Holiday?!?!

Last week Steve and I were officially on holday, we had packed the caravan and booked into a lovely caravan site in the Golden Valley for a few days away together, we had decided to take Rupert & Maisy as Amy was also away with her YKC mates in Newquay so leaving Claire with Ben, Dylan & Summer. When we arrived we realised there was no mobile reception within 7 miles so I called the girls and told them to leave us messages which we would pick up at intervals throughout the holiday. The weather was glorious and the dogs were having great fun splashing around in the river keeping themselves cool. On Saturday we had decided to walk the dogs around a 3 mile route I had found on the internet, it was supposed to be and easy walk with spectacular views! well I'm not sure who published this so called easy walk but it was far from it! I don't think they believe in maintaining their footpaths in the Golden Valley! however the views from the ridge were amazing and both the dogs had great fun exploring the hedgerows, then suddenly my phone beeped at me, this was a good excuse for a rest so I decided to call Amy to make sure she had arrived in Newquay safely - Poor Amy had been trying to contact us for the past 24 hours, she hadn't been feeling very well so much so that her friends had taken her to A&E on Friday night where she had been diagnosed with THE MUMPS!!! so on the hottest day of the year we ended up spending 6 hours in the car Luckily the air conditioning was working and the dogs had had a long walk so were quite happy to have a big snooze. unfortunately we ended up cutting our holiday short but at least Amy is now on the mend and not quite as Hamster looking as she was.
all was not lost though as I have a little treat waiting for me on Thursday - all will be revealed.......

Weekend Updates

We had a very plesant weekend at Top Barn, Amy managed a clear each with both Summer and Dylan which resulted in a placing, the pairs was executed like a military manouver as we didn't Summer to see Maisy before the start although I managed to get us eliminated!! and Maisy managed all her contacts after I managed to get a wait on the start, so from now on it will be waits all the way even if it means throwing every class. Jo had another good weekend in her final grade 5 Keisha managed another jumping win so all those points are really stacking up now. and Ellen and Hamish took first place in their first grade 2 jumping, it won't be long and they'll be in grade 3. Also Anne & Gloria had yet another brilliant clear round, the relationship between them just gets stronger and stronger and they are a delight to watch.
Amy is at the Mary Ray training camp in Daventry this week and has decided to concentrate on Summer for the agility and Rupert for the obedience!! so I am without my baby until Thursday morning!!! Steve and I are off for a well deserved break from Thursday to Monday and thankfully both Maisy & Rupert are comming too so he can be thoroughly spoilt without any distractions.

Golden Valley

This afternoon Amy and I with all the dogs are heading off to the Golden Valley agility show, I really like this venue as it is where Maisy and I first won, I have packed my lucky red trousers!! so hopefully between us we can come away with a few nice runs. All the gang will be there including Clare even though she can't run Charlie due to his ongoing injury but it will be lovely to spend some time catching up with everyone, and I'm sure a few glasses of vino will be consumed so with the weather set to be fine it could be a very pleasant weekend. Updates on Monday!!

North Derbyshire

I must admit to not really looking forward to this weekend, not only was it a long drive on a Friday afternoon, but I was also going up on my own, and even though I was meeting up with Jo and Kathryn I really hadn't got very excited about it at all. Luckily we arrived in the sunshine and Karthryn and Ian had already set up camp so at least there were some friendly faces on arrival. Saturdays weather remained warm and dry and Maisy had some lovely rounds still just taking the odd pole or missing the contacts, but I had started to get at least a bit of a wait on the start so some progress was being made. In the afternoon we even managed to all sit by the grade 7 ring to watch some really lovely dogs and their handlers make it all look far too easy.

We woke up to heavy rain on Sunday morning which made the ground very slippy, maisy started the day off with an agility round where her naughty contacts remained but she made a very tight weave entrance look easy and took the jumping sequences in her stride so I was quite pleased, it was followed by a tricky 1-4 jumping where all the jumps were in the middle and I just think Maisy got confused and started to take her own line in a panic so I took her out of the ring. then finally we had a lovely 1-3 jumping class, Maisy ran it beautifully just knocking 2 poles which were both my fault, so I am really looking forward to next weekend at Golden Valley.

Jo had another brilliant weekend with so many rosettes to name them all but she had an amazing jumping win with Ronny and came 2nd in the same class with Keisha, not to be outdone Keisha followed that by winning another 2 jumping classes and Kody taking another grade 4 win taking him to grade 5, I think she might need an extension soon to house all those trophies!!

Anne & Gloria had a brilliant clear round in the Jumping it was the best I have ever seen Anne run in total control so very well done and Sara with her lab Jess had another clear in the agility gaining 4th place so it turned out to be a brilliant weekend all round

Quiet weekend

last Thursday we took Summer to the vets to be spayed, we had originally wanted to have a litter from her but with the unexpected arrival of Rupert then decided it wasn't necessary to put her and us through it all (especially the bit where you have to let your babies go!) the operation went very smoothly, and she seems to be recovering extremely well, even keeping her quiet hasn't been as much of a problem as I anticipated, so fingers crossed next Saturday John our vet will give her the all clear in time for Golden Valley on the 19th/20th June.

This weekend we hadn't got any shows booked so I arranged to take Rupert to a HTM workshop run by Richard Curtis in the neighbouring village, he was brilliantly behaved and although it was a long day for him we have come away with lots of ideas to play with over the comming months (more on his own blog).

Maisy and I are entered at North Derbyshire next weekend, so I'll be camping with her & Rupert, as you could probably tell from previous posts I have been a bit down about our 5 faultitis over the past few weeks, we were on such a roll at the end of last season I seem to have lost my MOJO!! so hopefully this weekend we can focus enough to get through it, Jo is camping next to me so I'm hoping one of her motivational chats will do the trick. I am at a real loss how to get the same contacts in competition as we do everywhere else! I will get myslef videoed both at training and in competition to see if we can spot anything!! failing that it's going to be velcro on her pads!!