Obedience Spotlight

Where do I start!

It was certainly a show that will live in my memory forever. How you all kept my surprise a secret from me for such a long time is unbelievable. I had no idea. I even fell for the made-up incident that required me to leave the Secretary’s base and go to the far end of the field to deal with the complaint behind Polly’s van so that you could all assemble in front of the marquee. Everything was organised to perfection, even getting my son and partner up from London and also my God- daughter Laura to attend.

The speech made by Ann Davis was wonderful and my gifts were amazing. Yaris’ portrait has pride of place were I sit and can see it every day, my vouchers I have yet to spend but I want to get something permanent for the garden to remind me of you all. Unfortunately the bottles of whiskey and wine will not be kept but you can all be assured I will enjoy them as will the amazing cake made by Sheila Huntley. I am sure I will get a bit merry on the cake I know how much alcohol Sheila feeds her cakes with over the months it matures.

Thank you everyone!

Now I must go back to the shows.

After much stress caused by the Council and their predictions of bad publicity and adverse comments on social media, we had NONE. In fact the shows went off like clockwork, and everyone reported that they had only received positive comments from the general public.

The shows only run without problems due to the large amount of help I have from competitors. To judges and stewards who give up their day, thank you from myself and all the competitors, without you there would be no shows. Personally, I would like to thank everyone who helped in whatever way and however small, there are too many to name but you all know who you are. From the setting up of the show, booking in caravaners, parking day people, scent decoys, the girls in the marquee who kept the judges refreshments going and the girls in charge of serving the judges lunches, people who did shopping for me and run around the showground taking messages and then finally the dismantling of the show. Many, many thanks.

Huge thank you to Bryan Lukcock our Chief Steward, you always do a fantastic job and again we can report there were no incidents and hopefully should get an excellent report from the Field Officer (thanks for your help dealing with him).

Congratulations to all the winners. Good luck to the ticket winners when you compete at Crufts 2023.

Hope to see you all next year. Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Kathy Hood

What a weekend. It started with losing the Chief Steward, then losing the Show Secretary, we also lost a ticket steward and PetNeeds, so had no trophies, and even the caterers were one man short. At least the weather was kind to us. After the threat of rain on Sunday, it turned out to be a lovely day.

The show ran smoothly as normal even with these hiccups as we have a very experienced team of people to help.

Thank you to Sandra Cobbold for stepping in to be Chief Steward. To Ian Appleton for stepping in my shoes as well as his own lol. To Kath Westell for making sure Ian didn’t mess it up too much. To Clare Jameson for stepping in to steward the ticket for Roy Neal at very short notice, despite only stewarding her first C recently.

Thank you to all the Elm Park gang, Jan Witham, Claire Bloomfield, Julia Tuck, Nicola Smith, Paula Kenny, Janet Long, Les Tolliday, Mick Johnson, Lyn Johnson, Kim Ford, Sue Starr, John Westell, Julie Enright, Sandra Barnes, Chrissie Gordon, Sue Stevens, Colin Sutton, Julie Phillips, Ewina and her daughter.
Thanks also to Vanda Fitter, Linda Plows, Myra McCarthy, Les Willis, Shawn McCarthy, Malcolm Hanlon for helping with the gate duties.
Thank you to all our judges, stewards and scoreboarders for giving up their day.

The other notable event of this weekend was Barry Fitter’s last judging appointment after 37 years of judging most weekends. There was a presentation at lunchtime on behalf of Elm Park and the wider obedience community. Thank you Barry for all your years of service to obedience.

Congratulations to all our ticket winners. Kamal Fernandez and Firetouch Super Girlie and Firetouch He’zz Kynda Hot, Trish Jones and Ob Ch Longwaves Cloudy Sky , Sue Monk and Ob Ch Ruskath Knockout Image and the winners of all our other classes. Very well done to you all.

I was very disappointed not to have been there this year but look forward to seeing everyone at Acorns or around the shows next year.
Good Luck to you all.

Cheers Julie Appleton

East Kilbride DTC

CHAMPIONSHIP SHOW SUNDAY 4th SEPTEMBER 2022

Show Secretary’s report.

Apologies for the late report, but safe to say our day went without a hitch and we were blessed with perfect dog show weather (well we did after the rain went off!).

Thank you as usual to our Judges & Stewards, for giving up their day to allow us to take part in our fabulous hobby, particularly to Bill Pykett, who stepped in at late notice to carry out his 20th appointment of the year!!!!

We were indebted to Bill for answering a ninth hour plea.

Thank you to everyone who helped set up & take down on the day, carry judges’ refreshment bags & decoy steward; from club members to kind helpers.

I never usually name anyone as I would feel awful if I missed anyone out, but this year I really must single out Gordon Forrest , who agreed to be Chief Steward, but also was a massive help on the day- he never stopped- carrying tables & chairs, taking rings down, and always with a smile & a bit of banter. Thank you so much Gordon- I can’t tell you how much I appreciated your help.

Sheena, Anne & Maureen very capably made sure our officials were well fed at breakfast, and Sue produced a lovely buffet lunch- thanks ladies, for your hard work. Thank you to all who contributed to the judges’ catering, including our trusty soup makers!

Well done to all our winners & those placed, we hope to see everyone back next year on 3rd of September- our CC judges are (subject to KC approval) Annette Benoist (D) & Katie Embleton (B).

Kilmarnock Open Show will be on the day before at the same venue- good excuse for a weekend trip!

Finally, lost property in the day was a green square klippy treat tub found at the top of the field near the A rings and a sum of money near the front of the car park- a single note.

If anyone owns either, just get in touch & I will arrange return.

See you all next year!

Anne Marie Parker

Lichfield and district dog training society: secretaries report.

Thank you to everyone who made this years show a huge success.

We are very lucky that Lichfield club has such a fabulous team spirit and everyone always pulls together to make the show run smoothly. Everyone knows what needs doing and they just get on with it, making the weekend run like clockwork.

We have a fabulous mix of experienced people and new enthusiastic helpers, which hopefully will ensure that Lichfield show continues for many years.

A huge thank you to everyone who helped…the show committee, Lichfield members, our chief steward and assistant chief steward, judges, stewards, scoreboarders, scent decoys, first aiders, people making drinks, ‘the boys’ and the competitors who came to offer help. Every little makes a difference and we are grateful for every single bit of help. I’m not going to name people, as there are so many I would probably miss someone!

Thank you to all of the competitors who entered and tested out this new venue. We hope you enjoyed yourselves.

Congratulations to our ticket winners Robin Arblaster and Francis Tye, we wish you the best of luck at Crufts.

Congratulations also go to our good citizen special pre beginner winner and our YKC and obreedience winners!

If you’re now off to Crufts, good luck and enjoy the experience!

Huge apologies to the obreedience teams for managing to misplace the rosettes in the organised chaos. They have now been located and I will send them out to your team captains to distribute.

The run up to the show was stressful to say the least. Due to health issues, I had to ask for far more help from our show committee than usual…and I want to say a huge thank you to you all, for stepping up without hesitation and taking on as many jobs as you could. I really appreciated it and everything was done perfectly.

Our new printer, Rebecca, made the rest so easy, organised everything perfectly and answered my millions of queries about the new 25 day rule! Thank you so much!

It definitely felt like the show was cursed at times. We always expect problems, but this was one big problem after another and at one point both Bea and I doubted whether the show would even be able to go ahead.

The venue was fabulous. We were very lucky to be able to use it, the space, the ground conditions and facilities were all amazing, although I swear by the end of the weekend the venue was stretching every time I walked up it!! Thank you all for looking after it, it was immaculate when we went up for our final venue check.

As lots of people knew, it did however come with a pretty hefty price tag, which meant this years show had to be run more like a business than usual. We changed suppliers for most of the usual food, drinks and other essentials. We spent far more time price checking and hunting around for bargains than we’ve ever done before, cutting the cost of everything we could, except for our normal trophies and rosettes.

Everything we needed was worked out to exact numbers, to ensure we wouldn’t be paying for anything we didn’t need. We were determined to at least break even…which we did, with a bit to spare!

Thank you to our sponsors: CSJ for sponsoring the whole show, providing the winners packs and Rick Van Vereen for sponsoring the YKC classes, providing a lovely tuggy toy for every competitor. We are very grateful for the support.

Obviously, there always has to be a negative.

We had a small minority of people who thought it was acceptable to be rude towards our show team. Please remember that the rules we put in are there for safety. If you are asked to park or camp in a particular place or keep something clear or to slow down, it’s not just because we feel like it. We have a responsibility to every person and dog on the venue and a lot of time and effort has been put in prior to the show to venue plan and risk assess.

I don’t expect to hear that people have ignored requests to follow instructions and have been rude, or that people have been shouted at.

Please remember that the people out there helping, are the people keeping the shows running. If they get that kind of treatment, eventually they’ll decide that helping is more hassle that its worth…and then shows will disappear.

I was therefore, even more disappointed to hear who that minority were and that they were experienced competitors. You know who you are and hopefully, reading this, you will consider the impact of your actions in future.

That said, the majority of people were lovely and everyone looked like they were having a good time. We even managed to keep the weather nice, until Sunday night. The sun dancing clearly worked!

As most people know, this was our last year as show secretaries. Whilst we love running the show, various issues mean we are now stepping down.

We would like to thank everyone who has supported us during our time as show secretaries, you’ve all been very kind and we’ve both learnt a lot during this time. A special thank you has to go Stephanie Evans, who taught us everything we needed to know about running a show. We couldn’t have done it without you.

Thank you to all of the judges who have joined in with our craziness…from inviting George Clooney to join us at the show, to serving scabby horse at lunch!

It might be busy, but it’s supposed to be fun and that’s always been our aim.

We leave the show in very safe hands, with Carol Hartland and Stephanie Evans taking over the job. Everyone knows you’ll both do an amazing job and that it will continue as it always has been, a friendly, well run weekend!

That’s the very long Oscars speech over!

Tracey and Bea.

CHESVALE DTC Open Obedience Show
Sunday 28th August 2022

I must start by thanking the Chesvale membership for their support and hard work setting up on Saturday and working all day Sunday to make our show such a success. Special thanks to Clare Williams for all the work as show secretary before, during and after the show.

There were no incidents to report apart from the ridiculous site of Daniel Thompson and myself trying the put the Yumove banner back in its bag, together with an audience of admiring observers who didn’t offer any help as they were too busy laughing!! Clare Williams suggested that this might be an additional competition we could run every year … enter early to avoid disappointment!

Thanks to our super judges and their stewards who gave their time freely, with many competitors giving thanks for their efforts and for the help, advice and the time they gave to everyone who came into their ring. Our entries were 22 in Pre-beginner, 23 in Beginner, 120 in Novice split over 3 parts.

The weather was perfect although a little hot at times which made the doggie spa paddling pools popular with our braver canine visitors. Our fantastic caterers were on hand to not only cater for the competitors but also offering doggie breakfasts and home-made doggie biscuits (the biscuits sold out early!!) As usual our ladies that do lunch produced a feast for the judges and helpers at lunchtime and an amazing cake display at teatime. One thing Chesvale is renowned for is our catering and no-one goes home hungry!

The training rings were manned by Donna Bastin and Laura Wiley who worked tirelessly throughout the day with Sheila Rodger keeping tabs on the running order. Thank you for all your hard work, I know you were exhausted by the end of the day. Interesting that no-one kept them waiting to go into the training ring but some did unfortunately keep the judges waiting in their classes.

The tombola and training ring takings of £224.00 will be donated to Valgrays Animal Rescue.

We would like to thank YuMOVE for their support and donations of a supply of their super product for 1st, 2nd and 3rd places and sponsoring the rosettes and trophies for each class.

I have already posted a few photos of the day on the ObedienceUK facebook page. The atmosphere at the show was fantastic, relaxed, friendly with a huge carpark allowing plenty of room and options for where you wanted to set up camp. We were touched by the number of wonderful remarks and thanks given to us on the day and in some posts on Facebook, it is always great to hear that you have done a good job.

Final thanks go to all the competitors who came to the show, it was lovely to see so many old faces and many new ones. We look forward to welcoming you at our 2023 shows on Sunday 7th May (not the bank holiday weekend in 2023) and Bank Holiday Sunday 27th August 2023.

Carol Spencer
Show Manager and proud Chairman

Many, many congratulations to Ditton Dog Training Club on their 50th Anniversary, and for giving us another two-day competition to remember.

I was there for both days. On Saturday I competed, and on Sunday I stewarded.

Saturday was hot. An early arrival at the show, I was soon sheeted up, checked in, and ready to present myself promptly at 9.00 a.m. for a running order with Eric in the B ring under Denise Harrild. I’m not quite sure why I entered B – a moment of confident over ambition! Anyway, I trained as we are nowhere near ready, but we came out to nice comments particularly from experienced, higher-level handlers who had come to see the round and watched us do the heelwork and retrieve. I am often dismayed to read that people have less than positive experiences in and around the rings, perhaps I am naïve or too thick skinned, but I have always found the camaraderie of Obedience very positive.

I also trained A under Wendy Hanlon and worked Novice under Gill Winyard and, by my own yardstick, I was pleased with our work.

The infamous Dermott McSquirmott also worked Novice under Pat Burford and was not last. I was outraged, we are losing our edge, we fully expect to be unassailably last and we were usurped by ¾ of a point!

Sunday, I stewarded Ticket for the lady dogs for Linda Baldock. This was hugely good fun, and we had a cohort of lovely handlers and for the most part, from my perspective, it went smoothly. It’s sad that people baulk about volunteering. I always enjoy my stewarding and I work on the assumption that I am very unlikely to kill anyone or, worse still, their dog. If I make a mistake, I make it a policy to be quick to own up and apologise. Today I managed to get completely tongue tied in calling one turn for one handler finally spitting it just about in time, and there were two more minor blips all duly reported to the judge and deemed sufficiently immaterial to change anything in respect of the scores. If you judge, steward, scribe, or scoreboard you are giving up your time, you are only human, and shows cannot happen without volunteers. I work Novice and A, I’ve learned a lot as a steward and would commend anyone to be brave and have a go!

In general shows look after their volunteers, but Ditton really pushed the boat out for us today. A sit-down English breakfast to set us up for the day, a goody bag for the judging tent, roast chicken and all the trimmings followed by a dessert at lunch, and tea and cake for after judging. I need hardly eat for the next week! Plus, Ashford Rugby Club seems to have a cohort of good and cheerful cooks and helpers who deliver man sized portions with a smile! There were speeches at lunch to mark Ditton’s 50th anniversary, Barry Fitter’s retirement as a Ticket judge, and Linda Baldock’s first appearance as the same. All in all, it was quite a celebration, topped off in the afternoon by a fly past from the Red Arrows. Very fitting I thought.

As mentioned, this was Linda Baldock’s first ticket judging appointment and I must highlight the work that went in. The round was designed well in advance, laminated, and given to me to learn. On Saturday, armed with a can of white spray paint operated by Linda’s long-suffering husband, Nigel, we walked and walked and walked the round marking the ground for reference as we went. Maddie, our scribe, her equally long-suffering husband, Dave, and Nigel “worked” it so I could see the turns in action, and then Maddie’s dog was pressed into service, at the end of a long hot day, to work the round so we could get approximate timings. It really was an operation of military proportions. Finally, just to reinforce the thought and effort, the send-away markers flanked by angels were made by Nigel. The back markers represented Linda’s past working dogs – Jedi, Jessie, and Jay Jay now, sadly, over the Rainbow Bridge, and the front markers each represented a pet dog now, also, sadly no more. How poignant is that in terms of a story attaching to the ring? I was very impressed.

So, all in all, a really lovely, enjoyable weekend. Thank you, Ditton, for all the hard work. Here’s to the next 50 years!

Katrina Arnold

Monday 24 October 2022 

Advert

 The Kennel Club is staging a series of special lunches to celebrate either particular breeds or activities. 

Here is an opportunity for up to 45 ‘Obedience enthusiasts’ to meet and enjoy lunch in like-minded company. This is an ideal opportunity to see the Kennel Club London premises and meet key staff and members working to support the discipline. 

The timetable for the day is; 

10.30 Suggested arrival 

11.00 Meet the Clarges Street Teams 

11.30 Tour of Art Gallery 

11.45 Tour of Library and Obedience updates 

12.30 Bar for pre-lunch bubbles 

1.00 Lunch 

2.30 Coffee in the Bar Lounge 

3.00 Opportunity to re-visit Art Gallery/Library to research 

4.00 Departure 

The Cost for the day is £45.50 per person, payable on booking to secure your place. 

Dress Code: Guests are expected to dress appropriately when visiting the Club’s dining room, bar and lounge areas. 

The requirement for gentlemen is a suit or jacket, trousers and tie; while a similar standard of dress is expected 

of the ladies (smart trouser suits are acceptable). 

Jeans, leggings. fleeces and trainers are not acceptable. 

Unfortunately, numbers are limited to 45 guests and places can be booked for this occasion with 

Pat.ford@thekennelclub.org.uk or by phoning her directly on 0207 518 6894 

Bank transfer details are; Kennel Club A/C no. 80771643 

Sort code 20-95-87 

Ref. Obedience Lunch 

Please let Pat know by email if you are paying by bank transfer 

Phew, a heatwave leading up to the show but thankfully a lot cooler on the day. Thank you firstly to the Rugby Club for kindly allowing us to again use this beautiful venue, right opposite the beach which as usual, our campers made the most of.

Our grateful thanks to all who helped us put the rings up, there was quite a crowd which made short work of the job in hand. Thank you all so much. Thank you to our judges and stewards for giving their day up to cast their expert eyes over the competitors and their dogs, thank you to Paul Middleton for sailing the ship smoothly.

Congratulations to all of our winners, and to our ticket girl winner Kathy Russell and our ticket dog winner Julie Rowlands, all the best for Crufts 2023.

Personally, I would like to thank Jackie Muir and her friends for selflessly giving up her day to raise £1000 for the British Heart Foundation, such an amazing achievement.

And this is where I let you all know that I’m now stepping down as Show Secretary, after about 40 years in the job – apart from a short break in the middle – I’m now finding the responsibility increasingly difficult, especially after the year I’ve had, I find I now don’t have the same commitment which is paramount to running a successful show. I’ve invited Jackie Muir to take over, which thankfully she accepted. She will still of course, have my full support and that of the rest of the team, but I’m sure she’ll be involving her own club members too, so as you can imagine, I’ve left it in very safe hands.

Thank you to Wendy, Anne, Richard and Karen. You’ve been amazing and I’m sure you will continue in the same vein.

See you round the shows. x

Karen Davies

NWKent Champ & Open Shows

Another show weekend done and dusted, we run on a weather cycle of one year searing heat and the next rain or the constant threat of downpours – we got heat this year and hotter than all the apps said it would be but we all survived and I think the club quite enjoyed the early finish on Sunday.

I have to thank all the judging teams for enduring the conditions without complaint. This proved so difficult with change of judges over both days, some never made it to the published schedule which gave me a frantic few days early in the year so my thanks to all those who accepted my plea right up to 2 days before when Covid struck yet again, too many to mention! But we appreciate so much that this did not impact on the quality of judges, something we pride ourselves on, one little bit. I must give special thanks to Paul Cook for stepping in to judge the Dog CC when Richard Kebble had to drop out- we had a special judges present especially for Richard but Paul accepted it with good grace, he then stewarded for Victoria Cook the next day, both gave up their entire weekend for us, much success to you two, you deserve it.

I am very proud of our own members who are a well oiled machine, know what needs to be done and just get on with it, this makes such a difference to running the weekend and there were many rosettes gained too – so you can help at a show, work and win, we had 3 class winners!

Thanks go to Teresa Paterson for her invaluable help, there is not much that she does not know. Sandra Cobbold – CS and our rock, her calm approach to any issue is hugely valued by us all.

This year we took on Obreedience, a disappointing entry but I gather that those that attended had a good experience.

One issue that was a cause for concern was the handler who left her dogs in her car without enough ventilation, cover and even water, 2 dogs in small boot area and 1 on the front seat. We opened the doors to let air in, when the handler appeared she did not seem at all concerned – Sandra Cobbold had some words. Dogs deserve better owners.

We had a large selection of judges gifts so we decided to play Dingo Doggy Bingo – choose a card and match a present – this caused a fair bit of amusement so I think we will do this again, everyone went home happy.

We are back next year 22 & 23 July, hope that we see you all there.

Eileen Restell

Coventry Champ Show – 09th July – Secretary Report

I always feel like I am making an Oscar acceptance speech when writing these reports but we really couldnt do it without the help received so here goes…

This year, having not held a show since 2019, I really felt that we had forgotten that elusive something but everything went off brilliantly.

I am so grateful we have the venue we do, we are so lucky and so are the judges with the fabulous lunch the club steward George and his wife Mary puts on for us.

Again it was a hot one, which seems to be the norm for us. Thank you so much to all the helpers who helped moved all the equipment, set up and put away. We lost Les Perry, Pat Perry and Roy Clarke to Covid, I hope you are better soon and poor Jaqui Spurgeon to a badly sprained ankle, rest up Jaqui x

Thank you to our judges and stewards who worked their socks off, you are all fab. Happy Retirement to Roger Gunby who has judged every year for us and is now having a well earned rest.

Special thanks to Annegret Tack-Benton, Lyn May and Jane Barstow who stepped in to helps us out at the last minute.

Thanks to Lisa Fellows our superstar first aider, whose skills, thankfully, were not required this year.

Thanking you kindly to Jan Morse for manning our training ring and for giving me a good work out

Thanks to all the committee members that dug in and helped make the day a success and thanks to Petneeds and Bev Hotson for having a stall with us.

Mega

congratulations to our Ticket winners Pauline Hill and Rachel Millington, good luck on the green carpet!

Thank you to our competitors for entering our lovely little show x

I am so sorry if I have missed anyone out !

See you all next year – Kelly and Jean x