Tuesday 23 September 2008

Thursday 11 September 2008

Imber Court

Tessie!
Box still looking ok!

Me and my girly!

We weren't sure if this competition would even go ahead due to the terrible rain but we bravely headed down to Surrey on the Saturday morning. It was on a sports ground which had amazing drainage so despite all the rain the ground had held up very well. We had three teams in, the ballistics (1st team) and missiles (3rd team) ran Saturday. Missiles were a little out of there depth as we were on a seed time of 22.92secs with Jive in the team. Tess wasn't on top form due to it being a bit slippy but she tried hard and we managed a best time of 23.70secs. It was a 7 team division and we won 3 of our races to end up 4th so were really pleased with that.

Ballistics had an absolutely brilliant start to the day, we ran our 1st race against maple leafs and managed to beat them acheiving a new best ever time of 17.80secs and finally breaking that 18second barrier so we were well chuffed. Won are second race aswell, unfortunately the afternoon went down hill as we lost to the bandits with a light, a late and naughty Sonny running out again. Don't know why he's suddenly doing this again, back to training for him. He was ok in the blue lane against bassetts but they were just a little bit too quick for us. Last race against maple leaf raggers was such a shame, can't remember exactly what happened, we had them on speed but i think we one the first leg, then sonny ran out the next 2, then next 1 he stayed in and we won it. Then on the last leg he ran out, little bugger! We ended up 5th, nevermind if we'd of one the two races we should of won we would of been 2nd, if only...

Rockets ran Sunday, stayed dry pretty much all day which was nice. I got to run the wonderful Perry as Bobbie wasn't there. He is sooo lush to run, he's very tuned in to what you want him to do and he's just a big softy. Had a bit of an annoying day as first race we were a whole second faster but got 3 lights and lost. Then Jive was slipping and running out, then Bunty got her silly head on and started running round the ring, it all kind of fell apart. Once Bunty is in that mood she doesn't run at full speed, thought we had cracked it with her but she does like to keep us on our toes! We did manage to win one race and had the 2nd fastest time of the division of 18.88secs but still came last!

So a weekend of if only's i guess, i'm sure we are due a successful competition soon... 1and a half weeks til Stockbridge...

Wednesday 3 September 2008

Amazing Training!

Just a little post cuz I had an agility lesson with Char Harding on Sunday, was brilliant. Felt like I learnt so much and I have lots of homework to do! Asher was a good boy, he tried really hard even if some bits did blow his mind a little bit, well he is a boy, can't take it all in bless him! I've got training at Clifton tonight so I'll see if i can put some of the stuff I learnt in to place!

Catch up!

Oh dear, it's been ages!

Well we've had the BFA national championships which were FANTASTIC! Loved it soo much! Went up on the thurs night and managed to blag an awning to sleep in instead of faffing with a tent. Raced Tess Friday in division 21, she ran so well all day bless her, we were top seed and unbeaten all day so 1st place :-). It meant so much to me because it was Tess' last championships and we've always had bad luck at the champs, the amount of 6th place rosettes i've got is ridiculous so was lovely to get the little plaque and 1st place rosette! We did pairs with Kristian and Badger, was amazing even though they've never run together before and run on different boxes, badger and asher managed 8.25secs which won us the pairs on friday and i think it was the quickest time of the weekend:-). Friday night was ace, we had a quiz which our team won... what a brainy lot we are lol! Disco was really fun aswell, stayed up til bout 2 with the mad mutts!

Extraset ran Saturday and were really consistent all day but not quite quick enough to beat all the teams, they came 3rd. Saturday night was sooo funny, we had a flyballers that bounce competition where we had to race each other on spacehoppers! We made it to the final only for me to fall off and be beaten by Penny from the Bandits lol lol! Stayed up til bout 4, was a lil bit tipsy!

Sunday morning arrived very quickly and I didn't feel too great! Our 1st team had an absolute nightmare, one of our dogs decided he didn't want to come back over the jumps. He hasn't done this for months so we were absolutely gutted cuz once he's got it in his head it's like a switch has flicked and you can't switch it off so we just went nfc so he didn't get in to the habit of running out. Things got worse when another of our dogs followed suit and ran out straight through ashers path... bang! Think my heart stopped, the thought of anything happening to him doesn't bear thinking about. He also runs at over 30mph and is built like a brick wall so was very worried for the other dog aswell, luckily she was ok. Rockets also ran Sunday, things started badly with a reformed character returning to his old ways so we lost the 1st 2 races. We thought it was just not our day. Luckily he got his act together in the afternoon and they did there fastest ever time of 18.79secs and won two races. Thats nearly as fast as the 1st team, me thinks we might be stealing that height dog! They came 4th. I watched all of Division 1 and it was absolutely brilliant, such close racing, High Flyers defo deserved to win but all the teams were great.

So back home from champs and the the following Sunday morning I drove the 192miles down to sellindge in Kent for the Shooting Stars tournament, we wouldn't usually go that far but it was Kerry and Jason's wedding so really wanted to go. We only took 1 team, a slightly depleted 1st team which ended up being bottom seed in division 1 so we didn't hold out much hope. We managed a fastest time of 18.52secs which is the fastest those 4 dogs have done so that was good and we ended up 4th :-)... unfortunately only because 2 teams went down to 3 dogs but we'll take it! The wedding party on the Sunday night was brilliant, really enjoyed it, had a sweet fight which was totally not my fault lol and I got rather drunk so all in all a good weekend! Also Shooting Stars broke the 17 second barrier with 16.98secs, it looked sooo good and i think they could go faster.

Oh yeah and flyball was on tv in the form of a piece on the one show, they filmed all weekend at the champs for approx. 3 minutes on the tv. Personally I wasn't impressed, it wasn't at all factual and I think if you didn't already know what flyball was you wouldn't have a much better idea after! Nevermind, good publicity I suppose!