Dog Vegas - Chase the Ace Team Final

On to the second part of our mad weekend, 250 miles from our Saturday show we were in Scunthorpe for the Dog Vegas show.  The reason for the long distance is that both +Susi Cooper with Doople and myself with Shadow qualified for the Chase the Ace team finals, albeit with different teams.  Doople was running at grade 4 and Shadow at grade 6.

Meerkat outside the B&B we were staying in

The weather was even more unpredictable than on Saturday, perhaps due to being (much) further north.  It was fairly warm but with the odd thunderstorm!  We travelled up on the Sunday evening as I didn't fancy the prospect of leaving at 4:00 AM.  It was a nice little B&B just outside Scunthorpe complete with pigs, ferrets and meerkats!

The show was much quieter than the previous show with only 4 rings, one of which was dedicated to the finals.  There were a lot of finals being held for various competitions from teams, to grade 3-5 agility, to Anything-but-Collie (ABC) jumping.  The finals were held in very good spirits with people sitting around the rings watching.  This is a good experience for the more novice handlers as it can be quite daunting for both dog and handler with all the people watching.  They were good finals to watch with very good courses set by Alan Bray.

On Monday, Shadow was first up with graded 5-7 jumping.  Shadow started very well indeed but didn't run out enough on a long run and so came in missing the jump.  I tried again a she went out when I told her to.  She was very excited afterwards though.  Next up was the graded 5-7 agility.  This had a very interesting start that caught a lot of people out.  It was tyre then dog walk with a tunnel wrapped around the entrance.  I tried to walk to the other side of the tunnel and call Shadow up the dog walk so that she wouldn't look at the tunnel.  It failed.  I tried again but stayed closer her and she went up fine.  Apart from the weaves the rest of the round was lovely.  I was steering her from behind down a long run with tight turns so still very pleased.  Her last individual run was the graded 5-7 jumping.  She seemed a little steadier but still ran well.  She wasn't driving off the turns as well as she does so we lost some time.  We finished clear but unplaced.

Doople started with graded 1-4 agility.  It was quite a nice course, but perhaps a bit much for the grade 1-2 handlers.  Doople was a little steady but listened and ran clear, eventually winning the class!  That means Doople is now up to grade 5 which is brilliant, we weren't really expecting it.  Next up was graded 1-4 jumping.  This was a fairly straightforward course but still had some traps.  Doople was her steady self but still listening and running.  They had a nice clear round finishing in 2nd place.  Finally was another graded 1-4 jumping.  This had some straight lines, circles and slaloms.  A nice fast flowing course, but not really Doople's course, to much running!  She still ran well and got round clear.

Finally, at the end a long day was the teams final.  This is a relay race over a simple steeplechase course but run in two parts.  Dogs 1 and 3 run the first course, dogs 2 and 4 run the second course, which is the first course in reverse.  The results for all heights are combined together.  It's simpler than I make it sound!  First up for the small teams was me and Shadow running with some of the Poodle Training Club, Julliet, Mo and Heather.  We all had lovely rounds and they were all really going for it.  Unfortunately there was a dropped baton at the change so we incurred some fault which was a real shame.  We were still the fastest of the small teams in the end, 110s, but the faults meant that we finished 7th overall.  Susi was running with friends from Northamptonshire where we used to train, Wendy Donna and Sharon.  They all ran very well too and put in a good solid clear round, 113s.  This meant that they finished up 3rd overall, which is great.  The winners were a team of collies in 94s, 2nd place was a team of medium height dogs in 96s.

Greg with the Poodle Team

Susi with the Northants Team

It was a good fun day out, catching up with people that we haven't seen in quite a while.  IT was a good result for Susi in the teams and especially for winning up to grade 5.

Dog Vegas Show at Grantham

Our first Kennel Club (KC) show of the year was held at the UK Arena in Grantham and run by Dog Vegas.  The show was close to being cancelled due to the snow, but once out onto the main roads going was good.  I was running Shadow (small G6) and Storm (large G3) whilst +Susi Cooper was running Doople (small G3).  Due to the cold weather we decided to leave the rest of them at home so they could stay warm indoors.

Being an open KC show it was shaping up to be a large show, especially by winter standards.  In each of Storms classes there were over 130 dogs.  The start was delayed until 9:00 to allow competitors more time to safely get to the venue.  It was a very busy start to the day for me as I had four course to walk when we got there: two for Shadow and two for Storm.  And once everything kicked off it only got busier with us rushing around, changing dogs and trying not to miss any runs!  As it turned out there weren't very many people at the show, so all our best laid plans for which dog to run when went out the window and I had four runs in four rings in very quick succession.

Storm was first up.  We started with a clear round in the grade 1-3 jumping despite a hesitation towards the end. She was responding well and jumping the very tight jumps so pleased altogether.  Next for Storm, after having run Shadow a couple of times, was grade 3-5 agility.  In this Storm decided to jump off the see-saw ... not really sure why!  I crossed behind Storm into weaves and she completed it all so I'm dead chuffed.  Still more work to do on tight turns through gaps but she managed it second time around.  We'll just ignore the flying contacts!  The next grade 3-5 agility was, to put it bluntly, a disaster!  I learnt a lesson though: don't rush to get your dog and get to ring while they're calling your name and run Storm, it doesn't work!  Storm was still in a bit of a dazed rush so wasn't paying 100% attention.  We did cope with a tunnel under the dog walk entrance nicely.  Here are the nice videos of Storm running.

Shadow had a very up and down day.  We got a clear round in the first grade 6-7 jumping.  It was a bit messy but we got round.  In the grade 6-7 agility Shadow missed the A-frame, and by missed I mean ran straight past without ascending.  How you can miss a 3 foot wide blue and yellow board is beyond me!  The rest was OK and she listened well.  Which is more than can be said for the second grade 6-7 jumping.  In a similar vain to the previous Barking Mad show, we only made one jump before being eliminated!  After the first jump she took one look at me and decided she knew better so ran in a different direction!  We had the combined grade 6-7 agility round straight after, so my hopes weren't very high.  But once again Shadow surprised me, we went clear and finished 2nd.  Really pleased as we've only had a handful of shows at this grade.  Here are Shadow's best bits.

Doople had another fun show.  She runs much better in the winter in the cooler weather, this being one of coolest we've been to!  Doople's first run was grade 3-5 jumping and was her only clear round of the day.  No placings but she ran nicely.  The next grade 3-5 agility and, like Shadow with the A-frame, Doople ran straight past the see-saw.  The second grade 3-5 agility was was a good round apart from a back jump, Susi needed to turn Doople before the in.  In the last grade 1-3 jumping Doople took another leaf out of Shadow's book at the start: jump, jump, tunnel.  The tunnel wasn't supposed to be until later but Doople obviously knew better.  Here is Doople's jumping.

We also ended up running all three dogs in the team event to help out some friends who were short on dogs due to people not going to the show.  A team comprises of four dogs and handlers running in a timed relay event.  A batten is passed between team members once a dog has finished running the course and is always held by those not running their dog.  Once one dog finishes, the batten is passed to the first handler and the second dog may run.  The total time for the team is taken from the moment the first dog starts to when the last dog finishes.

Storm ran with Marie, Neil and another lady whose name escapes (sorry!).  Shadow ran with Wendy, Donna and Sharon whilst Doople ran with Wendy, Sharon and Val.  Storm ran very nicely but the team got eliminated.  Shadow ran well too but they ended with 5 faults which left them in 3rd place.  Doople also ran clear and so did the whole team, although they were 1 second slower than Shadow's team they finished 2nd to a team of collies who were also clear.  That means that they qualify for the final at another Dog Vegas show later in the year.  Here are the videos.

It was a good show with more clear rounds than last time, although that wasn't exactly hard!  The snow made it more interesting.  It ended up being a short day and we were off the show ground by 1:30.  And well done to Doople et al for qualifying for the team final.