Preiously...on ER...

Ok, so in light of my appalling aptitude as a blogger of late I feel we need a brief recap on what has happened over the last couple of months else anything new won’t make a whole heap of sense! Kinda like the start of one of those ongoing TV dramas lol (cue dramatic intro music….)

Flyball
Several shows in the last couple of months, can’t remember what happened at them all now to be honest. My dogs in particular have suffered from my lack of time lately and are all a little ‘porky’ (by ‘porky’ I really mean FAT!) so aren’t running their best, with the exceptions of Aston, Mac, Maisie and Jovi who never seem to gain any weight no matter what their feeding/exercise regime (thankfully!). I also think this rapid weight gain is partly caused by the fact that I’ve started feeding them a lot more raw meat and bones, which they love but perhaps a bit too much!

The season has started slowly with a lot shuffling of dogs between the teams as we try to work out who is on form, who isn’t and which combinations are working best. We have also, in the last month, increased our number of open teams from three to four (eek!!) which is quite a lot of work for 8 people but we just have too many dogs to squeeze into 3 teams now (and lots of youngsters in training too).

Aston has been coming on brilliantly in training and has been running consistent 4.4’s in starters competitions (clever lad); he’s such a joy to handle…so motivated and focused, it’s very hard not to become complacent with a young dog like that and forget that he’s still a ‘baby’. He ran his first Open tournament at our very own show, Royal Umpire Caravan Park, Croston and was paw perfect bless him running consistent 4.2s/4.3s in our top team over 12” hurdles with Jovi as the height dog. We ran 18.24s which was 0.5sec faster than we have been running lately but Jovi didn’t run that well and actually came down with kennel cough after the show so I don’t think she was feeling 100%. Next time out (Eastham) we decided to try running Travis in the top team and the additional 1” off the hurdle heights (down to 11”) seemed to really suit Aston who ran 4.1s over this height all day helping us run a 17.95s despite Dylan being a little off form. At the moment we are running them Aston-Bailey-Dylan-Travis…this is because the team we’re running at the European Championships in Germany (sadly won’t include Aston as I never got him passported ) is a combined team with Cambridgeshire Canines which includes Merlyn who has to run start so Alison is currently perfecting her changeover into Bailey. Once we get back from Germany I anticipate that Dylan will go back start with Aston and Bailey following and then…whatever height dog we decide to run on the end ;o) Lots more to come from this team anyway.

There are a few photos of the dogs running at Eastham here

Tarka has taken somewhat of a backward step, after looking so promising in training I brought her out into open competition at Pontefract in May and it totally blew her mind and , as often happens with cockers, seriously dented her confidence . The last month or so have been slow confidence building exercises so we ran an NFC team in starters at our show, our planned Euros team which she really enjoyed and got very excited about. Our next show is at Osamston Polo Ground 2nd/3rd July where I am planning on running our second team (Demon Racers) NFC with the wings in to allow her to run and experience ‘proper’ racing without any pressure. From not doing any shows in July before we head to Germany we are now running at least one team every weekend for Tarkas’ benefit. Fingers crossed she gets the idea soon!

Spark has also really come on great guns since we started weekly training and I am so pleased with his progress. He’s been running starters most weekends and I’m so happy with every aspect of his training; his box is superb (he has done all his training and starters comps running on the chute), he is doing lovely tight changeovers in and out and has even been running start dog and maintaining his focus too. I think part of his progress is the fact he has been training and racing with Aston and they have a very healthy competitive relationship! Lol

I’ve also started training Flint who is doing surprisingly well. He does lovely fast runbacks for his tuggy and loves fetching his tennis ball too. He is gradually tightening up on the chute, this is going to be our second biggest challenge as there is a lot of him to turn! Our biggest challenge however is getting him to run while there’s another dog running…this is currently a work in progress.

We’ve started doing little bits of work with the babies… Jellybean is just doing a few runbacks each session. I’ve spaced the hurdles at 5ft intervals so that she learns to hurdle…as her little legs grow we will gradually move them further apart. At the moment she’s doing well and running back nicely for her tuggy…until she sees another dog…hmmmm…she is definitely a terrier! Preston is also doing restrained runbacks and is currently looking F-A-ST!! Need to make sure we get everything right with him as he’s looking very promising, I anticipate his issues will be dog chasing and ball dropping so we need to make sure those habits do not develop. Half of the battle with flyball training is anticipating the problems you might encounter with a particular dog and nipping them in the bud at the start.

Showing
EABCC isn’t even worth talking about so I won’t bother (lol), SKC was marginally better… Spark was a pillock (too busy thinking about nice girlies in season), Faith went nicely and was shortlisted as was Jovi but neither were placed, Viva was the most settled she’s ever been in the ring and went really well, she came 2nd in a really strong class so has now got her Crufts 2012 qualifier :o) Last show was Blackpool on the 26th June, I never seem to do well at our ‘home ground’ but, against my better judgment, was persuaded to enter under this particular judge…the Blackpool curse struck again as the judge was changed at the last minute (typical!) and as I expected…we came home with nothing. Viva was shortlisted (junior bitch), Spark and Faith were both binned (open dog and limit bitch) it was an absolute SCORCHER of a day with no shade in the rings and the judge has us moving around the big ring again and again, which under normal circumstances I would be quite happy about but it definitely took its’ toll on poor Spark who was just not a happy bunny at all bless him. I had headed taken him for a walk round to toilet just before he went in the ring and gone to fill up the water bottle at the same time, there was a large plastic paddling pool under the tap which he promptly attempted to climb in! I just managed to grab him at the last minute so he only immersed a single front leg but it was a bit of a mad panic to get it dried off and prepared again before hitting the ring. Poor Spark was most confused since I actively encourage him to get in the paddling pools at flyball to lie down and cool off between races lol I actually had a nice day nonetheless, just enjoying the banter around the ring with everyone :)

Faith at Blackpool



Viva at Blackpool

(photos by Wendy Lawless)

Puppies
We’ve had three litters born over the last couple of months, well I say three…what I really mean is two and a bit! Lexie whelped a single puppy at Easter; this was always going to be her last litter as she is 8 in October and I just really wanted something else from her so one puppy suits me just fine. Gambit (Bryning All the Right Moves) is now 10 weeks old and a really lovely boy. Lexie struggled to produce milk with just having the one pup so I hand reared him ‘til 4/5 weeks old. He came everywhere with me as a result so is a very happy and confident little chap indeed. He then actually ‘moved in’ with Dazzle’s 7 puppies by Fynn who are 12 days younger than him. These pups are now all spoken for apart from a single black/white boy who injured a right hind leg at 7 weeks old, after numerous examinations and x-rays it thankfully just turned out to be a bad sprain but he’s still here until I’m happy he’s completely sound. I have kept a blue merle bitch pup from this litter on breeding terms, hopefully she will prove to be as good a producer as her mum has been.

Bryning Dare to Dazzle (Fynn x Dazzle)


Mercy whelped a litter of TEN puppies, now 5 weeks old and beautiful. I must get some new photos of this lot. Eight bitches and two dogs, I have yet to find the perfect homes for all ten of them though.

And we have two new additions of late in the form of Charm who is a super blue/white Spark daughter bred by Pat Ward at Starside She is such a character, so bold and bright…I just love her!

Charm - Starside Sparkles at Bryning


And Boomer, a lovely red/white boy from the Nice of You to Combye kennel in the Netherlands. Boomer is currently being fostered by friends in Belgium and should arrive in the UK early next year. I will see him when we’re out at the European Championships in Germany later this month though…can’t wait!

Boomer - Nice of You to Comebye Boomerang Boy


Think that’s about it for now!

Facebook killed the blog-ster??

Ok…well I do feel terribly guilty that my blog really has suffered a serious amount of neglect over the last few months and have concluded that there are several reasons for this being the case. Firstly, we don’t do as much over winter so I have far less to talk about other than the fairly trivial and mundane day to day stuff (although I actually quite enjoy reading about such things on other people’s blogs lol). Secondly, with the short days and dark mornings/evenings over winter I always just tend to feel as though I have less time to do anything which is obviously psychological since I physically have exactly the same number of hours in a day! lol Thirdly, and possibly the most significant factor is my increasing reliance on facebook to share and interact with friends and like minded people but I do appreciate that not everyone uses facebook or looks at it regularly so I will endeavour to keep the blog up to date over the summer and I will invariably have a lot more to say than is practical on facebook anyway! lol

For anyone wanting to catch the facebook news and updates, from myself and various ‘Bryning Owners’ that also contribute, you can just visit our Bryning Border Collies, Working Cockers and Parson Russell Terriers page and ‘Like’ it to get all the updates and photos included in your newsfeed.

So much has happened since my last posting that I hardly know where to begin in a brief roundup. Both flyball comp and breed show-wise we have done very little. LKA was our last breed show of 2010 and I only took Spark who ended the year in style with a first place in his first ever Open class beating some really super Show Champions; he was handled by Eric Broadhurst for the first time and didn’t go as well as he should have in the challenge but I was pleased with him nonetheless and he ended 2010 having attended just 7 shows and coming away with 5 class wins, a reserve ticket and ticket…not bad going!

Spark winning his class at LKA (photo by Cathy Saxon)

From a real high we were plunged into a real low with the sudden illness and death of Sue Large in early February, just 4 months after awarding Spark his first CC at SBCC and us having a real blast together at LKA in December. What a terrible shock and a real blow to her whole family but also the dog world at large; Sue was always happy to share her time and vast wealth of knowledge and experience with everyone and I had been touched by her generosity of spirit since I bought my first ‘show bred’ border collie, sired by Tetley (Wizaland Lucky Brew JW); Sue was always so helpful and encouraging to me as a complete novice, it was a really sad time for all who knew her.

So far this year we’ve only been to MBCC champ show where Spark was 3rd in Open dog and a couple of open breed shows where Spark and Faith both had class wins, Viva a couple of consistent places and Jovi came 2nd in a strong class at her first ever show; if I can get her to settle in the ring she should do ok (although that is quite a big ‘if’!).

Spark winning his class at NWBCC Open Show (photo by Sue Tranter)

Viva at NWBCC

And of course Crufts where I had just entered Dottie and Spark but Dottie didn’t hang onto her coat so only Spark went, he was unplaced for the first time ever (shock…horror! lol) but was beautifully behaved as always and returned to represent the breed on the Discover Dogs stand on Sunday too, along with Fynn.

Spark by his bench at Crufts 2011

We have EABCC and SKC champ shows coming up over the next few weeks so fingers crossed for some good results there. It’s quite frightening to add up the cost of show entries and diesel costs so I’m not sure how many shows we will get to this year to be honest. I thought long and hard and decided that, although qualified, I’m not going to take Spark to ‘Border Collie of the Year’ this year…it’s just too far and too costly for the sake of taking a single dog unfortunately.

In terms of flyball tournaments we had a couple of months off with no competing or training so we’re not entirely prepared for the season ahead and are going to have to just ‘suck it and see’ but that means there’s no pressure on either dogs or handlers. Travis made his Open debut and is running reliably but we still need to work on his box and his junior handler, Megan has a lot to learn too but is making good progress. I am still working on foundation stuff with Tarka, she is looking very promising and I want to make sure we get it right with her so no more starters competitions for her until I feel she’s ready to run in open, the chaos of starters is not conducive to cocker confidence building. Flint (the ENORMOUS whippet/saluki/greyhound thing I rescued last summer) has just started training and is doing surprisingly well…let’s hope it lasts! Again…baby steps with him, don’t want to waste that potential by pushing him too soon.

We have managed to secure a new permanent training ground thanks to my wonderful vets at Rowan Veterinary Centre; their brand new purpose built surgery sits on quite a large plot so we have mown a half acre (ish) area that we can use for training, there is a lovely (hmmmm) open water pit in the middle of the plot too which the dogs have decided makes an ideal ‘plunge pool’ for cooling off! lol

We did have some surprise success however on our first attempt at Crufts flyball with our YKC team which had been a last minute thought at the end of last year. We had qualified at the last qualifier of the year in October so went on the last day (Sunday) looking forward to our day out but with no expectations. To our surprise and delight the kids and dogs were brilliant and sailed through each knock out round without dropping a single race to win the final against Hinckley and be declared the 2011 Crufts Champions! Woo Hoo! Team consisted of Rachel with Spice (WSD) and Aiden with Lily (Labrador) from Cambridgeshire along with Daizy, Megan and Rachel who ran Bailey(WSD), Dylan (Bryning Truly Magic), Faith (Bryning True Believer) and Haze (Bryning Indian Summer)

The Demon K9’s - 2011 YKC Crufts Flyball Champions!


We have two new editions to the pack since the last blog update too. Jellybean is a rough coated Parson Russell bitch puppy that I kept from Squirrel’s Christmas litter, she’s just an adorable little rogue like her daddy!

And Preston is a young blue & white border collie pup from the Beesting ‘kennel’ in Wigan. There is quite a sad tale behind Preston joining us here as I had originally chosen and taken his litter brother Drift who was a really super puppy and such a funny character but was tragically killed in an accident at just 5 months old which was just devastating. Shortly after Drifts’ sudden death Jean and Jimmy very kindly offered Preston to me; since I already knew him and liked him a lot it seemed like the perfect opportunity to retain the new bloodlines I had wanted when looking to bring in a new pup in the first place. He is sufficiently different to Drift for me not to be constantly reminded of him or to be tempted to compare them and has settled in here really well becoming firm friends with Jellybean.

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!

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!

A slightly odd and eventful week

My busy day off proved to be the start of a rather odd and eventful week since my mum was on holiday and on the Tuesday night I had headed off to bed and, unusually, I completely shut my bedroom door to stop the dogs from opening it during the night. Perhaps more unusually I hadn’t taken my laptop to bed with me since I was so tired and intended to go straight to sleep, nor my mobile phone. When I decided I needed a glass of water just before going to sleep and went to open the door I had a terrible shock…the handle had broken so I couldn’t get out! I tried for about an hour with various implements made out of coat hangers and the such like but to no avail so decided I would just go to sleep and look out for the postman in the morning and try to catch his attention. I woke early (not surprisingly) and sat by the window looking out for the postman. I should just point out here that we live in a totally detached farmhouse down a small private lane that we share only with a church and another farm.

view from my bedroom, church...

farm...

as you can see, not a great location when you want to catch someone's attention!

Someone drove past on a quad bike around 7.30am to feed the heifers at the top of the road but I had no hope of being heard above the engine. At about 10am the postman went past, he always goes to the farm first and stops at our gates on the way back to the main road where we have a post box, but….he never stopped, we had no post! I did contemplate climbing out of the window but it’s quite a long way down and I had visions of me falling and breaking something and lying there for hours instead! I was most concerned about what my boss was thinking about the fact I just hadn’t turned up for work! To cut a long story short (ish), my mum arrived back off holiday around 7pm and let me out so I had been trapped in the room for 20 hours with no way to contact anyone, no TV, nothing to drink and no toilet…as you can imagine…I was very glad to see her! Fortunately most of the dogs had been in the utility room with access in and out of the house, the few that were in the house had been camped outside my door, probably wondering why the hell I wasn’t coming to let them out and give them their breakfast! There was just a single pee on the landing, they had stayed clean that whole time…good doggies :o) Needless to say, I shan’t ever be closing a bedroom door again!

Saturday morning Spark and I headed over to Darlington Champ show by ourselves while some of the flyball team headed down to Norfolk Park for the tournament taking place over the weekend, taking Travis, Ethan and Dottie with them. Travis was joining the Water Orton Extreme team in starters and Ethan and Dottie were running in the Pawz. I was going to travel straight down from Newby Hall to camp overnight and run in the other two teams on the Sunday.

Well, in typical fashion things didn’t run quite according to plan. I decided to get up early and bath Spark on the morning of the show, judging started at 9.30am, we weren’t in until Limit Dog and the venue is less than 2 hours from us so I reckoned we needed to leave around 8.30am. Best laid plans and all that! Well, we left on time but as I got a couple of miles down the road I realised I’d forgotten to pick up any bait so quickly decided to stop at the village post office and buy something suitable rather than turn around (first mistake!), I bought a packet of cooked ham and as I came back to the van noticed an elderly man standing at the side of the road beckoning me so I went to see what he wanted. Apparently he was waiting for a bus which hadn’t turned up and wondered whether I might give him a lift into town…well, what could I do?! Of course I’d packed the van for both the show and flyball with all my camping gear too so had thrown a load of stuff on the front seats which I had to move into the back before I could get this chap in, I duly drove him into town (in the opposite direction to where I needed to go) and he was a really nice guy, he was 99…and a bit and I was really amazed by the fact he was still getting the bus into town to be honest! He was a little deaf but bright and chatty and extremely spritely for his years (getting in and out of my van is no easy task!). I did have to smile at the ‘and a bit’ and wondered at what age you started adding the ‘and a bit’ when people asked your age again like you did as a child, I remember proudly telling people ‘I’m 7 and 3 quarters’ but am not so keen on ‘33 and a half’ nowadays lol

The route from Preston to Thirsk along the A59 is a pleasant and scenic one, but not when you’re running very very late! I recalled that the entries at this show weren’t very big so the class sizes may be smaller then usual and therefore judging going a lot quicker. I was right! We arrived around 11am and I just grabbed all my bags and ran to the entrance to hand over my pass where Spark promptly did an enormous poo! The lady on the gate kindly offered to hold him while I picked it up then we dashed to the benching area where I grabbed the first border collie person I saw and asked ‘what class is she on?’ to be told ‘Limit has just gone in’…panic! Drop all my bags and run to the ring and guess what? The bloody ham was on the dashboard in the van so no bait!! I can’t say he showed himself off to his best but he certainly didn’t go badly…we didn’t get placed but having watched the rest of the judging I’m not that surprised. It would be unfair to comment any further on the quality of the judging since others obviously placed well and I was pleased for them but I shan’t be entering any dogs under that judge again. Since I only had one dog with me (very unusual) I had entered him in the Any Variety Open Stakes class too, we’ve never entered a stakes class before but thought we’d give it a go. My friend Jackie had also entered with her Cruise son Drift, his mother is also the litter sister to my Mercy, he’s a lovely dog that has done a lot of winning and has a ticket. So we headed over the Any Variety ring and as we were waiting to go in a couple walked past with a rough collie and the lady pointed at Spark and turned to her husband and said ‘oh John, look at the lovely merling on that AUSSIE’…I think my face must have said it all because she seemed to instantly realise she’d made a faux pas when she caught my eye and I seethed ‘he’s a border collie’, she was very apologetic and made some feeble excuse about nor being used to seeing them with so much bone or coat but the fact is, she just looked at his colour and assumed. I started to worry slightly that the judge might do the same and glance him over and think ‘what a terrible looking Aussie’ lol Anyway, we headed into the ring first with Jackie and Drift behind us and joined by an assortment of Malamutes, huskies, Aussies, Rough Collies, Old English, Boxers etc I was really pleased with the way Spark went in this class (now I had stolen some sausage from Audrey!), he moved really nicely and was attentive and keen in the free stand. Drift also went really well so I wasn’t at all surprised when the judge picked him out first but kinda expected Spark wouldn’t get placed too but she picked him out 2nd so the border collies did a clean sweep…woo hoo! We also actually won money for this class, £10 to pay for that night’s takeaway anyway, clever Spark :o) All in all the border collies had a great showing at Darlington, winning Pastoral Group 1, Veteran Group 1, RCC stakes, AV Open Dog and AV Open Bitch and all that from a relatively small overall entry of 139 dogs. We had a nice day out anyway.

A few pics of friends dogs, none of Spark since I was on my own so had no-one to operate the camera while we were in the ring...sorry!
The aforementioned Drift, Locheil Stand and Deliver at Sandmont, he is a half brother to my Kitten and a nephew of Mercy


Jazz, Locheil Black Label at Sandmont, a half brother to my Ethan on his mothers' side and Dazzle, Dottie and Eabha through their father Bond


Diva, Borderbrook I'm the Diva, she is also a half sister to Kitten and Drift, pretty girl :o)




I’ll do a flyball update in another post but my eventful week was rounded off when on the Monday morning I was driving to work and the side door fell off my van as I was going round a roundabout!
oh dear!

This may sound a little random but I badly damaged this door a number of years ago while we were camping on Anglesey so I'm suprised it's survived this long to be honest! A week in the body shop and a big bill later and I got it back, good as new and sparkly clean too (for the first time in a long time! lol)

Just Dogs Live & East of England Champ Show

We arrived at Peterborough showground on the Thursday afternoon for 3 days of breed showing, flyball and agility at ‘Just Dogs Live’ which incorporated East of England Champ show. I kinda wished I hadn’t bothered with the show, Aston got a 4th in Minor Puppy dog but I was really pleased with the way he went at his first show. The class was won by Teddy, Starside Shameless, a ’Viggo’ son who also went on to win the Puppy Dog class too. I missed Jovi’s class, decided not to take Faith in as she was so out of coat, Dottie and Spark were both ‘binned’ (shock, horror!)

Teddy on the move….

Aston on the move…

Spark on the move…

Dottie on the move…


The agility was well, painful with Teal; she just isn’t enjoying it at the moment so I’ve decided no more comps with her until we can commit to more training and she can learn how fun it all is again. I actually really enjoyed running Faith, no clear rounds but she is getting better at listening to me and concentrating on the job in hand! I think we could get it together and make a decent little agility dog of her if we could get some regular training in!

The flyball was good, we had all 3 teams running but boy was it hot! I wanted a cool coat for Teal but they had sold out when I arrived, the very kind lady on the ’DryDog Coats’ stand loaned me one for the afternoon and it made a real difference, she ran SO much better; unfortunately by that time all the collies had started to flag a bit so we didn’t gain much but I ordered 3 of the cool coats to be delivered, 1 for Teal and 2 collie sized ones. They are by far the best cool coats I’ve ever come across and very reasonably priced too; I would recommend them to anyone. I also picked up one of the dry coats to use on Spark for his pre-show bath and this is really effective; lovely flat dry coat although he does look very funny wearing it bless him! lol

Some more photos of the dogs in the showring, some stacked pics of the puppies taken at the same time and a few pics of the dogs competing in the flyball (courtesy of David Flood) HERE

Better late than never..

Well, Lori’s pups finally put in an appearance on Monday night…3 days overdue to her second mating!! I can only conclude that she ovulated a couple of days after her last mating which would make sense since she did continue to stand during this time and was positively throwing herself at Spark who just plain refused to mate her again! (stud dog’s perogative I guess! lol). With all of this and the fact she wasn’t that big, I expected a relatively small litter (she has whelped 8 pups in her last two)…I was wrong! After (what felt like) a very long labour she finally produced the first puppy at 6.30pm then got a bit of a spurt on, producing 5 puppies between 8 and 9pm! Number 7 came around 10pm and Number 8 arrived around 11.30pm and I thought she was done and went to bed only to be woken again at 3.15am by a very restless and agitated Lori who…produced puppy number 9! I am sure that she definitely ovulated well after she was mated and Spark must have very long-lived and active little ‘swimmers’!! :o)

Final Tally is…
• three blue/white girls…1 is classic, the spit of Eabha, 1 is classic but less collar and the other has classic face and collar but white flashes up her hips and small patches of white over her bum.

• Three black/white girls…1 classic and the other two very flashy with a lot of white and the white patches over the body too.

• Two blue merle boys and a slate merle boy, all three classically marked with pale powdery merling…all very like Spark to be honest.


All in all a very nice litter that I have no worries Lori will make an excellent job of rearing, just as she always does :o)

Darlington & Acremead...another long haul weekend

Last busy weekend of the year with a 520mile road trip to take in Darlington Champ Show, being held at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire on Saturday followed by flyball at Abingdon in Oxfordshire on Sunday (despite there being a flyball tournament on in Darlington too!! lol)

Dogs were bathed on Friday night in between watching ‘Strictly’ and catching up on my e-mails/facebook etc. This was the scene underneath my desk...

the two lone feet are Ethans' since he was right in front of my chair and under my legs then my old WSD Spud (aka Nanny Spud lol) with Travis draped over him and little Wes curled up on his feet. Wesley is our newest addition who arrived from Scotland earlier this week. He is from the same breeder as Squirrel, my friend Paul Fitzsimmons (Glendream), and they are actually cousins.

Eventually we got everything packed and prepared for the weekend but it ended up being a rather late one to bed (for a change!) followed by a fairly early start, although I didn’t have anyone in the ring ‘til Limit dog and judging wasn’t starting ‘til 9.30am I wanted to get there in good time so I could have Spark out around the rings and get him settled before his class, so we didn’t have a repeat of last weeks’ performance! We arrived just before 10am and got set up and sorted. It was another hot day so I got Spark prepped and then walked him round the rings and sat in the shade by the James Wellbeloved stand and watched the judging. He’s still dropping coat so a lot had come out after bathing and more again on grooming in the morning, I do think Spark is one of those dogs that often looks better for losing a bit of coat (like his dad) and was happy with how he ‘scrubbed up’. The judge was from Denmark and this was his first UK appointment so I wasn’t sure what he’d do, I do wonder how these foreign judges cope with the big entries here though, they’re around 5 times bigger than the biggest entries on the continent so that’s a lot more dogs to assess!
Limit dog was the largest class of the day with 18 entries and some nice dogs in there so I wasn’t sure how we were going to get on but Spark redeemed himself and I was really pleased with the way he went. No repeat of last weeks’ giddy shenanigans (good boy) and he didn’t even seem to mind being picked up by his tail while being gone over (!! See the video). I was really pleased when he was pulled out for the shortlist and more so when he placed 3rd, he’s really starting to mature and look the part now and I’m happy that he’s holding his own in these large strong classes, I think it’ll be another year before he’s really at his best though, we’ll see.



Mouse, well…what can I say…she is one very ‘foody’ little dog and had not forgotten about last weeks’ tasty delights from the boxer ring, the result being that she just wanted to move round the ring with her nose glued to the floor the whole time…arghhhhh!!! It’s very frustrating because when she did get her head up and move properly she actually moved really well. She got binned anyway.



Dottie was in Limit bitch again so wasn’t in ‘til late afternoon, this was a relatively big class but she went really well, received a lot of nice comments ringside but got binned, just not flashy enough for this judge I don’t think…hmph…just look at the way she moved in the vid though...love this dog :)



We left the show around 4.30pm and headed straight down to stay with Joy and Becca (again!), we had another lovely meal and evening with them (thanks guys) but were very sensibly all in bed for midmight! Joy and Becca left for Trent Park agility early doors and we left later to drive the 30 mins or so down to the flyball at Acremead kennels. We had a lovely day at the Mad Mutts show, it was so small and friendly and relaxed. There was only me and Drew running a team that consisted entirely of my own dogs, having 7 competing at the moment I had to draw straws and decide who to run and we ended up with Mac, Faith, Lexie and Teal and stuck to those four. My old friend Pete who used to run with us a few years back before emigrating to Spain was in the country and came over to see us and lend a hand which was great, it was lovely to see him and great to have an extra pair of hands. Sharon and Richard from the High Flyers also came over and helped us out too even though they didn’t have a team entered (aren’t flyballers just the best people?!) and we had Nat from Bristol on the line and keeping us in order. It was a fun day and we came 2nd in Div 3 with a fastest time of 19.54 which had actually broken us out…oops! I’d entered the Demon Racers on a submitted time of 20.05 to ensure we got to run on Sunday but knew it would be close (if you submit a time you cannot run more than 0.5sec faster or you break out and automatically lose that leg, break out 3 times and you become ineligible to compete). We managed to ‘hang lose’ and not break out again but lost a crucial race against the Bassetts on lights (doh!) so missed out on that first place…ah well…c’est la vie!

Squirrel ran in the Mutts Intermediate team and did really well, they ran best of 5 legs in a 7 team division (the most running she’s ever done) with wings instead of full netting and she was great, running with lots of dogs she’d never met before and running either start dog or in a later position with no problems…clever parson! There was a photographer on site who got some lovely pics of her, I’ll see if I can find them and post the link.

Made it home for around 10pm and promptly fell asleep exhausted…what an exhausting but fun weekend!

A weekend in Dundee

Friday evening we headed up to Dundee for a weekend of flyball,; two one day tournaments so lots of running! Paul, Alison and I and 12 dogs packed into the van with our tent and all our gear! We left Preston at around 6.10pm and arrived at Caird Park around 9.45pm so the journey wasn’t too bad but of course it was dark by the time we arrived so we had to put the tent up using the van headlights! Lol It didn’t take too long thankfully. Drew arrived just before 2am since he’d been working late so it was a late night but thankfully we weren’t on first thing and had the chance for a lie-in in the morning. Caird Park is a great venue, handy for everything with really nice toilet/shower facilities too, always a bonus in my book!

We were ring partying division 3 which unfortunately was spoiled by a very rude and unpleasant handler from one of the Scottish teams. Everybody knows flyball can get very competitive and heated at times and can bring out the ugly side in some people but this is something I’ve never experienced north of the border before so was a bit of a shock. Having been told to ‘get a life’ for upholding a handler fault, followed by a rant and petty point scoring…one has to wonder who it is exactly who’s in need of a life?? Sad isn’t it when people get so wound up about something that’s *supposed to be fun!* With more and more teams now competing, the Scottish shows do seem to have lost some of their laid back and relaxed charm which is the price of progress I guess but a shame nonetheless.

We were running completely thrown together teams and knew we were going to get stuffed in both divisions since we were missing two first team dogs in the form of Bailey and Dottie so we were just using the weekend as a training exercise. The Pawz consisted of Mac, Pip, Teal and Ethan and they all actually ran quite well. Mac has been a bit off colour lately so I thought he might benefit from the 8” jumps and he was running around the 4.6 mark so better than last weekend but still not what he should be running. Drew did a great job of getting to grips with running him and getting some really good starts since it’s a bit like wrestling an octopus keeping him still on the start! Lol Pip ran well, she likes running behind her daddy and kept trying to bite his bum in the line up! lol. Teal stayed motivated for most of the weekend with just momentary lapses in concentration which was quite a relief since she was running in a 4 dog team! Ethan had moments of brilliance and moments of his usual clown self. It is frustrating that he does the opposite turn in each lane since this does really affect his times in the blue lane (where he’s turning against his natural left turn and turning right instead).

The Racers was a rather odd line up of Dylan, Faith, Lexie and Drake so was a bit of a family affair (Lex with her son and daughter) with the cocker interloper. I started off running Drake but then swapped with Drew and took over Lexie since she really does need that high pitched scream to get her back faster, I was really pleased with how she ran actually and she was back running 4.6s. In fact that team ran really well and although we got stuffed in div one, they did manage a time of 18.30 which, considering we only ran 18.15 last weekend with Bailey, is pretty impressive! It makes me much more confident in the 17.80 we’ve submitted for the champs since Bailey is easily a good half second faster than Drake. Faith ran really well, especially since she was running 12” all day but again we have the same issue we have with Ethan where she’s swapping sides depending on the lane, only she’s the opposite to him so she runs better in the blue lane where she’s doing her natural right turn. What is doubly frustrating about this is that she didn’t do it last season, it’s only since she’s come back from having pups that she’s started this and we’re really struggling to stop it!

So, something to think about for the Champs next weekend, not sure what teams we’ll run yet but I’m keeping everything crossed that Dottie will be sound and we’ll have 10 dogs to run at least!

Anyhow…here’s some pics from the weekend taken at Camperdown Park on the Sunday…what a fantastic venue for flyball…check out all that open space for running dogs in!

'The Pawz'...


The handsome Spark...dozing in his crate...

The handsome Dylan...

Maisie and mouse...having a whale of a time!!

Birthday Treat?

We had two birthdays over this weekend, my gorgeous Sparky-Boo was 2 on Saturday and DotDot was 4 yesterday and as a special treat on their birthdays they both got a bath and blow dry. Ok, so this wasn’t really a treat, in fact more like torture in Dottie’s case as she HATES the blowdryer but as it happened I had entered them both at Blackpool Champ show so it was a necessity.

I had actually decided not to take Dottie as she’s in the middle of a big ‘pre-season’ moult at the moment and as such looks rather scruffy. I should have known by the fact she looked fabulous when the entries closed that this would happen! So Spark got his bath and blow on Saturday evening and I didn’t bother with Dottie. On Sunday morning I let everyone out and Heather said she thought Dottie looked ok so I decided to bath her and take her after all (the beauty of living just 15 mins from the venue). So poor Dottie started out her birthday with a bath and blow dry too…not her idea of fun!

We arrived at the show shortly after judging had started and I got Spark up on the table to get him all trimmed and ‘beautified’ but I couldn’t find my treat bag anywhere and I didn’t have any pockets so once he was done I had to set off round the stalls to find one and I nearly missed my class!! The judge was rattling through them so quickly! Spark went well but only placed 4th in Mid Limit which was a little disappointing. Dottie was presented beautifully (if I do say so myself… I was trying out some new shampoo/grooming products and was actually rather pleased with the outcome) and also went really really well but did not get placed in Limit bitch.

Now, I’m not in the habit of publicly questioning the judge but just have to comment on yesterdays’. The judging was rather ‘interesting’ to say the least with the dogs barely being gone over and two dogs asked to leave the ring because of ‘alleged’ incorrect bites! (one a champion and one a JW winner with a RCC!). Regardless…as far as I’m aware, a level bite is a fault just the same as any other and should be assessed in the same way…I didn’t see any dogs being asked to leave the ring because they had an upright shoulder or long hocks! Then the shortlisting process was also rather bizarre and some dogs were moved round and round in the generous sized ring in the blazing heat with handlers criticized when they couldn’t keep up with the pace. He moaned about changing of handlers (one to present and another to run the dog), something which is commonplace and even told one exhibitor that she had a nice puppy but it was a waste of time her showing it…how rude?! That said, in complete contrast he did wait for me with Spark which a lot of judges wouldn’t have done. It was a shame because it was a beautiful day and a well organized show but there was a real air of bad feeling around the ring all day.

Anyway…we had a nice day out catching up with everyone. This was actually the first breed show we’ve been to since Crufts! Here’s a few snaps…

Spark, standing with my mum and waiting for me to come back (bless him)

Smiling for the camera

Relaxing ringside with his head in Rachels’ lap

Dottie in the ring…


Some of the rellies…

Cruise – Sh CH Pikkupaimenen Great Pretender at Locheil

Jackie Lavington with Drift – Locheil Stand and Deliver at Sandmont


Erin – Locheil She’s Delightful (one of Sparks’ daughters)


Lexi – (Locheil Truly Madly Deeply)