Travelling up on Thursday gave us a more leisurely start for Windsor show, though it still took us an hour to travel in to the showground from just 15 miles away. We're certainly not used to the commuter traffic!
The day was forecast to be dry and cloudy, a little different form the blistering heat of the previous year and much more comfortable for the dogs. It ended up being rather wet though, but not too bad the the in/out rings being put to good use.
NSDTRs were first to be shown out of our two breeds, we had only brought Eve with us. Tasha handled Cooper to a 3rd in a good open dog class, he really moved in the big ring and looked fantastic. Eve was unplaced in a big limit bitch class, though she went well for Eleanor which is the main thing.
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| Eve in the ring at Windsor |
LMs started during the judging of the toller bitch classes, so we (Tasha & I) had to dash over the the other ring to organise ourselves. Tasha was moving Alfie (Ch Raycris Quite the Charmer) in open dog and needed to get a bit of practice in. He really is a big moving boy and needs to go at just the right pace to get the best out of him. We were delighted when he won the open dog class and the dog CC, especially as he's Lyric's dad.
Lyric was next in, and I had been watching Tasha and Alfie in the ring so hadn't had much of a practice with Lyric. She wasn't the easiest to set up as she was rather fidgety but moved nicely. She managed a 2nd place to her lovely friend Lilly. Trio then had a 3rd in the open bitch class.
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| Lyric in the ring |
As we were staying over at Hall Barn we were in no rush to get home, so were able to stay and watch the group judging. It's so nice to be able to support your breeds in the group rings, and it was a joy to see the LM BOB, Freya being shortlisted in the group.
Saturday gave us a relaxing day, a sunny day with a few showers but plenty of opportunity to have some practice with Lyric for the working test on the next day.
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| Some play time on Saturday |
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| And a spot of tree climbing |
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| So lucky to have the beautiful estate to enjoy for the weekend. |
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| Some lovely daddy & daughter time for Alfie & Lyric |
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| Tasha and Trio having a go at the one of the novice retrieve tests from last years test. Neither were competing just having a go. |
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| Lyric - the lady in the lake - showing that she does pick up in water! |
Sunday then saw us competing with Lyric in the working test, the 2nd one for both of us. Again there was support from fellow LMs and their handlers which made it so much more pleasurable.
Again the day was broken down into the four parts, and again we started with the hunting. Once again I was full of apprehension about this, and also worried about everyone seeing out poor attempts at it. I was so relieved to find that we had a piece of ground to hunt that appeared to be just out of sight of the other handlers!
I started off by telling the judge that this wasn't our forte in life! Poor Lyric then went off to really have a go at it, I let her down by being a bit slow and not pushing her out into the hedgerows. We scored a 30 /40 for this, such an improvement from the 8/40 in the previous test.
The water was the next test and again Lyric failed to pick up the dummy on the first attempt! This is something that she has no problem with at home and really don't know how to go about remedying the situations. Just more water work I think for now!
The obedience was a bit of mystery, we weren't allowed to observe this until we had completed it,though the handler who was first came to tell us how difficult it was. So we approached this a little apprehensively, thogu she was a little star only losing marks for not giving me the dummy to hand, and circling me rather than coming directly to me. Little monkey!
The last test was the retrieve, and this really was our undoing as it was a seen and blind retrieve. Poor girl hasn't done any blind retrieve work, so I was incredibly nervous going into this. She marked the seen dummy well, but it had bounced off the spot and then she paniced when she couldn't find it where she expected and I had to help her. As expected she didn't really know what I wanted from the blind, but with a bit of help did find it. So proud of my 9 month old competing with others who were at the upper limit of 18 months. The score climbed from the bottom to around the middle of the scores this time, such good progress.
Rather late leaving, we didn't leave until after 6.00pm and arrived home just after 1A1.00pm. A long and tiring weekend, but such good fun.
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