I took the two black un's with me last weekend to two different agility shows. Saturday was an early start for me. I woke up at 4am to sort the puppies out before heading off to Birmingham for the Beacon Champ Agility Show. Luckily the journey was fairly quiet in the early hours and I got to Streetly in 2.5 hours. I quite enjoyed Beacon as it has only 4 rings, the allocated the Small/Medium dogs to Saturday and Large dogs on Sunday. I really enjoyed parking close, right next to the ring especially when I am on my own.
I can't believe Sizzle had five classes to run and Sipzie had three. Since it is a Small/Medium day, I have three classes first thing in the morning; Sizzle's Champ Jumping; and Sipzie's Combined 3-5 Agility and Graded 1-6 Agility. Since Sipzie just came off her season, and she is still moody, so I concentrate on Sizzle but tried to motivate Sipzie. I quickly ran Sipzie's two classes before Sizzle's Champ Jumping. Our first run was the Combined 3-5 Agility. Sipzie was doing ok but she lost all her speed and she didn't get the weave the first time, I am sure this is a baby thing and we will work on that; straight after that, we ran in the Graded 1-6 Agility. Sipzie ran much better, I am very happy with all her contacts, especially the Dog Walk as we have a little "problem" with her running the DW at training. I have been using the Manners Minder at home and it looks like it beginning to pay off. Thanks to Bernadette for video this run for me. Sipzie missed the weave entry but did it at the second go, so we got 5 faults on that. To my surprised, she WON that class as all the others were eliminated :( Mmmm ... it wasn't a difficult courses, I can't see where the others went wrong?
Sipzie's Graded 1-6 Agility run (this video is courtesy of OBay Shelties):
After Sipzie's two runs, I turned my concentration to Sizzle. I enjoyed Lee Gibson's course. I ran in one of his courses last year at The Kennel Club International Festival in the EO class. I managed to mess it up on the obstacle discrimination bit (tunnel underneath the DW). He always set up some challenging courses and I determined to nail them this time. We started off well, Sizzle was really up for it, eventhough it had been raining all morning. He did a beautiful difficult weave entry where most dogs ran straight into the pipe tunnel instead of the weave. Sizzle wasn't even look at the tunnel at all. I was so very proud of him but he was too fast and didn't collect himself well, so he missed the 2nd pole. We redo the weave and he did it perfectly. I didn't know that if you get a fault in the Champ qualifiers, apart from elimination, you might still get a chance to go into Final; so I did a stupid thing to try a different handling at sending him into the tunnel, unfortunately he took the wrong end of the tunnel and got eliminated. Later in the Champ Agility, he was once again working beautifully. We work very hard on every single obstacle as it was not an easy course at all but a lovely flowy course. We did so well until the 2nd from last where he jumped the wrong way and got eliminated. I was very happy with his performance as he did the obstacle discrimination (tunnel underneath the DW) without hesitation. Perfect! From now on, we need to aim to get a clear round.
After the Champ, he did the KC Olympia but we got marked on the see-saw. He took off too early and being a bad mummy, I let him get by :( but later in the Crufts Single, I made sure he did the see-saw correctly and he did :) And the last run for him was the Team. Sizzle is running for ESSC (English Shetland Sheepdogs Club) this year. The Team did great, sadly one of our Team-member missed the last jump and cost the Team with one elimination (100 faults), so no qualify for ESSC Team.
Thanks to Smudge's daddy Oliver for videoing the Team (this video is courtesy of Louise & Oliver):
running order: Louise & Smudge; me & Sizzle; Kez & Dobby; and Amy & Fudge
I sat to watch the Champ Final which was great. I managed to get home by 8pm but I was dead tired! I have to wake up early again the next day to go to another agility show ... Tunbridge Wells. I must be crazy! Since Sizzle is running for the Team, I will try to commit to as many qualifiers as we can. Luckily Ardingly is less than an hour from home. Again, I took my two black un's.
Again, I had three classes first thing in the morning. Sizzle's first run was the KC Olympia, it got some challenging bit, I nearly cost him another elimination. I never thought he becomes so responsive as we were doing this sequence, from a pipe tunnel, then call in between two jumps (tight gap). I tried to give him more room just in case he didn't come close enough but he came to close that I have to push him out again. We managed to get 10th place out of 220 dogs. I am chuffed after all the faults and elimination we had recently. Straight after that, we ran in the Crufts Single, sadly, we made the same mistake again. I sent him to take a difficult weave entry, he did it but he missed the 2nd pole again :( I think we need to practice more on that!!!
Later, Sizzle was awesome in the Team run, again Thanks to Oliver, Smudge's daddy for filing the Team (this video is courtesy of Louise & Oliver):
running order: Louise & Smudge; me & Sizzle; Jo & Erik; and Amy & Fudge:
Unfortunately, Sunday didn't go well with Sipzie. She wasn't interested in doing any agility on Sunday but she was good girl to do the full weave the first time :o)
Brooke will be joining her new family soon, so Colin can come to the show with me in future. I really missing him for walking the dogs and filming us ...
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