Wednesday 31 October 2007

International Sheltie Show

Bettange-Sur-Mess, near Luxembourg City 28th & 29th October.

See the OBay blog for the nitty gritty trip details - Bernadette does a good report.

Here's Chi running the courses - not perfect but very pleasing, he ran so fast, did his contacts so well and stayed on the start line much better than he was doing at the end of the season. The courses were excellant, we really enjoyed the flowing handlie style.




Next year the Internationl Sheltie Agility Championship will be held in the Eifel region of Germany. A very pretty area and not too difficult to get to. I'm hopeing to encourage some other Sheltie owners to come along (Lian!)- it's just like our ESSC show but on steroids!! Ha! Ha!

Here is a little montague of our trip. Luxembourg is a very clean city partly due to the fact that they give the pigeons 'the pill' to stop them reproducing - brilliant idea, i'm not keen on those sky rats! Luxembourg use to be know as the Spanish Netherlands and has been swapped and chopped and changed many times between France & Germany aswell. Then in 1818 they were given independance. As we walked around we bagan to see the Spanish influencs and hear the seemingly mish mash language of French & German - Luxembourgian. People would greet each other in French and ask 'how are you' in German - so we followed suit and spoke French in the resturants and the odd bit of German but no where near as well as the locals spoke English......



It was gr8 to meet up with our Dutch friends Han & Adele, and Roger (honouray Brit) who organised our entries and came up with the brilliant team name of LIBERO! Really looking forward to seeing you all again next year.

Next big event is Discover Dogs in 2 weeks. Granma Bay will be grooming for us :) In the mean time it's back to some basics for Chi & I, jumping grids for a start!
Gran'ma said she'd whoop us into shape - we love you gran'ma xx

Tuesday 30 October 2007

New Header

Thanks very much for my new blog header :)
It was created by my good friend RJ who lives in Australia and is an amazing artist.

Sunday 21 October 2007

L'Elephant!

Inspired by the OBay Shelties in Denmark (see link) tribute to all 'elephant trick' trained dogs I decided to see if Chi could remember his 'go do l'elephant'. Whilst out walking this morning (another inspiration from Chi's son Todd) we came across a wood pile and here is the result...... I kid you not i asked him to go do l'elephant and he did this straight away - brains and beauty being an OBay :)




Chi also had some fun on the fallen down trees - Grandma close your eyes! Please remember Chi is a highly trained agility dog - PLSE DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!

Saturday 20 October 2007

European Open 2008

Received some gr8 news - Chi has made it to the Crufts singles competition (as well and being in the team event with the Tri Stars). Since he was in the top 5 to qualify for this event we have also been automatically invited to try out for the England team for the European Open next summer - WOOT!

Wednesday 17 October 2007

Supadogs Finals

Good grief - 5:30am start! Haven't done that in a while, needless to say Chi knew exactly what was going on and was standing by the gate ready to go after his morning ablutions. I didn't think to take a pic coz the coffee hadn't kick started my brain at that point :)

Here is a video of Hex & I bonding as a team prior to our debut





Didn't get one clear round on the day but had gr8 fun running Hex & Chi who both ended up 10th in the Final.

Monday 1 October 2007

Kabouter Plop!

For those hardened World Champ attendees! And an explanation for the uninitiated....
This is one of the songs played every year at the Wold Chmapionships to get the crowd up and moving between runs - it works everytime with the Kabouter dance.
(Hope this doesn't put anyone off coming next year). OBay shelties may have some pics of us dancing.




Everybody, pay close attention
For this is your big chance
Listen good to what I say
For here comes the gnome-dance
Each boy now chooses [asks out] first a gnome-girl
Take her firmly by the hand and take a step forward

Come, Kwebbel!
Give me your hand please
Oh, yes, Klus!
Hey--say, I want to dance with Kwebbel
No! I was first, find another gnome-girl
But there aren't any other gnome-girls here
I'll tell you something, Lui--
You may dance with me soon
Then let's go!

[Refrain:]
Turn one time roundabout
Stomp with your feet on the ground
Sway your arms in the air
Now sit with a sigh
Now pace around like a goose
So goes the gnome-dance!

Come, Lui, you can dance with me now
Dance? I'm getting so tired of dancing
I'm not dancing any more
I'm going to bed

Yes, that all went really well
But we won't be clear for long
We'll stay and do the dance again
But two times after each other

[Refrain]
(Repeat Refrain]
Say, Kwebbel
Don't you think that I can dance handsomely?
Yes, that's normal, eh? Yes, yes
I'm in a way the best dancer in the whole gnome-village!

You are all dancing trully beautifully
Little ploppers, take my word for it
Therefore let's do it still another time
Now three times after each other

[Refrain]
[Repeat Refrain]
[Repeat Refrain]

World Champs!

Huge congratulations to the Medium (Silver Medalists) & Large (Bronze Medalists) GB teams for their gr8 successes in Norway at the World Championships. It was an awesome experience and one that I can not recommend highly enough to any agility enthusiast. The atmosphere is the ultimate, the sense of pride, excitement, edge of seat entertainment would satisfy any adrenaline junkie. It is truly amazing. I could wax lyrical for pages and pages but they wouldn't have the web space for it!!

A very very few pics - there was very little time to take pics due to the amount of celebrating and the fact that I was very busy being groom to Bernadette & Zen as well as enjoying watching some top class handlers negotiate some very interesting courses.

This 1st pic is for my Mum! :), doesn't she look like Tessa mum?
They had these bronze statues all over town. On the roundabout near the hotel they had a horse with huge goolies!!



The view from our Hotel - once again Kate Howard did us proud, we were very comfortable, very well fed, and quite close to the stadium. The Swedish and Japanese teams were also staying and we watched them run their dogs in the park opposite while we eat breakfast.



The trees were on the turn and the colours were gorgeous.

And here is our official GB team photographer! What a sterling job he did too, check out the photos on his site http://picasaweb.google.com/DennisMBay/WC2007.




Good job Denis was taking the photos eh! Mine's not much cop.
Bernadette has her computer with her so let's hope she gets some time to write her blog on the way home.
Gotta go, lots of training planning and goal setting to do in preparation for next years competition in Helsinki, Finland :)