Reno's first Trophy

Since Wigan show my will power has been really good and I haven't run Reno in any classes with weaves or contacts because I'm still not confident with them in Training.

This has been made easier by the fact that I didn't to go to Dog Vegas show at the end of September and have only entered Agility Nuts shows over the winter that normally have at least on jumping class with out weaves on the schedule :)

So what have we been doing instead?

Well a nice weekend in Dorset to finalise plans for our holiday to Cornwall in a couple of weeks and plenty of Training in the Paddock, at NADTC and with Jo Rhodes. 

I've really been working on Weaves and can confidently say that Reno can complete 12 weaves now.  I'd been falling into the trap of slowing down a bit to help him keep his rhythm but Jo has advised me to keep running past them with him so he develops his rhythm at speed.  This sometimes means that he comes out early or misses some in the middle but he understands when he has gone wrong and just tries harder the next time.

He's also finding it easier to adjust his pacing so he can enter them correctly after another obstacle. My aim is to be confident enough to run a jumping course with weaves at the November Nuts show and then go back to KC shows next year.

We attended a Jumping Skills workshop with Gemma Hanekom on Saturday which was very interesting.  I had seen the grids that she talked about before but had only practiced them with Kiros. Jo used to set them up once every 5 weeks which I'm hoping she will continue to do as they would be very helpful to encourage Reno to jump a bit lower.

So now onto the title of the post!!

Sunday was Agility Nuts first indoor show of the winter season and I'd volunteered to Judge jumping in the afternoon so I could run Kiros in the Agility classes in the morning.  He ran really well as usual - just a pole down in the Power and Speed and clear in Agility to win the class.

The judge allowed me to only run the "Speed" with Reno which he ran clear in a respectable time  and Paul allowed me to run him in the "Up and Under" Jumping in the afternoon.  I had to fit it in with my classes so didn't have much time to gel with Reno before the run but he still ran excellently going clear and finishing in 3rd place.  I really think my little boy is showing signs of what he is going to be capable of.

I tried to take a nice photo of him with his trophy but Kiros was convinced that all "trophy" photo's should include him!!

Here are my courses from Sunday if anyone is interested?

 Elementary Jumping

 Novice+ Jumping

 Starters Jumping

 Veteran Jumping

They ran really well and I was pleased to see some lovely handling particularly in the Novice +.