Let’s gloss over Dylan’s first run, except to say that if you are queuing, have your damn dog with you, especially if the queue is only three people long and you are two of those people. Congrats to Julie and Winnie for winning it though, go the Beardie/Lurchers!

The Graded 1-3 Agility was a really nasty little course. It was the same for the 1-4 Small/Medium classes, and included two contact call-offs and a horrible box push-out and around. Not my kind of thing at all, but Dylan did a nice run, not really flat out at all but he did a really lovely dogwalk. He did get marked on the down contact and I genuinely don’t know whether he hit it or not; I tried to front cross at the bottom and pushed him sideways, and although he did his 2o2o stop, I’m not sure he had any paws in the yellow. Not his fault anyway, and it was almost-fast and was confident.

Lady Jane made an appearance too, because Myerscough is light, clean and airy, and she likes the crowds and the noise. The classes were 5-7 but the gamble partly paid off, and we had a cracking smooth Jumping course, just offset by the painfully difficult Agility. She was really happy to be there, so I still happy with the semi-retirement thing.

Kim and I watched everyone getting E’d or faulted on the Jumping, and Kim showed those whippersnappers what an old lady can do. Shame her handler is spacially challenged! We got a big 5R as I pulled her off a jump way too early, so we looped back around and then came 2nd, with a time that would have comfortably put us 2nd in the Grade 6, and with the second knocked off for the loop, we’d have been in the G7 placings too. This really makes me smile, because Kim runs at cruising speed these days, just chilling in middle gear and laughing at me the whole way around, and still clocks up faster times than dogs running flat out at half her age. For a long time it bothered me that I had failed her with regards to training, and that she never got the Grade 7 label I knew she deserved. I guess I’m just happy to take her line on things these days; she knows she’s more awesome than everyone, and I know she is too.

All the other three rings had packed up by the time came for Kim’s agility, but I guess we can’t be first to leave all the time! The agility involved a little bit of coaxing on the call-offs, but Kim raced through all the straights and made up more than enough time. I promptly forgot the ending, had to make it up and wasted what felt like hours improvising slowly and wildly. We got around though, clear and easy, and Kim came 2nd again. I’m more than happy with that! Staying in Grade 5 means I can stay away from 5-7 or 6-7 classes, and let her have a blast in 3-5s.

Kim also had an interesting end to her Agility run. The big white horse barriers (double bar, about 4-5ft high) were marking out the edge of the run. I’d seen a couple of dogs over the course of the day jump the last jump and then continue to jump through the center of the two bars to leave the ring, mainly when the walkway area was clear of dogs and people. Kim jumped the last jump, and then tried to jump the whole thing. She nearly made it, bailed at the last second and somehow pinged back through the centre hole as it was tipping. It landed on her head … she is such a drama queen, with the screaming and the hobbling and the “much sympathy required” signs.

Within two minutes she was being gobby and muscling in on Pippa’s snapshot moment – Kim was originally stood three foot to the left, until she saw the shutter going down …

Lovely show, but South Durham always put on a good competition. No weaves in any of the classes though, but apparently they couldn’t peg them down. Some of the rings were a bit … oddly shaped, but I don’t really mind that. Anyone with a bit of imagination can put up an interesting course in any space, and I like interesting courses! Some judges were brilliant at this, others not so much.

Graded 1-3 Jumping, and I knew this was not going to be Dyl’s course. Very tight spacing for Dyl, and lots of boring pinwheels/boxes for me. We did a reasonable run, a bit hairy in places poles-wise but tidy turns. I was pleased to see that Dyl was clearly wanting to stretch out and have a blast around, but as soon as he picked up any speed he was braking again to get the strides in. I find it hard to handle when I’m just stood pointing too, so that probably didn’t help. We finished up 8th in the Grade 3, so not so bad in the end.

Walked both the agility courses at the same time, and would have loved to run the G1-3 first, but the Combined 1-4 was running much faster and with Dylan having a lower running order, we had to go for that first.

Five faults, oops! My fault, I early-released and he blew right over that contact. I should know better! I took my foot off the gas then and we made the pinwheel look a bit untidy, and I wasn’t clear enough with Dyl on the run to the last jump about where we were going, so he hesitated for a moment. Fractions of seconds, but if we’d gone clear we’d have placed 6th out of the 220+ dogs, so I’m quite pleased with that. Must practise pinwheels though (even if they are boring!), and look at that terrible jumping action … arg! This was his worst run in terms of fluidity of movement, by a noticable margin.

Graded 1-3 Agility was a superfast course, the only potential problem was a pull-thru at 9-10. Dyl shot off like a rocket, actually showed some of that lovely training speed! Carried that through for a nice Aframe and a really perfect seesaw, but I steadied him up a little bit too much for the pull-thru* and then made a right hash of the ending so we lost too much time there. Surprisingly came 5th regardless, which was a genuine shock!

Final run was Combined 1-7 Jumping (Part 1), and both splits had 157 dogs. I was very jealous of the Part 2 lot as they had a fab course, lots of long stretchy sections and a real flow. Part 1 was a bit more technical, lots of tight turns and those boxes and pinwheels again … Dyl actually ran this with the most enthusiasm and extension he’d had all day, but naturally I was all over the place! I was concentrating too much on remembering where I was going and not tripping over things, which meant I was late on almost all my cues. Poor Dylbert! We had a couple of late hesitations which put us waaaay out of the running, although we were never even in it to begin with as it was 1-7. We got a nice 22nd though, or so Vicki tells me (thanks!).

Congrats to all the usual gang; Julie & Charlie/Gertie/Winnie, Leah & Stan/Doris, Vicki & Diesel/Pippa, Candy & Freddie, Katie & Jet, Orienne & Woody/Murphy, Paul & Farley, all the Wakefield crew, and probably at least six people I’ve forgotten! This was a pretty sizable indoor show but I still couldn’t escape talking to at least 20 people I knew everytime I went for a stroll. Good stuff!

*Expect in-depth analysis of one small half-checked stride in the coming days. I’m becoming an obsessive …

This is such a long drive. Thankfully it’s worth it, because I love the proper Northern shows. Everyone is so friendly!

I had a borrowed dog for this show in Katie’s Jet. Jet is a complete maniac and I haven’t run her competitively since her first KC show at South Durham, since when she’s become 100x more crazy fast. I said back then that running 2 dogs was hard, but it’s actually been a real struggle for me just to run one dog in the past couple of months. The wait between runs just drags on and on!

The Graded 3-4 Agility was an … interesting course? I really liked it, but I might have been a bit more hesitant if I’d been running a genuine baby dog G3 in there.

Jet set off like a rocket, and did one of the best dogwalks I’ve ever seen her do. Katie will be very proud to know that all the training paid off! She ran right to the end, no creeping, but unfortunately I was so overwhelmed by this I was thinking about the wonderful dogwalk and not where we were going. So Jet didn’t turn for the jumps, and turned for the Aframe. Oops! We carried on and did the Aframe again properly, and then again at the end. You can never have too many Aframes, apparently!

Dylan did some lovely lovely contacts in this run, and I couldn’t have asked for more in that respect! He also nailed the turns and generally made it all look pretty easy. Just one thing letting us down, and that was his jumping. More on that at a later date, but suffice to say we came 4th, just less than 2s off the winner. Time that I feel we could easily have made up with fluent jumping! I can’t complain too much though, a 4th is still a 4th and we’re fast approaching his Agility Warrant now so any placing is a bonus.

1-3 Jumping was a bit of a lost cause. I didn’t like the course, too many pinwheels, so I didn’t really walk it properly and then made the same mistake with both dogs, oops! They both popped the last 2 poles on the weaves, and Jet missed the weave entry because I tried to handle her like Dylan … which I already know doesn’t work!

Thankfully I do learn from my mistakes occasionally, and I handled the Graded 3-4 Jumping completely differently for each dog. Made my life more difficult, but I just couldn’t see how I could get Jet around without poles if I handled her like I would have Dyl or Kim. It almost went to plan as well! Jet did a cracking run, but I panicked at the turn from 14-15 and didn’t cue the turn smoothly enough, so Jet slowed right down, and then she jumped completely the wrong way over 16 and we lost loads of time there. I think that was the only real example of miscommunication all day; both my dogs would have read my cues as a rear cross, but Jet isn’t used to running with me (and me with her!) so she didn’t understand what I was signalling.

Dyl’s plan went … to plan, really! Again, just a shame about the jumping. He finished 9th (24.190), and Jet was 13th (24.934). Winning time was 21.215, but second was 23.534, so not a bad finish for either dog.

Huge congratulations to Cat and Gypsy for going Grade 3 – who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?! – and to Tracy and Mac for winning out of Grade 1. Can’t keep the Aussies down … also to Julie and the gang for their lovely pink rosettes, and to Paul and Farley, who has no faith in his dog and didn’t even check to see if he was placed in his last class. (He was, sandwiched between Dyl and Jetly in 11th!)

This is my traditional end-of-year show now, I think! We’ve done it since 2004, it was the first show that Kim properly behaved at and I felt relaxed and we just had fun. The year after, we came 4th in the Starters Agility Challenge, her best ever placing as a Large Dog. The year after that, 2006, she was re-measured Medium; a very very good day. 2007 we did one of the best runs we’ve ever done, but got E’d … oops! Nothing special happened last year, but that’s hardly a reason to break with tradition!

Kim

This was Kim’s first show since the BAA Finals in August, and was really just a test to see if she wanted to do any agility or not. She’s been really enjoying training, and I know she likes it at Myerscough, so I thought we’d give it a go and see how she got on.

Her first class was Combined 3-5 Jumping, a tricky course but nothing that should have been particularly challenging for Kim. The ring next door was the Large 4-5 Jumping, and they had a run of jump-jump-tunnel going next to the barrier fencing that seperated it from our ring. This is important later!

Kim did a beautiful wait start, negotiated the first three obstacles speedily and happily, and then turned around and raced alongside the dog in the next ring, barking her head off furiously. Cue complete shock from handler! I was mortified; she’s never done this in her life before, but thankfully it didn’t affect the other dog’s run and Kim came back once I’d called her, although she wasn’t at all apologetic. Maybe this makes her one of those out-of-control dogs that the Kennel Club want to get rid of?!

She then raced around the rest of the course but proceeded to go and say hi to the judge, look blankly at the weaves, argue with me about 8 or 9 weaves, and then race off to finish. She looked like a complete baby dog at her first show, not a 9-year-old Grade 5 dog. Result = 15 faults and 16 time faults. I’ll just go and hide my head in shame …

It was safe to say she was cheerful though. She got E’d in the 3-5 Agility, due to handler error, and then went clear in the Olympia Qualifier, which was too fast a course for us to get placed on (even Julie’s speed demon Charlie only came 10th, which should indicate just how fast it was!)

Dylan

Combined 3-5 Agility (Part 1) was a fairly straightforward course, a few angled jumps that caused a few problems, and a pull in on a 3-sided box that really threw a lot of people. I elected to take Dylan right and through the “empty” side of the box, which was the longer route but not as risky. It paid off because we came 11th, very pleased to say it was 3-5! His dogwalk wasn’t as good as it had been at Wilmslow, and I held the contact, so we lost time there. He was also very wide on what should have been the wrap-turn, my fault but something to work on.

Graded 3-5 Agility was over the same course as Kim had run, so I knew which mistakes not to make again! Dylan self-released his Aframe contact, and his dogwalk was a little creepy, but he had no problems with the weave entry, unlike almost every other dog I saw run. Anyway, we were clear, but I didn’t think we had any chance of being placed. There were 189 Grade 3 dogs, which made it one of the biggest Grade 3 classes I think we’ve ever run in, and on past form that was just too competitive for Dylan.

Scurried off to run the 1-3 Jumping at this point, it required a wait start which Dylan promptly broke and left me flailing behind him. Somehow scraped through anyway but I knew it just wasn’t going to go well from then on, and it didn’t! Dyl decided he’d never seen 9 weaves before in his life and we needed 3 attempts to get it right, very frustrating as we do 9 weaves in training fairly regularly, and he’s always flown through without a problem. We obviously need to work some more on that!

Dylan was done for the day at this point, and Kim had just run her last class, when there was a tannoy annoucement calling Dylan and I for a run-off in the Graded 3-5 Agility. Since I still had Kim, I sent my lovely mother to let the ring now I was on my way, switched dogs and ran back in, trying to remember the course! I lost the coin toss, but the other person elected to go 2nd which is what I would have chosen anyway. I pushed it, we knocked a second off our original time, but sadly that Aframe self-release came back to haunt us, and Dylan missed his contact. The other person then took it steady and went clear, and won the run off … for 2nd place.

Dylan came 3rd.

For the first time at a competition, I had my crazy little man with me!

Combined 3-5 Agility was a lovely course, challenging enough but flowed really nicely. I was a bit worried about Dylan because he’s only ever done one show at Myerscough before, when he found the whole atmosphere very stressful. This weekend it was super crowded, as always, and we were in Ring 2 for two of our runs, so right in the hub of the traffic. I apparently shouldn’t have worried, because Dylan just took it in his stride, got very excited in the queue and was raring to go.

Just a shame about the handler! I pulled off way too early for the tunnel entry, and pulled Dyl with me to the wrong end. So that was the big E, and I’m more than a bit annoyed with myself as I think we’d have been comfortably collecting a rosette. Oh well!

Grade 3 Jumping (Part 1) was another nice course, fairly straightforward and we watched loads of clears whilst we were queuing. Dyl smoked the first half but then lost momentum after the cloth tunnel into nowhere. Still finished 10th and there was plenty of room for improvement, so that was pretty good.

Grade 3 Agility (Part 1) was back in Ring 2, a more challenging course with just with a slightly awkward bit off the dogwalk which I couldn’t figure out. I walked it with Jeremy and Mel, then again with Candy, and then finally with Leah, and eventually cobbled together some kind of plan, so thanks guys! We ran a decent clear, and finished 4th, yay! That’s our best ever Grade 3 placing, I’m so chuffed with him. There were places we could have made up time – the two wraps at the start were very wide, and I had to hold his dogwalk contact to get into position for the awkward section, which I didn’t handle all that well. I also confused the poor boy in the final seesaw-jump combi, he wasn’t sure whether to go straight or just peg it. Of course, I’m talking of fractions of seconds for all these “mistakes”, but if there’s one thing I know, it’s that there is no room for tiny errors for Dylan and I. We have to be perfect to have a chance of getting into the top-3 in these classes.

The really good thing though, the thing that makes me most happy about this whole weekend? Contacts. His Aframe was smooth, his seesaw was good. Do you know how many times I’ve watched Dylan’s dogwalk on the video? One hundred million times, and every time I want to dance. It’s not perfect, and it can be better, but it makes me so happy to see that the work we put in is paying off. That dogwalk right there is beautiful and confident and it will only get better.