Ria still needs to build confidence with other dogs...although she's unrecognisable from the dog I first took to ringcraft at 9? weeks she still has issues with certain dogs - esp those that are black (or have a black head) or are large - or both!

At ringcraft last Tuesday an afghan turned up, now when she was little it came into the hall and...how do I describe young Afghans? Once met, never forgotten! They jump around all over the place and they're just very bouncy. This dog scared Ria, and she hasn't forgotten - she was a little better on Tuesday until she was doing a triangle and ended up a couple of metres away from the Afghan - that was that!

She also decided to bark at a black Lab in the distance - who she'd been playing with 10 minutes before! Never the less, on the whole she is coming along.

Solei was introduced to the see-saw for the first time since he last did agility a couple of years ago on Thursday...he still doesn't like it! I think it's going to take more work to get him over it than is worth putting in, but I'll see how he goes. He is, however, sequencing nicely - including jumps, tunnels (but not the chute! He still hasn't worked out he can push through the cloth and it won't hurt :-P), dog walk and a-frame.

Ria was much the same, though I was much "tougher" about her having to be on a loose lead to get anywhere...maybe eventually (though we did manage it most of the time)

Then this weekend...what can I say!

On Saturday we went to a local companion show. I only took Ria & Vale, Vale had nothing in veteran and a 4th in waggiest tail.

Buuuttt.....Ria won the Any Variety Puppy class and had Best Puppy in Show :-D :-D Sooo chuffed with her - especially as she's still not quite 6 months.

Yesterday I'd entered both boys in an open show - Solei doing his first veteran class, having celebrated his seventh birthday on Saturday! I was not impressed.

I got Elton into the ring, and he was good, showing quite well. Judge couldn't take her eyes off him...I got that feeling when you know the judge is looking hard and even as we started going round she just kept looking at him, I could "feel" it and she was looking everytime I looked up....but Elton was on the end behind this bitch...which apparently must have been in season. It was ok when we were standing, but as soon as we started going round he picked up the scent...he was "ok" but pulling forward rather, trying to jam his nose up her bum.

And it went downhill from there!

He wouldn't stand on the table because he wouldn't take her eyes off her....so I tried standing him the other way and he almost fell off trying to lean forward! He wouldn't move properly down the mat because he couldn't see her...and he wouldn't move properly back up the mat cos he was trying to get to her!

He wouldn't stand at the end because if I was between them he was trying to peer round me, if I let him face her he was trying to pull to get to her. He wouldn't eat anything, so bribery was out of the question.

And to add insult to injury, I think the judge really liked him! Even at the end after all that she still kept coming back to look. He got a 3rd (out of 5) in the end - which was pretty good given he must have been fairly unassessable!

In other slightly better news Solei went well, for Solei (he's never gonna be Elton :-P) and that dog still moves so well. He got a 2nd, which wasn't bad for his veteran debut!

Then they were doing a companion show after the open show which I didn't know about until we arrived. I would've just put Ria in and called her 6 months, but seeing as she was in the catalogue for the open show (not for competition) with her date of birth I thought I'd better check...so asked the man and he said "you didn't tell me that!" - so Ria did the companion show! She got a 4th out of 10+ puppies, all of whom were obviously older than her and had come from the open show - so very pleased with her, and she won a carrot toy!

I wasn't sure whether to put her in or not as it had been quite a long day and she'd had a couple of jumpy moments, but I decided it would be a fantastic experience to show in a "proper" show environment - especially as given the time of year - except for Exeter 3 weeks ago - so far all her show experiences have been outdoors. She handled it well - didn't like the Pointer (solid black head!) standing outside the ring, and had a couple of "oo er" moments at noises and a screaming Shiba, but apparently nothing that even showed from ringside :-) and I got her focused on me offering behaviours which worked a treat! She resisted showing her teeth (usually she doesn't bat an eyelid) but other than that she stood well to be gone over and moved fantastically.

We have a weekend at home next weekend, so that was her last show before the "real" thing! Arrrghhh! :-)