UKA Prested Hall

Last weekend was my first camping show of the year and it was so cold on Friday night that all the dogs slept under the quilt with me and really didn't want to get up on Saturday.

I'd registered Thomas with UKA before he started competing at KC shows so I was able to run him in the Beginner classes which I think is great as these courses tend to be straight forward flowing courses with, usually, only one or two changes of sides with no pull throughs so lots of being able to send on to the finish. I think if these were the only courses we had the chance to do boredom may set in but for Tom they were ideal as it was his first outside show and I wanted to be able to just keep going to take his mind of sniffing. I needn't have worried as he didn't seem interested in sniffing at all and only got distracted in one run which I out down to him being tired. Unfortunately my handling let him down so we only managed 1 clear during the weekend but I came home pleased as anything with him as his contacts were perfect and his weaves were fantastic. In one class I flung my arm out and sent him wide which meant he couldn't get his weave entry but boy did he try hard to get it and I'm sure if he'd had a bit more experience under his belt he would have made it. His first run of the show I set him up and he did a beautiful wait so what did I do.......instead of making sure I was in a good position for him to see where to go I stood wide said 'Go' with my arms by my sides and he ran past the first jump and straight to me, see what I mean about the handling, I popped him over the start and without those 5 faults he would have come 2nd. Ho Hum the joys of agilty. After that I made sure that he was looking in the right direction and that my arm was up and didn't have the problem again. This is obviously something to work on as I would like to be able to start wide of the first jump sometimes.

The other two had a really good weekend although Suzi wasn't her usual self on Saturday and seemed a bit flat, she got 2 nice clears in agility and steeplechase but not with any speed so I pulled her out of her last class and had decided to run her first class on the Sunday and if she was still the same I wasn't going to make her do anything else. Needn't have worried as she got a 4th in agility and was just out of the placings in jumping and steeplechase. She's now gone Novice at UKA as we have eventually got enough agilty points.

Dudley is a midi at UKA and these classes tend to have only a few dogs and the less dogs there are the less points you get. He's had enough places to have gone senior but as he only tends to get half the points I'm not sure we'll ever get there. This weekend he had four runs and got four places, he got 2nd in power and speed and for those of you that know him I know he's not really got the speed part of this class but he zoomed round so don't laugh. He also got a 3rd and two 4ths so maybe now he's got enough points. I know that if the classes were bigger he probably wouldn't have go so many places but I'm proud of him anyway as there was no ankle biting and he was really enjoying himself which to me is the main thing with my best boy.

There was also qualifiers for the Royal Canin Agility which I was hoping to get at least on of them in but our times weren't fast enough, maybe next time.