With all the best medium dogs in the country strolling around including the current world champion I felt proud to belong to that group regardless of whether we qualified or not. I really wanted to show what Hoax can do though.
Warm up first and it was a nice fast course with a few little traps, Hoaxey did a neat, quick run with trained contacts. I should have remembered that it is fatal to do well in the warm up! This was also the first time she had seen walls and wishing wells and she didn’t even blink!
The semi course as below was flowing and fast with a few tempting traps. The dogs were all timed and the commentator would announce their times as they reached the seesaw so the crowd knew if they were on for the top ten. Natasha and Dizzy ran sixteenth and had reached the seesaw in just over fifteen seconds!
I set little Hoaxey up on the start line and stopped and looked back at her over the well. Her chin dropped onto the floor as per her startline routine I waited for a few seconds, looked at those blue eyes and released, she streaked off the startline and I could tell she was on form, tight wrap into the first pipe tunnel. I scooped her across my feet and watched her flying straight into the weaves, tight wing wrap at number eight and collect after the tunnel, she went sprinting past me towards the seesaw and I could hear the commentator “this is a very fast little dog… reaching the seesaw in about sixteen seconds…” now all I had to do was drive the line and pull into the tunnel. Hoax forte was tunnel pulls, something we have practised a lot. I gave Hoax her verbal “steady” on the jump before and started to pull her, I could feel her start to pull with me and I relaxed and started my cross to the AFrame… suddenly she picked up on my slight movement and all too quickly she had flicked back and picked up the wrong tunnel entrance. That was it, the end of Olympia dreams for this year and my fault completely.
However, I couldn’t have been more proud of my merlie. She held her own against the best dogs in the country (and world). The speed of the best mediums is incredibly fast now. To give you an idea, the winner was Natasha and she ran the course in 28.? seconds. With 20 obstacles on the course including three contacts and a set of weaves that’s quite impressive, the next two dogs ran at just over 29 seconds.
I went home feeling gutted but fabulous too, I am really feeling like me and Hoaxey are getting connected now and regardless of our blip, still am amazed how far she has come this year.
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