Last night at Catherston

and the end of an Era. The Bonnie agility Era started at Catherston at the beginning of 2008, and ended with her retirement at Christmas 2012 at the first leg of the Christmas competition. Pip started training proper in Nov 2011 in the beginners group and went into G1-2 in Jan so in a way the Cholderton move heralds a new era for me too, the Pip agility Era. Hopefully the start of something great!

Last night certainly led me to believe that! He was amazing and I was mostly good with just a few handler mistakes, but we had such fun.

Steeplechase first and we went first as we were ready. An easy start with 4 offset jumps, then a handler error with a front cross where actually there shouldn't have been one saw a fence dwon and a Pip trying to go the worng way, but we recovered did the tunnel jump pull through to tunnel, and back round the jumps. Then a right turn to 2 jumps with 1 stride between and into 12 weaves 3 strides from 2nd jump. I handled it ok, but he missed the entry - it was just too short and he hasnt practised that. 2nd attempt at the weaves and he hammered them.

A LOT of noisy yapping though :(

Then agility rounds. This was amazing to run :) First round we just went for it (hell why not :) ) Tyre to seesaw (ally with rubber - 1st time - no hesitation) nailed the 2o2o and immediate release to jump, left right angle turn to 3 jumps, left right angle to jump, then seesaw, then send ahead to jump and tunnel whilst I front cross to DW. Flat out over DW - really low and fast, nice 2o2o immediate release send on to jump and back to me to A frame - amazing Aframe jumping the apex and brilliant 2o2o release to long jump. 23.7 sec WOWOWOW. We just flew and were in perfect communication. He loved it and hung off his toy at the end.

2nd round he broke his wait but was through the tyre before I realised, so we carried on with mental not to train the next wait. I also didnt release the contacts this time, but his speed carried him off a couple although he ran them all not jumped. Put him back on though just to make the point that I didnt release. Still flew the rest with (I think) just one pole down.

3rd round was a slightly different course with a muppet mum moment on the tunnel to DW turn as I kept getting it wrong and getting in his way. gave up after 2 attempts as he was going brilliantly it was just me! This time I made sure he held the wait (he did) so I went back and rewarded it lots.

Much less barky once he had done a bit and I fed him every time he was quiet.

I was just on such a high - it felt amazing, and other people said how fast he looked so it wasnt just my impression.

Sadly - despite coming along to film Pip's runs for me so I could critique Tony only managed to film one agility run and that was the one I trained the contacts in! GRRRRRRR apparently he spent a lot of time playing with the camera settings.