Mendips

Scandal has redeemed herself and has been good the last few days! We did UKA Cheltenham yesterday and while I can't say Scandal was good, she was a lot better than at Shrewsbury, did some sit and down waits, held her static heelwork position for a good few seconds, and didn't bite me (yay :D). 

Tia was WILD. Actually, Tia was great, but we just aren't clicking, she is so much more enthuastic and my brain isn't functioning in the slightest bit fast enough to do her justice. In the first steeplechase she broke her wait (Tia NEVER breaks her wait) and much as I lecture everyone I teach to put the dog back if it breaks, I broke the golden rule and put my arm out and simultaneously said "go", Tia went on my arm movement, hesistated, and then spannered the first jump, I can't remember the rest, I think she took another pole. Then the second round it was going ok and right at the end she had 3 poles, got her stride a little wrong, tried to bounce jumps that should definitely have been 1 stride. In the last round she was beautiful, just a pole at the end but was 3 secs faster than the winner, it was nice to see that :o) I think I am going to have to start doing more courses with her in training as all the poles came towards the end, maybe she is getting tired. Steve was here the last few days of this week and we got some pics of Tia on Friday, had her running around and jumping etc, maybe it was too much for her doing jumping Friday and Saturday and her legs were achy I do not know. 

We went for a lovely walk today and walked to the highest point on the Mendips. It's amazing for the dogs, bracken to run in, rocks to climb on, and in Scandal's case, cows, sheep and horses to stare at through the fences. The only thing that has got me worried is as we were walking up the track, must have only been about 100m from home, Ricky looked slightly lame on both his back legs, and then looked like he was going to collapse, I caught him and held him, but he was completely fine within seconds, perked up again and has been fine all night. I am not sure what happened but I do find it quite worrying, he is only 10 :o( poor Rix. I hope it was a one off and it doesn't happen again. x