November...in a nutshell...

Crikey moses, another month without a blog update and such a lot has happened in that time too!

Where do we start? Well the two pups (Flint the ‘lurcher’ and Aero ) are growing fast and have become best of friends already. Aero is very much like his father Mac in a lot of ways but his ear carriage isn’t one of them! Think we’re definitely going to have pricked ears on this young fella but at the moment they’re a little out of control! Although as you can see, he is in good company with this! lol



Beginning of November saw us heading up North to the Scottish Border Collie Club show; we usually go for the weekend each year doing the Working and Pastoral Breeds of Scotland show the day before and staying overnight somewhere but this year we could only do one day as I had no-one to look after the dogs at home. I had entered 8 dogs (!!) but since Paul had taken Jack (Bryning the Jean Genie) after I’d entered the show he was taking him so Gemma and I just had the two pups, Viva and Vogue in Minor Puppy Bitch, Faith in Limit, Dottie in Open and the 3 boys, Aston in Puppy (his last puppy class), Fynn in Yearling and Spark in Limit. It was going to be a busy day with the dog and bitch rings running simultaneously. We were a bit rushed with the girls in first as the judging started with bitches contrary to what the schedule had stated, they hadn’t travelled very well and needed cleaning up on arrival and Gemma was still out in the carpark getting the other dogs sorted when the class started so I had to grab my friend Pat to take Viva and I took Vogue…the class was HUGE and the ring was TINY so the class ended up being split into 3 groups. Had I known this in advance I would have handled each of my girls separately! As it happened they were both very naughty on the move and neither got placed. Having two in the same class is never a good idea and I had never intended to keep both these girls, just really struggled choosing between them! As fate would have it a friend of Pat’s had been watching and was really rather taken with Vogue and looking for another pup to campaign having recently lost his old girl so…problem solved; Vogue went home with Terry and I kept Viva. Their brothers, Jack and Gene, faired rather better with Paul and Pat in the Minor Puppy Dog class with a 3rd and 4th respectively. Next in was Aston in Puppy Dog, in hindsight I wished I’d put him in Junior as he has grown into a really big lad already and towered over the other puppies! He took a bit of time to settle on the move and the small ring isnt’ best suited to his long stride but if I just move out and don’t look at him he moves out much better, if I make eye contact he tends to crab round to keep looking at me! On the whole he went well and he’s certainly starting to relax a lot more in the ring; he came 3rd again (as he had at NWBCC) so I was pleased with that. If I can get some more weight and coat on him he should do well in the older classes but for the time being I think he needs some time out of the ring to mature. Next in was Fynn, he is such a fidget bum! He wasn’t placed and definitely needs some more ring practice but he did move out nicely when he was concentrating. Faith was unplaced in Limit Bitch, she was a very giddy kipper moving out with the others…she finds showing far too exciting! Spark went really nicely in Limit Dog and won his class which I was super pleased about. He won his class (Junior) the last time he was out under this judge so it was nice to see that she still thought highly of him now he’s a bit more grown up and in with the ‘big boys’. Dottie went beautifully (as always) in Open Bitch and placed 4th in very good company which was really nice too :o). All class judging and the bitch challenge completed and it was time for the dog challenge so Spark and I headed back into the ring with all the other class winners, some really nice dogs in the challenge line up and all a very similar type so I had a feeling it was going to be a close call, after a few more circuits of the ring and a closer examination of each exhibit I was absolutely over the moon when the judge called Spark out for the Challenge Certificate! What a fab end to our showing year which started out with his Reserve CC at Crufts back in March. We’ve just got LKA left on 12th December, I only have Spark entered although Vogue will be there with her new owner too :o)

That same weekend saw Sally and Digger (Bryning the Golden Ticket) competing in the KC Starters Cup Final at Discover Dogs which was taking place at Earls Court; a real nerve racker with busy bustling halls and big crowds. The pair managed to hold their nerves and a double clear in the jumping and agility saw them coming away with a very creditable 3rd place :o)



11th November, Armistice Day, saw Teal delivering her 2nd litter of puppies and a first for our young liver roan cocker boy Travis. 6 beautiful healthy puppies…2 blue roan and tan boys, a blue roan boy, a lemon roan boy, a lemon roan bitch and a blue roan bitch. I say ‘roan’ at the moment but I believe a few of them may well stay open marked; although this is the less common, recessive pattern in cockers, the open marked gene is present in both Teal and Travis’s lines and at the moment there isn’t a lot of roaning going on! There are pics and details of this litter HERE with updated photos to follow soon.

babies at 18 days old...


Last Saturday (20th) I took Tammy and Dottie to be scanned and both were confirmed in whelp, due the week running up to Christmas…should be fun! We also had several of the young flyball team dogs rabies vaccinated in preparation for travelling to the European Championships in Germany next year, including Travis, Tarka, Maisie, Pixie, and Tiger. Fingers crossed they all get positive titre test results in a couple of weeks time. We went down to the playing fields and did some training in the afternoon, I was particularly impressed with Fynn and Jovi who both seemed to have moved up a gear, more training required me thinks! On the Sunday we travelled over to Gap Farm near Doncaster for our last flyball comp of the year. Fergus (Bryning Virage) and Pixie (Bryning Russian Doll) were due to make their starters debuts having turned one earlier this month but it became apparent that Pixie wasn’t quite ready so we put her away until she is. Hopefully she will be ready for the starters comp at the end of January. We borrowed Eabha (Bryning Prime Time) from Rotherham and ran Travis, Tarka, Fergus, Eabha and Spark…with the exception of Travis an all Bryning bred team of dogs :o) I was pleased with the progress they all made, Spark managed to run with a new boxloader (he is funny about who is boxloading!) and Fergus made a very promising start, especially considering how little training he has done so far. I was also very pleased with both Jovi and Maisie who ran on the top team for the first time. This was only Maisie’s second ever open tournament and she was paw perfect bless her. Jo ran much better than she has been and even remembered how to run in the red lane, much to my relief as she also picked up her flyball dog certificate so there’s no going back into starters now! Several of the dogs, including Jovi, need to do some serious box work over winter though, far too many ball fumbles costing us races :o( I also picked up Squirrel’s flyball dog certificate and Pip finally picked up her Ice Blue Moon award :o) We went to look at a new indoor training venue earlier in the week, fingers crossed that turns out ok.

I think that’s about it for now!

That doesn't look much like a collie?!

So, last weekend also saw us extend our ‘little’ canine family!
I have always fancied a scruffy little lurcher and set about looking for one early in 2009 but somehow ended up seeing and falling in love with Maisie, my scruffy little working beardie who is built rather like a lurcher under all that coat! I don’t regret having her for a moment because I love her to bits and she’s proving to be such a lovely little companion and flyball dog but 18 months later and not looking for another dog at all along came Flint! Just 13 weeks old and handed into rescue, he was needing a new home and was just so adorable I really couldn’t say no! The rescue were told he is a whippet – saluki cross but after chatting online to a very knowledgeable friend (who knows just about all there is to know about colour genetics in all the different breeds!) we concluded that he cannot be a first generation cross since he is blue which is a recessive colour not present in salukis (as far as anyone knows) so I am rather hoping he is more whippet and that we don’t have anything else bigger in there (such as greyhound or deerhound!) since I don’t have room in the van for anything huge but he does look like he's going to be quite a big dog! lol The best guess on his colouring his blue sable with brindle points, whatever it is, it is very unusual and attractive and I love his soft grey eyes so typical in blue coloured dogs.






So…for the time being little Flint is just enjoying being a puppy, he’s happy and outgoing, obedient and biddable and loves to play with all manner of toys so I’m kinda hoping he will take to flyball when he’s a little older. If he doesn’t I don’t mind…he can be a lazy lay around sofa dog…I already have a couple of those ;o)

There is some disagreement on whether he is technically a ‘lurcher’ since (we believe) he is all sighthound cross but I have found plenty of references to other such similar crosses and this is the term I’m going to use to refer to him as. All lurchers are crossbreeds of one kind or another so there is no definitive description or breed standard.

This weekend he came to Drax with us for his first flyball outing, I was really pleased with him, he took it all in his stride and wasn’t at all fazed by any of the noise or activity but enjoyed meeting lots of new dogs and people. We also picked up his fancy new whippet collar, made to measure for him by Helen Ford from 'Tessie Leads, Collars and Harnesses', it is perfect! Will get a photo of him wearing it at some point no doubt!

North West Border Collie

So, following the flyball last Saturday we were up early Sunday morning to get the boys bathed for the show, I was just taking Aston, Ethan and Spark. Aston is really out of coat at the moment and looking a real lanky teenager but there’s no denying he has a nice outline and moves well so I decided to take him along anyway, he needs the ring practice! I don’t bring Ethan out much as he really doesn’t enjoy the showring but as this judge had liked him as a puppy I thought I might as well take him along.

I was also picking up Rachel and Pixie on the way. Pixie has never been to a show before but she has shaped up quite nicely and since this one was local I thought we might as well take her along and see how she did, I didn’t enter any more girls because, to be perfectly honest, I’ve shown under this judge before and knew what to expect. I was glad I hadn’t bothered…Pixie went quite well considering but didn’t get placed but the places throughout the classes largely went to the usual ‘pretty’ classically marked, up and tipped ears, black/whites that I expected….irrespective of much else. I was actually quite pleased with Pixie considering I don’t have much to do with her and she’s had no training and she did draw a lot of nice comments from other folk too.

Aston…hmmm…well, we seem to have taken a bit of a backward step in the confidence stakes and he was a bit tense being stacked but recovered quickly enough when the food came out and I talked to him to get him using his ears; he didn’t move very well though…well…he covered the ground fine…he has a very long easy stride but he was so focused on me that he kept trying to make eye contact on the move and as a result was crabbing round me…silly sod! He moved out and back better in the shortlist when I consciously didn’t look at him and avoided eye contact and was rewarded with a 3rd place out of the 9 entered and I was quite pleased with that considering. At least he has his 2011 Crufts qualifier now.

Ethan actually went quite well in Limit dog but this was a big strong class and although he made the shortlist he wasn’t placed. Here’s a lovely head shot that one of my puppy owners (Andy Milner) took of him though…cutie pie!


Spark was only entered in the colour class and this was (yet again) and good sized strong class with 7 entries…6 blue/whites and Spark! I do wonder why the breed clubs often specifiy ‘any other colour except black/white and tri’ as it actually seems to me that tricolour is relatively scarce these days compared to blue! Anyway, 3 of the blues were Viggo sons and another was actually a Spark son! :o) Spark won the class and his son came 3rd but I don’t actually think he moved out very well…not compared to his usual easy fluent movement. I don’t know whether this was the sandy riding school surface or being indoors (although he never usually bothers about such things) or whether there’s something just not quite right with him since his bad collision with Monty a few weeks back. I’m going to see whether Kathryn (chiropracter) will have a look at him this weekend.

Anyway, we had a nice day catching up with folk, Yvonne came over to watch with Flurrie (Spark x Mercy daughter) here she is with her daddy…


And here’s Spark and Pixie together…half brother and sister…


Next breed show is Scottish Border Collie Club on the 7th November. I usually make a weekend of it and do Working and Pastoral Breeds of Scotland the day before and stay overnight but my mum is away the previous week and doesn’t get home ‘til the Sunday so no-one to look after the doggies staying home :o(

We’re off over to Drax this Sunday for Rotherham Rockets flyball tournament which is going to be a rather busy one! Racing starts at 8am…10 divisions split over two rings, we’re running in 3 and I’m judging another…should be fun! I just need to figure out which dogs we’re running where since both Maisie and Squirrel are in season so won’t be running :o(

A very positive start!

So the day finally arrived and we headed off down to Newark for the starters tournament as part of the Robin Hood Country Game Fair. It was a pretty early start as I had to go and pick Hannah and Charlie up first and it was still dark when we hit the road. Little
aisie had to stay home since she came in season straight after making her open debut at Doncaster…typical! I’m actually not complaining as this is her first season and at 18 months old I was starting to get a bit worried she was never going to have one! I took Jovi in her place, she is still technically a starter dog (not got her 200 points yet) and after last weeks performance at Doncaster she needed the practice! I also got a last minute request from Kristian from High Flyers to see whether we had any spares for their Intermediate team since Lola had also come in season and couldn’t run. Since Gemma was coming anyway and Fynn is also still technically eligible for starters (no points on yet); it seemed fitting that he should take his sisters place in ‘Highly Likely’ so that meant we had dogs in every division between us!

We were running two starter teams, one in each division and first up were ‘The Cock Ups’ which was a collaborative team between Demon Dogz, Cambridgeshire Canines and Ready2Fly that consisted entirely of cocker spaniels, 3 from my Rupert x Maizy litter – Charlie, Tarka and Tally, their half brother Travis and their Auntie Radley so something of a family affair! lol I wasn’t quite sure how this was going to pan out as all 5 dogs have shown a lot of promise but spaniels are notoriously unpredictable! For the 3 babies this was only their second outing but still the first time all 5 dogs had run together. We were very unlucky to lose the first race, entirely on ball fumbles (new box for most of the dogs)…the best out of 3 format didn’t allow for such mistakes, this cost the team first place but they did go on to win the other 5 races with relative ease and ran the fastest time of any starter team across both divisions of 19.93 and that was with wide changeovers too so I was pleased as punch with them all!

Too much to ask that they all look at the camera together! Lol


Here’s a video of all the ‘Brynings’ (so Travis is out)
Charlie (Bryning Brock) – Tally (Bryning Totally Trouble) – Radley (Bryning Truly Radley Deeply) and Tarka (Bryning Riverine)


And here’s all the siblings (so Radley out)
Travis (Raezhaven Bryce at Bryning) - Charlie (Bryning Brock) – Tally (Bryning Totally Trouble) and Tarka (Bryning Riverine)


The other team we ran, Demon K9s was also a collaboration of Demonz (Spark and Jovi) Cambs (Spencer) and Ready2Fly (Jessy) along with a Linnott dog too in the form of Beamer :o)
Gemma boxloaded for this team in the morning and Spark ran really well, running every leg in the morning, I was really pleased with all the distractions of a busy public show. This team ran really well together and remained unbeaten all day to romp home with 1st place although I had to pull Spark and run Jovi in the afternoon once Gemma had left (and he didn’t know the replacement boxloader…mummy’s boy!!)

I think Wendy (Beamers owner) got some video of this lot but I’m afraid I don’t have it yet.

Huge congratulations to the Alpha Dogz for organising the event, all in all a good day and well worth the early start and long drive but I got home just after 9pm and could hardly walk when I got out of the van…trapped sciatic nerve…agony!! I sorted the dogs and pretty much went straight to bed but had to be up at 6am to bath dogs for North West Border Collie Champ show the following day!

Yet again 8 weeks seems to have flown by...

So, now 8 weeks old I FINALLY decided which Dazzle puppy is staying and it’s not the one I thought it would be from the beginning but I just can’t get past this little man’s ‘look at me’ attitude and bizarrely, I think he’s the one that looks the most like daddy!

So here he is… Aero aka Bryning Aero D’namic…


The others have also all been chosen, Blue and Yiria are both going abroad and their new owners were as keen and excited about this combination as I am so leapt at the chance of having one. Ripple has already left, he is staying in the UK and is destined for flyball and Revel has headed over to the Isle of Man to join a growing little band of Brynings out on the island where he will hopefully do a bit of everything at Ramsey Dog Training Club.

Blue – Bryning Blue Smartie


Yiria – Bryning Wispa’Inn Yiria


Ripple – Bryning Chocolate Ripple


Revel – Bryning Revels in Chocolate


It is a little bemusing that a couple of interested parties in the UK have been funny about the fact they are from a merle to merle mating, despite the fact they are not double merles and are therefore genetically the same as any other puppy born from a non merle mating (as I explained in a detailed posting on here when they were born) but you can only tell people the facts I guess and to be honest, I feel that these pups are far too good to be going to people that don’t fully understand or appreciate what they’re getting so there’s no way I’m going to try and convince someone otherwise. People looking to import a puppy are usually very keen and intelligent breed enthusiasts that are already very knowledgeable and are prepared to do their research and ask questions about things they don’t fully understand which is one of the reasons I always enjoy dealing with prospective puppy owners from overseas. I am so happy with all the homes these pups are going to and I wish their owners every success with what have been, and I'm sure will continue to be, a very special litter indeed :o)

Flyball Update (a bit long and boring...sorry!)

Gawd…I really am sh*t at this blogging lark aren’t I?!! I just seem to be really struggling to find the time to sit down and update about things in a timely manner and by the time I do I’ve forgotten half of it (old age creeping in!)

So a (relatively) quick flyball update, I've read this back and it does sound like a fair old moan so sorry about that but sometimes you just gotta get these things off your chest ;o)

Norfolk Park
I don’t entirely remember what happened here apart from it being one of those ‘if only’ weekends. The Pawz ran on Saturday without me (but with Ethan and Dottie) and ran the fastest time of the division in the morning (20.45) but fell apart in the afternoon to end up 4th. We ran a slightly different line up as the Dyno Demonz replacing Lexie with Mac since she wasn’t 100% sound…not entirely sure that worked as that suddenly put the whole team over full height but they also ran the fastest time in a tight 7 team division (18.15) but managed to come 2nd (story of our lives lol). The Racers also struggled in a closely fought division 4 and came 3rd (19.55), all in all it wasn’t an overly successful weekend of racing but good company as usual made up for it.

Redcar
This weekend was going to be a challenge from the outset since there was only Gem, myself and Rach travelling up with ALL our team dogs, apart from the two we have on loan from Tyne (River and Nell) who were going to be there with Hazell of course but as the week wore on and my van still wasn’t back from the body shop (remember the ‘door falling off’ incident?) I started to get a little worried about how we were going to fit 3 people, 15 dogs and camping gear in my little courtesy Kangoo! As it happened the guys at Trident Body Shop saved the day and loaned us a Renault Trafic for the weekend…phew! It was a mad dash on Friday evening to get it all caged out with folding crates and get everything packed so we could get up to Redcar where, thankfully, Hazell had already put up a tent for us. We had a good weekend, it stayed mostly dry but OMG…it was bitterly cold! I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in a tent and that was sharing a double airbed with Gem (who had forgotten hers!) with a sleeping bag and double duvet, it was freezing! I must confess, we did really struggle being so short of people and seemed to spend the whole team running to and from the ring. We got lots of help from our Tyne friends (including cooked breakfast both days!) and lots of other lovely flyballers too.

The Racers were just outclassed in Div 3 and came 5th despite running a respectable 19.38…this team was possibly the hardest to run because Hazell was running Nell in this team and Meg in the other ring at the same time and, despite assurances from the Tournament Organiser that the racing would wait for her, the divisional judge and head judge ignored this and insisted we run without her, forcing us to hastily draft in an Ethan runner in the form of Nigel who actually did a great job under the circumstances. Given there was only 3 divisions running in any ring over the day so we weren't pushed for time at all, I have to say I was very disappointed by how rude and unhelpful the head judge was with us when we explained the situation (a nonchalant shoulder shrug accompanying a most insincere "well that’s unfortunate"), really not needed at all and very unprofessional…if I thought it would achieve anything I would put in a complaint but with the way things currently stand within the BFA I’d be wasting my time and money
and yes…I am posting this on a public website but, contrary to current BFA committee beliefs, BFA members ARE allowed to have and express their own opinions, in common with every other citizen of the UK and are not there to be ‘shut up’ every time they question something :o( (I think I can hear the daggers being sharpened! lol)

The Pawz faired much better in Division 8 which they won with relative ease running a fastest time of 21.51 despite Pip having a funny ‘moment’ in one race where she just wouldn’t run and we had to rely on Fynn instead. She couldn’t take her eyes of the dog in the other lane and once at the box she was running out and trying to get as far away from it as she could even though it was taking no notice of her. I can only think this dog reminded her of the one that attacked her a couple of months back at Eastham and put a hole through her lip as it was also a black/white spaniel x collie, and that she was scared it was going to happen again, bless her! It’s very, VERY unlike Pip to run out or be nervous of anything and she ran fine in the next race but it just goes to show that such incidents can have lasting affects on the most confident and reliable of dogs so I wish people would be a bit more considerate about running dogs they know can be 'likely' :o(

I really don’t know what was wrong with the Demonz on Sunday but they ran really badly in div 1, 18.53 and 5th place…just not on form at all…ho hum! We also had a starter team entered on Sunday which included Travis and Maisie along with Spark and Tarka making their debuts joined by Mouse and Fly from Tyne. I didn’t run Spark much because it was another ‘handlers in both rings chaos’ kind of a division and I need to be calm and focused on him but he did run a couple of legs and did great…SO pleased with him :o) Tarka also surprised me by being really rather good! She absolutely knew what she was doing and wasn’t at all distracted by all the other dogs and people…she was chased up the lane by Maisie a couple of times (BAD beardie!) but got her ball on the re-send…good girlie. We had a nice early finish and got home in time for tea :o)

Doncaster
We headed over to the Northern Racing College at Doncaster for the first of the indoor winter shows, this is run on grass turf laid over a peat/sand sort of surface in a large indoor riding arena. We haven’t done this show for a couple of years, it’s quite a long way for us in winter and the days often start very early and finish really late. This day was no exception with an 8.30am start time but fortunately we didn’t need to be there ‘til 10am and Hazell kindly put our paperwork in for us (and no doubt did a better job than me at our last couple of shows where I’ve totally screwed up the team sheets…totally brain dead at that time of a morning! lol) There was just the 5 of us (and Hazell) so we relied very much on help from our friends at Tyne, Brigg and Roseberry especially since we had two teams running in division 3! With the way the seed times had panned out I ended up having to mix the teams up to try and ensure we would be running teams that would run around the seed times we were in on. The Dyno Demonz consisted of Dylan, Faith, River and Squirrel; Racers were Mac, Lexie, Dottie and Nell and Pawz were Pip, Fly, Jovi, Ethan and Maisie (who was making her open debut…exactly 18 months old on the day!). I was quite pleased that, despite getting nowhere near their seed times and the fact we had to run in and out the ring swapping one team for another, both teams ran consistently and achieved a 1st and 3rd place :o) The Pawz really struggled…Jovi had a total meltdown and couldn’t run in the red lane meaning we HAD to run Maisie….at the same time as Ethan…both of which have to run last…buggar! lol I ended up hiding behind the judges table with Maisie and then sending her from the side once Ethan was out. Not ideal for the little dogs debut but I was seriously impressed that she managed to come in at such a tight angle, so close to the line and find her way up to the box and back without running out. This is the first time she’s ever run without netting against another lane and the first time she’s ever run her own height (12”) so I was very pleased with her. We didn’t leave ‘til gone 8pm so it had been a 12 hour day for most people, with all the running in the middle and 2 hours of driving at either end it is rather knackering! I was soooooo tired when I got home and headed straight for the shower, the colour of the water running off my hair was black! Amazing how filthy you can get without even realizing it, I guess my dogs coats must all have been the same too!

This weekend we just have a starters competition over at Newark showground, god help us but we thought it would be *nice* to run all the cockers together so we have one team (The Cock Ups) consisting of Travis and Tarka running with her littermates Tally (Cambridgeshire) and Charlie (Ready2Fly) and Auntie Radley too. Maisie and Spark are running in a mixed team with Beamer (Linnotts), Jessy (Ready2Fly), Spencer (Cambidgeshire) with Jovi coming along as a spare (although I think she could do with the practice after last weekend’s performance!)

Flyball Update (a bit long and boring...sorry!)

Gawd…I really am sh*t at this blogging lark aren’t I?!! I just seem to be really struggling to find the time to sit down and update about things in a timely manner and by the time I do I’ve forgotten half of it (old age creeping in!)

So a (relatively) quick flyball update

Norfolk ParkI don’t entirely remember what happened here apart from it being one of those ‘if only’ weekends. The Pawz ran on Saturday without me (but with Ethan and Dottie) and ran the fastest time of the division in the morning (20.45) but fell apart in the afternoon to end up 4th. We ran a slightly different line up as the Dyno Demonz replacing Lexie with Mac since she wasn’t 100% sound…not entirely sure that worked as that suddenly put the whole team over full height but they also ran the fastest time in a tight 7 team division (18.15) but managed to come 2nd (story of our lives lol). The Racers also struggled in a closely fought division 4 and came 3rd (19.55), all in all it wasn’t an overly successful weekend of racing but good company as usual made up for it.

RedcarThis weekend was going to be a challenge from the outset since there was only Gem, myself and Rach travelling up with ALL our team dogs, apart from the two we have on loan from Tyne (River and Nell) who were going to be there with Hazell of course but as the week wore on and my van still wasn’t back from the body shop (remember the ‘door falling off’ incident?) I started to get a little worried about how we were going to fit 3 people, 15 dogs and camping gear in my little courtesy Kangoo! As it happened the guys at Trident Body Shop saved the day and loaned us a Renault Trafic for the weekend…phew! It was a mad dash on Friday evening to get it all caged out with folding crates and get everything packed so we could get up to Redcar where, thankfully, Hazell had already put up a tent for us. We had a good weekend, it stayed mostly dry but OMG…it was bitterly cold! I don’t think I’ve ever been so cold in a tent and that was sharing a double airbed with Gem (who had forgotten hers!) with a sleeping bag and double duvet, it was freezing! I must confess, we did really struggle being so short of people and seemed to spend the whole team running to and from the ring. We got lots of help from our Tyne friends (including cooked breakfast both days!) and lots of other lovely flyballers too.

The Racers were just outclassed in Div 3 and came 5th despite running a respectable 19.38…this team was possibly the hardest to run because Hazell was running Nell in this team and Meg in the other ring at the same time and, despite assurances from the Tournament Organiser that the racing would wait for her, the divisional judge and head judge ignored this and insisted we run without her, forcing us to hastily draft in an Ethan runner in the form of Nigel who actually did a great job under the circumstances. I have to say I was very disappointed by how rude and arrogant the head judge was with us when we explained the situation (a nonchalant shoulder shrug followed by the most insincere uttering ‘oh well that’s unfortunate…start the racing’), really not needed at all and very unprofessional…if I thought it would achieve anything I would put in a complaint but with the way things currently stand within the BFA I’d be wasting my time and money (and yes….I am posting this on a public website but, contrary to current BFA committee beliefs, BFA members ARE allowed to have and express their own opinions, in common with every other citizen of the UK and are not there to be ‘shut up’ every time they question something)

The Pawz faired much better in Division 8 which they won with relative ease running a fastest time of 21.51 despite Pip having a funny ‘moment’ in one race where she just wouldn’t run and we had to rely on Fynn instead. She couldn’t take her eyes of the dog in the other lane and once at the box she was running out and trying to get as far away from it as she could even though it was taking no notice of her. I can only think this dog reminded her of the one that attacked her a couple of months back at Eastham and put a hole through her lip as it was also a black/white spaniel x collie, and that she was scared it was going to happen again, bless her! It’s very, VERY unlike Pip to run out or be nervous of anything and she ran fine in the next race but it just goes to show that such incidents can have lasting affects on the most confident and reliable of dogs :o(

I really don’t know what was wrong with the Demonz on Sunday but they ran really badly in div 1, 18.53 and 5th place…just not on form at all…ho hum! We also had a starter team entered on Sunday which included Travis and Maisie along with Spark and Tarka making their debuts joined by Mouse and Fly from Tyne. I didn’t run Spark much because it was another ‘handlers in both rings chaos’ kind of a division and I need to be calm and focused on him but he did run a couple of legs and did great…SO pleased with him :o) Tarka also surprised me by being really rather good! She absolutely knew what she was doing and wasn’t at all distracted by all the other dogs and people…she was chased up the lane by Maisie a couple of times (BAD beardie!) but got her ball on the re-send…good girlie. We had a nice early finish and got home in time for tea :o)

Doncaster
We headed over to the Northern Racing College at Doncaster for the first of the indoor winter shows, this is run on grass turf laid over a peat/sand sort of surface in a large indoor riding arena. We haven’t done this show for a couple of years, it’s quite a long way for us in winter and the days often start very early and finish really late. This day was no exception with an 8.30am start time but fortunately we didn’t need to be there ‘til 10am and Hazell kindly put our paperwork in for us (and no doubt did a better job than me at our last couple of shows where I’ve totally screwed up the team sheets…totally brain dead at that time of a morning! lol) There was just the 5 of us (and Hazell) so we relied very much on help from our friends at Tyne, Brigg and Roseberry especially since we had two teams running in division 3! With the way the seed times had panned out I ended up having to mix the teams up to try and ensure we would be running teams that would run around the seed times we were in on. The Dyno Demonz consisted of Dylan, Faith, River and Squirrel; Racers were Mac, Lexie, Dottie and Nell and Pawz were Pip, Fly, Jovi, Ethan and Maisie (who was making her open debut…exactly 18 months old on the day!). I was quite pleased that, despite getting nowhere near their seed times and the fact we had to run in and out the ring swapping one team for another, both teams ran consistently and achieved a 1st and 3rd place :o) The Pawz really struggled…Jovi had a total meltdown and couldn’t run in the red lane meaning we HAD to run Maisie….at the same time as Ethan…both of which have to run last…buggar! lol I ended up hiding behind the judges table with Maisie and then sending her from the side once Ethan was out. Not ideal for the little dogs debut but I was seriously impressed that she managed to come in at such a tight angle, so close to the line and find her way up to the box and back without running out. This is the first time she’s ever run without netting against another lane and the first time she’s ever run her own height (12”) so I was very pleased with her. We didn’t leave ‘til gone 8pm so it had been a 12 hour day for most people, with all the running in the middle and 2 hours of driving at either end it is rather knackering! I was soooooo tired when I got home and headed straight for the shower, the colour of the water running off my hair was black! Amazing how filthy you can get without even realizing it, I guess my dogs coats must all have been the same too!

This weekend we just have a starters competition over at Newark showground, god help us but we thought it would be *nice* to run all the cockers together so we have one team (The Cock Ups) consisting of Travis and Tarka running with her littermates Tally (Cambridgeshire) and Charlie (Ready2Fly) and Auntie Radley too. Maisie and Spark are running in a mixed team with Beamer (Linnotts), Jessy (Ready2Fly), Spencer (Cambidgeshire) with Jovi coming along as a spare (although I think she could do with the practice after last weekend’s performance!)