Otley – Finally Grade 3!

As many of you will have heard already, Kim was diagnosed with a heart murmur at the vets during her routine annual checkup and boosters. I didn’t post about it immediately because it took me a while to get my head around the idea that my beautiful girly could no longer claim to be in perfect physical health. I realise I can’t wrap her in cotton wool but I was already thinking maybe now was the time to stop pushing her at agility and flyball and let her pick her own pace, at least until she’s fully tested and we know the full story.

Kim though, with her normal attitude, apparently doesn’t care or doesn’t listen to warnings about her health (or anything else, for that matter!) and told me not to dare think about retiring her just yet.

Our first run of the day was Combined 1-4 Agility, nice course with a few fiddley bits but basically exactly what I’d been hoping for when I’d chosen to enter a show with 1-4 classes. (Kim and I tend to do better on trickier courses). We had a lovely run but I thought we’d missed our dogwalk contact — still do, actually! — plus we had several wide turns and Kim was definitely not firing on all cylinders so I was pleased just to get a clear. I thought it was a good start to the day and we’d really have our chance later in the 1-2 Agility! When I actually went to check the results to get my time for Kim’s AW points I nearly burst into tears, her time was 4 seconds clear of the dog in second place and she won me into Grade 3 by beating not only Grade 1 and 2 dogs, but Grade 3 and 4 dogs as well.

Here’s the video from her 1-4 Agility.

http://www.undermybed.co.uk/images/otley14agility.wmv
OR go to http://uk.youtube.com/user/kayanem

We then went on to win the Combined 1-2 Jumping with a “fairyhead” run (as Emma calls it!), and the Combined 1-2 Agility with 5 faults (knocked a pole on the spread). In our final run of the day, when Kim was freaked out by the thunder and only half-listening to me, she still managed a 3rd in the Combined 1-4 Jumping.

Dylan met his baby sister Kai again, who is just stunning; the photo doesn’t show how huge they both are! Emma and Bailey were also doing their first Medium 3-5 classes. Bails had a particularly awesome run in the 3-5 Jumping but her clear didn’t count as the course had the cloth tunnel taken out mid-way through the class as it was getting too wet, so Emma had to re-run and got E’d. Looking at the final times and Bailey’s original time, she would have been 3rd … not a bad start Ems! A few other friends also had some good placings, so all in all a really fab day.

Final note though, on the Agility Warrant points added in from today Kim now has 196 points … so close to being Return of the Kim AW(B)! We aren’t doing another KC show until the end of August at Northern Week, but hopefully we’ll be able to get those last few points there.