Today's show was the first time Ella and I have competed at G6, and I was pretty nervous as I walked the first course of the day. It was a G6 Agility class, and whilst it wasn't easy by any means, it wasn't the nightmare that I'd built up in my head either! We had an early running order and rather than go back to the van with her, we walked around to warm up thoroughly and stop me thinking about it all too much :-) You would think having whipped up through the grades last year like we did, I'd have a bit more faith in us both wouldn't you?! However once I stepped into the ring and put her into her startline down position, I started to feel a whole lot better - the dog that I looked back at was my precious girl, and wasn't going anywhere until she heard that all important release cue. We did a nice clear round in just over 33 seconds, which saw us take 3rd place. 2nd place was taken by one of Ella's cousins, another Nedlo owned by Anthony Clarke - up the Nedlos :-)
I was so relieved for the rest of the day that I was able to get a clear round in G6, that I'm sorry to say we had two eliminations that I know better handling could have sorted. Plus two missed weave entries from a little lady charging at them too fast - some homework to do there. All in all though I can't describe how pleased I am with what happened today. When you start competitive agility you hope that one day you'll be competing at the top of your sport. I'm delighted to find that not only are we close to getting there, but we're pretty competitive too! Not something that will surprise any of my supporters, but then I don't know if they'll recall the fact that this time last year Ella and I were only eligible to compete in Grade 1 classes. I hope they realise that we wouldn't have made it without their support and encouragement, and that we're very grateful to them for being there every step of the way.
Today I'm grateful for the fact that I brought home the best dog at the whole show :-)
I was so relieved for the rest of the day that I was able to get a clear round in G6, that I'm sorry to say we had two eliminations that I know better handling could have sorted. Plus two missed weave entries from a little lady charging at them too fast - some homework to do there. All in all though I can't describe how pleased I am with what happened today. When you start competitive agility you hope that one day you'll be competing at the top of your sport. I'm delighted to find that not only are we close to getting there, but we're pretty competitive too! Not something that will surprise any of my supporters, but then I don't know if they'll recall the fact that this time last year Ella and I were only eligible to compete in Grade 1 classes. I hope they realise that we wouldn't have made it without their support and encouragement, and that we're very grateful to them for being there every step of the way.
Today I'm grateful for the fact that I brought home the best dog at the whole show :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment