March 2012

It has been just over 3 months since I got back to the UK with the 2 girls, Freya and Ostara, and time seems to have gone so quickly compared to the 6 months I spent in Europe with them. All in all, it has been a fairly good 3 months with business picking up slowly but surely, and getting back into agility. We very luckily managed to become members of the Thames Dog Training Agility Club, (thanks to a few people, but especially Daniel), which is great as we managed to start training in January. Since then we competed at the Winter League in February, this was run in the horse arena we train in every Tuesday evening. What is quite different for us is the rules in general here, and the specs of the equipment, lots of differences to FCI.  For example, one difference being the distance between obstacles that the dog has to clear can have a minimum of 3.6m between centres and there is no maximum, and when the following obstacle is placed at 90 degrees or more to the proceeding one, the distance may be reduced to 2.7m.  I could see a lot of South African agility people moaning much better about a lot of things :)

Both Freya and Ostara won their classes, combined 3 -7 Agility rounds. Rob judged at the Winter League for two of the other classes and it was interesting to see people's responses and reactions to his courses, and there were a few moans and groans about contact calls :) (seems a few handlers like to try take a few chances with their contacts, especially with fly offs on the see-saw), but I think once people actually ran the courses they enjoyed them :) Here are the 2 courses:

And here is a photo of Freya and Ostara with their winning rosettes.

This last Saturday we competed at our first Kennel Club show, Mid Downs. Quite a different experience for us compared to competing in South Africa. First of all the number of dogs entered was just WAY more than we are used to. The show was only open to Grades 3 - 7, and they still had over 2000 entries. There were 6 rings running simultaneously, four indoors in a horse arena, with a sand surface and 2 outdoors on a sand and rubber surface. Running on that surface was also a bit different and both Freya and Ostara slipped quite badly a few times. Freya landing on her face at one stage, having a face FULL of sand, and Ostara having a nose dive, and then landing flat on her back in the tunnel.  Ostara competed in 4 different classes, 2 agility classes, Grade 6, and combined Grade 6 & 7, and then 2 jumping rounds, combined Grade 6 & 7, and combined Grade 5 - 7. There were between 180 - 230 dogs in each of her classes. She managed to have 2 clears on her agility rounds, placing her 2nd in the Grade 6 class, and then 5th in the combined 6 & 7 class. Unfortunately this was the round she was flat on her back for a second or two, so she could potentially have had a better placing. In her jumping rounds she had an unfortunate first bar down and then a dq on the second last jump in the other round. But for her first show of the season, I was happy with her results and she worked well, and considering all that excitement with so many dogs barking and going mad in such a confined space, she managed to keep her head together! For those of you who know Ostara it is not an easy thing for her :)

Freya who is now in medium, for those who don't know, was handled by Rob and she competed in 2 rounds. One agility 6 & 7, which she had a nice clear in and came 2nd, and one jumping, which was the round she landed flat on her face in but still managed a 5th place. I really enjoyed watching Freya compete, even though it felt very strange not running her :) We did manage to film a few of our the rounds on the day, but sod's law, when we came to capture them onto the computer, the camera has decided to die a death, and the tape is now stuck inside it! So will not be able to post the videos at this stage.

Freya and Ostara in France November 2011

Here is a video from our holiday in France a few weeks ago. Thank you to my boyfriend Rob Evans for making the video and composing the music :) We had a great time and as you can see from the video, the dogs had so much fun! Freya could have spent the whole day there chasing the birds, she was really quite amusing :) 

Our 6 months is almost up and we are very excited to be able to FINALLY return home at the end of this month. I thought the day would never come, but we should all be home, together, next week :)

Laga and Sumo

I just had to add the new photos of Sumo as he is such a handsome boy :) He was at the Empangeni SPCA calendar launch as a model, and he is in the calendar :)

Laga is Pregnant

I am excited to announce that Laga has been confirmed pregnant today :) The puppies are expected the week of the 19th December, so Christmas puppies. The sire is Tribow again.

SA CH Giftnell Ali's Newsflash of Berkano
(Laga)
HD A1/A1 EB 00 EYE TESTED CLEAR

CH Stavros Tri To Top Me Of Giftnell
(Tribow)
 HD A2/A2, ELBOW 00 EYE TESTED CLEAR

Expected colours: Black & White / Blue & White
Their pedigrees can be viewed here: http://www.giftnell.co.za/proc/pedi_tribow_laga.htm

Even though Laga is still in South Africa, the litter will be called a European name seeing as I have been in Europe for the past 6 months. I have been to quite a few different countries while I have been here, but I have spent most of my time in Belgium so I thought it would be appropriate to name the litter something Belgian. As I like the Belgian beers so much the litter will be called Belgian beer names :)

Here are a few pictures of dogs from Laga's previous litters, father also Tribow.

Giftnell One More Flash of Berkano
(Aradia)

Berkano Tsunami Sumo 

Giftnell Splash In A Flash

Mom, Dad & Daughter - Laga, Tribow and Aradia
Taken at Magaliesburg Country Kennels
http://www.countrykennels.co.za/

Sumo as a puppy

Germany September 2011

Ostara's rounds in Germany in September 2011, 4 first places.

Natal Weekend

As I said I am going to post some rounds from a while ago. Here are some of the rounds from the May Extravaganza weekend in Natal, from 2009! Ostara had a great weekend winning 7 of the rounds, therefore winning 7 QC's. Little Freya also did well, and won 2 QC's.


The first round is an agility round, and as you will see we almost had a problem with the tunnel coming loose, but luckily Ostara wasn't bothered by it!

The next round is a non contact round (a jumping round - in SA, there is another class which they call dog jumping which is basically the same thing but with a few different rules). I have also added Freya's round as she came 2nd to her sister Ostara. Shame she always tries so hard, but doesn't manage to beat Ostara :)

The 3rd round is a jumping round but unfortunately we had a knock. Pity but that is agility for you!

The fourth round is another jumping round, which was a nice course. Not a great round but we managed to keep it together.

 

The 5th round is an agility round. Not her best round, but she still managed a clear and won.

The 6th round is a dog jumping round. In dog jumping the heights of the jumps were allowed to be set higher than 650 and there are a maximum of 15 obstacles. There may be 2 rounds. All the teams that go clear in the first round, then go through to the jump off round. I only have the video of Ostara's first round, where she was clear and went through to the jump off which she won.

The next round is an agility round, unfortunately the camera man (won't mention names) missed half the round!

And finally, the last round I have is a dog jumping round, which is just the jump off round. Note the massive triple at the end. Shame Ostara made such a huge effort to clear that jump! :) She is such a special girl!

Alison Roets & Ostara TKC Winner

I have been looking through all my footage from agility shows, and have found some really good rounds, some really dodgy rounds and some amusing rounds. I will be posting them to my blog over the next while :)
This is one of Ostara's rounds in SA from quite a while ago! :)