The weekend started on Friday with the Hatchers, Kruh-Atar, Hooke, Cahill and Tointon/Ash gang travelling up to Scotland. All arrived in good time and booked into our hotel for the weekend, which was absolutely fabulous. After booking in and seeing to the dogs we went to find the pub that Tina had booked for a meal. It was a vibrant place and the food was good as well as good value and the landlady was really helpful. Unfortunately fireworks were a problem with some of the dogs freaking but all managed to cope with a little help.
Saturday dawned with all of us feeling worse for wear as the dogs had not settled down well the night before (not used to hotel rooms) and not many of us had got much sleep!!! This was not looking good for the days racing as we were tired before we started and knew it was going to be a long day.
Wash Warriors - seeded 1st in div 5 - (Millie, Zarah, Charly, Jack and Bonnie) were in in race 2 and settled down quickly taking the first race 2/1 in heats. A pattern that stayed all day with 12 heats won overall out of the 18 during the day. Zarah and Bonnie shared a spot with Jack completing 17 legs of the 18 as we wanted as many points for him as possible as he is so close to his Pilot Officer award. At the end of the day we had taken 4/6 heats off each of the other teams and won the division (by 1 heat). Well done to Tina, Claire, Chris, Julia and Jemma with their charges and congratulations to Bonnie as she gained her Cadet Advanced award. Thanks go to Vicky for doing our line during the day and keeping us in order with the crosses.
Viking Warriors were also seeded 1st in div 6, however this was the first time we had put this team out into open (rather than little league) and we had no idea how they would run. Sheena, Ash and Stan started well but both Bessie and Milly freaked out with the noise and neither dog would run down for the ball. After a discussion with the handlers we decided to go NFC and use the whole day as a training session.
The 1st PC slot was shared by Luna and Rudy. Luna took a little time but managed around 4 full runs, collecting the ball from the box and taking it all the way back to Josh. Rudy enjoyed himself coming down to touch the ball and returning to Sue. Unfortunately Josh felt quite ill and Talitha decided to pull Ash and return to the hotel with the aim of returning home early.
Viking Warriors continued without Ash and Rudy took over the PC slot on his own. Viking came 4th in their division without posting a time although both Sheena and Stan did well as a pair. We managed to overcome Stan's spitting the ball on the start line and by the end of the day he was running well with Sheena. We had reverted to run backs for Milly and Bessie once Sheena and Stan had completed and the other team had finished, just to build their confidence up (there is some work to do with these 2 dogs before they are read for open).
During the day Tina also judged the Crufts qualifier for both the main teams and the young handlers teams. Julia was going to scribe but ended up on the line which was a bit daunting as racing was tight with the fastest teams racing at just over 15s mark. Congratulations to Paws on the Run who won through on the day with a margin of 0.01s in the final leg.
We returned to the pub for our 2nd booked meal to a round of raucous singing, which eventually quietened down a bit. Again the food was good and we were well looked after. We were all really tired though and returned to the hotel for what we hoped was a good nights sleep. Unfortunately for some that did not happen and the Hatcher family had to up roots at 1am and return home overnight as Bella had not been well at all during the weekend, resulting in us losing her on the Sunday. Not a good result for us but at least she is back with her pal Prince over the rainbow bridge both out of pain and in peace again. God rest you Bella you are missed xxxxx.