Monday 30 June 2008

A weekend off and then lansdown

Well no posting for a couple of weeks as we had no show to go to last weekend!So I caught up with some much needed gardening and cleaning- we even washed the caravan! Here's a slideshow of lots of kelpies that were at Newton heath the other week- lots of ruby pups there- nobody told me when the pics were being taken- or i may have been asleep when these first pics were being taken!- probably the latter knowing me!

Took the pups for a training session last Monday, and proceeded to hurt my ankle again- but this was when I was running ruby as I felt good and was actually running, Madeleine also started her first (5 minutes) agility training with the pup Molli, and did very well- I was so proud of her! Draco did very well if only because it is like having a dog on springs next to me! he took to the tunnel like a natural.
Off to Lansdown then and we had a foggy , wet and wild night! The wind was howling at the top of that hill and was blowing everything in it's path around. I dosed up on pain killers and anti-inflammatories and took Puck out for his first run ( there was only 2 runs a day at this show) Well he tried his hardest , but was extremely wide in lots of the course- actually landing past the entrance of one tunnel- but had enough sense to go back into the tunnel- the judged faulted him for this- but when we finished running he came over and scratched those faults ( a very good judge!) But puck missed the up on the a frame! so Hoops out tonight!
Ruby pushed my running skills to the limit as there was a huge diagonal run through the middle of the course, but as she is so much fun to run and she tries her hardest, we made it, safe contacts on the way round resulted in a win, and a good start to the weekend. The jumping run saw puck be a knob and decide that he actually knew a faster way round and missed a very fast weave entry and to try to sneakily miss out another jump out! Ruby decided as well that she thought she knew the way round and spun at two points in the course- eventually costing me the win and we had to settle for a second place one ( by 1 tenth of a second). So all in all a good days competing. The Sunday brought nicer weather, but the occasional shower. We had three runs today as there was an ABC class at the end of the day, again Puck was first up, and a run in the 6-7 Crufts singles qualifier, off his head he was and broke his stay and run straight into the nearest tunnel- eliminated ignominiously! But we had a reprieve- the judge decided to take out the collapsible tunnel as it was dangerous, and replaced it with a rigid tunnel. So the class ran again- so I tried a different start with puck which ended up in the same result- straight down the tunnel! Ruby ran at the end of the class and ( I did not see this- though- I was told) she fell before going up the A frame- not to worry though- still good enough to gain 2nd place! The jumping run was next with puck again first- I decided to abandon the attempt at a recall and just run him as I felt the course would be too much for us with a tricky weave entrance, but as usual he did the unexpected and came 2nd in the grade 6 element of the course! bouncing and shouting his way round the course. Ruby ran and I knew it was her sort of course, but by now my knee was hurting and i took it easy, treating it as a training round - on the finish I miscalled and she turned the wrong way- but hey-ho still posted a time that was good enough to win the class!
ABC now at the end of the day and a tricky course was put out, ruby this time went first- flowed round nice and steadily, but deceptively so as i relaxed too much and didn't run fast enough at the end, and she took the jump to the left instead of over the wall!
Puck next- so no expectations here! off he started and he went all the way round the right way and produced a stunning round- only to find the judge not clapping- what went wrong i though? Apparently he was judged to have missed his see saw! he has a very fast see saw and pushes off it with his back feet- so I was not impressed with this piece of judging to say the least! But we live to try again at tuffley this weekend- and hopefully keep up this form!

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