I know, it’s only December and the New Year is a whole three weeks away, but I’ve finished competing and training for the year so I thought it was an appropriate time to look back over the doggy year.
Kim has had an amazing year in agility. We won out of Introductory (BAA) and Grade 1 (KC) in style, and I know she can go higher. We qualified and competed at Crufts, which was a fantastic experience and one I’d love to do again (unlikely!). We also qualified and competed in the Introductory Agility and Jumping Finals.
Number Crunching:
| Shows Attended |
Classes Run |
Top 5 Places? |
Other Places? |
Eliminations? |
| BAA |
| 9 |
49 |
15 |
19 |
9 |
| KC |
| 5 |
19 |
5 |
0 |
11 |
| Overall |
| 14 |
68 |
20 |
19 |
20 |
In flyball we had an equally good year, qualifying for the Summer Championships and winning our division, and consistently running sub-20 times all year. Kim also got her Flyball Dog Advanced award, and is well on her way to her Silver, which I am so pleased about! She is also running nice sub-5 singles times, usually around 4.8 or 4.9, occasionally going faster when we’re running indoors.Mollie officially retired from agility after the EMDAC Midsummer Madness show, where she got her first clear round, and then followed it up with another 4, so we decided to end it on a high! She’s getting faster in flyball though, running some lovely 4.9′s at her last competition despite the world’s worst box-turn (something we’re going to work on for next year!).
Dylan has had a whole world of experiences this year. He’s really grown up too, both physically and mentally, although I think he’s always going to be a bit of a puppy. His flyball training has been fantastic – we began work on recalls over the jumps in mid-August, and then introduced full runs without the box three weeks later. No problem! We then worked solidly on the box for 6 weeks or so, and finally it’s all come together, with his NFC team runs at Doncaster in December. As for agility … well, a much later start than I was hoping for! Dylan didn’t start training on a regular basis until September, and even now “regular” is once or twice a month when we can. But we only have one more piece of equipment to conquer (the seesaw) and he’s still scheduled to make that competitive debut on January 19th at EMDAC.
2007 was pretty stressful, training-wise; we left our old club very disheartened and unhappy with both training and clubs in general. Leeds ‘Owlers, where we now flyball, were absolutely brilliant and made both training and competing fun again. In agility I haven’t been quite so lucky, because it’s been difficult to find anywhere to train regularly. I am a member of Wakefield DTC, but it’s over an hour away and their training hours don’t always fit in with me, but thanks to some fantastic friends we still manage to practise occasionally.
2008 Goals
- Qualify for a final
- Kim to gain 10,000 points (Silver Award) in BFA Flyball
- Kim to win out of Grade 2 (not on points!)
- Kim to get her Agility Warrant Bronze award
- Dylan to get his 200 points (Flyball Dog Award) in BFA Flyball
