World Champs Wrap Up

Am writing this in Holland staying with some family friends..having had a lovely and nostalgic day wandering around Vorschoten, where we used to live (oh and eating all those lovely dutch dishes!)

We had a good time watching all the different dogs and handlers at the world champs, and there were some GREAT dogs there. Have to say, the dogs/handlers that I expected to be wowed by (Canadians, British etc) were not the ones that ended up winning much-suprisingly (to me), it was the RUSSIANS that won just about everything!! They had some nice dogs, especially Éxcellent' who is aptly named, and some very impressive handling AND training skills on the dogs. Their weaving command has to be heard to be believed.. and believe me, those Russian dogs were NAILING their weave entries so it wasnt just one team attempting the hard entries. And now we all know the Russian national anthem very well...

There were some lovely small dogs as well..I fell in love with 'Puzzle', Dawn Weaver's papillion and would have gladly taken him home, and there was a TURBO charged little jack russel running for the Netherlands.

Shaka and I struggled with the level of courses, we both tried hard but our different styles of handling/being handled along with the difficulty of the courses (although easier than I imagined) made it very difficult. He was a lovely boy to live with though, and so quiet in the room we didnt even know he was there! It is a HUGE ask to borrow someone's dog for the week so a massive thanks to Nancy for lending him, and to all the other people that lent dogs to the Australian Team.

We had some nice runs in the team, Fudge (pronounced Foodge) did some nice runs, as did Megan, Tippy, Meg and Kal and others had near misses. Apparently it was live streamed so should be possible to watch somewhere.

All in all it was a pretty amazing experience..and nice to see that our top 500 dogs would probably be competitive in world competition (especially considering all the mistakes that people were making- even top handlers).

Thanks to Cathy, Maria, Marion, Alison (for driving the bus!) and everyone who helped us get there and experience the big event- not many people can say they have competed at the World Agility Championships!

And, hopefully, as Steve said to us at the gala dinner, one day we will be at the Olympics!