Pachesham Beginners - January

We started the year off as we left the last, with an agility show! We were at Pachesham this weekend for their Beginners show. We only took Zazu to this to give him some experience on his own. He can be a bit timid when he's away from his pack.

Greg ready, Zazu waiting

The weather had started to play havoc by flooding the indoor school. This meant running the show only using the outdoor school! This could have ended in tears with the weather. Fortunately, the weather held all day and only started raining as we got the van to go home. It couldn't have been timed better.

On to the show. Zazu had four classes, the most he has done at a show before. Being a beginners show, the courses were fairly straight forward. In the agility rounds, we wanted to put our contact training to the test. We were aiming for a 2-on-2-off position, basically his back two feet on the equipment and front two feet on the floor. It took a couple of attempts but he did get there. He was wide on some, OK most, of his turns as he was getting distracted by everything that was going on. This is why we are going to these shows so that he can get over it.

The jumping rounds were better. I started by trying to layer a jump into a pull through. This worked well and Zazu was running forwards nicely. He got distracted coming out of the tunnel towards people again but continued on. When he was driving he was jumping quite flat, which is hat we are aiming for. In the steeplechase round he was running well again. A little distracted around the crowds of people but he didn't deviate. On the straight bits he opened up again. This was a good round an we ended up 3rd, his first placing! It was very close with the times, the first 6 dogs were within 0.8 seconds of each other.

We were both really pleased with Zazu. He wasn't worried about being on his own and was listening most of the time. We still need to work on more drive, especially when turning, and also with distractions. Both of which will come with time and experience.