New Judges at Severnside!

Am extremely proud to report that Brendan Sweeney, Sue James and myself are now fully qualified KC agility judges!! Thank you Dave for a very enjoyable and informative weekend, and our wonderful handlers & dogs who turned up on Sunday afternoon for us all to judge, despite the horrible weather conditions!

Today I'm grateful for the great family & friends I have who supported me in becoming an agility judge!

Judging seminar this weekend

It's going to be a very busy weekend! Mike turns 30 next Thursday, so as well as the judging seminar I'm co-organising with Martin Tait, I have a 30th birthday party to go to on Saturday night as well! Let's hope I'm in a fit state for the practical exam on Sunday afternoon :-)) Hope to post news on Monday that all 3 Severnside members that are attending (Brendan Sweeney, Sue James and myself) the course have passed. Fingers crossed!

Today I'm grateful for the support network I have around me, for my family and my agility plans.

Training this Saturday

Sue James is going to be manning the fort this Saturday, as I will be venturing down to the Dartmoor agility show in Okehampton. We are entered into 2 classes - Large Agility Graded 5, 6 and 7, and Large Jumping Graded 5, 6, and 7. This will be our first G5 classes as we haven't had another show since September and Ella's G4 win at Gillingham. I'm very happy with her since she's been back from her 3 weeks off, she's working really well and is possibly even faster than she was before! I was in two minds about entering this show, but I feel it will help prepare me for the sort of courses we'll be running next year so it's worth the trip. Just trying to ignore that fact that Hazel and Martin Tait will be picking me up at 6am on Saturday - we must be mad!

It's been a crazy week. My parents have been unwell and as my Dad is a fellow dog walker for people, I've been helping to cover his dogs as well as my own. We've been waiting an operation for Dad for sometime as he has a couple of things that need fixing, and it's had him quite run down. The nasty sickness bug that has been going around our families really knocked him for six this week, and he was taken into hospital yesterday to replace some of those lost fluids with a drip. He feels much better this morning and we're going into visit him a little later on today to find out what the plan is - he was supposed to be having his operation today, but of course that will now have to be delayed.

Today I am grateful for my Dad feeling better and for the good health of all the people and animals I love - it's something that is so easily taken for granted.

In pursuit of excellence..

This is going to be short - it's been a very long weekend! Just wanted to post how pleased I was with my clever, talented and beautiful collie dog tonight. Since having 3 weeks off agility, she has come back fitter and possibly even better than she was before. There is a little rust to be dusted off my handling skills, but tonight we had a final exercise which was the cherry on top of a very good session. The 'scoop' skill which I had found so difficult and frustrating just a few days earlier at Martin Tait's training venue in Hinton, I applied to the finish of an exercise that led into the weave poles. My timing was spot on and she turned from into me, over the jump and through the weaves. Needless to say I was delighted, but to top it off Martin clapped us - he actually clapped us as we had finished!! :-)

Tonight I'm glad that I had the courage to put into practice something that I had recently found difficult. We cannot achieve excellence if we don't push beyond our comfort zone, and our expectations should never limit us to an average performance. The sky is the limit, we can do anything if we only believe. And what a dog I have to believe in me :-)