My Beagles...

Emma and Levi......are 5 months apart. Emma was born 3 November 2004 and I soon realised she needed a playmate. I was very lucky to find Levi within a few months of getting Emma, as I waited nearly two years for Emma!Levi was born 28 March 2005 and was the naughtiest puppy alive! Him and Emma immediately hit it off and became the best of Beagle Buddies.I desperately needed to find an outlet for my Beagle kids' energy, and ventured into the world of agility. It soon became one of my biggest passions, apart from the Beagle breed, and today Emma and Levi are both competing in the top grades. I made a friend in Slovenia, running her Beagle Xsara in agility, and she inspired me to start teaching them tricks. I'm enjoying it very much and hopefully this blog will be as entertaining and inspiring to others, as Xsara's is to me.

Monday, November 17, 2008

LEVI BECAME A DUAL AGILITY CHAMPION!

NEWSFLASH - This past weekend Levi won 3 Qualifying Certificates, two in Contact and one in Non-Contact to become a Champion in both disciplines! Needless to say, I was ECSTATIC, and still is!!!

The saddest part about all this, is that I only have one of his 3 brilliant rounds on video. :(

Emma also fared very well with 3 clear rounds, 2 x 5faulters and one DQ. She came 2nd overall and Levi 3rd.

Summary of results:

Show 1 - Contact - Emma 3rd, Levi DQ / Non-Contact - Emma 2nd Clear & Levi DQ
Show 2 - Contact - Levi 1st (QC), Emma 2nd Clear / Non-Contact - Emma&Levi DQ
Show 3 - Contact - Levi 1st (QC), Emma 3rd / Non-Contact - Levi 1st (QC), Emma 3rd Clear

It was a very hot weekend in Malmesbury and I wet Emma with ice water before each run, which seemed to have helped. She performed better than expected given her history of going extremely slow when it's hot. She even ran one Contact round so fast, her time was only 4 sec slower than Levi's! Now that takes some doing! :)

I am very very happy with both doggies' performances and look forward to another weekend of 6 rounds each coming up. This time it will be under SADAA (IFCS) so Levi will have to jump 55cm instead of only 45cm, so not expecting him to do so well with BC's as competition, but we are still going to go out there and have some fun.

Emma qualified for the Nationals this coming weekend, but she is up against some very stiff competition, so not hoping for any miracles, also just going out to have fun and do our best.

Here are some rounds from the weekend...

Emma's Contact Round Clear, 2nd to Levi...

Levi's Contact Round where he became a Contact Champion...

So sad that I didn't get the Sunday's Contact round, as that was really a good round, as well as the Non-Contact one, but my "camera man" at the time had some technical difficulties. :)

Thanks to Chantal for recording these two clips.

Sunday, November 2, 2008

2 from 3 for Emma on one day!

Emma stole the show at our Champ show yesterday when she won 2 QCs! She beat very strong competition in the Contact to win the QC, her first in this discipline and MUCH to my surprise! Levi DQ'd due to my "too-slow" handling AGAIN! Emma also won the Dog Jumping QC, her 3rd in this discipline, but unfortunately two under the same judge, so she doesn't qualify as a Champion quite yet. Nonetheless, it was an Emma day. :) In Non-Contact Levi ran as fast as he's probably ever done, but unfortunately we DQ'd on a tunnel. Emma stepped in a thorn again and refused a jump, whereafter I DQ'd her to take the thorn out first, but thereafter she also ran a beautiful round.

I recieved Emma's Non-Contact Champion Certificate from KUSA on Friday, so photo's of my little Champion will follow soon. It's also her 4th birthday tomorrow, but more about that later. :)
Photos in slideshow courtesy of Gary Killian.

Levi pulling out front in Drag Hunt

Photos in slideshow courtesy of Nico Nel.