Nedlo KC Show

I took Pepper to our second KC show today, run by Nedlo for medium dogs!  For good measure I took my Mum who was visiting for Christmas - nothing like getting up at 6am during the Christmas holiday!

I was really nervous but we met up with some Paws at Play friends who were there to offer advice and support, and the whole event was extremely friendly and well organised.  I'd like to thank Sally, Emma, June and Martin for their support on the day, and also my Mum for videoing our runs and keeping me supplied with coffee and bacon rolls.

Congratulations to June and Kola for their second place in G1-3 Agility (G1) and G1-2 Jumping - well deserved for great runs - I honestly thought I had got rid of you into Grade 2 but am sure that it won't be long!

Well done also to Sally and Taya for their first G6 win in G1-4 Agility - I'm sure it won't be long before you get the 3 more you need for G7!

And finally to Emma for a G1-7 (G7) win with the lovley George!

So here is how the day unfolded for me and Pepper (we'll try not to le:

G1-3 Agility

The course was quite nice and I planned how I was going to run it.  I was quite worried how Pepper would be after 3 weeks off training for the Christmas holiday but she did me proud - good wait, hit all of her contacts and 12 good weaves.  Unfortunately I had underestimated the draw of a jump towards the end and didn't give a good enough instruction so she ended up taking the wrong course - eliminated -I'll continue to beat myself up for the mistake but I'm generally happy with the rest of the run:

G1-7 Agility

Things didn't go quite so smoothly in this run!  I decided that I would use the run as an opportunity to practice some things that I wouldn't normally do in a competition but it went wrong before we even got to that bit!

Pepper got over-confident and leapt off the A-frame, she then missed the last weave pole!  After the dog walk I planned to layer a jump in the hope that the tunnel would be less of a draw - she didn't go for the tunnel but she took the jump I was layering!  Oh, well!  It's good to have things to work on in training:

G1-2 Jumping

The first concern with this course was the appearance of a wall!  It's not something we have at training and Pepper can be a little scaredey'poo at times so I was worried that she might dive out sideways to avoid it!  I didn't need to worry, she didn't give it a second thought!  We did a really clean run until just before the end when I needed her to turn right but she headed off to the tunnel and in my panic to get her attention I caused her to back jump!  This is the one that I am going to beat myself up about the most:

G1-7 Steeplechase

Another nice course but a tricky bit towards the end where there were lots of obstacles in view and the most obvious one to the dogs was the wall when we need them to take the cloth tunnel.  It all started off OK and I managed to get her attention but for some unknown reason she decided that she didn't want to take the cloth tunnel!!  So weird!  It's not something we have had a problem with before and the only thing I can think of is that it has darker cloth than the one we train with and it might have looked a bit odd to her!

The judge was lovely and Pepper thanked her by giving her a big kiss when she finally got through the tunnel.  At least the audience were entertained: