Week in Wales

This year friends decided to give some agility shows in Wales a go rather than the usual Dogs in Need, so of course I just had to tag along ;-)

As it turns out it was a very good decision. Lovely week, reasonably lovely weather (compared to the rest of the country!), and lots of fun.

To start the week we had Pembrokeshire by the Pond show which was run in conjunction with their local county show. I only entered Tooheys in a handful of runs over the 3 days purely to secure myself camping and no intention of running him. Well I arrived to find that the agility area was very tight & congested but the rings were fully fenced and everything was quite laid back, so on the second day I decided to give our agility run a go. The boy was fully focused on me and ran really nicely, and only went and ran clear with no glimmer of naughtiness in sight. So so happy! And even happier to find out he'd got 3rd place, less than a second behind the winner. If only I hadnt shouted stop when I thought he was going to fly the seesaw, and instead caused him to freeze on it for a few seconds!!

Then on the 3rd day I had him entered in 1-3 jumping and helter skelter. Again I had a totally focused dog and we had some nice runs. Unfortunately he pulled off the weaves at the last minute to heel me (so a refusal there!) in the jumping, and then I didnt push him hard enough around a jump that he had to take from the far side in the HS so again a refusal on that run. Not too bad for a dog that hasnt done any KC shows in a year though!!!

Over the few days I also had the pleasure of running Zane, one of Sue's fast merle border collies. The closest we came to a clear round together was our first g4-5 jumping run where he had and collision with the tyre (yep yet another tyre accident and he wasnt the only dog to on that course! but thankfully all unscathed), but alot of fun none the less.

Finn got to spend the few days wandering through the country show (It was HUGE!! such good socialisation!), playing with old friends, and making new boyfriends. I think it was a success in her eyes!

The friday evening they had organised an unaffilliated show on one of the beaches not too far away. Yep ON the beach, its not every day you see that. Despite it being very windy it was such a great laugh, and drew out all the locals to see what madness had unfolded on their town. Sue kindly lent me Zane again to run as it was much to manic to ask Tooheys to perform.

Saturday morning saw an early start for us to drive several hours to north of the Brecon Beacons for the Welsh Kennel Club. It was held in a lovely little town with nice river front walking, and absolutely stunning scenery from the camp site. We had conformation showing on the saturday, where Finn proudly got beaten, but Lisa's Zig got placed in her class.

Sunday was agility. The show was only very small, as alot of people at PbtP hadnt known about it, but oh so laid back and relaxing.

After much deliberation I again decided to run Tooheys in his G3 agility. The course was very much a fast dog course (ie not suited to us!), and a large section of the course ran along the start/finish line where everyone was queing (eek!!), so I just took it steady and didnt really let him stretch out in some sections. I was just happy to get him round the course in one piece, and clear at that! So again I had the very pleasant surprise of finishing in 4th, again less than a second behind the winner.

We finished off the week with a steeplechase run, Tooheys had a blast and was flying, unfortunately his handler added in a few extra obstacles without realising. Same old story - Good dog, bad handler!