Just back from Germany where we had a holiday and competed in The Border Collie Classic an Annual International Competition just for Border Collies.
The current FCI champion & last years FCI champion were there as well as other top world handlers.
There were also quite a few people like us who were there as a holiday & to try their luck against the best.
I love the style of the European courses we saw there & in Denmark last year.
They are not all big gaps (maximum distance apart 7m) or go round the back as some judges here seem to try do. Yes there were a couple of go rounds but in flowing interesting ways not off a straight line that only Bolt could hope to get to. There are lots of choices of what a dog can do & good handling, training & partnership shows through. A late command or poor understanding & you're out. Placement of obstacles also mean you might have to think hard & be sharp to make the direction clear to your dog.
Late commands got me every time with Torro - there were quite a few people watching us as I ran one in front of Lisa Frick & Hoss, the general comment was Torro was "frigging fast'. I really wanted to have another go on every course to sharpen up. Another few weeks & I think we would have got some clears :)
We got round the team final with only a jump down in a cracking time. Mark got clear with Devo & if we'd had a couple of other good dogs in our multi national team we would have done ok.
One of the other dogs was Rhyme - did his best but tunnel wrapped around an Aframe choice has not been in his training yet, although he did a brilliant weave entry from a tunnel at an angle that many more experienced dogs missed :) So we were disqualified.
The other team member was from Croatia & I think he'd gone back there as he didn't show :(
Last year at Dania everything was announced in English first & then in Danish so it was easier to keep track of things.
With many nationalities there and most people can understand English it possibly would have been a good idea this weekend but no everything was in German & there were a few complaints. We were lucky as Ian Watts was judging there and a few other people we have met on our travels and they kept us up with the programme :)
Our dogs did GB proud as although Mark & Devo were the only one of us to get 2 clears
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