AMAZING Maisie Mouse!!!

Not blogged for a while due to a wonky dongle(!) so looooads to catch up on! Here goes ...

Last weekend we went to Dog Vegas. The main reason for going to this show was to support Helen & Skip, and Sara & Tilly in the First Contact Finals!! I wasn't sure I'd be able to get there on the Friday so just entered each dog in one class on the off-chance - this just so happened to be the FC qualifier and Maisie only went and came 3rd and so qualified!!! Hadn't even walked the course! :-O Oh! And not only that, that result also gave her the last few points she needed for her Agility Warrant (Silver)!!! Crikey! :-O
Through the night on Friday both Maisie and Tim were quite restless and had slightly runny bums - the after-effect of bones I should've taken off them sooner on Thursday, bad mummy. Billy retriever guts was fine :) Maisie did one run on Saturday morning but didn't feel right so I pulled both of them from their runs that day, to give their tums chance to recover. The Finals were on the Sunday evening. I decided not to do any runs with Maisie through the day anyway to save her energy for her big moment - this proved to be a good decision. Did a couple of runs with Tim though and he did really very well, I was so pleased with him. He also had a lovely little mad gallop with sweetie-pie Pickle! The day was reaaaaaaaaaally windy! There was a flying marquee incident and all classes in the aft were run without dogwalks, for safety. Sadly Jules and Jette had to retire injured from the day, we did miss them :(

The evening came and our course was built!...... Still no dogwalk (yippee - it's our 'dodgiest' obstacle!) - instead we had 2 A-frames, one after the other - very unusual but great fun! There was supposed to be a wall for the last obstacle but bricks were flying in the 'breeze' so it was replaced by a spread jump. There was, though, a wishing well, very exciting!! I felt quite confident Maisie would jump it OK and she did - no hesistation at all! It was a bit scarey watching the audience gather with chairs and beers, eeek! Helen & Skip were first to go - Helen was amazing as she'd  had months to worry about it but just got on and did it - unfortunately big Skip just missed one of his A-frame contacts -well, 2 in a row is a lot to ask for! :) Good run though! Then next up were Sara and Tilly. Unfortunately Tilly was very spooked by the wishing well and was having none of it! Think she might've had a fault by then anyway though? Still very well done though! We were to run nearly at the end of the class. Maisie and I went for a wander and just got to the ring at the last minute. I heard there had been quite a few fast clears so decided we had absolutely nothing to lose and might as well just go for it!! As we got on the startline, ready and raring, the timing broke!! They had one of those big display timers. Whilst they were trying to fix it the commentator had the crowd doing Mexican waves, lol! Then we were off!..... Oh it was F.U.N.! Maisie soooo rose to the occasion and ran as fast as her little fluffy legs could take her! Had a couple of hairy moments - one at a top corner when she spotted a surprising number of people sat by the ringropes and actually almost stopped to grin! Then there was a seesaw which was directly followed by the back of the start jump - I so knew she'd want to jump that rather than the left turn we needed, and despite all efforts I very nearly lost her there! The crowd ooohed! Rest of it went quite smoothly - though we fumbled the approach to the weaves as she was going far faster than planned and I was totally in the wrong place! lol! The Judge's hand stayed down though! The 12 weaves were in a corner running into space - towards people - so I had to work her closely through those, and then you turned in for the home straight which was jump-spread-jump-spread - running like hell togther down that line was such a buzz!!! Loved it, loved it, loved it!!!!!!!! And to cap it all she got a lovely 9th place rosette - really super-duper excellent as there were some very fast dogs in there. That little fluffy girly dog never ceases to amaze me and I'm very, very, very proud of her. Dream come true. :D
And I accidentally bought a trailer tent! Was helped with it by such kindness from mates - towing, storing, packing, paying, mechanic-ing. Very blessed indeed with lovely mates, made me go all fluffy! :)
And then Billy flyballed at Drax on the Monday - he was as fab as ever, the team didn't do owt as little Dylan kept, uncharacteristically, running out. Very good day though, enjoyed it.
During the week the Landy got its tailgate guard made & fitted by our lovely mechanic friend Martin - it's all proper posh!!
I put up the trailer tent and it took about an hour - lol! That was with crap non-diagramatic instructions and no clue what went where though, so maybe not too bad. I think I could do it much faster already and it packed down in 5 mins flat. Mum helped with giving it a good clean - though it has been kept beautifully for its age (old!) - and she's made it some pretty new curtains, cushions, etc. Cool!
Tim & I went on a training day on Saturday - he was such a good lad. Really looking forward to next year with him, think he's starting to grow up a little - slooowly, as blokes do :)
It's feeling definately autumnal out and not in a good way - drizzley and darkening. Got to look forward though - to roaring fires and sloe gin! And to look back on a really wonderful agility season :o)