Go Team Australia

Sometimes we experience moments in life, where you look back and wonder .... did that REALLY happen?? Was I ACTUALLY there??

The World Agility Open Championships in Clevedon, UK was just a week and a half ago ..... and I along with 6 other Aussie handlers were lucky enough to be competing there. All of us (except Sherie who is currently living in the UK) ran host dogs.

Dogs that we had met between 5 and 7 days prior to the event. Not long really, to bond, learn new verbals, and in some cases a different handling style to the one we're used to. To work out if our dogs had independent contacts, the ability to send to an obsticle or needed a little more support.

This in itself is a huge achievement for all of us. We were told time and again how impressed other competitors were, with the fact we were there running other peoples dogs that we had never met before. For us though, we were SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited to just be there and be apart of it :-D
We went with no expectations and determined to enjoy every moment. Which I guess is why we were so excited with our achievements :-)

The only down side to the whole event was that we all bonded SO well with our dogs we didn't want to say goodbye :-( The generosity of our dogs owners was exceptional! To let their dogs go and live with someone they only knew via emails was mindblowing!! And all of us were incrediably grateful for the trust they put in us to care for their dogs.

The event itself was fantastic :-)) To walk into the main arena and see our flag alongside all the others felt like a surreal moment! Let alone walking courses with people like Susan Garrett, Karen Holik and Linda Mecklenburg!! Or walking up to the board to see our names progress up the running order before entering the ring.

My lanyard and name for the running order board

The courses were challenging but achievable and it was great to watch competitors from around the world handle their amazing dogs with precision and speed.

For me walking into each ring to the cry of "Aussie Aussie Aussie! Oi Oi Oi!" made the moment more memorable and by the end of the 3 days of competition I think the Scottish team may have been louder with our chant than we were!!

Special mention needs to be made of my host dog "George"

A Patterdale Terrier x Working Collie who may have been small in stature, but his abilities in the ring were amazing!! Only just measuring into the 550 height his achievements this weekend were mind blowing! Without George and the fantastic training that he has had, he and I wouldn't have come 4th overall in the Individual Biathlon Event. Which I'm STILL stunned about!! I'm so grateful that he and I meshed together as a team and so grateful to his owners Linda and Gary Cummings for letting me run him!

I've put together a video of some of our training and runs that we had at the WAO.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zuZKrljYhXw

I can't believe it's all over... sniff, sniff :-((  Especially when it feels like it only just began!!