekend before, paying £30 seems a lot of money. I decided to cancel this booking. I probably made such a stupid mistake to cancel the booking because we then have to wake up at 4am on Saturday morning and drove crazily to Holt Heath! Or I should choose to stay at home instead of going! Sizzle has his usual "periodically" stomach problem on Thursday but then he bounced back on Friday (it appears to me like a 24hours bug because he generally bounced back 24hours later). I was debating whether to go or not because I only have Sizzle to run. After some encouragement from Colin, we are going!

The early morning drive wasn't too bad, the Sat Nav took us through Central London, the 3 hours journey becomes 2.5 hours journey so we got there 7:15am! That give me extra time to walk my dogs. Saturn enjoyed my company, he was so happy running around the beautiful exercise area. We had a big but hilly exercise area. I was too lazy to walk down the hill because climbing back is hard for early morning!

The ground where they set up the rings were brilliant. All flat and nicely cut short grass. Weather was so good, a bit too good for me, HOT! I don't do heat so I was suffering. I need pain killers to take away my headache.

My runs with Sizzle weren't very successful, we had 2 clears round out of 3 runs but he wasn't working in his usual speed. I do not know was it the heat or his tummy but he was alright that Saturday morning, had his breakfast and ran around with Sing and Saturn.

Our first run was the Comb 1-7 Jumping. It was a nice easy flowing course but as I have mentioned earlier, Sizzle wasn't stretch out like he normally do. I knew we got into placing but I didn't go and check. I was worried about Saturn running away from Colin, so I stayed in the car with him more. The tannoy only used for calling out for classes, so I have missed all the presentations.

Our 2nd run was the Comb 6-7 Jumping. Marie set up a very challenging course, two tunnels together. I work the tunnels well the first time but I forgot to go all the way up with him to flip him into the 2nd tunnel when coming back (how dare I expect a baby dog to do the tunnel on its own? But I will practice that though!) and we got eliminated but I was very please with that run. I thought he worked really well.

It was a long wait for our last run, the Comb 1-7 KC Olympia. His running order was towards the end of class so we have to wait. I saw some awesome runs, fast and sharp. I knew Sizzle and I cannot beat the time to squeeze into placing especially with the See-Saw start. I have been re-train his see-saw last week, maybe in a bad way so he learned to creep to the end. He definitely knows that I want him to stay on the see-saw til it tip, so he want to be careful but to me that was an awful see-saw performance (it was painful for me to watch)! After that run, I told myself, I am going to sort this darn see-saw issue!

 

 

I was too tired to drive home after my runs, so Colin got to drive, WooHoo for him! I can't be bother to complain as I fell asleep soon he started driving!

 

On Sunday morning, I set up my new rubber chip see-saw and started working with Sizzle (and Saturn & Sing). I did a few 3-5 minutes session with him, I started with some basic like recalling to get him run all the way to the end of the plank, then drop the plank for a big bang. I click & treat when he run all the way up to the end and then another click & treat when I drop the plank for the bang. I did that 3 times. Then, I got him to jump on from the side to learn the bang, 3 times each side. I left it there. A couple of hours later, we got into the garden, we did one recall then I tried to run with him all the way and he was a good boy, he stayed on until I released him. We did that 3-4 times and left it there. Another two hours later, I got him out and did some more, running up with him and each time he was really good. I did more yesterday and today. I started to add front cross and stay behind. I am hoping he will have better performance this weekend. We will see but for the time being, I will continue to practice everyday. I am not going to let this see-saw issue put us off.

 

 

We were quite ambitious to have a BBQ on Sunday. Got a few very close friends and family around for relaxing time. Weather wasn't promising but we all have an enjoyable time. The shelties love to have people around and we have a little football game. Sing was the Goalkeeper, Sizzle be the Defender and I was the Striker! We have so much fun!