Monday 18 May 2009

friends, food and flyball...what weekends are all about

(This is a bit of an experiment, I'm e-mailing this post rather than posting directly on the site so we'll see how it works...)
 
Jeep finally made his 'big trip' across the pond to his new home in Oklahoma where he is hopefully set to carry on his family tradition and be a first rate flyball dog :)
 
Read all about his arrival on <A HREF="http://susanowenuk.wordpress.com/">Susans' Blog</A>, I wish them every success with this special little boy.
 
Saturday morning I took the remaining 3 (Mouse, Monkee and Dino) for their second vaccinations so they're now able to start going out and about to meet and greet the public!  They had their first proper outing yesterday as I took them all to Sutton Fields where we were running starters with the Dolphins.  I was picking Radley up and taking her since no-one else could make it, she and Squirrel were running in different teams so I was getting to run them both. 
 
Now...Friday was my birthday and we went out for a realy nice italian meal at Quattro's near Garstang (Mmmmmm....yummy) then back to mine for drinks, Saturday Paul and Alison organised a little 'Eurovision party' with delicious mexican food and lots of nice drinks...we had a really nice evening but I have to say...I probably wasn't quite 'with it' on Sunday morning and managed to forget (1) our flyball box which was needed because the Dolphins were in both rings at the same time and had only brought the one (2) much more importanly....Squirrels' special balls!!  They'd got wet during training on Saturday (where she'd run brilliantly!) and I'd left them on one of the radiators to dry...disaster!!  Squirrel is something of a tennis ball connosieur and is really rather picky about what balls she will and won't retrieve.  I have noticed lots of terriers on the flyball circuit with their own special balls so I am putting it down to the breed!  She likes a very soft ball that she can squash in her mouth, the soft (kiddies) tennis balls are not soft enough for her, no...she has to have the (expensive) air kong squeaky balls with the squeak removed!  I ask you! lol  She was running with Wilf, another terrier, and the two Roxy's (show cocker and boxer) but the little blighter kept dropping her ball and was very easily distracted and was in just about every way agonising to run...I could have merrily throttled her!! (ah...the joy of running a terrier!).  When we did all 'get it right' and all the dogs completed without any re-runs they were running mid 23.00 secs which really isn't bad for a team of little ABC's...how frustrating!!  We ended up 5th out of 6 teams.
 
Thankfully, Radley more than made up for Squirrel!  This was only her second time out competing and is the first time I've run her but she really was brilliant.  She was running 3rd dog between Leila (v fast collie-kelpie cross) and a small jack russell, I decided to try running her from 30ft and going for a changeover...she was a total star!  She was keen and focused, leaning into her harness and pulling to go as soon as we lined up, running in for perfect tight changeovers, fab four footed turns off the box (in spite of the v wet and muddy ground) and fast back out for her second ball, not batting an eye lid at the 4th dog running in on her.  She consistently ran sub 5sec times (including changeovers) and the team ended up unbeaten and winning the division with a low 20.00 sec time!  Her first rosette and a nice bag of CSJ biscuits to boot.  What a clever cocker!  John Clarke (Sunnyside Photography) was taking pics so I'll see if he got any nice ones of her when he's uploaded them to his gallery.
 
Radley and her littermates all turned 18 months old on Saturday and her brother Murphy (Bryning Makin' Trouble) was making his KC agility debut over at Waldridge Fell, Orienne text me on Saturday evening to say he'd been a little star and come 2nd in the medium grade 3 jumping.  A pair of clever cockers!  Other brother Magic (Bryning Makin' Magic) will be running starters with us at Wood Green next weekend too, by all accounts he's a cracking little flyball dog so hopefully Squirrel won't let the side down! (must not forget her balls!) lol
 


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2 comments:

yettontop said...

I'll have to lend you Bryn's agility lead - it reads 'One of us has no balls'..... :))

Nat said...

lol Brenda :)


note to self - do not use html code when e-mailing posts...it doesn't work!!