Southern River Trial and Ink

Shim's 3rd trial was at Southern River on Easter Sunday, and again I was happy with her. She managed to run clear in a very tricky NJ course, and secured her 1st win!

NA she gave a good crack at, but it was a really hard course and the ending was not suitable in my opinion, for novice dogs, requiring either a hard rear cross behind a collapsed tunnel, or running into your dog at the other end as they came out blind! Neither option was one I was willing to take, so we chose the easy way home. Her AF was lovely, and I was pleased she ran all the way down her DW with a 90 degree turn off the end, however they are still not nearly as fast as she is doing in training. Hopefully that will come with confidence, she is much less confident in the ring than I expected, one of the reasons I will pull her out after the next 2 country trials.

However, as pointed out by a good friend, maybe that's not such a bad thing, due to her health issues. A kamikazee dog like Terra that throws herself around the course wouldn't last very long with a weak back end! It's interesting watching the way she tucks her back legs up over the jumps, something that most sound dogs do not do. We will take it very easy and only do a limited amount of agility but I am loathe to stop it altogether due to the amount she enjoys it.

Now onto my energiser bunny..Inkle. She is a lovely pup, really pleased with how she is going with her training. Her focus is just as good as Shim's was at her age, and at the states she was working off lead within 2m of dogs running agility. Her focus did not waver at all, she was completely intent on what we were doing and I LOVE that!! Lack of focus in a dog is something I find very frustrating to deal with so I am very pleased she doesn't look like she is going to be much of a problem that way! I think a lot of this natural ability to focus and concentrate is good breeding and genetics, and interestingly the *only* dog I have had problems getting to focus was the dog we bred for *agility* (Secret). What does that say.. maybe that the working sheep people know what they are doing!!

Unfortunately Ink has injured her front leg so for the last week she has been..uh..*resting* (with a little medical help some days!). Hopefully this turns out to be nothing serious or I will have a nervous breakdown.. on a positive note her hips have been checked by an orthopod and he thinks they feel great. She will be radiographed at 12 months, and then we will see..

So I took the opportunity to force..uh I mean ASK Mike to take some pictures of my puppy who is growing up so fast..not that she actually seems to be doing overly much in the growing up or out department, she is absolutely tiny!