Thames

And on to Thames... always enjoy this show. I’d decided as the champ for large was on Saturday and the champ for small was on Sunday I would enter both. So Saturday they both had the Crufts Singles and Scandal had champ.

The Champ jumping I didn’t think was particularly hard, just a bit awkward. However, there was elimination after elimination... I imagine about 75% of the class got E’d. Scandal just picked up 5 faults for a pole, and had a spin half way round while I dallied about trying to get in the right place.

Champ agility, and Scandal did a beautiful round and came 2^nd :-D she was such a good girl.

Then champ final, I knew Laura had done a lovely round with Rodney and knew this would take some beating. Well, we tried, and came very close... 0.3 behind them to take the reserve CC. So proud of little Scandal, she tried so hard for me... I just need to be a bit sharper/quicker/more confident with my commands... oh and of course move a bit quicker in general... always work in progress :-) watching the video of the run, I had no idea what Scandal was doing between jump number 2 and the dogwalk... coz I just ran off and left her, whoops. Scandal does very well to compensate for having me!

Crufts Singles and I messed up the weave entry so Scandal had no hope. But at least we got to train the dog walk and seesaw which was a good thing :-)

Crufts Singles with Honey... slightly painful, Honey wasn’t ‘slow’ but certainly wasn’t enthusing (or was enthusing less than she normally does). We managed to scrape an 8^th, which gives us a few more points!

Then on to the Sunday, and champ with Honey. Champ agility first, and Honey did a nice round and came 4^th! The champ jumping had a very hard weave entry which sooo many dogs missed, and Honey went straight in :-O then she decided she was going to run as fast as she possibly could down a straight, completely catching me out, which made the next bit very messy and we got 5R.

Still good enough to put us 3^rd from the end in the final. Well Honey decided she was going to try a bit harder than usual, and shot off the startline, over 1 and flew past me on 2 when I was cueing a turn... Caught me out again! So a rather wide turn and I pushed her as hard as I could for the next bit... nothing to lose, and she worked really nicely, I’d say probably about 80% of what she can give in training (I’d say at the moment in the ring it’s usually about 50-60%). This took a second off Alan Bray’s time to put us into the lead... and then Bernadette ran! Super smooth and super fast to take quite a margin off Honey’s time and win the CC. So Honey got the reserve CC too. Really pleased with her :-)

Then Scandal just had her 6-7 Olympia qualifier. Hannah Banks was judging, which I was pleased about when I saw her name on the ring plan... I always like her courses as they are nicely spread out, rather than the stupid minimum distance that a lot of judges seem to prefer. I made a decision that I was going to at least do a ‘stop-go’ with Scandal on the seesaw rather than an all out going for it quick release, aware that I quick released both my champ runs on the Saturday and don’t really want to end up with no contacts. She went straight into position on both the dw and ss, whilst I ran off in front to get into position. The run just seemed really smooth and I was chuffed to bits with the aframe-weaves which Scandal nailed. I think Scandal enjoyed this run, she likes just being able to gooooo J this put us 2^nd, which qualifies us for the Olympia semis in September! Yippeee :-)              

Just can’t believe the run that the dogs are having, between them in the last 5 weeks they have both qualified for the Olympia semis, won 2 CC’s and 2 reserve CC’s, Honey has 11 points for Crufts Singles and Scandal has 16. WOW :-D