Arghhh!!! The Frustration!!!!

I've just come back from a weekend at Loughborough obedience, lovely show. Had THE most annoying day in the world on Saturday, Tia was leading C by MILES and then failed scent!!!!! Then today she had a 4th (bit gutted as 1st-3rd give you a qualifier for ticket) her heelwork wasn't as sharp as it was yesterday, I think because she is used to only doing 1 show a week of obedience, as she's always worse on the 2nd day. Just SO gutted about Saturday as she worked absolutely fantasticly, best heelwork marks of the day, I really couldn't have asked for anything more, then she had a ditzy moment in her scent and did the I'm-a-retard-lets-choose-the-decoy!!

So then, I got back to Bristol about 8pm and decided to give the dogs a quick walk, so off I go up to the first field, just planning on walking around that as it'd be Tia's 15 min walk. Just as I'm up the top of the field I see a couple of people I know, and they ask about dog training, etc, so I decided to let Tia off the lead so she could have a mooch round. Was chatting to these people for about 10 mins where I did a head count (lol) and came to the grand total of... 1 doglet. Tia is never normally far from my side, so I start to panic! Say a rapid goodbye to these people (who were saying how impressed with my well behaved dogs they are) and start to leg it down the field, as I was running down I see a hot air balloon, in the farrrrr distance (its so small its the size of a golf ball) which was obviously what Tia had stressed at! Get home (as I was hoping thats where she'd gone) and waiting in the garden is a very stressed Tia, hiding in the corner and in panic mode, panting a lot, and looking in balloon-monster's direction!!!! So, a reminder to me to do balloon-check before letting her off lead in future! Still can't believe she ran off, she's meant to get better, not worse, as she gets older!!