A win and a bronze warrant

We were at Northern Week yesterday, a very small show compared to some for reasons I won't go into. As we arrived I got talking to a club mate who said it would be embarrassing to win out there. I disagreed, a win is still a win. You have the course to beat first, then you can worry about the competition and so what if the competition is 80 dogs rather than 150? Little did I know what was to come...

First up 1-3 graded jumping. I had Jasper in first, who did the beginning of the course beautifully including jumping a wall which new for him. But then he seemed to lose concentration and refused to weave at all. Then I took Freddie in for a bit of a hyper round, we had a pole down then he came out at the tenth weave and soared over the last jump.

I'd entered Freddie in 1-7 agility, and what a course, not in a good way! Lots of grumblings from pretty much everyone I spoke to. It was just a bit much - you had to send your dog round the back of a jump 5 times!!! I decided I'd use it to train Freddie's wait and appeared to achieve something...

So 1-3 agility came up. Jasper first again. He refused to weave again (must work on that) but did all his contacts with not a glimmer of hesitation. I was so pleased with him.

Then Freddie. He did a beautiful start line wait, followed by a brilliant clear round. Nice tight turns, a good weave entry, I couldn't have asked for more. The scorers seemed to take forever to do their job, but finally the list was ready. I started reading from the bottom and my heart sank, we weren't there, surely we had got a place? My eye carried on up the list and then... Oh My Goodness... 1st place!!! You could have scraped me off the floor. So after just seven weeks in grade 3, somewhere I thought we'd stay for a year at least, we are into grade 4. And it gives Freddie the last few points he needs for that coveted Bronze Warrant. There's no stopping my boy, what a little star! Well done my super gorgeous wonderful Young Master Frederic AW(B) xxx

Hare n Hounds Summer Show

We've just finished a very wet, very muddy summer show.  I thought August weather was supposed to be good!!!  But the people and the dogs got on with the show with the usual good Northern humour and had a great time.

Freddie was running really well and had at least one clear round every day apart from one, and came home with some lovely rosies.  He collected a 20th place, 2 x 14th, 12th and 11th as well as two unplaced clears.  We are still frustratingly close to our Bronze warrant, just 11 more points to get.  And Jasper did some nice jumping in the anysize, we got E'd every time but he is getting better and better, watching more and getting faster too.

Freddie impressed me most with his 20th place.  It was a real speed agility course, very helter-skelter like and all on one side.  I never thought we would be in the places even with a clear round, but I really encouraged him on and we managed to go clear in just 30 seconds.  This was 5 seconds off the winner but I was so proud that we made the placings. 

On the same day we also had a lovely clear round in the grade 3 agility class.  It was more complicated than we are used to, and there weren't many dogs going clear, so I was very proud of our achievement.  And to top it off we came 11th.  A friend captured it all on camera (and a few ringparty to boot):

Our next outing is to Northern Agility Week, where Jasper has his first 'proper' runs.  Watch this space...