Crufts TV

So, I ended up having Wednesday and Thursday off work which was great because I got to spend (almost) the entire day watching the fantastic online CruftsLive.tv which was live broadcasting from the main arena at Crufts...all the agility, flyball, heelwork to music competitions and displays etc as well as the group judging.
Of course, I had an added interest in Thursday mornings Agility and the Eukanuba Mini-Maxi pairs with several friends competing and two 'Bryning' girls taking part. Firstly was Nancy and Niamh (Bryning Red Rascal) running with Nancy's husband Andy and his little sheltie Kizzy.

Here's the pic that Nancy text me on the morning...Niamh and Kizzy arrived and set up on their bench...

Nancy ran a beautifully handled careful clear on quite a tricky course to hand over to Andy but unfortunately Kizzy missed her weave entry out of the straight tunnel which I think is actually harder than it sounds, the dog is coming out of a dark tunnel straight onto the weaves so they're coming at speed and see as litte of the weaves as possible i.e. a single pole, if you imagine the noise a dog is generating whilst running through a pipe tunnel and the way in which it's amplified coupled with the large noisy arena at Crufts I doubt they hear much in the way of verbal commands either. They finished up 9th. Next up was Joy with Teal (Bryning Time to Shine) running with Carla and her poodle Gucci. Joy and Teal were having a cracking run until...Teal took the wrong end of the tunnel so they got a big fat 'E', this was a real shame because Carla and Gucci had a lovely quick clear...ah well...maybe next year eh.

An eventful day at home

Have had a funny sort of a day. Was up most of the night with Lori whelping, she's such a good girl and whelped very easily with no fuss to produce a beautiful litter of nine puppies. The sire is Sea. They are all HUGE!! God knows where she was hiding them all!


We were supposed to be at Darwen Canine Society Open Show with Orlaith, Spark and Ethan but I was just too tired and had too much other stuff that needed doing so after much deliberating decided not to go. This decision proved academic since, when loading all the dogs up to go to the beach, I discovered that the back window of the van was completely shattered! No idea how that happened, it was fine yesterday, can only assume it got damaged during the strong gales we had overnight. That meant we were going nowhere until the windscreen guy turned up which wasn't til late afternoon. The glass suppliers were all closed so we've got a temporary perspex replacement until they can order a new one on Monday....hmmmm.

Watched the Olympia final (managed to get Eurosport on the PC!), very exciting stuff! Nancy and Niamh ran their little socks off, she was amazing but they were unlucky to get 5f on the dogwalk down contact and finished 8th overall. Still a fantastic achievment. All the finalists were amazing, it was 'edge of your seat' stuff all the way!

This was in the middle of the Strictly Final (I hope Nancy was recording it! lol). I think this years' standard was the highest yet and while not the strongest technically thoughout, Tom and Camilla deserved the title for their final showdance peformance alone...it was A-MA-ZING!! lol

Not sure what the plan is for tomorrow, get the dogs to the beach and get on with some packing I suppose. I probably should wrap some Christmas presents too! lol

Woo Hoo!!

Nancy and Niamh are through to tonight's final at Olympia
...way to go girls!!

Full results HERE

The top ten of the 36 finallists will be competing in this evening's Agility Stakes Final. The final will be broadcast at 7.30pm live on Eurosport, Sky 411 and Virgin 525 and the programme will start about five minutes before the final commences.

Wishing them the best of luck...just go for it!

Good Luck to Nancy and Niamh!

Just wanted to send our best wishes to Nancy and Niamh (Bryning Red Rascal) who are competing in the KC Agility Stakes Final tomorrow at Olympia. Anyone who knows anything about agility will appreciate the achievement in qualifying for the event itself. Nancy and Niamh also competed at Crufts this year too, arguably the two most prestigious events in the UK agility calendar. Quite a team!

Good luck tomorrow girls, we'll be rooting for you :)