Success in PE!

We had a very eventful weekend, starting off with the looong road trip on Friday, after which we were very tired. Saturday saw us competing in cloudy conditions with some wind in the afternoon. Sunday was near perfect weather.

Emma competed in the highest Grade for Jumping and Agility, Grade 3 and Levi in Agility 2 and Jumping 3. Emma started off slow-ish, but picked up speed nicely towards the end of the weekend giving her fastest performance in her last Contact run on Sunday afternoon. Levi once again had a problem with the higher SADAA tyre, running underneath it every time, but doing it the second time at least, every run.

Levi had one very good Contact run on Saturday, getting all his contacts and with wonderfull speed, but unfortunately he knocked the very first jump, so just lost out on a qualification. He managed two 3rd placings.

Emma was a SUPERSTAR with 7 out of 8 clear rounds over the entire weekend, to end tied top Mini Dog on points, but then over-all speed was looked at, she just lost out and came 2nd. Still a wonderfull achievement for my little girl! The doggie who won had 6 clear rounds, but because they drop the scores of your two worst rounds, and him being a little faster than Emma, he walked away with the tropy, still very well deserved.

I am VERY pleased to report that Levi won his first ever medal (medals only awarded in Grade 3), bronze in Jumping, missed his QC towards Champion by half a second. Still a wonderfull achievement competing against Border Collies and Aussies in the Top Grade 3 Midi category.

Emma was consistent with her precision clear rounds, unfortunately many times just losing out on a podium placing, getting fourth because of her speed. She received 2 medals, one silver and one bronze.

Here we are catching a snooze in the car on the long trip back home.

Thanks to Nadine Shortland for the action photos and Wessel for the video of Levi's round.

Trip coming up...

We had a bath today for the long trip starting tomorrow. The trailer's packed with all the 'stuff' and our beds are nicely made in the back of the car. Guess we're not sooo looking forward to the 800km drive tomorrow, but can't wait for the 8 Agility runs over the weekend!




We haven't had time for much tricks lately, but Emma made a mini breakthrough, getting the forward figure eight through my legs right! Hopefully we can start making some video clips soon... just have to add a couple of more tricks first.

Highs and Lows...

This past weekend was one of amazement, records, but also disappointments here and there. Levi who has about a 50% disqualification record, ran 5 runs in a row without disqualifying once! That is a record! Unfortunately we had some difficult weave entries and had faults in every round, so that was a little disappointing, but we'll look on the bright side and remember the good, no disqualifications! Well done Levi my boy!

Emma was her good old consistent self, and except for mommy making a few handling errors, she ran fast and clear most of the time. She's edging closer and closer to the top dogs' times! Keep it up Emma!

The Beagles' Border Collie sister, celebrated the weekend in astonishing fashion, with obtaining her second qualification in only her fourth competing round! Way to go Chinzi, and may this be only the beginning of GREAT things to come!

AWC Qualifying Trial Videos

Here is Emma and Levi in action in the 3rd Trial's Jumping run...

It's official... SA Champs, here we come!

The final results from the whole country, after all four AWC Qualifying Trials, have been announced. Emma came fifth overall in the medium category, and Levi joint seventh! So both my Beagle kids will be competing at the SA Champs this year and the AWC Finals in order to try to make the SA team for Finland. The event will be held at the Good Hope Centre in Cape Town, so lucky for us, no travel this year. You can see more about the event at www.dogzcool.com

Please hold thumbs for us, as we'll be trying our Beagle best! :)

I'll be posting clips of the best rounds from Emma and Levi during this year's AWC Qualifying trials soon.

AWC Trials...

Last year, my dogs were still very young, and it was a wonder that Emma made the top 10 and was invited to go compete at the SA Champs. This year, I was hoping to do a little better, but in the first 2 trials (we only have 4) Levi disqualified in both contact and non-contact runs, so I didn't have much hope for him making it.

He however pulled through in Trial 3 with 2 very good rounds, to go from 0 to 18 points! Emma, litte "Miss Consistent", at that stage stood on 24 points. Trial 4 was nerve-wrecking as Levi had to score points to still stand a chance of making the top 10. When he DQ'd in his contact run, I wasn't very hopefull, but he pulled through with a stunning non-contact run, the video clip below, to end on a total of 26 points, which should be enough to earn him a 7th place overall. Emma is lying 5th, but we will be hearing the final verdict this coming week, after the last round was run in KZN.

At the beach...

...September 2005, Levi's first visit to the sea, and oh how he loved it!

We love walking on the beach, as there's sea on the one side and bush on the other, so really not too easy for the Beagles to disappear. This is where we learnt to come back when called, no roads close by, and easiest place for mommy to practise the "Beagle recall".