Finn's First Show

Finn is my 2 year old German Shepherd who has been my companion since he was 8 weeks old. I am totally besotted with him and would like to share his world with anyone who is interested. This is my first attempt at blogging so please be patient.

I believe every dog should have something to occupy his mind other than being just a pet, we do agility. We went to our first outdoor show yesterday, we've been to a couple of small indoor, club shows but this was THE REAL THING with not just one but EIGHT rings running at once- lots of opportunity for an adventurous pup to cause havoc! I was a bit aprehensive to say the least, in fact I nearly chickened out.

However the alarm was set for 4am and we hit the road at 5. We had a good clear journey there and arrived in plenty of time to walk the course and have a good run before it was time to start. We had 4 classes to compete in,1 jumping, 1pairs and 2 agility which include seesaws, dogwalks and A-frames, (the dogs have to go right on to the colored section of equipment and if they jump off too soon are penalised. in the case of the seesaw it has to touch the ground before they get off), as well as the usual jumps, tunnels and weaving poles. The first class was an agility one. We had a wonderful time running through the tunnel several more times than were actually required, leaping over those bright yellow bits and scattering jumps left right and centre, but we did stay in the ring we were meant to be in. The pairs were very exciting, our partner went first and I went flat on my face as Finn tried to go with her, when it was our turn we flew round after being eliminated for doing the tunnel before we were meant to! We were eliminated in our other 2 classes aswell, but he tried his best which is all you can ask for.

We have a lot to learn together, how to read each others body language and build confidence in each other. That's half the fun of it, building the relationship and learning to work as a team.

We finished before lunch and spent the afternoon relaxing round the rings watching other dogs running and then had a good walk over the mountains as a reward on the way home. I'm glad I didn't chicken out and am looking forward to the next show at Worcester in 2 weeks time. We will be camping overnight for that one.

I didn't take my camera yesterday, but here are a couple of videos from our first indoor show at Llanelli in February. As you can see we have a long way to go.