UKA Sutton Weavers

This show was really for Rio, who obviously sliced her pad and therefore couldn’t go. Next year, she’s wrapped in cotton wool pre-Champs.

Very very nice show, great setup at one of my favourite flyball venues, Sutton Fields. The ring plans didn’t quite work out (one ring was finished at lunchtime, another didn’t finish until 4pm) but it was great. I will go again! Classes were tiny but there were a lot of entries on the day, so Dylan’s classes had around 8 dogs, and Rio’s would have been 20+. Still tiny, but bigger than the 1 pre-entered dog, ie. Dylan.

Dyl’s first run was the Senior Agility, and he set off very well, until he got to the seesaw (#7). The number was still sitting on the seesaw, from course walking. Dylan was already on the seesaw when we both realised and panicked. The judge immediately stopped us and told us to re-start, but the damage was done … Dylan refused the seesaw and then had a minor wobble on the dogwalk as well. Cue internal screaming and wailing and some very good and supportive students (hey, aren’t I supposed to be supporting you?!)

Senior Gamblers was the class we really needed to do well in (Dyl really need the Games points!). I had an awesome plan, no seesaw, lots of dogwalks. Dyl’s dogwalks were great, we clocked about 24 points in the opening. However, the gamble started with the dogwalk and in my over-paranoid anxiety about ensuring he was supported on the dogwalk, I was then miles away from where I needed to be to handle B to C. Oops, big E. More internal screaming.

Senior Jumping, where we very much do not need points, we aced and came 2nd. Big big open course, lots of running and lots of space. Course time was 50s, which should give a clue as to how big!

Only one Steeplechase class this time. I drastically forgot where I was going and we scraped through by the skin of our teeth, it wasn’t pretty. Big 1st anyway, so Dyl has 16pts toward his CSC. I’m not holding my breath, we’re never going to reach 60 points, that would require 8 more wins. Which would require 8 more classes, to start with, and even if I crash Field of Dreams at Bakewell for a day, that’s only 3 opportunities before the end of the year. And Dylan is getting slower and slower, it’s never going to happen!

Not really sure what to do with Dylan now. He hates aluminium contacts and I don’t have the resources to build his confidence. He has dramatically slowed down in the past 12months and we aren’t competitive at Grade 6 by any stretch. We scrape by at UKA because the classes are so small in this area. I love running Dylan when he’s happy and confident, but he’s not 100% happy and confident 100% of the time. I think this winter is his last season.