Merlin's Magicians May 2010 Newsletter
I shall start off with a bit written by Georgina, says it all about our first competition, stressful? Very!! Fun definitely…..
Really proud of my boys (hmm Jed, might have been slightly quicker if on one run you had just got the ball and come back, not got the ball, had a look around at the crowd that end then come back!! Oh yes then the other run could have been a bit quicker if maybe instead of picking up a stray ball before getting your one out of the box and bringing me 2 balls you had just got your own ball!)
Well - despite a catalogue of disasters and events we got THIRD!!!! Ok so only out of 6 and it was in starters division.
Thursday
One of the dogs in one of our teams has been a bit lethargic so June puts a request for a reserve dog from another team (people who have dogs who never competed often say if there is a spare needed please let their dog run so they get the experience)
We get the offer of a spare dog, so we have enough dogs of our own plus the spare in case one of ours is still not bothered about running.
Sarah gets a split in the fuel tank on her van, garage cannot get new one till next week!!! She cannot come so 2 dogs down (one in each of our teams)
Friday
June puts a request on the flyball website for a replacement dog from another team
Gets one offered, so we are now down to Bo, Annie, Trumps and Mabel in one team and Jed, Rusty, Sweep plus two spares in the other. Rusty and Annie are June's dogs so they could not run at the same time as each other, neither could Jed and Bo due to the logistics of it!)
I lose the car key but manage to find the spare.
June gets to the site and finds that one of the spares has just unexpectedly come into season...... still, may be able to borrow another dog. Or lethargic dog may do ok.
Saturday
I put off poo patrol until after the dog walk, then found a load of blood in the garden! checked and all bottoms ok (no traces) all gums pink and healthy, everyone as manic as normal so no signs of illness to narrow down who it came from ..... but there was a lot of it so rang vet then took it down to be checked with all 4 in car in case they needed to be checked. had to wait ages as surgery really busy but Mikki (vet) looked at it then came out to say it was vomit and looked like a carcass or something had been eaten... light bulb time! Friday I had unwrapped the 400g block of frozen mince and put in the dish with water to defrost to cook when I came home... in fact it had been out for a few hours so was probably thawed by the time I went out. Came home and the dish had been taken off the back of the worktop and the contents eaten........ so the blood and bits I found were actually from that not one of the beasts.
Eventually get caravan hitched up and we set off.
Got to Aberaeron and realised I had not picked up the boys' harnesses! Had put them on one side to take but did not want to get them excited by seeing them so was going to put them in the car quietly, then ended up rushing around after the blood affair... so rang neighbour, got her young daughter to climb through dogflap and get them, then got Brenda (who was having to drive up Sunday morning) to go round and pick them up.
On the way there I stop for coffee - get a takeout so it can cool while I let the dogs out. Cassie wanders under Jed while he is in mid flow and gets a yellow head. I decide hot coffee on a napkin would be best way to clean her up (especially as she sleeps next to my face!!) go to put a splash on the napkin and get about a teaspoonful of scalding coffee on my hand instead. Instant blister. Luckily it did go down by the time I got to the site leaving just a red patch.
Sunday
June gets a text at 8.15 from Anne (one dog in each team) to say sorry, only just woken up, sick in night, won't be able to come!!! (Anne lives in Lampeter the event was near Runcorn, Cheshire). Choice words from June and myself and we hurtle over to organiser's office.... no more spare dogs so we agree to run one team only (losing the £15 entry fee for the other one) and rotate Jed/ Bo and Rusty/Annie so at least they all get a turn.
Jed = spot on apart from above.
Bo - normally super fast but this time not that fast but PERFECT! Ball straight back to me, no attempt to mug other dogs for it, managed changeovers with Rusty (dog with ball crosses path of dog going for ball - Rusty is a grumpy dog!).
Spare dog had only done practice before, never done in competition with the lights, gazebos, noise etc and she did really well
So all in all although it was a starters competition and we could actually be in the big boy league we were very pleased with the result..
Ps. found the car key 10 min’s ago!
Georgina
Now to add my bit.
I did on occasions wonder what on earth I was doing as team captain, not only the stress of above fiasco, which it was up to me to sort, but I was camping for the first time alone (except for six dogs!) Actually that went quite well, I daren’t say I enjoyed it tempt fate for next time but! I was using one of those ‘pop up tents’ the sort that cause great hilarity when being packed away, they ‘pop up’ literally in seconds but you have to have studied the on line video many times before taking them down! I managed very well, although the crawling into such a low tent at my advanced age (sympathy vote here please) was enough to send me scuttling to Argos for a ‘bigger and better’ tent when I got home J and, the motorway ran right alongside the camp site so ear plugs would have helped! On the final day I made sure I packed up the tent before people were up and about to avoid embarrassment, then did it so well I wished I’d waited so people could see how clever I was!
Our ‘Borrowed’ dog was a German Shepherd, Skye, her owners a lovely young couple from the Wilmslow Flyball team, they did really well and running first meant they had the learning the lights experience they wanted. We had a borrowed box loader from the Sheffield Speeders, it was their dog that came into season, Craig, a lovely lad, knew exactly what to do (He runs a Pointer in the first division) and made it look easy. Prior to all the loosing of dogs etc. I had been going to box load one team, Brenda the other, but we ended up having to run our dogs in the one team instead.
The long and the short of it, yes we’ll do it again and hope that having weathered this traumatic outing, we’ll find our next outing easy peasy!
Maybe not, we are in division, not starters next time.
Good job I’m grey already!
I certainly tempted fate there didn’t I, Ha! Ha! Anne now can’t come with her dog Mabel (our height dog and even more essential, fourth breed dog in the Multi Breed Monday) So we are having to go ‘not for competition’ and run four dogs just for the experience, it was that or lose another entry fee, this one £35! Going ‘not for competition’ means that we can use two dogs of the same breed we can’t win, even if we do, but we won’t be letting down the tournament organisers forcing them to have teams running against an empty lane. Then, on the Sunday, in Open Division, we will be forced to run at full height, we know the dogs can but, under the stress of competition, will they? Liz has had her puppy poorly this week so there is a query as to whether she can come or not either, and Ollie is in both teams too! Sarah is making the effort to get there by mid morning (she is away the Friday Saturday and was to come up late Sunday for Monday) which will give us the extra dog in Sassy, unfortunately Pip (who could have been a height dog) won’t have been measured so can’t run.
Watch this space for results of yet another traumatic weekend!! Plus I have to put up the new tent too!!
Me and my big mouth!! Yes it was Traumatic, with a capitol T! Poor Sarah, this time her Wiper motor packed up and the RAC couldn’t fix it! Liz’s Vet wasn’t happy for her to come! 4 dogs and 3 people down!! We had three handlers with 5 dogs plus the lovely Lydia our box loader. Not ideal one could say. I ran Annie first, someone held Rusty and we swopped so I could run him 4th. Not ideal but, bless, they both ran perfectly, Trumps was a star and also managed the full height jumps faultlessly. Georgina alternated Jed and Bo but neither of them were in the mood and baulked at the jump height. So………………. Another learning experience.
June 19th we are up at the Wirral, Cheshire again, and please, please, let it be third time lucky, vehicles stay roadworthy and dogs healthy.
On the bright side, my tent was a great success, Liz’s puppy is fine, and, we now have our new Polo shirts, courtesy of Bayer Health, and they are super.
Pushed for time at the moment but, I do have some pictures and hopefully new dogs to introduce for the June Newsletter, until then,
Keep smiling,
June