Dig It Show

We went to the Dig It UKA show, our first time at UKA and had a great time. Ruger was consistent with 5 x E :( I was really pleased with alot of his performance as he got all his contacts the only problems were the weaves and turning him into the correct jumps, difficult at his speed. Zara was good, although surprisingly had placings with faults, not something you get at Large Grade 3, the classes were alot smaller than we would have had at KC, so I was taken by surprise when they called our names out at the presentations. She got the following places in the UKA classes: 2nd Novice agility 3rd (Q) not sure which class 4th Novice steeplechase For the Dig It pay on the day classes (she ran lovely for these with clear rounds) 1st agility 1st jumping 3rd in the pairs with Maureen and Archie (double clear) Ruger ran the pay on the day classes too, and kept up with the E's, however the weaves entries were really difficult and he didn;t get get any faults on them yay!!!!

What else can go wrong?

I've been looking forward to the WBSDS show for ages, really like this show. On Tuesday night at training Zara went lame, she wasn't bad, but I knew she wasn't right, so we left early to travel straight to Wales. The M6 was shut so a nice detour round Stafford got us back on further down. Our junction to get off the M5 was closed sending us on another detour round Gloucester!!! We got to Wales at 215am aaargh!!!!! Next day it rained and rained and rained. Zara was still slightly lame. Thursday was training at Mike's, Zara was still lame, no apparent reason, so rest for her and Ruger did a 2 hour training session. He was very good just losing interest for the last 15 minutes so we stopped. He is amazing his drive is so high, he doesn't give up. We worked on checking his pace going into the weaves, as he rarely misses an entry, even at his speed but is too fast for pole 2 to 3. He also did some nice independent contacts, without me speaking yay. Friday Zara was still lame, still happy and leaping around, but not agility fit:( It was still raining too. We decided not to risk Zara at Newbury so would not go. Sadly Sunday the show was cancelled. Its really sad for the committee to have to make that decision, but they are so right to put the dogs and handlers welfare first, but so disappointing for the people who have worked so hard to put the show together and for the competitors. Saturday we headed over to Caerphilly and had an hours training session with Ruger practicing the exercises we had learnt on Thursday. Good thing is he has now used rubber contacts, I thought he would freak out, but the a-frame didn't bother him, although he got partway up the dogwalk and jumped off, as his little delicate feet didn't feel right :) After 2 weeks of rest Zara is now fit and ready to go for training tonight. We have 3 shows to look forward to this Friday, Saturday and Sunday for both dogs. Last weekend the GB team won GOLD at the Belgian Shepherd Dog World Championships in the agility, an amazing acheivement, well done!!!!!!!