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.

Two weekends... playing catch-up

Over the last two weekends, we had two non-champ shows, Liesbeek on the 17th and Belgian on the 24th. We didn't have such a good day on the first, although Emma ran two clear rounds to receive a 1st place in Contact and a 3rd place in Non-Contact, Levi missed a contact and DQ'd in his non-contact run. The Belgian show went much better and Levi was a star! He won both Contact and Non-Contact rounds with fast clear rounds, with Emma 3nd in both runs.

Thanks to Keegan for the clip of Levi's Non-Contact run.

Success in Bloem!

Thursday the 7th saw us taking on the long 1000km journey to Bloemfontein. The car was packed and the excitement high as the doggies knew, something was up! Our trip started off with some road trouble, when we rode over something, not even 100km from home and had to change one of the brand new tyres! It was 5:30am in the morning, and luckily an angel truck driver stopped to help us. Soon back on the road again, but without a proper spare, as the tyre was too damaged to fix, we continued to Bloem. Nowhere could we find a replacement tyre in the size we needed, so with fingers crossed that nothing else would go wrong, we continued driving. Luckily we made it to Bloem safe and sound, and immediately had the tyre replaced once we arrived.

Now the weekend filled with Agility fun could begin.

Friday saw mixed results, as Emma ran clear in Non-Contact, but missed a contact in both her contact rounds. She managed 3 second places in those first 3 rounds to current SA champ Benji. The fourth brought elation when she ran a clear Non-Contact round to win her second CC! Our fast competition, Benji and Levi, both made mistakes and the honours went to my girl! Levi worked very well, but mommy's bad handling saw us DQ in both our contact and non-contact rounds, not a very good start to the weekend for my boy, but watch this space!

BC sister Chinzi qualified in both her first two runs, Contact 1 and Non-Contact 1, beating her litter sister Ich, but not on speed! Some work to be done there girl. :)

She knocked a bar in her next Contact round and had an unfortunate DQ in the next Non-Contact round.

Saturday arrived with all of us very tired, but still enjoying all the action. We started the day off by going to the Boeremark for the Dog Jumping Interprovincial Competition. Unfortunately being only 2 handlers from our Province, we didn't have a full Mini team, and although Ansie with Tiger and me with Emma both had 2 clear rounds, our team did not feature in the results. Our stand-in teammate, Spy with Sam from PE, did very well for such a young team.

Chinzi DQ'd in her first round, but her second round was a stunning fast clear one, where she actually outran her dad, SA and World Champ, Chi, by 0.2 seconds! Mom was ecstatic, to say the least! We're on our way to big things! The Beagles obviously cheered for their BC sister! :)

Back at the Agility venue, our champ shows continued, Levi and Chinzi both qualified in Contact, Chinzi to move up to Grade 2. Emma ran clear in the Dog Jumping, but we had a slow round in the jump-off. Chinzi competed against 30 of the top dogs in the country to run her first round clear and qualify for the jump-off. No pressure when her aunt Ostara, who will also be representing SA at the FCI World Champs in Finland this year, ran a magnificant blitzing fast clear round and her dad Chi waiting in the wings for his turn. With a wicked weave-entry, Chinzi stunned me by going clear! Her dad running straight after her, beat her time by just over half a second, but she still managed to get a 3rd placing, and probably attaining the best result of her short jumping career so far. This was the sweetest result and one to be remembered and celebrated for a long time to come.

Sunday morning... two runs left each... starting off with Non-Contact 3... no pressure...
Emma ran first... clear... but with the course time set very high, probably not without time faults... Benji made a mistake and DQ'd on a tunnel... Levi to go, no pressure...
LEVI ran CLEAR to win his second CC! What a nice surprise my boy! It was a twisty, turny, really hard course and Levi took a few wide turns, barking at mom shouting at him to turn back, but eventually we managed it and oh was it sweet! :)

To top it all off, he later also ran clear in Contact grade 2, to obtain his last qualification and finally move up to grade 3. I was so proud of my boy, who had such a horrible start with 4 DQs on Friday, to end on such a high note.

Emma lost out on the overall trophy by one point to Benji. Still a good effort for my girl, well done Em! Unfortunately not much video was taken, and I was so busy that I didn't take much photos either, but will upload as soon as I get a few from other people.

One of Levi's rounds:

After prize giving, we attended another SADAA Club Trial, and with all doggies really tired, they actually did very well. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and with only about 20 dogs on a lazy Sunday afternoon, Levi worked like a dream, only JUST missing his dogwalk contact, but going clear in Jumping. Emma ran clear in Agility 3, didn't run her in Jumping as her card is already full, she couldn't really achieve anything it being a Club Trial. Chinzi also missed one contact, but qualified in Jumping 1. Nice way to end a looong and tiring weekend. Well done to my jumping kids! Woof-woof for all the Q's and CC's! :)

OTT Club Trial 3 August

We had fun at the Club Trial on Sunday. Levi once again had a very good day and was the star of the family, managing two clear rounds. The first was in Jumping 3 and the second was in Agility 2, to gain another qualification. He now only needs one more to move up to SADAA Agility grade 3.

Chinzi had a good run in Jumping 1, a very difficult grade 1 course, only making one small mistake. In Agility her mom's handling resulted in a disqualification.

Emma ran a nice fast and clear Jumping 3 round, of which the clip is below. Unfortunately she missed one contact in her Agility run, still managing first place though.

Levi's day!

Saturday was Levi's day! I'm so proud of my boy. He ran two beautiful clear and very fast rounds. The first was in Contact Grade 2 to gain a qualification with the most stunning weave-pole entry... and the second run was in Non-Contact Grade 3, at a speed of 5.1m/s! He was my star of the day! Unfortunately I have no video of his runs. :(

Emma had an OK day, mommy made a bad handling error which caused us to disqualify in the Dog Jumping event. In Contact Grade 3 she still managed a win, although on a straight we were going so fast that she sent a bar flying! :) In Non-Contact her clear round only managed a 3rd place, as Beagle brother Levi obviously took the honours of first place there.

BC sister Chinzi had a 5-faulter day, knocking a bar in each of her 3 rounds sadly. Looking on the bright side, she worked very well, had brilliant contacts and lovely weave-pole entries, all at lightning fast speeds. She still managed a 3rd place in Contact 1 and a 1st in Non-Contact 1.

Well done to my 3 jumping kids! It was a very enjoyable show, and they did me proud.

Now I'm lying sick in bed, but hopefully will recover by the weekend in time for our next trial on Sunday.

Oh, and Chinzi also obtained her FDX (Flyball Dog Excellent) status on Saturday, but more about that on her own blog.

Big woofs and wags from the Beagles.

Emma with her medals and overall rosette.