Hellllooooooo fans

Well, I tell you, we had a weekend like never before. Friday, Saturday and Sunday mum, Allez, Cassie, Quincy and of course myself spent all day at a huge exhibition and we were having fun the whole weekend.
Allez and I were doing Dog Jumping and Agility as well as Freestyle. It was my first proper competition and I am telling you, we should have done this a long time ago. I am so excited to give you all the details, I don't even know where to start.
Mum was terribly busy the past few days building up to the expo and very concerned how I would take the whole indoor environment. You see, we don't normally have indoor events here in South Africa. All our competitions and demos are held outdoors on grass. So yes, this was new to me, but I don't know why she was panicking, there really was nothing to it. In fact I like running on the carpet. Mum says I have a very good technique and I didn't slip at all (well OF COURSE I have good technique ... ). Then there was the concern about the people. Well I really don't have an issue with people, so no problem there. Sometimes the noise startled me a bit during the freestyle, but not in the Jumping - we were running like the wind. Oh yes, I am very pleased with my progress in human training. Mum was really moving. So much so that we won both Dog Jumping rounds. The first one was a "Gambler" - I like those. The course was really easy and we were almost flying around it. Mum said I was in top form and we even did the poles twice to get maximum points. Yes, I think I would like to do more Gamblers. Unfortunately we don't usually have this at our normal shows. In the second round of Jumping on Sunday, which was a speed event (just up my alley), we beat Ricki the sheltie. I am pleased that we won of course, but not half as pleased as mum is - you should have seen her - it was almost embarassing. The thing is Ricki is a really good Agility dog and has been to the World Champs twice already and will be going this year again. So far he has always been faster than us, so he had to make a mistake if I wanted to beat him. But on Sunday we both had clear rounds and I was simply faster. Mum is delighted. Of course I try to tell her that we would have done this a long time ago if she would have just been a bit quicker all along, but now maybe she sees what it takes to beat the others. I hope she remembers for next time.

Allez was third or fourth - they only gave prizes for first and second, so we are not sure. Actually as far as I am concerned they should have just given a prize for first.

So much to the Dog Jumping. The Agility was a different story. There was something wrong with the Dog Walk. I tried to tell mum that the thing was not right - nobody else noticed it - typical Border Collies and all those other dogs - no brains, just run,run,run, they never noticed the problem with the DW. I can't go into detail here what the exact issue was, just to let you know that it was BAD! So, you can't blame me for not going on it, can you? I mean mum tried to get me over it, but I would have nothing of it, not putting my precious body on that dangerous thing. So we got eliminted from the 2 Agility rounds, but I don't care, it was not safe. Mum was distraught. We even went all the way to our friend Richard's place to work on the equipment. I am not sure why she wanted to do that, the equipment today was fine of course, it was just THERE that it had a problem. Anyway, we had fun training today. Mum is confused - poor thing, she doesn't understand, very human.

Allez came second in one of the rounds and she and mum had a discussion about the weave poles in the other round. These 2 fight a lot about the weave poles. The spectators thought it was very funny that Allez told mum exactly what she thought of her - mum was not very impressed, and I think she hasn't learned much during that session either.

So, off we went to the Freestyle ... Boy, did the crowds just love me - I was the star, I really was. I wore my Fairy Godmother's beautiful pink diamantee collar over the bandana and I looked very beautiful. I won my class on both Friday and Sunday and I achieved my freestyle title. I am now W-FD Lollie (that means "World-Freestyle Dog" in case you didn't know). I got lots of applause and very high scores. I got 9 for Artistic, really, it must have been my cute twitch of the head or something that gave us those marks. Mum said those were the type of scores Quincy got when she started competing and look what a star she has turned out to be. Our aTechnical mark was a little lower, but not by much. A few times I just needed to make sure that everything was OK and the spectators would remain behind the little white fence, but mostly I was paying attention to mum and was exactly on the beat. I suppose since we had such good scores mum was also doing her bit OK. I think she is actually better at Freestyle than she is in Agility. Allez had lots of fun. She likes to tease mum and do something different in the ring at times. She says it's good for mum to practise improvisations, so if ever the need would really arise to improvise it would be easy for mum. Allez must be a good freestyle trainer, because mum coped with all the little changes that Allez threw in and they also won their class on both Friday and Sunday.Mum says it's scary to think that Allez is almost in Advanced now. She needs one more leg.Mum and Cassie perform a very different routine. It seems some judges love it and some hate it. The judge on Friday thought it was rubbish and gave them very low scores (giggle), and the American judge ... oh, I forgot to mention, I competed under an American judge. She came all the way from Oregon to see me! .. anyway, she thought Cassies routine was very, very good. They got a 9,6 and a 9,8 ... WOW, that is truly good and even better than my scores. Cassie and mum had a really good time in the ring. they both enjoy this routine so much. I think I would also like to learn all the fancy stuff that Cassie does .. or maybe I rather stay on my saddle - yep, that is my prop, a real saddle.

So Cassie won on Sunday and she also won a trophy for the Highest Artistic score. It is a very nice trophy ... I would like to win one of those one day. mum says we need to work very hard if we want to do that. Hard work is perfect for me, just means we do more training. I keep telling mum we need to do more.

On Sunday Quincy competed in the "Perfect Dance Partner" class. It is the very, very top level, where only the best dogs are allowed to enter. They got a qualification despite some music issues, which,a s it turns out were ... you guessed it, mums fault! Quincy was quite irritated that mum ruined the beginning of their routine. Quincy says it's a really good beginning when it is done properly. Anyway, between the 2 of them there were some misunderstandings and a lot of improvisations later (thank you Allez for all that training), they managed to pull a half way decent routine off.

On saturday I didn't compete in Freestyle. You had to be invited and they must have missed my name somehow. Anyway, it was for the South African Championships and Allez, Cassie and Quincy competed. We are still waiting for the official results, but Quincy only came second this year, and we think Cassie was third, but we are not sure - there was so much going on at the same time, and mum always had to run to change costumes. You should have seen us in our outfits - we looked very pretty. Cassie even borrowed Chippy's diamantee collar. You couldn't see it that well under all her coat, but it was there and sparkled occasioanlly. But she wears a big black collar for the routine, because she is the "black" figure on the chess board and mum is dressed in sparkling white as the "white" figure. It is all very dramatic and to start with mum is draped in a checkered cloth. Cassie then pulls the cloth to "unwind" the white figure for the game of chess.
Al;lez has a much less dramatic dance. They just have fun with an old Abba song and mum's long hair looks just like the girl from Abba (well, we all think so, mum says she is about 30 years too old, but it is called poetic licence).
Quincy's new routine is again an African song. I think it is very nice and mum wears a fantasy African outfit. I think Mum and Quincy must take a video of it at home for the Pro Star competition in Oklahoma. I am sure the judges there will like it.

And now I better stop. I would still have tons to tell you about the weekend, but we are all a bit tired now and better get some rest

The picture is not the greatest, but at least mum took a picture with all my prizes for you to see.

Lots of love