Good grief - again!

I'd entered an obedience show the Sunday before last....right up til the last moment I was umming about going because it had been sooo wet. Eventually decided to go because the forecast looked nice, and had a backup plan in case it was just too squelchy underfoot!

Elton was drawn 3rd in Pre-Beginners. Not the best round he's ever worked - his HOL was very distracted (he's hyper-aware of his surroundings atm) but not too bad a position, then we did the recall which was fine except for crooked present (always a problem), and that relaxed him more so his HF was much better, though still not quite as focused as he used to be - which led to him noticing a Cavalier outside the ring on one turn and nearly leaving the ring to go and say hello! As it was he just stood for a minute and thought about it, then caught me up. Expensive! Though even with that, his HF mark was much better than HOL.

Just need to do some more work on his confidence, getting him to relax and enjoy again. At the point he can relax away from home enough to play, then we'll start getting somewhere :-)

Highlight - Elton did his stays on wet grass! He wasn't overkeen on the prospect of lying down (tried to see he if could get away without lying down properly lol) but once he did he didn't move :-D which was somewhat unexpected. (Solei did his too - but (touch wood) Solei is a pretty solid stays dog)

I was really pleased with Solei. His Pre-Beginners HOL was gorgeous, he was actually concentrating and attentive - which he hasn't been for the previous 2 shows. HF was quite nice except he tried the same old trick of opting out! Once he got going the middle bit was very nice, end bit was a touch laggy but then this is Solei - can't expect miracles :-P

Had the most fantastic steward that asked me if this was normal for him, and when I said he'd never done it before but had started doing it at the last couple of shows she said to me "we're going to sort this out!" and told me what to do to do some training in the ring (he was the last dog). Really helpful for both of us.

The other class I'd entered them in was the Pre-Beginner Stakes. We had two absolutely torrential downpours - the first was just before their Pre-Beginner stays (wasn't going to do them, but it stopped) and the second was just as I was waiting to work Solei in the stakes.

So we dashed for cover in a nearby tent, and he was sitting on my lap in there for quite some time whilst it absolutely deluged and then went in to work "cold" (no pre-ring practice) and it was v. v. wet and muddy (though not actually raining significantly). I'm putting it down to the above, cos it was a disaster! Well, it was actually all ok (though hw was pretty crap IMO, but it must've been consistent and can't have looked so bad to the judge cos he got a good mark) except the recall was just all wrong in every way! He's never done anything like that in his life, and it cost him a rosette.

The wait was ok, almost - he did that too well, had to call him twice (or three times - can't remember), then he came in to the side of me instead of the front and just stood there, was completely confused and completely forgot what he was meant to be doing...wouldn't come to the front of me, ended up jumping on my lap! Sometimes I despair of that dog :-P

Elton was a star. His heelwork was lovely (it was an interesting pattern - anti-clockwise circle around cones, about turn at the end and back around about a quarter of the circle, right turn across the middle of the circle and then halt), in fact it was all lovely. Really pleased with him. At the end of the round the judge asked me who I trained with and when I said on my own he said he was a credit to me :-)


At the end of the day I was absolutely thrilled to find he had come 2nd, only ¼ mark behind the 1st place dog...which was a Border Collie. So, drum roll....

as the highest place ABC (Anything But a Collie) dog, Elton has qualified for the Special Pre-Beginner Stakes Semi Finals at Discover Dogs in November!

Arrrgh scary...lots of work to do lol

Happy, happy, happy :-D

Went to a midweek conf show last Wednesday, there was a good entry of 17 Papillons and Elton only went and won Open and Best of Breed! There were some really, really nice dogs there so I'm ecstatic. Unfortunately on this occasion (relatively unusual for an open show) our breed judge wasn't doing the group, and the group judge didn't share her views - but hey ho, over the moon with his BOB :-)

Ria got 2nd in AVNSC, despite a slightly hairy moment when I thought it was going to clash with the toy group - which did neither of us any favours, I think she may well have done better had we not both been a touch frazzled! (I was rubbing off on her..oops)

Then that evening I still went to agility - I think Ria was a bit tired really, she wouldn't engage with toys at all - only food. The show had been held on a large show ground and she'd had 5 very good runs round it at intervals throughout the day! Coupled with going almost straight from the show to agility (5 minutes at home in between, to drop Solei off).

We had a fun tunnel relay at the end of the class, she was first to go (we thought that would be wise given she was very likely to get higher and higher the more dogs that ran!) and we actually did it without incident :-) (and our team won lol)

I was very pleased with Elton....he did slightly varied things to the rest of the class for almost the whole night because the confidence just isn't there post whippet (PW), so have taken him back a bit...but he didn't shut down completely at any stage, and he even did a tunnel at the end :-) He used to have a "tunnel gear" - he can be quite a fast little dog and he loved tunnels and used to be even faster the moment he entered a tunnel - then PW he wouldn't go near one, so for him to go through one was good progress, even if it was very slow.

Had another show (obedience/breed) that Saturday (so just over a week ago now) which was a bit of a disaster on most levels - breed ring was small, grass was long, Elton mucked about and didn't show well. In the obedience, Solei opted not to come with me on heel free again and had a major blank with retrieve (we got there eventually) whereas Elton was beautiful in everything else but wouldn't retrieve (am not all together surprised - as it was a fairly new behaviour and not yet a very confident one it's broken down now he's more anxious PW). I also put him in Novice and trained that. However, am well pleased with the fact he did Novice stays on his own (without Solei) and didn't break :-) and then did his Beginner stays (with Solei) and didn't break there either! Ria had a 2nd in her class (beaten by a Weim), and beat the Kooiker that took Best of Breed at a recent major championship show! So rather ecstatic with that too ;-)

Have just been to this weeks agility classes - interesting week, turned up at the equestrian centre to find they'd resurfaced without telling anyone and we couldn't use it. Luckily they have an outdoor venue not too far away (the one I'd been taking them to on a Saturday morning prior to Ria coming in season), and it was a beautiful evening - so we all went out there instead! Really impressed with Ria - although she'd been going up to the venue before, we were in a small fenced off section alone - she's never worked in the main area alongside other dogs. Tonight she did, and she was such a good girl, despite all that was going on around her. She only went running in circles :X once, towards the end of the class so I think concentration limit had been reached!

It was nice to have Elton in a different environment - I felt more comfortable about going off and doing my own thing whilst we were waiting, he showed a small amount of interest in toys on a couple of occasions, and it was also lovely that there were only four dogs in his class, and I know all the people very well (3 of them are in Ria's class, and one is the mum of one of those) which helped a lot for relaxation (for me lol).