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On the television early October, there was a Sky One programme called ‘A League of Their Own’ with Mary and David Walliams. It was great fun doing the show and the results looked good as well with David trying even though he had a dress on !!. As usual lots was left on the cutting room floor. I hadn’t really heard of the programme before filming but it is a really really funny programme and once you’ve seen one then you have to see them all. But the warning is that it’s not for the faint-hearted or easily-offended.

Mary’s 2013 results are at the end of this update

As I write this, we have just come back from the Elm Park and Thurrock Championship weekend, It’s a smashing show run by nice people, we had an ideal camping spot and the weather was great as well oh and Mary had a couple of wins as well !! followed this week by an evening for Pauline at Hatchford Brook in Solihull. At the end of October, we’re doing a night in London for Dima’s Dog School. Second week in November, Mary and Richard are appearing at a big fundraising dinner at Battersea Dogs Home swiftly followed by a weekend at Discover Dogs. 16th/17th November, Mary will be training HTM down in Devon and on 23rd/24th November and Mary is doing a north east Obedience & an Evening with Jackie Muir later as well.

Well, here we are and I’m late again – 7th October and I haven’t given an update since May. I’m always hoping that I will have less to do hence have more spare time but it doesn’t seem to happen although, having given up my position as Chairman of the Agility Council, not being re-elected to the next committee up and being told I’m off International Agility working party , perhaps I will have more time on my hands!

Mary has had a great time during the Summer, with some stunning results in Obedience. Last weekend she gave a little demonstration at a dinner for almost 400 people in Daventry on the Saturday evening, Mary performed with Levi to the “Combine Harvester” track so she had to dress up as Farmer Giles !!, at 10:30 pm that evening I was sitting down in my DJ having my dessert and at 1:30 am we arrived in the motor home at the GSD Club of Wales Championship Obedience Show in Cardiff. Needless to say, I wasn’t drinking at the dinner( I think it raised over £10k )

Levi wasn’t on form at the show but Foxy had a third place in Ticket, a win in Open C and Lexi won another B – her fourth as well as Five A’s earlier in the year. This is the dog who, a few months ago, I would have put on eBay as she’s such a pain – but there you go, perhaps she has now come into her own!

We also have another dog and I don’t really know how that happened. Well, it’s not really a ‘proper’ dog, it’s one of those little things that sits on Mary’s lap. Now what’s it called – oh yes, Vinnie, a Chihuahua cross Dachshund. You probably will not hear much more about that as he won’t be winning a lot in the Obedience ring any time soon!!

Mid-September, Mary had her traditional week’s holiday with Pauline at the two Birmingham shows. It really is a great set-up they have there and she really enjoys it – two weekends with the week between. The weather was not so hot this year but the good news for me was that Mary did not flatten the battery in the camper. She had a really good, competitive time at the two weekends though, the highlight being winning both the Dog and Bitch on 21st September and of course still maintaining her position as the top winning handler of the year with Levi. I have included a list of all her wins at the end of this article.

The first week in September was spent at Anglesey as usual, where Mary takes a five day course. She had twenty handlers this year, with half a day of Obedience and Heelwork to Music each day. It’s a great venue, lovely beaches and pretty well the same faces every year. The handlers have a couple of meals thrown in plus a dancing party night – that’s dancing for the dogs of course – and a posh meal out at a really nice hotel restaurant.

We dashed home on the Friday evening before leaving again for a day at Thames, followed by Mary going to Coventry

Lichfield – Wakefield – Cambridge – Ditton Lots of other good results in the full list of Mary’s results at the end of this news item

The second week in August, we always spend at the Agility Festival at Rockingham Castle. Mary is chief waitress (what a come down), I’m competition manager and catering manager. We had a great weekend weatherwise and everything else, and it was a great chance to meet many friends again as we don’t really go to Agility shows now.

On the Monday morning after the show, we were all hitched up and off to Eastbourne. We have a little Kangoo Estate which I put on a trailer and tow behind the camper, we stayed at Pete and Sue Bishop’s place which is not far from Pevensey Bay, Eastbourne and they have a small garden centre with a private enclosed orchard at the rear with five camping spots with main hook-up. And the good part is that Pete and Sue are dog people, so you can take your dogs with no problem at all. We had a really smashing five days as it’s a really lovely place to go – in the middle of nowhere when you’re parked but just down the road to the beach which at low tide is actually sandy, as we found out.

On the Friday, we hitched up again and travelled across to Kent for the Ditton Show at their smashing new venue. There were lots of narrow lanes so Mary was complaining a little in the back about sea sickness as it was very cross country, but we eventually got there in one piece even with towing the trailer. The venue is super, congratulations to Ditton on a well-run show and also managing to find a venue where they seem to appreciate Obedience being there. The grass for the rings was super, there was plenty of parking and a lovely little club house with a large under-cover balcony and home-cooked food. We did try to have one of their very reasonably priced buffet breakfasts but we were a little late for that, but we did manage to have a meal on the Saturday evening which was very good value and excellent.

At the end of July, I went to the funeral of a really nice man called Bill Hardaway. Until his retirement, he was Vice Chairman of the Kennel Club. Bill had a very long career with the Kennel Club and implemented a lot of the changes that we’ve seen over the last few years including popularising the other activities apart from breed, starting the Good Citizen Scheme and, after seeing Mary doing her first ever demonstration of heelwork to music in 1992 putting it into Crufts in the early 1990s as a demonstration event – and look what happened to the sport then! So, a great shame and a sad loss to dogs.

At the end of June, Mary had her usual five day course at Daventry. This year we took the conscious decision to cut down the numbers and make it a little more laid-back if possible. So we aimed for a target of twelve and finished with thirteen. It’s a lovely place for a course, with a great camping area, a little similar to Anglesey, except it’s still Obedience with Agility, a nice indoor training hall, a couple of meals for all attendees and a night at the local pub – what more could you ask for!?