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Paws at Play Show

22/3/2015

Yesterday was showtime at the club where we train. Nicky and Michelle had been preparing for weeks, but it was great to see all of our lovely club members pull together to help make it run smoothly on the day.

Pepper had a great day winning the Novice Agility, Novice Steeplechase II and getting a second place for Novice Steeplechase I.

With Ruby I ran her first course, the Beginners Jumping, NFC so that I could take a toy in and make sure she was completely happy! She had a great time and so many people commented on how lovely it was to see her so happy and motivated.

Her first Steeplechase was a bit twisty and she was quickly E'd when she took a tunnel instead of following me round to a jump, but once we were back on track she ran the rest of it clear and fast. I decided to use my rewind ticket t run this course again and this time managed to avoid the tunnel and run the whole course clear. We got a Clear Round rosette for this coming 4th, just outside the places.

Her final run was a lovely flowing course that really suited her - she had a real opportunity to run at full speed and managed a beautiful clear that saw us win first place! She got the biggest cheer when the results were announced! I'm so proud of how far she has come and it's fantastic being able to run her again!

We were lucky enough to have two fantastic photographers at the show - here are the pictures they captured of Ruby and Pepper:

Thanks to Dean from Glemsdale Photography and Ric from Ric Yates Photography for these amazing pictures!

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AJAXS UKA Show

16/3/2015

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Wow! What a fab few days we've had at the AJAXS show in Mapledurham!

I took the Friday off work - the weather forecast looked awful, but I decided to go anyway and would come home if it was really nasty. When I left home it started raining and continued all they way until I reached the venue, But by the time I got out of the car it had stopped and throughout the day it continued to brighten up.

I had taken both girls - it was Ruby's first proper show for over a year but she's really been enjoying training so I wanted to see how she would be in the show environment, just to run in the Steeplechases.

My plan with Pepper was to run the Agility NFC, to help reinforce her contacts ready for the KC season. I stuck to my plan and it was good to be able to be able to train her in a show environment - she really needed the reinforcement! The Jumping didn't really go to plan but her three Senior Steeplechases were fantastic and she won all of them!

Ruby had three Beginner Steeplechases - we ran the first one NFC so that I could take a toy into the ring. The course was lovely and flowing and she was flying! The second one was OK but I made a bad decision on where to switch sides which caused Ruby to go off line and take a jump the wrong way. Her final course was a real Ruby course - she flew round clear and was awarded 2nd place! It was so lovely to see her having such a great time!

Here's a video compilation of her three runs:

I didn't take Ruby back for the rest of the weekend, but Pepper and I had a great time sticking to our rule of doing the Agility runs NFC. We had a few disasters along the way - the highlight was missing out 3 obstacles in the middle of our Jumping round! I was so focussed on getting ahead of her to get a blind cross in that I just completely forgot to spin round a corner jump, jump tunnel combination! Ooops!

We did manage another 3rd place in a Senior Steeplechase so she now just needs 3 more points to move up to Champion level for Steeplechase.

After all of the fun of our individual runs we ran in the Emma Elliot Split Pairs qualifier with Emma and Star. Emma volunteered to run the Agility section and Pepper and I had to run the Jumping section. There were 72 pairs entered - all pairs run against each other regardless of their competing level, and there were all combinations of dog sizes. The course was quite kind and we both managed run clear. We came 4th which was a fantastic performance but sadly just missed out on qualifying for the final as it was just the top 2 pairs that go through.

All in all, a good few days with lovely friends, some good runs and lots of training points to work on!

Here are a couple of lovely pictures taken by Dean of Glemsdale Photography:

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Mid Downs - First KC Show of 2015

1/3/2015

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Oh, dear! Where do I start!

We set off at 6.45 yesterday morning full of expectation and excitement for our first KC show of 2015 - the Mid Downs show at The South of England showground at Ardingly. The weather was horrible - such a shame after the beautiful day we had had on Friday. Ian had decided to come with us for the day so we took Tubby which would give us some space to chill out between runs.

The running orders weren't great for us - we had our graded 3-5 Jumping and Agility both running at the same time, and the first classes of the morning. Our last class, the combined 3-7 Jumping was the last class of the day so we knew we would have a very long wait between them.

I walked both of the courses - they were OK but both had some nasty traps. The agility was indoor and the jumping was outside. I was undecided which one to run first. The jumping might take the edge of Pepper's excitement but sometimes her first agility run of the day is the best - I decided to go with this option and ran the agility first.

Sadly things didn't go to plan! I got really confused at one particular jump - I had found it difficult to get this section in my head when I walked the course and panicked when we ran the course for competition which caused me to walk into the jump and knock it over! It took me a few jumps to get back on track and we had a good finish but had been E'd long before that!

Off we went to the jumping - it started well but I lost connection with Pepper at a point when I had to pull her through two jumps - she took the next jump the wrong way so another big fat E!

We were drenched by this time! We went back to Tubby with some nice hot coffees to help warm us up. It didn't take me long to decide that sitting around in the cold and wet for the next 6 hours wasn't going to be fun so we decided to pack up and head home!

Such a disappointing start to the KC season, but the right thing to do! We came home and got changed and went to the Hoddington Arms for a nice lunch.

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Paws at Play Show

AJAXS UKA Show

Mid Downs - First KC Show of 2015

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