Betsy and I play lots of dog games! Some we compete in, some way just train and are planning to eventually compete in, some we haven’t had the opportunity to compete in and wish we did!
However, I think many people probably wonder what and why we do! 🙂
So here goes! At the moment, our main ‘game’ is agility. We have competed at both fun, unaffiliated, Kennel Club, UKA and also FAB. All in all we have attended about 7 or 8 agility shows. Betsy utterly loves it as she is very intelligent, fast and I have been told by several people from a young age she has bags of potential to do extremely well- the handler on the other hand (lol :’) …
I love it as it’s great fun to see her “work” in such a stimulating environment. It really puts what we have been practising to the test. Even if we come away with nothing, and find 101 ways to get eliminated, we always learn something and have a brilliant time together. From the hooman point of view, its a great way to make like minded friends who you can celebrate stuff with and have a laugh with when things go a bit wrong! There are always bargains to be had and often very tasty bacon sarnies to be eaten. We also came second in her first fun agility show, quite an achievement 🙂
However that said, we also did a training show in freestyle about a year ago and this is something I would like to have the balls to get into this year. Anyone any ideas for a routine haha?
We are also hoping to attend BCOS next year. We have one fun obedience shows one when Betsy was 7 months old and won the lowest class. We also entered the two higher classes just for fun and got specials which was a great laugh! We were also meant to enter two since then, which we initially did when she was around 15 months old, but I decided to withdraw her from the competition as 1) In one the ring was next to a wasps nest and I didn’t fancy either me or betsy getting stung and 2) In another, the way some people acted so condescending and rude, kind of put me off!
We have also gained her puppy foundation (four months) and bronze awards (six months), although I have been meaning to do her silver and gold for a hell of a long time, we have had various house and job moves in the middle!
I feel by doing competitive obedience it should help her impulse control for agility, and at the end of the day just another “game for us to play”!
We also have entered one rally competition however we stopped when Betsy slipped her collar and decided she would do zoomies around the ring. We haven’t had a chance to see if we have improved since, although I would like to think we have!
One of the dog sports we play is also disc, or frisbee as its known in the UK. As I have stated in below posts as far as I know, we are one of the very very few dog disc teams in the UK. As far as I am aware, we don’t seem to have any competitions either, so we decided to give it a bit of exposure at Superdogs Live in the “Most talented dog” competition, at the National Pet Show, where eventually we came second, judged by the lovely supervet, Noel Fitzpatick at the Birmingham NEC. If anyone knows of any disc events in the UK, give us a ping!
Other things we would love to give a go eventually include herding instinct, scurries, working trials and Trieball.
thehoundwrangler 