Surreal Weekend

When Dog Vegas put out a plea for Judges on the Agility Forum Ann thought why not volunteer and have a weekend away in Norfolk as we hadn't been for over a year.

The first setback came when Ann contacted Gill from The Limes (see 21/07/2009) and found out that she wasn't taking bookings this year.  Luckily she found this lovely little pub in Watton (www.the willowhouse.co.uk) that was more than happy to take us and the Dogs.  Better still it was less than 30 mins drive from the venue:)

Next set back - the weather forecast predicting 2 months rainfall in 24 hours really caused havoc!!  Ann and Mark left about an hour before us and took over an hour and half to get out of Nottingham due to the number of roads that were flooded and impassable.  Luckily, with that knowledge, we were able to plan a route that didn't take us so long.  Eventually they arrived at the venue with us not far behind them, we set up Ann's first course, walked the Dogs then settled in for a lovely meal at the Willow House.

Saturday was Ann's first KC Judging appointment. In total she had 9 different courses to design (some classes including the same dogs) and she did a brilliant job, her courses went down very well. 

My role was to be her scrimer all day.  A job I love to do but doesn't give me much time to think about running my dogs.  In fact I rushed walking Kiros's course and missed a whole chunk of it!!  Never mind, he enjoyed the run and thought he was clear!!

Reno's runs:-

Jumping Graded 3-5 - Judge:- Rebecca Wheetman - Reno struggled with the straight Jump-Weave start, hitting them to fast and coming out at 2nd pole.  Good run after that.

Agility Combined 3-5 - Judge:- Eileen Wischnea - For us this course was a little too hard, aimed at the top end of the grade range with obstacle discrimination and pull throughs etc.  Reno got a bit confused with everything being so close and took the wrong line on a couple of occasions.  Having said that his contacts were excellent and gave me confidence for our next Agility run (I'd already walked the course so I knew it suited us)

Jumping Graded 1-3 - Judge:- Ann Miller - Obviously a lovely course ;-)  Had a slight weave issue.  No idea why so I E'd us by taking Reno back to the jump before the weaves.  From there we ran well until near the end where the box issue raised its ugly head again!!!  Reno started to follow me around the corner of the box but then spied a tunnel entrance and whizzed off to do it!!

Agility Graded 1-3 - Judge:- Mandy Surch - I almost missed running this one!! I could see the ring from where I was sitting scrimming and suddenly realised that there were only 2 dogs left in the queue.  By the time I'd grabbed Reno and ran to the ring the 2nd dog had just finished its run. We went clear with a bit of a wide turn between 2-3 and an almost disastrous turn between 16-17 where Reno turned the wrong way - then back to work on the ring thinking we may just get a placing.  I didn't realise the presentation for this class was taking place until I heard our names read out in 1st place!!

So Reno is now Grade 4.

We'd already decided to have a day sightseeing etc on Sunday and I'm glad we didn't go to the show as it was bound to be an anticlimax after Saturday.

Instead we took the dogs for a lovely forest walk in the morning and visited the St Georges Distillery (the only English whiskey distillery) in the afternoon.

We left the Willow House after a lovely breakfast on Monday morning still not quite believing how perfect our weekend had been :-)

ABC Show

It was such a shame to miss Agility Nuts this weekend. Reports about the venue at Kelham Hall were really good and it seems that everyone had a great time :)

Having said that Winterton Showground is one of my favourite venues, especially for this show as it isn’t very busy and they leave the grass long in the exercise area so the dogs have a ball (or lose one or two!!)

Kiros ran 4 ABC Veteran classes over the weekend, enjoying every minute of it and winning all of them :)

Reno’s runs

Open Combined 1-3 Jumping – Judge:- Alan Hale – Excellent clear round from Reno with a tricky weave entry and 12 weaves. He came 2nd in a time of 21.591.

ABC Combined 1-3 Jumping – Judge:- Alan Hale – Reno was beaten by a Collie in the Open Jumping so I knew if I got him round clear he had a good chance of winning this. He was clear and he did win!!

ABC 1-7 Steeplechase - Judge:- Alan Hale – Reno ran well on this course as well but went into the wrong end of the tunnel due to lack of experience

These were the only three classes that I’d entered Reno in on Saturday. As you have to enter shows so far in advance I entered what I thought was best at the time. After the weekend before I wished I’d entered some Agility at this show as well.

Sunday didn’t go as well......

Jay McCartan judged both the Open and ABC 1-3 Jumping’s. Both courses had a bit at the end that Reno and I struggled to do but to be honest it wouldn’t have made any difference. Reno was really disinterested. Particularly with weaving :(

He did go clear in Jay’s ABC 1-7 Steeplechase but lost a bit of speed at the end. We ended up in 7th place.

Reno’s best run of the day came in the Speed and Power judged by Steve Retter. We were E’d in the jumping for going into an off course tunnel (don’t I know what we have to work on!!) but his contacts were great.

Thanks to Katie for taking loads of photo’s of Reno at the show.

Bitz'n'Bobz Saturday 9th June 2012

The weather wasn’t quite as bad at this show :)


Although it had been raining really heavily leading up to it the rings were dry with all of the boggy bits being in the parking areas. It was, however, extremely windy so none of the Agility classes had Dog Walks in them.

The show had the maximum of dogs going through each ring and coupled with a huge amount of course changes for each judge this made it a very long day. Reno did his first run at 10am and didn’t run again until about 4pm with his final run at 7pm. I have to say that I think this had an effect on our performance.

Kiros had 3 Any Size runs. He knocked a couple of poles in the Agility (which has made me decide to run him on Small now) but he was clear in both of his Jumping classes getting 8th place in one of them. I’m delighted with that placing as it was against young dogs, not just Veterans.

Reno’s runs.....

Graded 1-3 Agility – Judge:- Owen Edwards – A lovely clear round with stopped contacts and great weaves in a time of 28.067 secs (just 0.092 sec of the winning time) and 2nd place. Our first Agility clear and so close to winning into Grade 4!! I still can’t quite believe it

Combined 1-3 Jumping and Graded 1-3 Jumping - I can’t remember exactly what happened in these two runs. One of them had a really hard weave entry and 12 weaves that Reno did correctly only for me to forget the rest of the course and the other had a hard start, calling him of a tunnel. Again Reno did this well only for me to relax and lose him in another tunnel!!

Combined 1-3 Agility – Judge:- Julie Westwood – During the day I’d received news that Reno’s brother Speedy had won Grade 3 Agility at North Derbyshire show and therefore won into Grade 4. Wouldn’t it have been nice for both the brothers to win on the same day? So I decided to push Reno on this run as I knew from what had happened in the morning class that he could have won it. Unfortunately I pushed too hard and he came out of the weaves. Silly mum!!!

Huge congratulations to Jackie and Speedy. I don’t think they’ll be in Grade 4 for long. Speedy is running so well.

Hinckley - Saturday 2nd June 2012

I'm definitely going to get my blog up to date today!!!

Unfortunately for Hinckley (and all the other shows since it transpired) the Agility gods weren't as kind as they were for the weekend of our show :(

At the moment I'm limiting my entries to one day a weekend as Reno and I seem to be over faced by two days of competing. Luckily we chose the Saturday of this show which proved to be the best day weather wise. Although it drizzled for most of the day the heavy rain was minimal.

Kiros didn't have any runs at this show so found other things to do to amuse himself..............Like rolling in Sheep Poo and trying to exit Jackie's caravan awning via a side seem!!! He's getting so naughty now he's getting older :)

Reno's runs were excellent. Really showing what we are capable of

Combined 1-3 Agility - Judge:- Shirley Wells - Good wait (in fact his waits are so good now that I will only say when they are not) and excellent stop on all contacts but E'd because I didn't work a turn and Reno saw a line to a tunnel so took it!!

Combined 1-3 Jumping - Judge:- Kenny Wadell - Difficult weave entry at no 2 that I didn't help Reno with. We missed it 3 times so E'd but he ran the rest of the course really well.

Combined 3-5 Agility - Judge:- Ian Mallaber - I'm adding Ian onto my list of favourite judges. I really loved this course and Reno ran it brilliantly with just a slip in the weaves that cost us 5f.