Hibiscus Coast Agility Competition, NZ, 4/12/2011

After a long gap in One In A Millions agility training we have finally started to go to club practise again, now we are in New Zealand. She hasn't forgotten anything she learnt and had a great time at the practise sessions in Orewa last Wednesday. So on a very rainy Sunday I decided to enter her for the Orewa Dog training club agility show, down in south Auckland.

I wasn't quite sure what we were going to get from the mad merle today, but to my surprise she was mad no longer, infact she was positively calm. It had taken a journey all the way to the other side of the world for this little dog to calm down. After all her grandfather was a New Zealand Collie so I suppose she has come home?

Anyway we were in Elementary A, and we had a lovely wait on the start line. Then she took off like lightning over the jumps and into the tunnel. For the first time she flowed around the course with ease. Finally my directions and her enthusiasm seemed to click and everything went right. We had one little hickup on a jump, which cost us a few seconds, but otherwise perfect. And as a result of her wonderful effort, her first agility run in NZ gave her a lovely red and white 4th place rosette.

Awesome girly...

UKA Agility Competition, Wadebridge, Cornwall. Saturday 16th August 2009.

Well the time had come I could no longer hold the little one back. Her first competition loomed. Luckily we were on holiday in Cornwall so I was pretty chilled anyway. Not expecting miracles as we hadn't mastered the weaves yet I entered her for 2 jumping rounds and 1 agility round. Walking around the show ground she was really chilled and really keen to get started. At the start line she was oblivious to all the other dogs, she had one thing in mind and that was her doing agility?

The agility round was excellent, a lovely wait on the line and a terrific dogwalk, and she got the contact. More importantly she didn't go under any jumps. There were a few times when she got away from me but she came straight back which is all you can ask. It was a really enjoyable run for me and the little one.

In the second run she had an audience, my wife and my other dog Mohican, I half expected her to do two obstacles and then run back to Mohican for confirmation. So feeling extremely nervous, I stood at the staring post with her. The first obstacles were a set of three jumps, unfortunately to the right was a tunnel and the little girl had spotted it and decided that was going to be the first obstacle for her. Well I set off one way and she set off the other way, not actually triggering the starter, but unfortunately the somewhat obscure tunnel trap had worked.

I suppose One in a Million and I relaxed after that and she ran a stunning round, jumped every jump and cleared the complete course without running out of the ring to Mohican. I was delighted at her focus and speed, and the look of joy on her face at the end reminded me of my first ever competition run with Mohican. I'm really looking forward to the coming years running this little girl.

Welldone One in a million.

What a confident little thing she is.

Well our new arrival has well and truely settled in to the pack. She has already made a great friend in Sherbet. In fact, Sherbet thinks she is a puppy again. They were both playing in the garden for ages yesterday, in and out of the tunnel having great fun. This morning she ran outside and the first thing she did was to run through the tunnel. Clever girl.

Last night we had a barkless one, she was very needy the night before but seems to have settled down. I think the rest of the pack have been teaching her how things are done in their house.

We are going to take her to flyball tonight, obviously not to do it, but lets see what she makes of it all.

A Bit of Merle Goes a Long Way.

A couple of weeks ago we decided that we were going to look for a little Collie for Papia to train up and run on the agility circuit. With the passing away of Queenie this decision was put on hold for a while. But sometimes something so special comes along that you just can't miss an opportunity.

So everyone welcome to the new Lalkukura on the blog. She is a 5 months old Red Merle Collie and is a little treasure. Her mother is a gorgeous black and white Collie called Molly who is well known in the the show arena and her father is non other than Cruise, Alan Bray's wonderful Red Merle Collie.

She entered the Rowe household on the 22nd May 2006, and was immediately accepted by the other dogs in the pack. Infact she was running around playing ball with Lemon and Sherbet within the first few minutes. I have also been told that she likes water? Well she certainly does, she jumped into the wheelbarrow and started paddling her paws whilst it was absolutely tipping it down with rain, in the meantime all the other dogs had run for shelter.

She has bags of personality and is an extremely bright dog. Lets hope she has picked up a bit of Cruise's talent for agility!