Shouldice Speciality Weekend

It has been a long 5 days, and we are all tired but what fun we had!!!

The corgis and I headed to Calgary on Wednesday night for the Canadian Cardigan Corgi Club National Specialty. We spent 5 action packed days showing, shopping, visiting, and playing! Thursday was the settle in day- we got all set up, walked around, talked to lots of Cardigan people and just relaxed most of the day. Friday and Saturday Wicca and I played NADAC all day- she was amazing, NADAC's courses are very open, very fast, and all about distance. Wicca earned 4 Q's- tunnelers, jumpers, standard and touch 'n go. I was thrilled with her performance. She was controlled, responsive and had only a few moments of Wild Wicca. Sunday was THE BUSIEST DAY!! It was the day of the specialty and also CKC Agility, and CKC Rally Obedience.  We started the morning with a clean run at Agility. Ran to the conformation ring, I showed a dog for my breeder, ran back to the agility ring with Wicca- ran a standard course without walking it and knocked the first and last bars, ran back to the conformation ring and showed Wicca in Sire and Get- and we won- her Dad was quite famous in the "old days" and although quite old and out of shape now, has quite a few good looking progeny. ;o) Then I showed Wicca in altered and we placed third out of five. Wicca is a good litle show dog and knows exaclty how to stack herself and look cute, too bad she weighs less than half the other dogs in the ring!!! She looked like a midget compared to all those other dogs. Out of that ring and heading for Rally- I hadn't walked it and asked the judge if I could be moved to the next walk through- thank goodness he said yes!!! Back to the set up for a drink and some shade. We ran one more CKC Agility class-  clean and the fastest time overall! Go Wiccie Go!!! Over to the rally ring, confident with my dog- sign number four, Wicca is a bit sluggish but I chatter away to her and she perks ups, 1,2,3Step Halt. 1 step, Sit...AND WICCA DECIDES AT THAT MOMENT TO PEE!! She didn't just squat to pee either- she lifted her little leg and marked...what a little devil!!! Of course we were excused. I was pretty ticked off at her...but gave her the benefit of the doubt that she REALLY had to pee....I wanted to win the High Cardigan in Trial and we totally could have...Back to the set up, more shade, a nap for Wicca and one last CKC Run of the day- and she ran it clean! What a good dog!!! She has never had such a high Q rate before...Sunday night we slept well except for the poounding rain on our tent half the night!

Monday- the day that the agility counts for High In Trial for the Specialty....and Wicca blows them all except one. Her first run was amazing- Jumpers with Weaves and we nailed it- no bars, awesome weaves, no problem. 2nd Run...not horrible but I can feel that she is beginning to push it a bit. We had a knocked bar. 3rd Run, a standard. It was a mess- broke her start line, slid off her contacts, I eventually picked her up and carried her out. I was pretty dissapointed but she is a dog who will ALWAYS push and if I give her an inch she will take it. Sunday the contact equipment was slippery so when she slid off I allowed her to continue. Monday they replaced it with better stuff- and Wicca thought that she could still come off...she's a dog afterall! We had one more run to redeem ourselves, and it was almost exactly the same course as first thing in the morning. We knocked two bars. So no High Cardigan in trial for Wicca. Despite that I am still very proud of her, she worked hard and had some really amazing moments. It seems like each time we go to a trial she is better than before. It is the best feeling in the world. We got quite a bit of attention from some of the other cardigan people- and from people who hadn't seen her run, the woman who won the high Cardigan trophy had wonderful little dogs from Finnshavin who did great, and although they weren't as speedy as Wicca, it was really neat to see different Cardis run. It was also the debut for one of my students who has a cardi and Guiness got a Q and did fantastic at his first trial. He wasn't phased by all the noise and the people or anything. His owner did a great job with him and should be very proud! So it is Tuesday today and I have taken the day off from work to unpack, unwind, and clean my house. The corgis are all sleeping- Wicca is pretty tired and the boys are just bored I think...they didn't do much at all except play and have lots of walks. The both gathered a lot of attention where ever we went because they are so unique looking...I have alot of pictures and wil have some video too in a few weeks so will post them later!

 

-Amanda