The European Open - Agility...its hot, hot, hot....

Christine & Marc W-Ws and Zev and Mister Big

The European Open - Agility - Taszar,  Hungary

What a trip - epic coach journey and then the heat and sunshine, hot, hot and hot running in 30 degrees.  

The courses were fabulous, tough, clever and unforgiving. For me they felt gladiatorial in a  very good way, and even though I got Zev e'd they were e's that I did not feel ashamed of. As our performance has improved, so has Europe and it is catch up all over again. 

Marc and Mister Big made the final and how my heart soars watching this tiny poodle run. I also luv the expression from the judges, indicating their thoughts of technical performance, empathy and sympathy depending how the course is run, it is really excellent and sporting. The jumps and poles were Smart-99 and they are so clever in design and demand that the dog jumps very cleanly, adding an additional technical skill factor, making the agility even more exciting. so many things to enjoy and reminded why agility as a sport is so darn great. Someone made this real nice video as a celebration :)

Marc and Mister Big in Action - EO 2014

The winners fantastic performances from both the handlers and dogs. The courses were inspiring to watch and they are so exhilarating to run.  Course design and judging is a tough role, and lucky for agility sport, there are people with such a talent for this.

There is no doubt we all miss Nuts like mad, at times we are all a little lost. The focus on this event has helped deal with this as much as one can. Returning home without out him to greet us, toughsville :(

There is randomness of thoughts and focus for me, developing and improving our training for both parts of the partnership. Striving for dreams and goals, making them real and pushing for more. 

The new management team for Agility Team GB, are really bringing the sport performance aspects and a strong foundation has been set to build upon.

Now to prepare for the FCI Agility World Championships only 6 weeks away.....

Zevman @ Hinckley 2012

Zev June 2012

I was so looking forward to this weekend, it was my first weekend free of assignments. However I was not in a good head space...there is still a couple of things that I need to resolve and whilst they can be resolvable in time, they just cannot be resolved as quickly as I want them to. Which is frustrating...and despite me telling my mind to dismiss the thoughts...they just kept popping back up..not 'doubting thomas' thoughts just frustration at a situation that is taking time to resolve.

I crashed the champ jumping, Zev was annoyed and we were just so out of tune, out of sync my wobbly day just got wobblier.  Still onwards and forwards, headspace getting better and Monday was tournament day and we came 4th in the jumping and 1st in the Agility and that meant we won the  medium tournament on the day. I was so surprised and obviously so very pleased.

Zev has such heart in what ever he does whether it is playing, agilitying or even telling me his opinion on things, which he certainly did on Saturday!

How lucky am I....to have such a terrific sheltie?

A very up and down weekend......

After the excitment of Tuffley and training going well, it was time for the Rugby KC show. The very exciting thing was that Marc and Big's qualified for the Semis this September. And this is their qualifiying run.


For Zev and me it started OK and managed to get round the Champ Jumping and came 10th despite it not being a flawless run.

Onward and forward to the Champ Agility and there we were cruising the course and I went to cross behind the aframe and the judge was in the way -  i just bellowed for them to get out the way, and Zev coz he must have seen me slow up turned around and came back down the aframe. I was gutted and then I was cross with myself as I let it annoy me and that meant I handled the rest of the course not well at all so we ended up being eliminated. I did try and reflect and wondered if it had been me, but even people I did not know came up and said about it. It was really disappointing, and I got no apology. I did not expect a rerun but an apology would have been decent. Who knows in the great scheme of things, even if this had not happened I might have got Zev eliminated anyway, but I will never know. Still this is agility and there is always something new to reflect upon, learn to deal with and move on from. Especially losing my focus and feeling very irritated - so not happening again as it so not me and totally exhausting.

And only another two weeks and hopefully I will have Rivi to run again...am totally missing running the Babyoli.