Another element of UK Hoopers that I love is the Hoopers Title Awards.

They have set this up to recognise and celebrate our continued competition success.  For every clear round or placing we gain a number of points and when we have accrued enough points we can claim the appropriate title:

Pepper has received her Initiate and Bronze awards and we're on our way to Silver:

Pepper never ceases to amaze me! She really is a fabulously clever little dog, and recently she's been gathering more awards in recognition of her Hoopers achievements.

UK Hoopers have created a really good foundation for this new sport and are providing lots of opportunity to recognise our progression. One of the things that they have introduced is the Hooper Star Challenge Awards which have been designed to guide you and your dog from a solid foundation of Hoopers through to the more advanced handling skills that are required. You start at Level 1 and submit videos for assessment once you feel that you've achieved the required standard. So far they have released Levels 1, 2 and 3 and Pepper has completed all of these. Here are our assessment videos and gorgeous rosettes:

We can't wait for Level 4 to be released and look forward to our next challenge!

I have no idea where 10 years have gone, but you really are my partner in crime that I just can't imagine life without!

Pupaccino's were enjoyed as a special treat!

Having done very few competitions since taking up hoopers, we were somewhat surprised to find we'd qualified for the UK Hoopers League Finals having come 2nd in the Poodle & Poodle Cross League for 2020/21.  It seemed line an opportunity not to be missed so I entered the show and set off for Grantham on 29th July to take part!

It was my first experience of a UK Hoopers show and it will definitely not be my last!  It was well organised, relaxed, fun and everyone was so welcoming!

We had 4 runs each day, plus the finals on Saturday night and I was right to enter as it was great fun!  Sadly, we didn't mange any results in the final to write home about, but I really hope we can qualify again next year.

The rest of the weekends results were beyond anything that I could have hoped for - we came away with 4 x 1st, 2 x 3rd, 1 x 4th, 1 x 5th and 1 x UPC plus the rosettes we were awarded for the league.

On top of all that, there was a great photographer who got some fab shots of Pepper in action.  Here is our weekend in pictures: