We had a lovely afternoon walk today with some great friends - 6 Cockapoos, a Miniature Labradoodle and their respective owners.  The dogs had a ball and we rewarded ourselves with a few drinks at The Oat Sheaf afterwards.

We were joined on our walk by:

Suzi & John with Roxie (Miniature Labradoodle)
Pip with Kipper - Stu joined us at the pub
Darron & Julie with Charlie
Suzi with Humphrey
Christina with George

It was a cold afternoon and we had a little bit of rain as we set off, but thankfully it stopped.  The light was a bit dim but I managed to get some pictures of the dogs having fun:

I wasn't on top form today having hosted some customers at the England vs Argentina rugby match at Twickenham yesterday, but luckily the Scrambles shows don't start until 10am so it wasn't a particularly early start.  Luckily the sun shone and it was a lovely friendly show so my hangover soon went and we enjoyed the day.

The recent weather had taken its toll on the ground at Walton-on-Thames so we had the jumping and steeplechase ring in the field and the agility ring in the training area but with an interesting arrangement that included a tunnel around the base of a tree!

We ran the Jumping first - it was a tricky course but managed to go clear and I was really pleased with Pepper's weaves which are definitely getting quicker.

Agility I - I ran this NFC - Scrambles is unusual in that they let you take food into the ring to train so it gave me an opportunity to reinforce the 2 on 2 off position that Pepper is trained to achieve.  She didn't know that I was going to feed her and stopped on every contact!

Steeplechase - another tricky course but delighted to get another clear!

Agility II - I decided to run this for competition so that Pepper would not expect to get fed every time - she stopped on every contact again, did a good seesaw and weaves but sadly had a pole down.  I'm happy with what she achieved though and don't think it will be long before we start getting clears in agility.

When the results were announced we had been placed 3rd in Jumping and 2nd in Steeplechase so we came home with another 2 pretty rosettes to add to our collection!

My latest purchase for Ruby and Pepper - Trover Drying Coats!

I know people will probably think I'm mad, but the thing about having Cockapoos is that they love water and mud, but once they are wet they take ages to dry! During the Winter I have to bath them after every walk, and although I have a blaster that is quite efficient at drying, sometimes it would be nice just to let them dry naturally. So the idea is that I can bath them and put them in their coats to speed up the natural drying process!

These coats were recommended to me by my friend Melanie who has them for all three of her dogs. They looked so cute in them I couldn't resist getting them for Ruby and Pepper!

We got caught in a shower on our walk today so it was a perfect opportunity to try them out!  We sat having a cuddle for 30 minutes when we got home and they were mostly dry, so a big thumbs up for the Trover coats!