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Hamar - My Graduation While
I was attending breed shows I had won another 3 tickets so was now known
as a Champion, then on my summer holiday in Ireland won enough green
stars to be called a Irish Champion
as well. While I was bringing home
the 'tickets' Whisky was bring home place and clear round rosettes from
agility competitions. Since I started my agility career a couple of years ago my reputation now precedes me. When I started people used to say, "what is he" does he jump? Now people say "here's the Elkhound, he's quite good" and the judge now watches me very carefully to make sure I don't make any mistakes. Because of the large number of dogs taking part in each class, place rosettes are given to approximately 10% of the entry and in Elementary, Starters and Novice classes rosettes are usually given for clear rounds. Now I often come home with a clear round rosette, sometimes I do and Whisky doesn't so who is the agility dog now! Only kidding, Whisky has a board full of place rosettes and another one of clear rounds. There are five dogs in the family now and we all enjoy going to obedience and agility especially the weekend agility shows when we stay in the caravan. I've retired from showing now to concentrate on my agility so come on any of you out there who would like to give it a try, come and join me. Ch.
and Ir. Ch Fuliani Silent Thought |
I realised that the reason nobody minded me not
going clear was that I was considered to be a beauty dog, not an
activity dog. Well with my breeding I couldn't allow this (some of my
grandparents and great grandparents were hunting champions). With
Debbie's help of doing a few minutes of obedience before I went into the
ring to help my concentration, together with attending my agility
lessons twice a week I soon started to almost go clear. The trouble is
apart from going clear, it has to be done in a certain time usually
about 45 seconds, to speed things up I used to jump off the A frame and
miss out weaves but that didn't seem very popular! Now I don't have to
do obedience before going into the agility ring and I often get clear
rounds, my highest placing to date is 10th at the southern Border Collie
Club show. I also enjoyed doing the breed class at the Scottish Kennel
Club Championship Show and then running straight down into the agility
ring. I would have gone clear but I jumped over the ring ropes to see
Mum who was standing there watching me and then jumped back into the
ring and finished the course. But my 45 seconds were up so visiting my
Mum cost me a clear round (and there weren't many in that class so I'd
probably have got placed) never mind everyone laughed.