So finally I get time to update the blog! It has been a whirlwind few weeks! Firstly we had the Jersey Agility Festival. I always love this show, as it is close to home, so no long travelling involved and is three days long. There are normally European judges, meaning interesting courses, and it attracts lots of European and UK competitors. I particularly like watching the French handlers as they really get into the spirit of things. This year we had Amy and her mum Lynne come to stay with their dogs, so we had a household of seven dogs for the weekend!
The festival turned out to be a real ‘team sheltie’ affair, with shelties taking most of the wins in the small and medium classes. Over the course of three days we had some really interesting courses. Smudge had 5 wins and 5 second places, which was enough to qualify him for the small Jersey European Agility Dog of the Year Final, held on the last day of the Festival.
I was hoping for a tough course in the final, and was fairly certain we would get one as most of the qualifiers had been tough! Unfortunately when the final course was set up, it was a runners course!! Lots of long straight lines are my worst nightmare!! All weekend we had been so close in time to another dog who I knew would probably take the advantage over a course like that, especially as the handler had legs the length of tree trunks! So I gave it absolutely everything and ran like crazy!! Unfortunately it just wasn’t quite enough, and we eventually finished runner up, just 300th’s of a second behind the winner. Damn those long runs! Lol I need to get sprint training!! For some reason I cannot upload my videos to blogger at the moment, but I hope to have them up shortly.
The shelties also did well in the team events, and Smudge and Taz won the pairs by a massive 44 seconds!
We also ran in the Nations Cup event as ‘Rest of the World’ with Amy and Taz and Roger and Troy (‘Team Sheltie’ as we personally liked to be called) and won both the qualifier and the Nations cup final with ease. The sheltie flag was really flying!!
Mayzee had a mixed weekend. As I have mentioned before she has flashes of brilliance….and never more so than this weekend! Day one was a bit of a disaster, with a concentration level of zero! However she seemed to get better with each day, and by the end of the Festival had picked up 4 placings. Oliver has been working really hard on trying to give her a consistent ‘pre run’ routine, starting from the minute she gets out of the car, and it really seems to work with her. She is definitely an up hill struggle, but I think it will pay off, and indeed it has started to already………
I am really glad that Amy and Tazz also had a good weekend, with Tazz winning the Medium Dog Final!
Prize giving each day included European drinks (I particularly liked Spanish day – Sangria…yum!) but it was the French who showed they truly know how to party! Goodness they enjoy their agility, and the celebrations afterwards!
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