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Ticket Shows 2014 – part 3

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Time flies we are already well into September and the nights are certainly drawing in, so time once again to catch up with the results from the Championship classes throughout July and into August.

Saturday 5th July and the first day of a two day show for Chadkirk DTC at Brabyns Park. A lovely venue with ample space around the rings and plenty of room for training and exercising the dogs. The judges’ catering was described by many as ‘sublime’ with compliments especially for the strawberry cream meringues. For the competitors good-sized rings with a level working surface and the committee must have friends in high places, as it was wall-to-wall sunshine for the weekend. Roy Page was in charge of the Bitch Ticket today and awarded his top honour to Lisa Brannan and ‘Moakies Mystical Moment’ who worked with ‘Confidence and commitment’. Judging the Dog Ticket was Marie Cartwright and her first place went to Janet Matthews and ‘Ob Ch Croftmist River of Krismoss’ always a force to be reckoned with at this level.

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Ticket shows 2014 – update

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

A sweltering July afternoon and as the dogs are flat out after their morning walk we have the ideal opportunity to sit down with a cuppa and catch up on who’s been winning in the Championship classes.

Saturday 17 May and the Scottish Kennel Club Show on the Royal Highland Showground at Ingleston, Edinburgh. Reading through some of the judge’s reports this is a show that truly knows how to look after its judging parties leaving them wanting for nothing. For the competitors, lovely big level surface rings, good catering and well run stays. Taking top honours under judge Steve Rutter in the Dog Ticket was an extremely delighted Andrea Little with ‘Borderlair Aerodynamic’, a first ticket win for this pair and with work of this quality it certainly shouldn’t be long before other wins at this level follow. Pat Wilson was judging the Bitch Ticket and she awarded her first place to Pat Watson with ‘Ob Ch Forever Magic It’s A Flicker’, who worked a round that was an ‘absolute delight to watch’.

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Solihull Dog Training Club Open Show

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

In this day and age where we often read of clubs that have folded or clubs that are no longer running their Obedience show it was so nice to look at the show diary for this year and find that Solihull Dog Training Club were running an open show again after a 15 year break.

So Sunday 29 June saw us setting off up the M40 towards Birmingham to the Woodrush RF ground at Forhill, having left the sat nav at home on the table we used the directions from the schedule, which were straightforward and easy to follow. On arriving at the ground we were informed that the top field, that is used for parking the vehicles in when Hatchford Brook hold their show here, had unfortunately not been mown and parking for today’s show would be either at the top end of the rings on the show field or on the hard standing around the clubhouse.

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Chalfield Show spotlight

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

An early morning start for us as we had a two-hour journey up the M1 to Rushcliffe Country Park in Ruddington, Nottingham for the Chalfield DTC 50th Anniversary show. The directions given on the schedule were very straightforward and coming off at junction 24 we were able to find the park with ease. We were met by a gentleman who directed us through the public area into the showground, which had plenty of parking space and enough room around the vehicles for tents etc, without being crammed in.

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Occasional series of articles on show venue’s we have visited

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Friday 30 May and mid morning we load the dogs into the van, hitch up the caravan and set off across the country to Thetford in Norfolk for the West Suffolk DTS double show weekend.

A new venue for the show this year at the Thetford Rugby Club ground, which must be a testing time for the organisers, as you never know what might happen. Thankfully the only hiccup seemed to be the proposed Friday night fish and chip van letting them down, but Sarah Connell had managed to get a message out via the internet so most campers would have known and made other plans.

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Obedience Championship Scene 2014 Part 1

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

As we are now at the end of May and with the Crufts Championships fading into a memory it seems like a good time to catch up on what’s been happening in the Ticket classes.

Starting off with the Midlands Border Collie Club show on the 19 April, the first day of a double weekend from this club plus the bonus of the Border Collie Club of Gt Britain show on the same ground on Friday 18 April. The shows were held at Cattows Farm, Heather, Leics, which was a new venue for this year. The ground was quite rutted in some places but thankfully the better areas were kept for the rings, the clubs had worked hard to ensure their shows would go on and I am sure we have all worked on much worse surfaces. One good thing was that the camping, parking and the rings were all on one level, within easy reach of each other and there was an added bonus of some lovely dog walks in the surrounding area. From the judges comments the hospitality was second to none and the competitors were well catered for.

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Spectator report from the Obedience World Cup -Crufts 2014

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

The fourth and last day of Crufts 2014 and we are back at Hall 5 of the NEC for the Obedience World Cup competition. This year we have 9 countries competing as we welcome back the Republic of Ireland, the other countries being Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Canada, Germany, Belgium and Holland.

Canada is once again represented by the one-man team of David Holzman and in a brilliant show of sportsmanship the team from Holland have got the okay to lend their reserve pairing of Annemarie Ibelings and her WS ‘Phoebe’ to the Republic of Ireland who were only able to bring a team of two with them.

The judge for today’s competition is Stella Henstridge who first became interested in Obedience in the early 1980’s and competed at the Crufts Championships for the first time in 1993, she has been the manager of the England team for the past 6 years so obviously knows this competition really well.

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Spectator report from Obedience Championship – Bitch day

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Time flies and its already day three of Crufts 2014 and hardly any traffic on the M42 so it took us no time at all to get to the NEC from our hotel, probably spending more time in the car park queue than on the motorway. So into Hall 5 nice and early with plenty of time to catch up with a few friends who are competing here today. Once again the benches are a blaze of colour from the good luck cards and balloons. Grabbing the customary coffee we then made our way up to the seats ready for the start of today’s competition.

The judge, Nigel Slater and his team line up in the ring at 8.40am ready for the parade of competitors and then to the music of ‘Here comes the Girls’ the teams started to enter the ring, Gerard Paisley introducing each team as they came in with where and under which judge they won their tickets in 2013. There was a loud cheer from the Welsh contingent as Jane Moran entered with ‘Nellie’, and not to be outdone there was an equally large cheer from the Scottish fans as Denise Robertson and ‘Taylor’ entered. Kathy Russell entered with two of her dogs ‘Nyla’ and ‘Zuri’ as they had been drawn in consecutive running orders, Kathy having already been round the ring earlier in the parade with ‘Oddi’. Already there was a good atmosphere around the arena and the stands had started to fill up.

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Spectator report from Obedience Championship, Dog Day

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

We were lucky this year to get a good deal on a hotel quite close to the NEC so not too early a start on Friday morning and just a junction up the already slow moving, busy M42 and we arrived at the venue in good time. Walking across to Hall 5 at about 7.40am there were plenty of people and dogs milling about the concourse, quite a few of them it seems trying to find out just where they were supposed to be going.

We made our way round, avoiding the cumbersome toe crunching trolleys, to where today’s competitors were setting up their benches with good luck cards, banners and balloons, always a very colourful display which really does give an expectant buzz about the place. After dropping off some card to friends we had plenty of time to grab a coffee and take our seats ready for today’s competition to start.

Just after 8.15 the handlers came into the stand to watch a run through of the heelwork from some of today’s ring stewards, quite a flowing round, starting off in fast pace but not too much of it then there is a zigzag laid out in tape in the corner of the ring near the entrance, the ASSD down will be given on the zigzag, and a large circle which is worked in slow, then normal and has the ASSD sit position on it, nothing to trick dog or handler which is always nice to see.

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Inter Regional Competition Crufts 2014

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Thursday 6 March 2014 and we have the first day of this years Crufts Dog Show at the NEC in Birmingham and the start of the Obedience competitions. Obedience is at the heart of virtually every dog sport/hobby from Agility and Flyball to Canicross and Breed Showing and this year is a celebration of 60 years of Obedience Competition at Crufts.

To kick off the four days of Obedience we have the Inter Regional competition sponsored by Our Dogs. Seven regional teams select a total of seven dogs plus a travelling reserve to compete in classes from Beginners to Class C, each team is restricted to a total of two border collies/working sheepdogs and three of any other single breed, so we always have a good variety of breeds strutting their stuff in the ring. This year those other breeds included, a Standard Poodle, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Spanish Water Dog, Newfoundland and a Rhd Ridgeback. Giving the competition a re-vamp from previous years a non-standard exercise has been included in each class, hopefully giving spectators and handlers just a little something different to enjoy.

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