The weather was  much better today. We got a few sprinkles but all in all a really nice day. They said it rained until about 7:00 p.m. at the show site yesterday.

There are 2 classes – agility and jumping. There are 7 grades. Classes can bejudged either by divided by grade or combined with other grades. Graded classes are better because you are running against dogs of your same grade. Combined classes include dogs from other grade levels.

So say you are in grade one (baby dog level) you would be better off running in a lower graded class – say grade 1 or grades 1-3.  If you are in a higher level – say grade 5 or 6- you would be better off with a combined grade class such as – combined 1-6 – so these are usually not as "challenging" as a grade 6 class because it is combined with the lower grades and the courses are easier for the baby dogs. Of course this is all theory 🙂 Some of the courses we have seen so far have been not so very nice.

We are finding out that there is difference between international courses and typical Brittish courses.

Not really liking the typical Brittish courses. Daneen came here to compete on challenging courses and that part is fun…. but am finding the Brittish courses to be pretty much making everyone nag their dogs through the entire course. The courses are not flowy and don't really let the dogs open up any. It is pretty much all yank here and yank there twisty turny ugly and VERY tightly spaced.

The shows are MUCH less rigid than they are in the US. Daneen was walking her fisrt jumping course of the day. After, she walked over to me and said " Come walk this – It's Fucking ridiculous!" So I went out there and the first 3 obstacles we were still cool , after that it kinda just went bizzarro…. 1 to 2 ok, 3 to 4 no problem, 4 to 5, Daneen said " the OTHER side of 5" OH.. ok, that is weird… 6 to 7, 7 to ………Where is eight???? I stood there looking for it for a few minutes, then Daneen pointed across ring !! WTF???? What is it doing WAY over there???? She quickly added "Oh, and it's the backside of that jump too" So you get the idea.

Very different from easy peasy flowy one challenge per course courses in America.

Their first class of the day Mash hit the first bar they had moments of brilliance and a slight oopsie here and there…. tho they got thru most of the hardest parts.

Their second run of the day was Combined grades 5-7 Agility. There were a couple of pull throughs, a tricky weave entry, threadles.  The run was not the prettiest run but they made it thru and won the class !!! One win down three wins to go.

You need to win first place from 2 agility and 2 jumping classess to movee up to grade seven.

The third run of the day was grade 1-7 jumping –

This one was a masher course!!! looked more like our steeplechase course courses back home. It had one tight bit in the start and the rest was run!!!!

They got first place for that class too. It was pretty. Interesting that the local dogs do so much twisty turny stuff that a full out running course with a huge go on at the end found most of the dogs turning into their handlers questioning the running full out….. kinda sad 🙁

It is really fun to be able to observe several full days at a show and I can't wait to see how different this little local show is to other larger shows that we will be going to later in the trip.

People get away with ALOT more here in the UK as we saw at this show. We saw a TON of training in the ring. Toys at the start line, cookies being pulled out of pockets after a run. The other thing I observed is that there were lots of people being harsh to their dogs. I will wait to see if this was a "this show or club" thing or if this is what I see through out the trip. This did not make me very happy. At home I can count on one hand the people that are nasty to there dogs and scream at them. Here it was worse 🙁

Treat for me … They are holding a conformation show at the same site that the agility is being held. It is a benched show. They have split all the groups into four days. The first day was gun and something else and today it was I can't remember what they call the groups here but it was herding and working 🙂 Funny that some breeds look equal or better to breeds in the states and other breeds look almost NOTHING like the same breed in the states. The Rough Collies here look NOTHING like the Collies back home… they look almost like a different breed. Yet I saw other breeds that were lovely, like the Border Collies and the leonberger's (Spelling ??? too lazy to look it up now)

I think I might miss the Dalmatians and the Papillons if the weather is really bad 🙁

Weather forcast for tomorrow does not look good. They are calling for torential rain 🙁