Hi
As the titel tells you our dog show year has finally started. Good thing it is as well, else my mum will loose the last bit of condition she has left and will just collapse in a little heap.
Anyway, Sunday we had an Open show. It means that it isn't really a very important show and people can enter on the day and everything is quite laid back. I ran Agility, Non contact Ag and Dog Jumping. I am pleased to say I am still queen of Dog Jumping - although I have ommitted to tell you something ... I admit, it was ever so embarassing, but last year's National Dog Jumping League we did NOT win! Can you believe it? I won 3 out of the 5 rounds, I came second in 1 round and had a slowish clear in the fifth round and Benji still beat me overall! I am sooooo embarassed. My friend Richard says it has to do with throw away round and the length of courses and stuff (mum and I produced one "cricket score" round - or should that be a score the South African cricket team would love to get!) - I think Richard is on my side ... mum is much harder, she says Benji was just better. She says it's life and if I want to win next year (that would be this year), I just have to run faster (he beat us by 0,03 seconds - I ask you, you can't even blink that fast!). In any case, I don't think it has much to do with me, it's mum, she is just so slow - have I been saying that the whole time or have I been saying that the whole time? It's a fact. I don't know what I am going to do about it.   

Anyway, back to Sunday.
Something wasn't quite right in the first round (Agility). I got all my contacts and we went clear, but I was just wondering if something wasn't quite right. So our time was off and Benji beat us by about 1/2 second. Mum then decided I could read numbers in the Non-contact and thought I could do the course by myself, so we got a DQ - I say no more. But she and Chippy had a cool round. My brother finally decided that he could actually run and beat Benji by about 1/2 second and was 3rd after 2 Border Collies. I think he could have been even faster, but by that time mum was REALLY panting (have you noticed humans never stick their tongues out when they pant?). Cassie was also allowed to do 2 rounds. Her leg hasn't been so good over the past year, so mum is slowly building her up again. On Sunday they were just running in the Medium with us and Cassie was good afterwards. So Cassie is very hopefull that she perhaps can go back into proper competition.

Then our little cousin Bijou from the USA who is Benji's little step sister went to her first breed show. Mum decided  they needed some moral support and entered Chippy "for practise". You know Chippy's real name is "A Chippendale" and that is how he behaves. He thinks everyone must admire him, but nobody must touch him. Anyway, mum hasn't shown him since he was a puppy (he had several operations and always had some part of his body shaved off). On sunday they asked the nice judge if they could just do the whole thing but the judge mustn't touch Chippy (obviously he wasn't placed or anything). You should have seen my brother! He is SUCH a show off! He was so pleased with himself and said he loved that showing stuff. I then told him that they normally touch you all over and he was horrified. He didn't think that was a good idea, but just the running around in the ring was great. Mum taught him to run ahead of her - apparently that is what they do in the USA. She never taught ME that and I am a Champion already .... makes you think doesn't it?

All in all we had a really good start to the new year. 

Now for some other news. I am most displeased of course, but mum says I must just be tolerant for a bit. 
You see, my mum goes all over the world to teach people about freestyle. She says there are so many people who would like to start dancing with their dogs, but don't know how to do it.
Since she has actually been doing some freestyle work (well, yes, I have to admit, we have actually done some stuff and she has been playing around with music), and she needs to put a new routine together, well several new routines actually, she will write it all down in this blog. Now you would think, since this is MY blog, it would be MY routine. Now mum says, she thinks it will be Chippy's new routine! On MY blog - Chippy's routine ... well, I don't know .... Anyway, mum says it has been decided and that is that. She says perhaps it gives me a chance to have my say more often too. we will see about that. 

So, in the next few days, watch out, mum will explain to you how to put a whole routine together for you and your dog (well, really it is for her and Chippy, but she says you can then adapt that for yourself).
 
And I, well I will watch from my little corner in the meantime, being bored to death ... I probably will eat that bar of chocolate that I won on Sunday (No, no, just kidding, I know dogs can't eat chocolate. Although I wonder if that is in fact true. I think some human who wanted to keep all the chocolate to himself just made that up!).

So, till next time lots of kisses from me and keep training those humans


NOTE from webmaster, aka Gaby, Chocolate is poisonous to dogs. Some react stronger than others, but do not feed chocolate to your dog.