Too Many Nemeses

All the way to Scunthorpe for an 8.30am start and all for one run before lunch. We have five other runs but they will all be in the afternoon. Doggo kind of makes it all worthwhile with his usual clear round but only just. Suppose it was his first outdoor show of the season, so I’ll let him off, one of us is probably just rusty.

Then it’s time to walk Psycho’s first course. MD is making his debut at a full Kennel Club show and it’s not exactly a nice course to start with, a real toughie. Thankfully though no tyre. I would say that the tyre is, at the moment, our nemesis but MD probably has too many nemeses to mention.

Despite the toughness of the course, his performance is pretty decent, fifteen faults (that’s three errors at five faults each). His second course though is a horror show, we get eliminated but what’s worse is that for the first time ever a judge asks me to leave the ring because he is taking so long to do the weaves. How embarrassing. In five years of competing with Doggo I’ve never been asked to leave the ring but I understood the judge’s point of view. We were holding up proceedings. He wouldn’t do the weaves at all. The only reason that I can think of for this is because there were only six of them and I’ve only been training him on the full twelve.

His final course had a tyre in it, so we were beaten before we started really but guess what, we get asked to leave the ring again and by a different judge. This time I was not happy. Just because I indulged in a spot of ‘illegal training’ by lifting him back onto a missed contact point. We’d only been in the ring ten seconds. That’s never happened before and I’d done that many times with Doggo in past.

Meanwhile Doggo slots in another clear. Then another elimination but not from MD, from Doggo. Gutted. That wasn’t supposed to happen. It was really good course for him too. Evil in fact, just how we like them, the judge was obviously under the influence when she set it. Lots of dogs were getting eliminated which gave us a great chance of a high placing. The start section was horrendous but we negotiated it fine. Then Doggo decided to go for a tunnel that wasn’t even in front of him. Huh! So miffed with him. We are so not speaking.

After all that I need a pint, well several actually. Thankfully L has had an equally traumatic day, so we mop up all the alcohol we can in Nottingham, taking in the Canalhouse and the Newshouse for a bit of variety from our usual haunts.