Celebrations....in July so far

Having much to celebrate....

First - Zev's and me being in our first agility championship class at Tuffley show. I was so proud to run with my man. My cheeks ached from smiling so much all day. More so than usual. We gained a forth and sixth place in the qualifying rounds to put us into the final. But no videos..hmmm...we left the camera at home. Still a good start and I was pleased with me too, as I feel on the whole my handling is progressing and Zev was so responsive and did some real great stuff, even if I say so myself ;-) And thanks to Tuffley for the fab champ rosettes I was thrilled to get them and a great memento.
Second - the irrepressible Mr Bigs and Marc won two grade 6s classes at their first grade 6 show. So they too are having a cracking season.
Third - on the 10th July my Rivi has finally had her stitches out and the pad has healed really nicely. And I was allowed to lead walk her for 10 minutes today and can gradually build up the length of time each day. The vet had done a great stitching job and the boots that we got from Ann at camddwrcanine have been brilliant whilst she went in the garden to do her doggy stuff. I was so worried it might split again, but the being so so careful has so far paid off. Rivi has been so good and brave with the whole thing,  So hoping we will be back to agility at the end of July or August have to see how it goes. So at least 6 weeks missed. Yikes indeedy.
As we have had some time at home and no shows we have enjoyed exploring what is growing in the garden. It is so different seeing things grow rather than just buying them from the supermarket. And the cherries we picked were fabulous.

Lincoln and Rivi changes gear

What weekend, it was me and Rivi on a crazy weekend. Rivi has change gear and forgot to tell me!!!! She was so fast, so far gone and ping ping ping. More pings than a ping ball machine! We only have 2 runs where I looked remotely like a co-pilot. We were apparently hugely entertaining to watch due to this, and why is it your crap moments are noticed and the hundreds of beautiful moments go largely uncommented? Still hopefully all the e’s are now out of our system. I don’t think I have ever had so many 'e's. The advantages of selective memory ;-) My timing was so far behind this new gear she has found I was saying tunnel at the point she had already been there, done that and wanting to do the next thing and then she is so good and helpful she was pinging over everything. Still thats agility the crazy rollcoaster ride of partnering the Rivioli. A beatuiful smooth uphill climb and then woohooo we tilt over into the crazy downhill part.

Zev was just fabulous, I can just read his expression and it’s like ‘game on’, I live in hope that he will pass the tip on to Rivi to let me know about gear changes!!! He got progressively faster as the weekend went on. How I wish we had our last grade 5 run on tape. With this earlier agility run I took the long way round to the A-F to ensure a straight approach in light of the wet ground conditions and made myside do a rear cross rather than a front cross.



Next weekend sees Zev in grade 6 and Bigs in grade 4 and an upward climb back to smooth for me and the Rivioli. The determination is kicking in.....