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.

Brilliant Bonvivants

To say that High Peak show was a good one for Bonvivant Belgian's is probably an understatement!!

Katie and Heidi had a brilliant day on the Saturday of the show winning Grade 3 Agility and taking them to Grade 4.

Then Paul and Tiber did exactly the same the next day!!

Well done to both of you :-)

Jackie and Speedy also had some great runs.  Not sure of all of the placings but there was definitely a 2nd somewhere along the line.

As for Reno?  I didn't enter any Agility classes at this show so focused on his waits and my handling.

Jumping Grade 3 - Judge: Karen Baddley - Reno started this run with a lovely wait.   So lovely that I, momentarily, forgot to handle the next part of the course and watched him disappearing into a tunnel!!

Jumping Combined 3-5 - Judge: Karen Baddley - Again a lovely wait and some good weaves from Reno.  There was part of this course that I had no idea of how to handle as it involved calling Reno off a tunnel whilst still moving towards it....E'd!!!

Chase the Ace Team Qualifier - Judge: Jackie Kenny -The Bovivant Boys (and one girl, Heidi!!) excelled themselves, only getting 10 faults and Reno was clear.  For the second year running we've come 3rd and are 1st reserves for the final:-)

Last weekend was our show.  Although I had a brilliant time just getting Reno out of the car to squeeze in quick runs really didn't work!!

I won't bore you with the details.  Such a shame because in my opinion Nottingham is a show that attracts really good quality Judges and as a result the courses were all great.  Thank you to everyone who gave up their time to judge for us and I'm sorry I didn't do your courses justice.

I've said before that the Agility God's must love us and last weekend was proof if it was needed.  Who'd have thought we could have had such great weather with the cold and rainy weekends either side of it.