Kim has always liked to do things in style, and so she came 3rd in the Novice Plus Agility first thing on Monday morning and did a gorgeous running dogwalk contact for me.

Dylan and I had a much better start to the day; Dyl came 4th in Introductory Jumping on a very fast blast course, and unfortunately had a bit of a wide turn which probably cost us a higher placing. But he was running, listening, and unfortunately throwing in extra jump strides all over the place. That’s something he’s been getting much worse with recently and I will post about that seperately.

The Agility was a bit more like your average Grade 3 course, which isn’t a problem for us but I think caught out some of the less experienced dogs/handlers. Anyway, after the fiasco in the Final, I played non-competitive handler for a moment and held all Dylan’s contacts. Apart from that he had a nice run (his dogwalk was reasonably fast!) and somehow we came 1st, which gives him the final progression win to Primary Agility (although when the final League Tables are published, we should be progressing anyway!)

The Introductory Jumping Finals course was again fairly straightforward, with a lovely tunnel twist at the end to catch you out.

Dylan was running 4th again, after Chloe (Working Beardie/Lurcher cross), Riise (WSD) and Ritz (Belgian Terv). All dogs who are very quick! Chloe was E’d, unfortunately, but Riise did a paw-perfect superfast run and we were pretty sure we’d just seen the winner, even after Ritz did a fast clear as well. I knew there were some other fast dogs qualified too who we have run against during the year.

Dyl and I went in and did the best we could, which is all I could ask for really! We lost time on the top straight as Dylan is still stuttering into obstacles and throwing in extra strides, but the rest of the run was as good as we could give. It paid off as we came 3rd behind Riise and Ritz.

Kim qualified for the Dog Vegas Final at Easter, so we made a bit of a detour to Scunthorpe before going down to the BAA Finals for Dylan and the Trios.

Kim and I started the day with a slow clear in the first G1-7 Jumping. It was quite a straightforward course, a flowing loop with a figure of 8 to a straight finish, but I knew we wouldn’t get anything on a fast course like that. As it happened we weren’t far off the winner, and only 10s off Dizzy (Reanne’s Flippin Heck) which sounds a lot but anybody who has seen that dog move knows how fast she is! It does make me a bit wistful though, I wish more than ever that I’d been able to run Kim over courses like this when she was younger, she’d have blitzed everyone else out of the water. I don’t regret any of what we’ve done, but I do regret what we didn’t get chance to do.

She actually picked up for the G1-7 Agility and I just had so much fun running her in that class, she blew her dogwalk and seesaw contact but had the fastest time by 8s.

Kim had a slow clear on the G1-7 Jumping, she set off at a steady lope but picked up over the last 5 obstacles. She came 2nd anyway, to Willow (Beagle), which was a bit of a nice surprise! That gives her enough points for her Agility Warrant Silver.

The Final itself was a really nice course, it had plenty of difficult bits but wasn’t overfacing and after a bit of a fiasco (which I won’t go into; suffice to say I owe Jackie Kenny and the Dog Vegas team a huge thank you) Kim had a lovely clear round, she really enjoyed every minute. Her seesaw contact was a bit debatable *cough-missedit-cough* but the judge didn’t fault her, and she nailed her dogwalk so I can’t complain. We finished out of the placings (they placed to 3rd and we were 4th or 5th, I think) but we had such a good time.

Huge congratulations to Anne and Moss who just won in style, and to Julie and Gertie who came 3rd with a really lovely run. I have to mention Sarah and Willow who had such a good run, shame it all went a bit wrong but they did some serious Beagle representing.

Dylan

Dylan and I were not working on the same wavelength on Saturday! We had a pretty slow, safe clear in the Graded 1-3 Agility and somehow came 7th, which was a bit of a surprise! It was a “nice” run but with no drive, especially over the contacts.

We made a hash of the jumping, which was a bit of a shame but oh well! Still a bit dead though, although he crashed through the first pole and watching it back on the video, he really landed heavily on it and I think it probably shook him up a little.

The final agility was … unusual? Dylan was totally focussed on the jump-weave-jump line, or so I thought, but when he landed after the first jump he veered sharply off to the left and bounced off the downplank of the dogwalk, 20ft in the other direction! Even the judge looked a bit shocked! He then did a lovely fast run, of course (!) but I’ll never know what was going on in his head. I’ve watched the video back and can’t see anything I did that might have cued him for the dogwalk, and neither could any of the other people who watched the video back to try and give me a clue! Complete mystery, I think.