May

Unfortunately early May has become a sad time of year for me, as I lost my treasured little Becky to cancer in May two years ago. Because I always cry when I think about it, I don't speak about it very much, even two years on. She was only 11 years old and I feel she should have had many more years, she was taken from me far too soon, and I still feel a huge amount of grief, sadness and devastation. When I lost her I learnt so much more than I previouly realised about how precious my dogs are to me, how their time with us is far too short, and how it is really important to make the most of every moment. Someone very wise said to me recently, it is not the length of life that is important, it is the quality of the lives we live while we are here. Well Becky and I sure had one hell of a good time together! I don't think I am exaggerating to say that she turned my life onto a different path, perhaps that's why I miss her walking next to me so much. However, slowly (thanks to my wonderful friends for their patience!) I feel that I am thinking more about all the good, amazing, brilliant times she filled my life with, and dwelling less on the sadness of losing her. I felt for a very long time that I could not have another dog because it was just too painful when you lose them. However now I also realise that the reason that they leave such a big hole in your life is because they enrich your life so much when they are here. If you try to avoid the pain of losing your best friend by not having one, you miss out on an immensely rich tapestry of life, and it is even sader to not live to the full during the relatively short time you are alive and able! Every day my little guys make me laugh with their joyful antics, and I feel so lucky to have such a great rapport with them. 
Rest In Peace Becky, thank you for the wonderful time we had.

Short adventure!

I have had a wonderful time away, stopping off in the Lake District on the way up to Scotland. We competed at the Kingdom of Fife Championship show, where Deece was more enthusiastic than accurate, but Zazzy did really well and won the championship reserve ticket :-)

Then we went on to Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, where we only had one good day of weather sadly, but made the most of it! This is Loch Katrine viewed from Ben A'an.

 The wind then got up, gusting so hard it was hard to keep walking even halfway up the hills, and the rain came down in bucket loads. So we didn't get to the top of any more hills, instead headed for the beautiful west coast.....

 After a run on the beach, we made our way back through Glen Coe, which was awesomely beautiful

 The weather eased up enough for a lovely walk there

 We even had a rainbow.....

 Then two!! (Bit faint but you can just about make them out)

Despite lots of weather....

One thing I love about Deece is that he always makes the most of every situation, and even in the cold and pouring rain made me chuckle by his enthusiasm for a paddle in any puddle :-)

I am astonished that anyone can survive up there with just a bit of tartan to keep them warm! I can only say that the Highlanders must be an extremely hardy bunch!

At the end of the week I headed down to Lincoln for the British team try-outs, a weekend of tests set up to select eight of the very best large sized dogs with their handlers (plus 4 medium and 4 small sized dogs) to compete for Britain in the European Championships. It was a brilliant weekend, I really enjoyed the courses and skills tests, loved seeing some great agility, and loved the fab company! I really enjoyed immersing myself in agility for the weekend :-) There were some outstanding performances, there were some unlucky runs, and there were a couple of dogs for whom sadly it was just not their weekend at all! I am pretty sure we all know how that feels! A good agility run is exhilerating and can  make you feel on top of the world, but equally the next run can (and usually does) bring you right back down to Earth! Neither myself nor my two dogs really managed our best performances, however I absolutely loved the FCI style courses and the skills tests, learnt a lot, it was great to watch, and I got a good shot of motivation, so all in all a very worthwhile experience! Perhaps I shouldn't be too harsh on reflection, Zazzy was lying nineth until a tiny lapse of judgement on my part got her eliminated in the team run. The only fly in the ointment was that we had an FCI tyre as an obstacle in our last test course (having not seen one before, and as an owner of a particularly large sized, inexperienced young dog - the aperture they had to jump through looked tiny and surrounded by a metal frame and lots of tapes/ropes). This upset me for many reasons, safety of my dogs being top of the list, plus I thought it was not strictly necessary at this stage as it would only test who had trained on a FCI tyre before rather than speed and accuracy, and possibly even inappropriate to have it in the course because it belonged to one of the competitors. I felt it would not be fair to ask Deece to attempt it at speed so chose to miss it out, rather than take any risk of him hurting himself, even though this would get us disqualified. Under FCI rules stopping him to set him up to attempt the tyre more safely would also result in disqualification so I saw no point in attempting it at all. I only watched half the large dogs run this event but even so saw three dogs hit the tyre hard enough to break it, another five hit it not quite so hard, and one missed the tyre but jumped through the surrounding metal frame. Anyway here is Deece's run, missing out the tyre:

and here is his jumping run (Thanks to Becca for filming these!):

Although cold, the sun came out at last, horrah! and there were many sunburnt (and windburnt!) faces at the end of the weekend.
I would like to thank to some lovely people over the last couple of weekends, to Peter and Tricia Elms who were so kind, helpful and generally lovely up in Scotland (where everyone seems so nice!), and everyone at Lincoln for a great show and being such good company, we had loads of laughter and a really good time.
Finally, thank you to the 'gentleman' I passed on the trail at the top of Ben A'an, who certainly embodied the spirit of the current advert that says 'Visit Scotland..... Surprise yourself'. Well I certainly got one big surprise! I was chuckling all week following our encounter, which started with him saying 'Oh hello, I wasn't expecting to see anyone up here... I haven't got any clothes on....' It seems very strange to want to be in the cold and windy hills without any protection, but each to their own I guess!

Easter Celebration agility show

Easter Celebration was my first open show in over six months, in fact our last KC show was the KC International Agility Festival last August! It has been a really cold March, actually I have been the coldest I have felt all winter.
I competed one day and judged the next. My dogs were brilliant, but I felt a bit rusty, and some sloppy late cues got both dogs eliminated in the Olympia qualifier which was a shame as I loved the course set up by Leslie Osborne. Deece was excited to be competing but unfortunately had one or two poles down in every run. Zazzy was around two seconds slower than Deece around each course, but was clear! She came 10th in her jumping and 3rd in her agility.

On Sunday I judged jumping classes, grade 7 large, grade 6 large, grade 6 and 7 medium, and a helter-skelter of jumps and tunnels for large grades 1 and 2. When judging I really will everyone on to do well. It was thought provoking when someone said perhaps I should just put up a circle of jumps then, so everyone can do well. To me agility is a test of control and speed, and I love to see a harmonious partnership attack a course with a good display of both. A circle is a test of who has the fastest dog, but the joy I got from watching the good runs around the courses I put up showed what fantastic trainers and handlers there are around right now. Brilliant displays of control and speed were exactly what I saw in a large number of runs around my courses at the weekend. I saw lots of different ways to handle the courses too, which was great. There really was some spine-tingling brilliance. I hate to single out one run, but Toni Dawkins guided Cute round the grade 6 course to win with about three seconds to spare, which is a massive margin, especially when it is more common for the top ten rounds to all be within the same second of each other in competitions here in south east England. I was very pleased for her as it was Cute’s final win to take him up to grade 7.

Here is the G7 jumping course:

This is the G6 large and G6/7 medium jumping course:

Mini holiday

We have had a fabulous little break. After Crufts my sister and I went on for a few days holiday in the Peak District, which was beautiful. Deece and I also got to do some training with Janita Leinonen & Jaakko Suoknuuti which was fantastic.

Zazzy at Crufts

I was so pleased with Zazzy at Crufts, she was the happiest and most and confident I have ever seen her at a big event, and we had a fabulous time and really enjoyed it. You can see her run on the video at about 26 minutes.

Back to training!

My dogs have had a nice break from agility, and now I have carefully and gradually brought them back into training. They have had lots of walks, swimming and running, plus we have been doing lots of core muscle group strength games. I have started on Zazzys running dog walk training and am pleased with how it is going. Considering I am trying to re-train her at 5 years old, I knew it would take a while, but actually it will probably take longer than I thought. I am keeping a stopped dog walk in training on a different cue, I will need this for Crufts in a few weeks! Here is her running A-frame, extract taken from a Matthew Goodliffe training day I went to over the weekend:

I am pleased with Deece as well here is a video of him on the handling section of the training day:

Can anyone help look for Ian Balchin's sheltie?

Update - Trouble has been found, he is safe and well. Ian wants to thank everyone who has helped

 http://www.doglost.co.uk/dog-blog.php?dogId=48075


Lost: Tri - Mostly Black Shetland Sheepdog Male In South East (GU51)


DogLost - Reuniting Lost Dogs With Their Owners

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DogLost.co.uk - TROUBLE's Lost Dog Poster

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