Had another successful agility class with Ria on Wednesday. Long may this change continue :-)

On Sunday I had entered a champ show which was coupled with a grooming and obedience competition. I've never sone grooming before, but thought I'd give it a go as I was there anyway - after all, I groom my own dogs all the time. I'd entered all 3 dogs in the obedience.

I was slightly aprehensive - I have done nothing with the boys for 5 months, and when I did a bit of stay practise with Elton in the week leading up to it he was not good at holding his sit stay - and then I realised he has only ever done the length he was going to be asked to do (1 min sit, 2 min down) about 3 times in competition - and broke twice. Ria I had no idea, as she'd never done anything quite like that before (she's competed 5 times (1 without stays) and I don't think she's ever done that length stay in competion), Solei I wasn't particularly worried about - Solei is Solei!

I was also concerned about managing 3 dogs in stays - I was hoping I wouldn't have to take them all in, but stays ended up being first thing before any dogs had worked so I had no choice. However, I was pleasantly surprised :-) Setting them up felt a lot more fluid than the two occasions I've done it previously and I didn't feel I kept anyone waiting. Icing on the cake - all 3 dogs had clear stays! Though Ria caused chaos at the end of each one...which was actually good if it had to happen, because now I know to be careful when I release her. It was embarrassing enough there - but they were understanding, anywhere else would've been 1000x worse - and to make things even worse, had it not happened there it wouldn't happened at Crufts. omg. Don't even want to think about that.

Ria lost the plot when I tried to work her - had been lovely outside the ring (judge said to me after he'd been watching and admiring!) but completely lost concentration, focus and everything else in there (all on carpet which didn't help - her nose was almost glued to the floor the majority of the time). Baby brain. he said he could see the potential in the brief snippets when she did decided to concentrate! So I turned her round into a training round as it'd already gone rather wrong (her recall was good though)

Solei I was really pleased with, though I overcompensated slightly - when he's on a solid surface he always gets a bit enthusiastic cos he doesn't need to worry about scaring chair bumping so I need to do a fair amount to settle him, and I think I overdid it slightly cos he was a bit tired & laggy by heel free

and Elton was Elton! I need to do some more work with him, he's coming along well but I know he's capable of more if I actually put the work in :-X been distracted by puppy...and he got a 4th.

I also won my grooming class with Morse, Elton's younger brother :-)

In breed Ria got he got 2nd to her sister again - and the judge uttered the immortal words about maturity! Again. Then she had forgotten how old she was and said at the end she's younger isn't she, don't think she could believe it when we said they were sisters.

However, I also had her entered in rare breeds which is open to all the breeds here that can't become champions, so as it happened she was in Puppy Bitch with Braccos and Tollers - and she got 2nd behind a Bracco that went on to win Best Bitch & Best Puppy :-)

She rarely does badly when she's not against other Kooikers (or maybe it's just her sister - she hasn't really ever been up against much else!) - but when she is the maturity seems to be a big issue. And I didn't think she was looking too bad now! That was her last puppy class - her first birthday is tomorrow!

It was an insane day - Kooikers ended up being in the ring at 5:30pm, and I'd got there at 7am because the obedience stays were scheduled for 9:30 and I wanted to have time to settle everyone and get them out..etc - and the show was over 3 hours away.