Scarborough

Nice venue, shame they put the rings on the hill!

Kim was bumped up to Hawk as one of the other dogs went lame. She loved it, she looked great and kept going all day, I was very proud of her! She brought the jumps down to 12″ too which meant Skye clocked a few 4.7’s and a 4.65, so although Kim is a smidge slower than Lucy, the height advantage meant we made it up with Skye and Dylan.

Dylan also ran well, he is much more focussed these days and much more into his flyball. The only problem we have is that he’s getting lazy with his box; because he isn’t getting his hind end around onto the box, he’s pushing off sideways and that’s making him turn very wide. Must get strict in training now, that bum must come around and I want both back feet on the box. I feel like that will get him tighter on the turn of itself, but we’ll throw in some netting to force him tighter anyway.

The gang got a new seed time anyway, in a fairly comfortable manner. I think there’s more to come from this team, although whether the same dogs will be in there I don’t know!

Mollie ran her socks off, she clocked some great times running over 13″; 5.3’s and 5.2’s consistently, what a superstar! She does so love running lead dog, she always clocks her best time in that position. Unfortunately we have to balance age with speed; it’s hard work for a 10yr old stumpy to do all the false starts and re-runs required of a lead dog! Her team came last, but she was the only one of the original planned team left, so not too shabby.

I was so, so tired this past weekend. I loved running the dogs, we had a blast and our teams were fab. I even loved boxloading for Ghost/Barneys, who just looked so good, looked just like a perfect team should, all working together seamlessly and knowing where and when everyone and every dog was going to be. Lovely.

But.

I feel like we’re in a situation that I so wanted to avoid when I left the old club; I wanted to be selfish for once, and not be coerced into helping or giving up my time when I didn’t want to. I know the Owlers do not do this, and I always offer to help, but for the past couple of months we’ve been going to both days of a flyball tournament even though our dogs only run on one of the days. I think we’re going to have to put the breaks on that because I can’t cope, I get tired and grumpy and I have no time to do anything. The same goes for the EMDAC shows – we volunteered at the beginning of the year to help out with CleverDogs, but we’ve actually ended up running it, which is not what I thought I was signing up for. I won’t be doing that again next year.

I’m looking forward to JDA this weekend because all I’m doing is running my dogs, which is what I wanted competitions to be. Just me and dog. Good stuff.