What a beautiful morning, its our first frosty walk of the winter and it was nice to be out in the crisp cold air walking in lovely surroundings. I think the water stops were quite cold this morning as none of the dogs stopped in them for that long. I do love it at this time of the year when the ground is hard and its cold but dry, unfortunately the weather man said it will probably rain for the rest of the week so we definitely took full advantage this morning.

A quick catch up with what we have been doing, last weekend it was the BSD WC selection day, with the GB Team rule that you are only allowed to take one dog to the WC I decided to enter both Keisha and Zippy with the hope of qualifying Zippy, on the day it didn't quite go to plan, a few hairy moments with Zip on his first two agility runs he wasn't happy with the up plank on the DW so jumped off it on the first course, I was aware of the issue on the second class but stayed with him to get him across, im not sure what the issue was and even now on reflection im still not sure, we have never had this problem before and none of the other dogs including sensitive Keisha didn't have a problem. Anyway Zip managed his first round with 5R and his second class with 10F after a run by on the see-saw and a refusal at the last jump as he was too busy gorping at his toy !!! :) Keisha had two lovely clears so was gaining lots of points.

The third agility class was a bit of a disaster, I managed to get both Keisha and Zippy eliminated at the same point, never mind it just meant we had to work harder for the rest of the day. Then thats when Zippy and me finally got it together, we had 3 lovely clears in the jumping classes, still not at our best and I think I was queuing too late causing Zip to turn wide but it was clear and that was the main aim. Keisha had 2 out of the 3 clears in the jumping rounds, considering I haven't done any training with her since September I was chuffed to bits with how she performed.

So that was it the day had finished, Keisha had secured more points than Zippy however Zippy still had enough points to meet the criteria of making the team, I had already decided prior to try outs that if we qualified I would take Zippy. So the final placings are as follows:

Dave Leach and Rusty

Andy Brown and Sky

Jo Hyslop and Keisha

Di Griffin and Fin

Andy Brown and Thor

Jo Hyslop and Zippy

The team committee have decided this year Andy Brown and me can take both our dogs to the WC, Keisha will run in the individuals as well as the team event and Zippy will just run in the individual, I am so so lucky and incredibly excited to be taking both my dogs, although regrettably I would have withdrawn Keisha from the team if the single dog rule stood as I feel Zippy has the best chance of making the final out of the two of them, thankfully I didn't have to make that decision so we are off to the WC next year in Italy, yippee !!!

Well done to everyone else who qualified its gonna be a great team !!!

The new training field

So this is my new training field and menage, I moved in on saturday morning, I managed to do it all in one go which was a bonus, I think I need to space my equipment out the paddock is massive, no doubt Emma will be looking forward to her workout when she comes training, if your wondering where all the other equipment is its in the stable keeping dry.

This morning we had WC training, it was great fun and some of the courses were quite hard, infact very trappy and good handling was needed, mine was average, some good moments and some rubbish moments, Zippy was a good boy I have no idea how he understands what I want sometimes. I did get Keisha out for a few runs but to be honest we were a complete disaster, I think I will be taking advantage of my new training venue over the next week to make sure Keisha, Zippy and me are all singing of the same hymn sheet.

Not much else happening at the moment, I am currently debating whether to get my bike out and start taking the boys for a more vigorous exercise, ive just got this dreadful feeling one of them will cause me to fall and become more friendly with the floor, I think I might try one at a time to start with, work out who the likely culprit could be !!!

November already ???

November already.......... this year is flying by. It has been a busy couple of months for us here, I didn't blog about it last month but Zippy had been very poorly for 3 weeks after contracting an infection after being neutered. I made numerous visits back to the vet, infact 5 times in 7 days but they kept telling me he was just taking longer to recover than normal but he was fine.




Then on the monday morning (a week later) I woke up and Zippy wouldn't even move, he looked so poorly and wouldn't even lift his head, I decided to take him to a different vets, thank god i did .... his temperature was dangerously high and they immediately started to treat him, his body had gone into shut down. After lots of treatment and daily visits to the vets for a week Zip started to recover, to look at him now you wouldn't even know, thankfully there are some good vets out there who know what they are doing, its a shame others don't and for them to put Zip's life on the line is completely unforgivable.

Anyway, on top of all that I had lost access to the field I was training on, complete rubbish timing as the training season had just began, however, I have just found a new paddock that is even better, its part of a horse yard and im allowed to leave my equipment out in the field which is a massive bonus, i also have access to a stable to store equipment such as my tunnel and weaves so they don't start rotting away in the bad weather. All this comes with free access to the menage too if it is not being used, how lucky am I ???

Last weekend we went over to Kates to meet up with Nat and Reno and Jackie and Speedy, we had a few hours training in Kates paddock which was great, we were then spoilt with lunch and pancakes to follow which were absolutely delicious, thanks very much Kate. I think all the doggies enjoyed there day and I know the humans certainly did.

Thanks to Grace for the lovely photos taken at the ABC semi back in September.