Rugby

Running 3 show behind but never mind big catch up this week!

We had a great Rugby show. This is always one of my favourite shows, we’ve done it for as long as I can remember.

Scandal was a good baby dog and won G6 agility on the Saturday, by 2 seconds! I said very little to her, just let her concentrate on her stuff, and she was such a good girl. In the Crufts Singles I was only going to train it anyway, it started 2 jumps dogwalk, she went into 4off and I said ‘good target’ and she reversed back on. We had a bit of a hitch with aframe weaves as Scandal seemed to get in a bit of a pickle with them and it took us 3 goes to complete them, but I stuck to what I had aimed for to layer a jump the other side of the weaves, which was good. The seesaw she slid and there was no way she was going to stop so I couldn’t help slip in a ‘waitttt’ which she duly did :)

Didn’t run the jumping as it was raining and I had misspaniel to run. Then on the Sunday, Scandal was having a super run in Jayne Widdess’ G6/7 Agility, worked sooo well and did 2 lovely ‘out rounds’ (I think these are her favourite thing!)…… and then she ran past the last jump coz she saw her bally. Lesson for me – must work the last jump! Was a bit gutted as we had done all the hard stuff. In the 6-7 Olympia Scandal did a lovely running dog walk, then nice jumps, then I forgot where I was going and sent her into the wrong end of the tunnel, poor Scandal. Couldn’t quite get the sharp turn into the weave entry but got it on 2nd attempt, and then 4-off on her seesaw, naughtyyy. Her seesaws this year are certainly very different to last year! I then didn’t do the jumping as just didn’t like it, there was no flow to it and I am not going to ask her to unnecessarily bend over backwards to make awkward turns/angles.

And then span…. WELL. She got 4th in the Crufts Singles, which I was thrilled with. Champ Jumping (I was on a high from the place in the Singles) Honey decided that on no account did she like the lovely flowing course the judge had set, and broke into a TROT. I wanted the floor to swallow me up, I was so embarrassed. She finished 5 seconds off the pace, it was truly cringeworthy.

Then in the Champ Agility… well, this it seems, was more do-able, Honey much faster and we came 3rd! How is it that she can go from trotting, to almost galloping, in the space of an hour?

This double clear put us into the final. I’ve had 3 goals with Honey this year and one of them was to go clear in a champ final (this year). She has done 4 champs and made 3 champ finals, but the previous 2 I had managed to mess up in the final. Finals with Honey I’m always in two minds about, I don’t get nervous about the course or running her. I get nervous about the fact that I have absolutely no idea how fast/slow she is going to go until I release her. I am so concerned she will have one of her “I hate agility” moments in a champ final, when there’s loads of people watching. Anyway, she was pretty good in this one, nowhere near her fastest but at least she ran, we went clear, and came 3rd. Yay good spaniel, and goal achieved! Woooo!

She was very naughty the next day in the Olympia Q… she was actually flying, and completely ignored me when I asked her to turn after the dog walk. Bad span. We re-did the turn, she ignored me, so I picked her up, walked her out to the car. I have never not rewarded her after a run. We then had to go and do teams, and I was slightly worried that she would refuse to work after still waiting on her sweeties from the last run. However, always managing to baffle me, she ran probably the fastest she’s ever run in her life, absolutely flew round. AHHHHHHHHHH! So frustrating, I just cannot work her out.

So we ended Rugby with Scandal on 3 wins towards G7 and Honey with a 3rd in champ final and more Crufts Singles points, what a great show :)