Agility dogs with a sense of humour

Dudley and Suzi have developed a strong sense of humour when it comes to doing agility with the worst offender being Suzi, she thinks it's higly amusing to miss the dog walk contact by running to the top of the contact pausing for a split second so I can see what she's about to do then leap across it which is exactly what she did in the Rescue League Final. I really enjoyed the day even though Leah and I ended up helping on the ring for most of it and it was lovely that everyone who was running turned up for the presentations and clapped and cheered loudly. Other than the contact Suzi ran really well and was back to enjoying herself again which was great to see.

Axstane and another example of my dog's senses of humour. Ring 1 was jinxed for me as during the weekend I had 6 runs in it with 5 E's including Dudley getting clear until three obstacles from home and then stopping for the most enormous poo and while I was picking it up, marking the spot and apologising to the judge he was bum walking thus making it 100 times more embarrasing. Suzi got her dog walk in this ring but then proceeded to do the most fantastic and tight pull through which would have been brillient but for the fact she should have gone round the back of the jump and I know my arm was out and I was telling her to go round. Yesterday she popped out of the last few weaves but I was pushing quite hard so I wasn't too upset until she turned round and proceeded to whizz back down the weaves in the wrong direction completely ignoring me calling her out then laughed in my face and dashed off for the finish ignoring one of the jumps. Plus how many terriers do you know that would completely ignore a tunnel that was two strides in front of their nose with nothing else anywhere near and a mad handler shouting tunnel, tunnel, TUNNEL. I've already told both of them that I'm trading them in for a big dog or maybe swapping them for one of those dogs that are good, you know the ones lot's of hair, pointy noses get 1st places in agility, Oh yes a SHELTIE.

Now to Thomas who had some good bits and some not so good bits at the weekend. In every run there were some parts that he worked really well for me including getting all his contacts, there were some bits where his lack of experienced showed such as QE2 turns there were also some bits where I should have worked him more but was a bit lazy but our biggest problem was the weaves. He got the entry first time every time but invariably put his nose down and got distracted except in one agility class where I had to push him out to the weaves so was able to give him loads of room unfortunately he was going so fast that even though he tried valiantly to get the second weave he just couldn't make it but then rushed back to me and did them again with no sign of a sniff. We had a lovely class to finish the day which was just jumps and tunnels and a straight line start so I ran with him from the beginning and we had great fun even though I left a call too late and he did a HUGE turn, went round a jump which he then backed jumped came back to me and we finished going great guns. He didn't ignore the tunnels, he's a good boy for his Mum.

I always love Axstane and this weeked was no exception even though three clears was all we could manage and it was great to see Nandy coming 2nd in the mini/mixi pairs and Andy & Kizzie winning the agility and getting so many other places during the weekend. (Rubbing my hands together - one less sheltie in Tom's classes) Onwards and upwards to next weekend and graded classes at Watford and another chance to see the development of my agility dogs with a sense of humour.