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:

We’ve made our annual pilgrimage to Aldeburgh - here is our holiday in pictures!

Remembering our very special girl on what would have been her 11th birthday!

I miss her every single day, but am so lucky to have been the one that she spent her life with!

It has taken us far longer than it should have, but both pups have finally passed their Canine Hoopers UK Bronze Awards!

Here they are with the very pretty rosettes:

And here are their assessment videos:

PEPPER:

A few weeks ago I took Pepper and Teddy to the wonderful Lara at LM Photography for a photoshoot.

I loved the pictures that she took of Ruby and Pepper last year and at the time I didn't appreciate how much I would value having them, but with the events that unfolded they really have been a joyful memory of Ruby.

Lara's home is in a bluebell woodland and we were lucky to get a session booked in bluebell season!  The pictures did not disappoint - they are just gorgeous and really capture the cheeky personalities of Pepper & Teddy:

Our little boy is 5 today!

He’s been very spoilt with sausage for breakfast and doggy ice cream for afternoon tea! In between we had a lovely walk up The Tor in Glastonbury, so he did earn it!

He really has been a ray of sunshine since he came into our lives in October - we really couldn’t love him any more!

I can’t believe that 6 months has passed since Teddy joined our family! Where did that time go? It has been so lovely getting to know him and we love him more and more each day!

This morning we went to our local dog friendly coffee shop, Cantine, and celebrated with a puppaccino, and then went for a lovely walk!

Here’s to our next adventures!