Urgh, not a good day at Windsor Champ Show. We left early with all three dogs, as S+T were once again motorhoming. When we arrived I took Ria for a walk around the caravan site, then left her in a pen at the motorhome with mum (Solei had to be crated, as unless he's preoccupied (usually by a bitch!) he thinks pens are for jumping out of...) whilst I went off to the show with Elton.

Elton was in a very competitive Limit Dog class of 14, with all the big names :-( He was ok - fairly typical of the Elton that I have these days. He moved quite well when we all went around together, but his triangle/up & down wasn't as good. We got chucked :-( Again!

I had also entered him in the Stakes, which were in a ring right at the other end of the show ground (we were ring 22, they were ring 2!) with no time (great!) but after three breeds, so I kept going backwards and forwards to the ring to see what was happening. When I went down the last time they were on the bitches of the third breed, which only had 10-15 entered - so I asked the steward if they were going straight on with stakes afterwards (thinking they may be stopping for 10 minutes or so) and he said they were stopping for lunch and stakes wouldn't be before two. I checked with him three times to make absolutely sure, he confirmed 2pm.

Later that day I went to the secretary to find out what was happening as there was no-one in the ring, only to be told they'd done them at 12:50pm!! I was not happy, especially after Elton's breed class....so I went back to the motorhome, grabbed Ria and took her for a walk along by the Thames to clear my head!
It's so lovely down there, we had a lovely walk and met a gorgeous Corgi pup that was Sandringham-bred! Ria had a great time running around and her recall was superb. The only incident was when a couple came along with 5 Alaskan Malamutes (all on lead) and I called Ria back and was holding on to her collar feeding her (thought we may be ok as she's used to Malamutes from ringcraft, but wanted to make sure!) - she was ok, but one of the Malamutes started barking at her - which then set her off :-( She used to be awful with barking dogs - they'd really scare her - and although she's much better now she still really doesn't like it....so that undid a lot of my work with other dogs. Aragh - other people's dogs.

Obedience rolled around again yesterday and for once we actually managed to get through the evening with no major incidents! Although the GSD barked a couple of times it wasn't whilst Ria was doing anything, she didn't manage to pull any chairs over(!) and it was generally relatively uneventful :-D She behaved really well as well - she was starting to lose concentration by the end of the class, but it's a long time for a baby brain to concentrate for. She is actually one of  the better ones in the class at the moment, I'm so proud of my baby dog <3

Decided not to take Elton as the class looked quite big and I wasn't really in the right mood....did a bit with him outside before we left and he was fantastic - not sure if it was the surface, but when I did Distant Control he was kicking up from a down to a stand with his back legs so he didn't move forwards :-D which is great. His heelwork was lousy, but that's ok - I'm sacrificing accuracy for enthusiasm at the moment!