The Cats Out of The Bag & The Dog's of the Starting Block

So much planning and everything’s coming to fruition J

The meeting on Thursday was with the manager of a local Equestrian Centre that I can now reveal is going to be UpAndOver and The Lakers Dog Agility’s new home.

The Loriston-Clarke’s and of course, Fiona Boyne were brilliant hosts at Catherston Stud, both at Hurstbourne and when we moved with them to Over Wallop. We appreciate all their support and feel part of their greatness rubbed off and helped us create a great training school.

http://www.catherstonstud.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=90&Itemid=171

Times change and with their daughter managing and a group of very demanding livery customers our ability to hire the school for any other time than Tuesdays became impossible. We are very grateful for Ann allowing us to have that.

With classes full we still needed somewhere to take on new members so the search began and here we are now our new venue

Cholderton Equestrian Centre.

http://www.altogetherequestrian.com/

In order to secure the venue and move the club on again we are committing to hiring every Tuesday and Thursday, so more planning now for new courses etc.

Sad to be leaving Catherston behind but changes tend to encourage more changes and this is just the catalyst to get moving with loads of training opportunities J

Talking of training opportunities I took the opportunity to try out how our training was progressing with Rhyme by taking part in the match against Wallingford in the Nursery class.

This may have been a silly idea, as he has not previously done anymore than 12 obstacles. However he was incredible and worked his four paws off. We only did medium height jumps and he does not have the speed of his training mate (and Kodi’s son) Buzzy but he was quicker than I thought and he LOVED it. So much so that I thought I would just train the start line on the next course. He was very excited watching the other dogs but totally settled on the start in perfect position, ready and waiting. Proud as punch.

Third run again he knew exactly how to behave on the start and no hesitation of pushing up. It was nearly a disaster as we ran up the line towards the other ring when his really, really strong chase drive took over. But this dog who three months ago I thought I would never even get in a ring because of this reason, recalled beautifully to me and carried on around the course with no further error.

My grown up boy is truly on his way now. So much motivation now to do the things we need to do to realize the future that I see possible.