On Saturday we went to a companion show that usually has obedience...travelled all the way to find they didn't this year. In fact we'll gloss over the whole thing, it was too hot and just not a good day :lol:

On Sunday I had found out about a companion show which definitely did have obedience! If it had been anywhere in land I wouldn't have gone - too hot for the dogs - but it was right on the coast, so off we went. Arrived (with full compliment of dogs - Vale, Solei, Darwin and Elton) and it was gorgeous - perfect temperature with fantastic views over the sea. I'd decided to just put Darwin in the pedigree classes, Vale in the Veteran novelty class and then do the obedience with Solei and Elton. There were only two obedience classes, the first one I couldn't do (won too much) and there was no way Elton was ready for the second one, so I entered Solei in that class and then put Elton in the first class Not For Competition, to do a training round.

Darwin was 2nd in his AV Toy class - because "we must encourage the children"!! I kid you not - the judge actually SAID that to me, as she placed a young girl of around eight 1st and Darwin 2nd. Vale won AV Veteran, and then at the last minute I decided to put Solei & Elton in the Brace - which they also won!

In the obedience, as it was a relatively basic class (heel on lead, heel free, recall with finish and sit and down stays - ie nothing that requires him to work away from me and then get the opportunity to run off) and it was fairly hot, I decided I would take Solei in without warming him up at all. We paid the price for that on his first stretch of heelwork, he was working a little further forward than he should which then led to a crooked sit when we did the first halt (very unusual for Solei), but after that he settled and his heelwork was brilliant....recall was perfect, as were stays :-) He ended up 2nd, behind a Border Collie!

When I (eventually) managed to take Elton in for his turn I was very excited about having him at a show to see what he'd do. He did a few puppy classes (mainly socialisation) when he was little, other than that he's never been to an obedience class and I've done very little work with him outside. We've done a lot of practice, but 99% of it has been at home inside! I think I worked with him in the garden once...and this show was on grass.

He was a star! I was absolutely amazed. We went in the ring and the first exercise was heelwork (only on lead). We've been practicing, but I couldn't believe how incredible he was! It was quite basic heelwork with just a couple of turns, but his position was almost perfect and the judge said (and it was the end of the day, he was the last dog to work) that his heelwork was the best she'd seen all day :-D After that he was very distracted by everything that was going on around him, which caused a lot of problems with his stay for the recall - funnily enough it wasn't the stay that was the problem, it was getting him to sit! Eventually I left him in a stand stay, which worked much better. The sit stay wasn't nearly so much of a problem, he was concentrating a little better by then.

There is so much potential there, I'm very excited for the future <3

Ok, as I was saying!

I entered Solei for his very first big obedience show, over two days. On Saturday he was in Pre-Beginners (bottom class) and on Sunday I put him in both Pre-Beginners and Beginners (next class up). Pre-Beg is the only class that doesn’t involve a retrieve, and his retrieve is *very* dodgy (as I seem to mention in every post...) – put it this way, in an unfamiliar environment he had yet to bring it back first time :lol:

On Saturday it poured with rain the whole time I was there…I got soaked to the skin, very cold and came home early :lol: Solei did a lovely round, and only lost 4 marks…he was lying joint 8th when I left and ended up just out of the top 10 – not bad in a class of 47 dogs! Though because he lost less than 10 marks he still got his first Certificate of Merit :-D

On Sunday I wanted to work him in Pre-Beg early but the stays were at 11am and of course sod’s law, they stopped as he was the next dog to work! He was really fired up and focused, by the time we’d done the stays I’d lost him so put him away for a bit…then they stopped for lunch and it was a two hour break because of a meeting. Long story short I ended up having to work his rounds straight after each other, which does not sit well with Solei at all. He isn’t very confident anyway, and finds the chair bumping over grass quite scary so tends to jump out to the side and/or lag behind…he’s getting better, but he gets worse as the round goes on, so if I go straight from one to another the previous will be fresh in his mind and he’ll tend to lag from the start.

Anyway, we worked Beginners first and he did the retrieve!! He wasn’t in the least bit interested in retrieving (or even holding it) outside the ring, so I really didn’t think he was going to fetch it. It wasn’t desperately clean, but he did it! That was the highlight of my weekend :lol: He’s come such a long way – this was a dog with zero toy drive that wouldn’t hold anything in his mouth and had zero interest in play.

Pre-Beginners his heelwork was as expected – laggy! Heel Free in particular was very expensive – he lost 11 in total and I think 7½ was on that – he ended up ages behind me at one point! Though the judge marked very strictly, and so even with that he was still 13th out of 47.

In Beginners, he was 7th out of 49!! Losing 6¼, so got a Certificate of Merit there too :-D Very proud of him for his first weekend of big shows!

I came away from the show freshly inspired and with a couple of new ideas. Having put them into practice, just a week later Solei was doing this...

Wow. I really never thought I'd see Solei with a dumbbell! That video shows the sit & hold as well ;)

The next weekend Elton attended a championship show and was placed 4th in Junior Dog, the dog that won the class going on to get the CC. Oh, and at the same show Solei passed his Bronze Good Citizen Award.

Just 6 days later it was off to another champ show! Elton was once again in the cards, getting a 5th in Junior Dog and then to my delight coming 3rd in a very large and diverse Junior Dog Stakes! The Stakes also had prize money and he won £10!!

Next up was a companion show, where the judge was a bit of a surprise – having judged the same show the year before! I’m not showing Solei this summer (bar obedience & maybe the odd brace!) and I didn’t want to put Elton in, so that left Darwin and Vale. I knew she wasn’t overly keen on Darwin - having had him under her last summer – but he has matured and as we were there I thought he could go in anyway. He suffered his first ever defeat in AV Non-Sporting :lol: coming 2nd.

Vale did AV Sporting pedigree class for fun (not being the right “type” I don’t usually do the pedigree classes with her) and was thrown out, so we returned to our usual favourite of novelty AV Veteran! Which she promptly won :-D She’s such a lot of fun to show and I’ll be very sad when she can’t do it anymore (this could well be the last summer I’ll be able to take her round the shows, she’ll be 11 in September)

Today we went to an open show, for a change! My first general open show since Elton won the Puppy Group at the beginning of May. A friend had been under this judge with her Phalene, in an Any Variety Not Separately Classified class, and she’d called her a Japanese Chin. So I’d thought very hard and debated much about whether to enter or not! Eventually decided I would, because I wanted to go to a show and we had Papillon classes this time, so at least she couldn’t mistake Elton for a Chin!

Sorry to say I was proven correct! She didn’t look at Elton, he was on the end of the line and slightly round the corner, and when she came down the line she didn’t even bother to walk all the way to him(!) He was placed last. I’d also entered Darwin, who fared slightly better – he was 2nd in Open, but behaved ABOMINABLY! I think he may well have been in with a chance at winning it, but he wouldn’t move properly and was obsessing with getting his head down on the mat. Dogs :rolleyes:

On the 3rd May we went to an open show, just Elton showing – his last open show in puppy! He decided to go out with a bang, as he was Best Puppy in Breed and then PUPPY GROUP ONE! Both mum and I were in tears…Elton is very special anyway as I bought him with money from granny after she died, but having just lost grandad as well…I expect you can imagine. He went beautifully in the Best Puppy in Show ring, but she wasn’t interested in the little dogs. I liked the fact he ended his puppy career with two puppy group 1s – his first open show, and his last (in puppy) open show!

Three days later we went up to Stafford for Birmingham National Championship Show. Elton was 2nd in a very nice Puppy Dog class, and then won Novice Dog! He was meant to be in the Puppy Stakes as well (this being his last ever show as a puppy), but upon looking at the catalogue I discovered I’d mucked up the entry and put him in the Special Beginner Stakes instead! As it happened it was irrelevant because when I put him down outside the ring he totally freaked – no idea why, but it wasn’t worth risking just for a stakes class. So I didn’t take him in.

I think it was just after that (possibly before – but it certainly lasted up until the 19th May or so) that he started going all peculiar anyway. I put it down to teenagehood and new fear phases and hormones! He was spooking and being scared at things that I didn’t think he was….and I have my kitchen fenced off as a large puppy pen. Elton goes in there when not supervised, because he and Darwin get carried away and wind each other up. In the mornings I feed the older two, then put them outside and get Elton out of the pen to feed/train him. For about a week he wouldn’t come out of the pen, he wouldn’t even come up to me and if he did he’d cower and try to roll over like I was going to beat him! If I offered him food he’d take it and just drop it. Then he snapped out of it as suddenly as it’d come on! All very odd.

The 14th May was Elton’s first birthday I bought a balloon, mainly for photographic purposes – I’m really impressed! The guy in the shop said it should last a week or two (inflated on the 14th)…it looked really good for a month, and although looking a little deflated now it’s still attached to Elton’s bed happily floating! I made a birthday cake, which went down well with all three boys!

The next day I went to a breed club show – taking Elton, Jason and Tosca. My little boy, on his very first day out of puppy, was in his first Junior Dog class! Also in Yearling Dog (12-24mths) and Phalene Dog. He was 2nd in Junior, 1st in Yearling, 1st in Phalene and Reserve Best Phalene in Show! Not bad for 12 months and 1 day :-D Jason was 2nd in Open Dog and Reserve Best Dog – second year running I’ve handled him to that placing! Tosca won Limit Bitch, Best Bitch and then Reserve Best in Show! Which made her Best Phalene in Show automatically. What an incredible day.

Oh and somewhere in the middle of that I had Pippin, Elton’s brother, to stay. Must’ve been end of April because I had him for that companion show on 25th…he was meant to be coming to live for a while, but in the end I only had him three weeks because Solei would NOT settle down with him – he was constantly tried to mount him, and it wasn’t fair on all concerned…so he went back to T.

22nd May it was off to another companion show – no obedience this time. Vale (our 10yo Lab) came :-) I love it when she comes along, showing her is so much fun. Elton did his first “big boys” AV Non-Sporting class and came 3rd – very respectable, considering he still hadn’t got the hang of behaving on grass! Darwin won AV Open and was Reserve Best in Show! I didn’t show Solei at all. Vale did three classes – she was 2nd in Waggiest Tail, 3rd in Best Veteran and 1st in Best Condition! It was a lovely day, really nice show – though a bit too hot!

The next Friday was Bath Champ Show. Elton didn’t go badly at all and was 4th in his Junior Dog class, and then 5th in the Junior Dog Stakes!

I think that’s enough for now, because the next day Solei and I embarked on our first open obedience show which’ll be quite longwinded - so that’s for the next post!