Monday 10 June 2013

Agility Champion Rujaff Red Hot Scandal

OMG. Agility Champion Rujaff Red Hot Scandal. 

Just so happy. I can’t believe we have done it. She debuted at Hinckley show at exactly 18 months old, 3 years ago. I always love Hinckley show. Only 5 rings so fairly small, loads of qualifiers, and the biggest champ entry I have seen this year (156 dogs). She was 11th in the champ agility, clear in the champ jumping, although I don’t know where she finished. We qualified in 5th place so she ran 16th out of 20. I knew there had been several clear rounds. The only dog I watched was Dave and Boss. Boss has been putting some amazing times in, so I wanted to see his run. I say I watched his run, but that was from a distance, as Garth wasn’t at the show, so I had to deal with a crazy Scandal who was taking it in turns to a) chew my fingers off for her Chihuahua food, and b) bark and jump about and try and drag me to the ring. Boss did a lovely clear round in 35.something. So I knew it was going to be an all or nothing run in order to beat him. Which I prefer. All or nothing runs are the best.

I love champ finals with Scandal. She runs differently, she knows it’s a final (ok… maybe she doesn’t know it’s a final, but she knows it’s important :)). She saves all her extra speed up for them. I liked the course. Hard, and a few things to work extra hard on, plus it had some big distances in there, which suits Scandal down to the ground.

She was awesome. She went round in 34.something (so I’m told, I have no idea myself) about a second off of Dave’s time, and went in to the lead. Again, so I was told, coz I had no clue of ANYTHING, I had been soooo focussed on Scandal. There were 4 more dogs to run after us, and then Greg was running 19th and 20th. He messed up with his first dog, so it was all on the second. They (so I’m told, lol) went round in 36.something, which meant SCANDALSAURUS WON HER THIRD CHAMPIONSHIP. Woah, over a week later and I’m still bouncing around on cloud nine. We’ve achieved 2 out of 3 of our goals this year, the third one was related to Crufts 13 and we part achieved it, and took a tonne of experience home with us. 

Now we have a couple of weeks off, lots of time to reflect, and then get more excited about the European Championships which are in 7 weeks time! I can’t wait to go out there, I have asked Scandal and she said she is looking forward to it too.