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.

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. :)

Getting up to date...

We had 3 shows/trials during the while I've been MIA... :) Not having very good results, but here's a short summary of what went down over the last couple of weeks...

We had an Open Show on 11 October on our grounds where Emma normally finds the bird poo more interesting than the agility obstacles... however, she was the only dog to not get disqualified in the Contact round, so got a first place there, albeit with two missed contacts! :-o She had a refusal, turning back in front of a tunnel to visit some bird-poo, as well as a knocked bar in her Non-Contact round, but still coming 2nd there. Levi had two DQ's on this day, very naugthy running off in the first round, but at least working in the second, although we made a mistake.

Next show was a Club Trial on 18 October in 30 degree Stellenbosch heat, and Levi having to jump 55cm as SADAA falls under IFCS not FCI. He however made me very proud by getting his last qualification in Agility 2, winning the midi group and moving up to Grade 3. In Jumping he also managed a clear round, but unfortunately only getting a 3rd place due to having to run against much taller BCs. Little Em ran clear in Agility, but in the Jumping round she refused a tunnel as the dog before her peed insided it and the blistering heat made the tunnel fumes too much for her! LOL! They washed it out and was allowed a re-run, but by that time she was so tired from having to almost run it for the 3rd time, she just said, why on earth do you want me to do this AGAIN, no no way! :) Of course I couldn't blame her. Was just disappointing at the time, but quite funny afterwards.

On Friday 24 October, we had a Championship, top grade only show. It was lovely and cool by the time evening arrived as we had a very hot day of flyball behind us. Levi caught me SO off guard by taking off like a rocket, that I was just too far behind him from the word GO to even think of catching up... we managed about 8 obstacles when he took the wrong jump after the dogwalk and we DQ'd. ALL the other mediums had faults, and Emma ran last, just having to run clear within time to win the coveted QC. The time was set quite high, and the only dog having gone clear, and more or less same speed as Emma normally, had 1 time fault, so off we went, all out! Being evening cool weather, Emma was MOVING and unfortunately so much that we missed the dogwalk contact, so thereafter we pushed for time even more, as we had nothing to lose. She then missed the A-frame contact as well, but ran the fastest time of the day and still came 2nd. Not too bad under the circumstances. :) In the Non-Contact, a very complicated course, I made a bad error with Levi, resulting in another DQ. I also took my eyes off Emma for a second and we also DQ'd. Well, it was fun nonetheless and we just WISH we could have more evening trials in summer, it was LOVELY, especially for the Beagles, working much faster than at any other time in the day. Anyway, I guess we can only dream...

The 26th came and we had another Club Trial... not one to speak much about... thorns made both my Beagles refuse to run the Jumping run, after which the ring was moved to another field. I made a handling error with Levi, resulting in a DQ and Emma again missed 2 contacts, but still managed a 1st place in that round.

So as you can see, not very good results over the last few weeks, lets hold thumbs this will change in the next few weeks. :)

Beagling Champion!

Levi - Western Cape Beagling Champion 2008

Attending only 3 of 7 Drag Hunts this season, due to Agility priorities clashing, Levi still managed to snatch the title from the other hounds. It was an exciting last run as there were 4 hounds with total points tally lying very close.

Here are some pics of the outing, thanks to Nico Nel.

Levi with his "grandpa" Mike! Mike owns Indy, 7 year-in-a-row Beagling Champion and Levi's father. Levi proudly following in his dad's footsteps.

Action...

Levi leaving the pack behind...

Laying the drag...

Off they go...

Drinking & Swimming in the dam halfway...

Scenery...

Emma coming round the corner with the leaders...

Levi leading the pack...

Another QC for Levi!

We had another champ show yesterday, and my boy had 2 clear rounds. The first in contact, where he won his second QC, so one more to go to become champion! :)

The second clear round in non-contact was a bit slower than competitor, Jack Russel Garro, who took the QC.

Levi really worked well and we enjoyed the challenging courses. Unfortunately once again, no video.

Emma was disappointing, as she was not interested in running at all. She was very very slow and only picked up on the last stretch of all her runs. It was really very frustrating. I am not sure whether to take her out of competition for a while or not, as I suspect she's getting bored again. It's also going to be summer soon, and she has never performed when it's hot, so will have to see. For now I'm definitely not going to take her to training, I will only train with Levi. Me & my boy will have to start pushing if we want to beat the fast dogs' times. Mantis (mini Aussie) who is really fast, will also be back in competition from the next show onwards, as she was busy with a litter of pups she had about 8 weeks ago. So, exciting and challenging times ahead! :)

Well, will keep you posted.

For now, I'm enjoying the AWC from million miles away, watching the live results update as they happen... also enjoyed some video clips, until there were some hassles and now, no more clips. :(

Really want to go as a supporter next year! Very exciting!!!

From Highs to Lows

After the high of the GSD champ show where all doggies did well and Emma became a champion, to the lows of Chinzi injuring her leg very badly last week. She will be out for quite a few months, but more on her blog http://www.chinzigotops.blogspot.com/

The Beagles performed well at the last two shows, the first being Breede Rivier where it was raining and the Agility was cancelled. We only had a jumping run in the rain, which was a very very difficult and challenging course. Emma managed to run clear and win it, with Levi getting one refusal at a very tricky section, but still coming 2nd on the day.

This past weekend saw us running at the Bulldog Champ show, where Emma initially didn't feel like running and had a very poor performance in the Agility round, incurring 15 course faults, very unlike her, as well as time faults, but still managing a 3rd place. Levi was running extremely well, but a handling error caused us to DQ on a tunnel with 3 jumps to go! The Jumping run went a lot better with Levi only missing his Championship status CC by 0.57 seconds to Garro, a Jack Russel who represented SA at the IFCS World Champ event earlier this year. We had a donut just before a tunnel near the end of the course, and that was probably what cost us the QC. Well, tomorrow is another day with more chances. :) Emma redeemed herself magnificantly by only ending 2 seconds behind Levi in 4th place, with another fast Sheltie in between them coming 3rd. Chinzi was sorely missed at this event and all was done with a lump in my throat.

On Sunday we went Beagling and had loads of fun. Levi again won 4 of the 5 drags easily. Once the scent was dragged up a very steep hill, and him being agility fit, creamed that race by winning the rest of the pack by miles! The photo where he is alone in the picture is of this specific drag where he was so far ahead, not even another dog was in the picture! :)

Thanks to Mario Fourie for the photos.

EMMA IS A CHAMPION!

- NEWSFLASH - My little Emma became my first ever Champion -

This past weekend has been the best of my Agility Career so far! We started off Saturday with a Fun Day Fundraiser for our friend Linda who will be attending the FCI AWC in Finland with her Brittany, Dylan, later this month. We had loads of fun playing Agility Games and everyone really enjoyed themselves.

Sunday came the big Champ Show... really expensive entry fees and the nerves were on the go in full force. Lucky for me, Chinzi's flyball event which always starts the day off, alleviates most of the pressure somewhat as it's so fast and hectic that there's no chance to be stressed and the adrenalin starts pumping. Once again Chinzi's team won the event with a time of 19.09 seconds... still trying our best to break the 19sec barrier, but hopefully soon soon!

On to the Agility where we ran Contact first. It was Levi's first time out in Grade 3 (top grade) in the Contact discipline. The course started of quite open and flowing, but had a few twists and turns in the middle. First I ran with Emma, and she ran a beautiful clear round, quite fast for her standards, even though I slowed her down a tad on the contacts to make sure, she still managed 4.3 m/s. Next I ran Levi, and although it wasn't our most flowing round ever, we made it round, also clear and in a time 2 seconds faster than Emma, managing 4.5 m/s to win the QC, Levi's first ever in Contact! Mom was ecstatic and now the day was made, nothing else mattered, this was enough to keep me smiling the whole day and the next week!

BC sister Chinzi was next up in Contact Grade 1, and she ran a quite slow-ish round to her standards, only managing 4.3 m/s, but also gaining a Qualification and a 1st place. On to the Dog Jumping, where Chinzi having to face the "Doberman Jump" for the first time ever, got a bit of a fright and ran round them... unfortunately giving us a refusal fault which meant, no Jump-off for Chinzi, but other than that, we had a good round. Emma had to run the same course and went clear, so later it would be her and a few little ones in the Jump-off for the Dog Jumping QC.

Non-Contact arrived and me and Chinzi had a horrible round in a icy and very strong wind, which blew a jump over while we were running, Chinz also popped out the weaves too early and knocked two bars, but funnily enough, we still managed a 3rd place. Not one to be proud of, but I guess the icy and windy conditions influenced the other competitors as well.

Jumping Run-off saw Emma beat little speedster Lizzie by 0.1 seconds, to win the QC! Her second in the Dog Jumping discipline.

Finally, the last huge event of the day, Non-Contact 3... it was a course with quite a tricky section after the weavepoles and it took some real hard thinking and planning to figure out how to be prepared for this. This time, Levi was up first... both Beagles standing on 2 QC's in this discipline each, and with them having a 1st and 2nd place finish in the Contact, the chances were pretty good for either of them walking away with the honours of becoming my first ever champion. Levi was up first... we negotiated the really tricky part quite well, to my great surprise, and sped on to the rest of the course... down a straight with a sharp turn coming up towards a tunnel, but with a jump straight ahead, NOT to be taken... mom suddenly scared that Levi might carry on straight over the jump, turned a TAD too early, making him veer past the last jump he should have taken, straight into the tunnel, resulting in a very unfortunate elimination for us, as he was going like a rocket and well on his way to his 2nd QC of the day. Emma was next up... and now it was ALL or NOTHING... lucky for me the icy conditions always make my girl run faster, and she went like a rocket! The tricky section we negotiated to perfection and was probably the tightest on the day! She responded beautifully to finish with a speed of 4.4m/s, probably her fastest ever on a course of this difficulty. She was 5 seconds faster than then next dog with a clear round and SHE WON THE QC! My girl became the first Beagle in South Africa to become a Non-Contact Agility Champion! My day couldn't have been any better. Such a sweet result, for such a sweet dog, and so well deserved. EMMA, MY CHAMPION! :) I am so so so proud of my little Beagle girl!

It was a day well worth the money spent. Not only did we receive the most beautiful trophies for placings, in total my 3 doggies received roundabout 32kg of dog food, which also is the stuff I feed, so it was a bonus! Chinzi's flyball prize was Frontline for 2 months for all 3 of them, so mommy was smiling all the way!

Photos of the stars and the trophies will be posted soon!

Very unfortunate, but I do not have any video clips of these rounds.