The Boys Go Head To Head

I get up early this morning, really early, like 5am early, and head up to Preston for the Interclub agility match, 12 clubs from the region going head-to-head. I car share and have female company on the way up but she’s 63, so I think I got away with it. She can talk for England... Which keeps me awake, alive and actually makes the journey seem quicker, despite the horrible weather on the motorway.

The nature of the event is that all the dogs compete over the same courses against each other for their team, whilst also being ranked individually in their grades. This means I can actually compare Doggo and MD for speed. The result is 3-1 to the old timer. Mainly because MD messes around, gets a few refusals and brings down the odd pole. On the one course where he gets everything right he is two seconds faster than Doggo and that gets him 6th in his grade. Surprisingly Doggo is three seconds quicker on another course that MD nearly got round, only missing the last jump. I thought it would have been closer than that but it just goes to show that there’s life in the old dog yet. Perhaps it’s the diet I have him on.

In fact he’s Mr Perfect at times today, even stopping on his contacts. Well until his last run but we get away with it and score valuable points for the team. Our team comes third which isn’t bad but we’ve become accustomed to winning this event, we’ve won three out of the last five.

As regards my success with Doggo’s diet, L suggests that I mention how much weight I got off him on my CV for when I take up Personal Training. She says it would get me floods of female customers, albeit probably overweight ones, as long as I don’t mention that he's a dog.

I’m sure the technique is transferable. Keep the clients locked in the house during the day, on a lead when away from the house, except when chasing a ball on the park of course, only allowing them the meals I feed them myself and if they’re good they get to sleep at the bottom of my bed. Simple. I should write a book on it, it would outsell the Atkins Diet. As long as I don't have problems with the Human Rights Act though.

Rumour has it that Son had an awesome time last night, so he obviously isn’t missing us or Nottingham too much. It certainly doesn’t sound as if he was Billy No Mates in his room.

(Sunday 3rd October)

We Needn’t Have Bothered

I’m at the East Of England Showground today, near Peterborough. Yes, it's another dog show. L joins me for the day out and I even manage to blag her a free ticket. It’s a full country show type thing, so there’s an admission charge for non-competitors.

On the competition front, things start well and Doggo seems up for it on a difficult course until he goes over a jump that he wasn’t supposed to, he should have been doing the A Frame. It may have been more my fault than his, he was going for it and I just didn’t have tight enough control of him. On his next course we get our combined acts together and we get a rosette for 10th.

MD in the typical fashion he has now adopted, follows a good first run with a bad second one and then rounds the day off with another good one. Although none of them are clear rounds, he does seem to be making progress and he’s undoubtedly getting quicker.

In their final runs of the day and for the first time ever the two dogs compete over the same course. This is because it’s an open class, that means open to all grades, you don’t get many of these. Doggo is clear in 27.4, MD has just five faults (a pole down) in 28.7. So not much between them time wise but MD at the moment is a bit wayward and hardly takes the shortest route. So I expect him to be going faster than Doggo fairly soon, though we still need to cut the faults out.

We head home mid-afternoon, all runs complete and as it starts to rain. Well first I give MD a quick run out in the practice ring. He’s a dedicated dog, training in the rain, not that I gave him any say in the matter.

We are back in ample time to head in to town to watch the England match, we needn’t have bothered...

At least we rescue the evening by having a good meal in Scruffy’s, including an awesome cheeseboard.

There Hasn’t Been Much Else To Do

To cap my choice of wrong race over the weekend. I get to work to find that Protégé, who ran Long Eaton on Sunday, was over two minutes slower than last year, so I would almost certainly have beaten him particularly as I’m feeling in form at the moment. Unless of course my presence spurred him on to knock a few extra minutes off but he hadn’t train much for it. Then again had he thought I was going to be there he may have trained harder.

I enquired when his next race was, thinking of a head-to-head, but he said Long Eaton 2011. I think he's avoiding me.

The World Cup is on and in full flow. Well, it’s more of a trickle than a flow. This is perhaps why all the talk is of the vuvuzelas, those annoying horns. People have been complaining in their droves to the BBC, as if it’s their fault. Perhaps most things are but surely not this time. You can’t really blame the supporters, I mean there hasn’t been much else to do whilst the games have been on, you wouldn't really have wanted to watch many of them.

All the same the BBC seem willing to take the rap for it and have said they will consider showing coverage that cuts out the noise of the vuvuzelas on its red button service. If they can tamper with their live coverage like that, then can they also cut out the goalkeeping errors and other bad play when England are on. Thanks.



Training tonight for both the boys. Both do well. We have a double header of shows this weekend and I’m quietly optimistic.