Dundee Agility Show

Well, I have just managed to recover from the first show of the year at Dundee! I was exhausted yesterday. It is a shock to the system doing 2 full days in a row and setting up and dismantling the caravan. It is always the same first trip though!

So what of the agility? Well Saturday was a great day for both Barney and Pebbles with signs that the training done over the winter was paying off.

First up Barney went clear in all 3 rounds of the day which was great. He opened with a combined 6-7 agility which was to be the first test of his contacts. He did a great A-Frame, really fast with a great 'stop' at the bottom - really great! His dog walk was ok and he did get his finish position but he did take a while to get there! More work required in competition there I think! But still really pleased he is getting the idea that he has to stop in his 'finish' position.

He then placed 2nd in the combined 5-7 jumping which was a great result for him and one of his best in a combined class. His round was nice and clear on what was quite a tricky course with a lot of twists and turns. He then placed 2nd in his final grade 6 jumping which was good. Again a nice clear but he can still work on his speed! Barney definitely likes to go at his own pace and can be quite lazy sometimes!!

Pebbles opened with a lovely clear in the combined 6-7 agility, placing 6th which I was really pleased with. I thought she really took on board the working ahead of me and certainly drove to the tunnel and weave entries really well.

She finished 3rd in the combined 5-7 jumping in what I think was one of her best ever rounds to date. She flowed beautifully on a really twisty course and drove forward and ahead. Lovely!

She finished with a another clear in the grade 7 jumping but wasn't fast enough to place. Again I was happy with the way she was working forwards. Malcolm said he saw a big improvement.

Then came Sunday.........!! Not such a good day at all. We started with a combined 5-7 agility for both Barney and Pebbles and the see saw in this course caused all the problems of the day. The see saw was positioned on a slope so it seemed to 'bounce' on touching the ground which was fine for the bigger dogs but for Pebbles this meant it 'bounced' just as she jumped off the end and it hit her in the chest. I did not notice it at the time but Malcolm saw it clearly and said it was quite a big jolt and gave her a real shock. As a result she started yipping at me round the whole course from the see saw onwards and stopped working ahead. She stopped as soon as I stopped at any jump and ended up stopping and yipping at me at a few jumps she would normally have driven forwards over. Not having realised about the see saw incident I was struggling to handle her since it was so different to the way she was working the day before. It was very frustrating although made perfect sense once Malcolm explained what had happened.

The dreaded see saw also seemed to claim another victim with Claire's Islay squealing just before the jump that followed the see saw. First we thought it must have been her hips or a sore leg but afterwards on reflection it makes more sense the 'bounce' might have jolted her too and caused her hip pain. It certainly seems too much of a coincidence that it happened straight after the see saw.

This was only confirmed after Barney ran the same course. Everything went well until the dog walk which came further into the course than the dreaded see saw. On going up the first plank as normal immediately on reaching the start of the middle plank he started doing a very slow see saw type crawl, as if he was waiting for it to tip and was bracing himself. He did this all the way along the middle and last plank before leaping over the bottom as if in fright. Aaaaaaarrrrggghhh, just as we were making progress. It leads me to think he got a 'bounce' on the see saw and didn't like it either and didn't want the same to happen on the similar looking dog walk plank! I am so annoyed and so hope this does not affect his dog walk in future after all the work we have put in it would be so disheartening. I just hope I can get a few sessions in on the full size dog walk and see saw at training before the next show.

Pebbles did another 2 jumping rounds. Both of these she yipped her way round and again refused jumps. I was so disappointed that our progress had been affected by something out of our control. I will just have to work her in the garden and at training again to try and move past this setback.

Barney finished with a clear in his last jumping and placed 2nd in grade 6 jumping. A really good result and a good note to finish on.

It had been a long weekend with the last round on Sunday not until 6pm!!!

Lots more training now before the Kingdom of Fife show in 3 weeks.