On the Saturday we started with the small and medium Olympia qualifier. This was the event that Pebbles won last year to qualify for the semi-finals completely out of the blue and where Barney finished 4th to also qualify completely by surprise.
This year Pebbles finished 3rd which was a brilliant result again although did not qualify and Barney finished 6th again not qualifying . I am glad they both did brilliantly but also glad they did not qualify because I would not have gone to the semi-finals anyway because they are too late in the year for me to manage the ‘bump’! I don’t know what it is but Pebbles seems to like this event because she did a brilliant round, really smooth and fast. What a star. Barney also did a really smooth round and did really good contacts so I was really pleased.
The rest of the weekend was a mixed bag with Barney managing 2 Grade 6 jumping wins to take him only 1 Grade 6 agility win away from Grade 7 – yippee! My aim this season was for Barney to get to Grade 7 so I am thrilled he is doing so well. I just hope he can get the last agility win before the end of the season.
Pebbles did some really good rounds including a great agility round over Joanne Dall’s really, really long course. I couldn’t even get the commands out by the end of the round it was so long and I was so out of breath!! And I was not the only one! Still she managed a great round to finish 2nd – well done Pebbles. She does so well for such a tiny wee thing.
The main issue that arose over the weekend was both Barney and Pebbles popped out of the same weave 2 poles early with Barney doing it twice. The format of the weave was as below:
My theory is that in almost all occasions the dogs go from the weave forward to another obstacle so keep driving forward where as in this example it was a sharp turn with nothing out in front. I was not sure how to deal with it either – should I stay level with them, lag behind or go ahead? This is definitely something I am going to work on over the next few weeks. Instead of weave entries I am going to have to think about weave exits! I will have to try and vary the position of the first obstacle after the weave and see if I can handle it differently as well i.e. do some next to the dog, some behind the dog, some ahead of the dog and some away from the dog. I think I need Kenny’s help with this one though!
I would like to say on a really positive note I sent both dogs into the weave on my left and crossed behind to go down the left side of the weave. Brilliant! It is great to be able to cross behind it means all the training is paying off. I will have to keep doing this in competition when possible to keep it working.
So that is all the shows for us for a while now. We are not going to Prestwick next weekend because we are going to Darren Dods’s wedding on Saturday and then there are no shows for the next 2 weekends. So the next trip will be Clyde Valley show at Irvine at the end of June. That will give us some weekends at home to get the nursery organised J
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