News Update
28.09.2006

Three Dogs in the Obedience Championships at Crufts !!

Mary was absolutely thrilled on Saturday 23rd September when Taz won the Championship Dog Obedience class at the BAGSD Championship Show in Birmingham under judge Mike Vines. This means that she has now qualified three dogs to work in the Championship at Crufts: Taz and Quincy in Dog and Kizzy in Bitch. One or two people have asked if anyone has ever qualified three dogs for the Championships before and we're not sure but think that someone has so will have to find out.  It was only just a couple of weeks before that she got the Reserve Ticket with Taz under Herbie Watson at Coventry so to come so quickly after qualifying for Ticket Class to get a Reserve and a win was really thrilling.  Mary rang Dave at home to give him the good news as he wasn't at the show and when she got home he had cooked her a meal, compliments of "Tesco Finest" and she reckons that for the first time ever he got her a 'congratulations' card and also there was a bottle of Tattinger champagne chilling in the fridge!


Mary with the head of the RAF Police Dogs, Sgt Steve Penman
Then Taz nearly got himself another Ticket!  The following weekend they were at the Thurrock and Elm Park Championship double weekend and on the Saturday Taz was leading the Ticket again but failed 'Scent' on the same day that he was also in contention for first or second place in Open 'C' but again he failed 'Scent' which was quite bizarre as he had never had a 'Scent' problem.  Then Mary realised that the previous week Taz had had a problem with his ear and she had taken him to the vet on the Thursday where the vet had administered some drops into his ear and she realised there was a possibility that this could havehad an effect on his other senses as things with the ear can migrate to the nose. But it wasn't all bad as the following day he achieved third place in the Championship Class under Janet Oliver.

Mary has now won a total of 65 Kennel Club Championship Challenge Certificates and 41 Reserve Certificates, plus of course there are not many years in the last 25 that she has not actually been competing in either the Dog or Bitch Championships at Crufts so this is quite an achievement!

While we're on Obedience, Levi has now won three Novice Obedience classes but as usual Mary is not in a terrible rush to push him on, Foxy won her third Class 'B' in Wales on Sunday 24th September so is now Class 'C' only and the following weekend at Thurrock and Elm Park shows, she was again on form and won Class 'B' on both days to give her a grand total of 5 'B' wins, Quincy won his Ticket in July at Winchester under Dee Steadman and also got the Reserve at Eastleigh under Sue Howell, Kizzy won her Ticket at Cippenham in July under Arlene Phillips and also got a 4th in Ticket under Audrey Johnson at Cambridge as well as a 3rd in Ticket under Danny Godfrey at the GSD Wales show and she stayed on form for the Thurrock and Elm Park show where again she won the Reserve Ticket on the Saturday.



Mary celebrating after winning the first ticket with Taz and getting him to crufts for the 1st time
It has been a fairly busy Summer for both Mary and Dave, mainly taken up with going to shows. At the end of July, Mary took a week's course at the home of Premier Showjumps not far from Gatwick Airport and had a full house as usual with Obedience training every morning and Agility in the afternoons.  This really is a superb venue for a course and with Liz and Alan Pollock being hosts for the week, everyone's needs are catered for. This was followed by the annual pilgrimmage to Burridge Show down at Southsea where Mary's two sisters, Tricia and Pauline, join her and Dave.  This is quite a unique show in today's terms and is probably the only KC licensed show left with only one ring. Dave normally has a day trip while they are there and in previous years he has been to Jersey or France etc, but this year was more 'run of the mill' with an outing to the Isle of Wight.  The following week was going to be very busy for Dave anyway because over the weekend the second Kennel Club International Agility Festival was to take place where he is on the organising committee so it was set to be a very busy time.  Once again, Mary and her two sisters, Tricia and Pauline, joined him and became waitresses in the judges and stewards catering for the weekend.  This was a tremendously successful show and probably could be said to be a little too successful; the show entries shot up more than anticipated, perhaps the infra-structure did not grow quite as quickly and the area on which the show was allocated meant that it was a little spread out.  But Dave tells me that measures have been put in place to solve these problems next year, including moving to a new area of the showground which will be far superior to that used this year.  For the second week in August, they moved on to the Dogs in Need Agility Show at the Suffolk Showground, Ipswich for their annual week's holiday.  Normally, it is quite good weather for this but the sun did not shine on them quite so much as usual this year although I think they had quite a good time anyway.

Mary in a patriotic pose at the World Agility Championships

The end of August and beginning of September is always very busy for Dave as he runs the Kennel Club Agility Stakes Semi Finals at the Town & Country Festival at Stoneleigh, then on the following weekend and at the same venue it is the City of Birmingham Championship Show where he runs the Kennel Club Novice Agility Semi Finals, Kennel Club Small Dog Semi Finals and the Pedigree Pairs Relay and Team Relay Finals, as well as helping to run the Kennel Club YKC event.  Then, as soon as that finished on the Sunday evening, they set off for Anglesey for the second year where Mary was taking a one week training camp at Rex Seddon's and Maggie Backhouse's farm - a superb spot on a lovely island.  The farm has lots of exercise area and a very large field for camping, in the middle of which is an agility training ring with new equipment and they also have a small barn converted into a training hall with a superb non-slip floor which was rather expensive as it's the same flooring as that used on children's play areas and looks like tarmac but has a bit of a spring in it.  As usual, the atmosphere was great and they had HTM every morning and Agility every afternoon plus a couple of barbecue evenings and a Heelwork to Music demonstration evening.  Also, I'm told that even Dave got up to do a routine - or I should say he tried but must have had too much to drink!

During the week in Wales, Dave had been approached quite some time ago about the likelihood of Mary putting on one of her Cabaret Evenings in aid of the local Welsh Horse Society.  This was arranged for one evening during the week and all the handlers on the course were able to buy tickets at a discounted price.  The venue was the main building of the Anglesey Showground - a lovely venue but unfortunately the society slipped up somewhat and even though they received many requests, they decided not to pre-print any tickets and just told people to turn up on the night.  This turned out to be a bad mistake as a lot of people who wanted to come a distance decided not to come in case they couldn't get in and then on the night about an hour before it was due to start a sea mist came down like thick fog and this probably put people off as well.  So although there was in excess of 100 people there, it probably did not raise quite as much for the Welsh Horse Society as they would have liked.

The brand new conference centre where Mary is training at the Coolangatta Pet Motel in Australia
I forgot to mention that at the Town & Country Festival, there is a Heelwork to Music Show held over the three days with a Crufts qualifying event and some time prior Dave had been contacted by the main Japanese television network who wanted to actually film a Japanese girl competing in a HTM competition.  So Dave made all the arrangements for her to borrow one of their own dogs and compete in the morning at the Town & Country.  I think it took him by surprise just how big this Japanese involvement grew because when they actually arrived, there were about a dozen of them including the top producer from the programme, cameramen, a sound man, various assistants, a top Japanese actress plus her dresser!  So what was anticipated to be a fairly small and low-key operation turned into something rather large!  Mary did some training with the actress and our Taz who she was be using for the competition and also on one afternoon, Carole Dodson and Lesley Brocklehurst did some training with her and their own dogs. The music chosen was 'Saturday Night Fever' and they did a specially cut version which lasted just one and a half minutes.  On the Monday morning, the organiser, Erica Hyde, very kindly allowed her to compete at the end of one of the Freestyle classes (with permission from the Kennel Club).  Three cameras were set up for this and they also spent a lot of the day filming other people's routines.  It was certainly exciting and definitely different - a bit like the Japanese version of 'Faking It'.

During the second week in September, Mary had another interesting assignment for an international telecommunications and advertising company.  What they wanted was a piece of amusing film for their national conference.  It was only to last a couple of minutes and what they did was to hire a conference room at the Metropole at the NEC where Mary had to train two of their top executives - one male and one female - to do some tricks with her dogs then they would cut it together and edit a short HTM routine for these executives which was going to be Spanish themed.  I'm told that they dressed totally Spanish and they really had a whale of a time but it was much to the bewilderment of the cameraman that they employed.  I would love to be at the company conference when they show all of this to their hundreds of staff telling them that this is what their senior executives get up to in their spare time!

The following night it was over to Malvern Showground where the Central Bernese Dog Club were holding one of Mary's Cabaret Evenings in the Severn Hall.  As with all these venues, for the first time you just do not know what to expect but when they arrived it was absolutely superb. The complete hall is carpeted with a bar and refreshments, a huge tiered seating section, a lovely sized ring with seating along the other two sides and around 350 spectators.  So it was a smashing night for all and with a great atmosphere.

The following week, being the third week in September, was going to be a busy one as Dave and Mary had accepted an invitation from Ann Maxwell of Lochaber DTC for Mary to put on one of her Cabaret Evenings in Fort William followed by a training day.  The night was to be on the Tuesday with the training day on the Wednesday, so they set off for Fort William on the Monday and had a very long and tiring drive which took all day.  There is some beautiful scenery in that part of the world which just gets better and better once you have passed Glasgow.  Ann and her husband Jim live in a place called Roy Bridge which is very quiet and almost in the middle of nowhere; the only thing they could not organise was the weather as it just rained and rained but fortunately everything they were doing was inside so it didn't matter - it was just a shame for the dogs.  Tuesday afternoon was taken up with setting up for the Cabaret Evening which was going to be at the Nevis Centre.  The club had arranged for carpets to be laid in the display area and they were very fortunate again to have a huge section of tiered seating as this really does make a big difference to the atmosphere of a cabaret and it was an extremely successful night with over 400 spectators who had travelled from miles away including the Orkneys!  Then the following day, Mary held a training day concentrating on the clicker and tricks.  That night, at 5:30 pm they were on the road again travelling much further north way past Inverness and on to Lossiemouth.
 
Mary with the RAF Police Dog Handlers
Mary had been asked by Sgt Steve Penman who runs the RAF Police Dog Section at RAF Lossiemouth to take a one-day seminar on clicker training for their trainers and handlers.  Mary had previously been to the Defence Animal Training Centre at Melton Mowbray to take a clicker training day and this was to be a repeat exercise.  As everyone perhaps understands, the armed services do have different needs in their dogs hence must have different training methods but they are trying to modernise their training methods and certainly I think they were very surprised with the success that can be achieved with the latest training techniques.  This was quite an amazing place and absolutely huge - it's a very active base with fighter jets taking off constantly during the day and evening and, believe me, watching a jet take off in the semi darkness of the evening with the after-burners glowing is quite a stunning sight!  The dog training centre on the base was quite impressive with a newish building and kennels in immaculate condition and with a training paddock next to it with a brand new set of agility equipment.  The primary duties of the dog handlers was overnight guarding throughout the base with mainly GSDs but there was also some search duties involved with other breeds. They made us extremely welcome and were a really nice bunch of people.  The downside was, of course, that they did not realise just how far north they had driven having come up in two stages until it came to driving back and they did intend to stay over one night to break the journey but Dave decided that as he had had a restful day then he would drive all the way back overnight so nine hours later they arrived home in Rugby.

Just to finish off September, the following week Mary had a repeat Cabaret Evening in London for the Good Boy Dog School where they were pleased to see Roy Dyer in the audience. Roy is quite well-known for being manager of the Essex Dog Display Team and I think that Mary may be doing a night in Brentford in the not too distant future.
The rest of the year looks to be a little busy for Mary and Dave as in the first week of October they went off to spectate at the World Agility Championships in Basle, Switzerland.  This was not a vintage year for the British team but when you have the top handlers from 34 countries competing and very tricky courses, from the results it looks as if they did remarkably well especially Lesley Olden with Beany who finished in fourth place in the individual event.  Then within a couple of days of arriving back from there Mary was off to Australia for two weeks to take a one week seminar at the Coolangatta Pet Motel which is on the Gold Coast.  This is an absolutely superb venue and the owners, Ann and Tony Bulke, have just completely refurbished the training area with what they term as 'cabins' but what we would call bungalows for participants on the seminar as well as new indoor and outdoor training facilities.  I think Dave is now regretting saying that he would not go on this trip!
Mary swimming with the dolphins in Australia.

During November Mary has a Cabaret Evening followed by a training day in Guernsey.  The cabaret is actually a 'charity dinner cabaret' so should prove to be quite interesting.  Discover Dogs will be taking place on the weekend of 11th/12th November at Earls Court, London where Mary will be performing a routine and also taking a clicker training demo, then the following week both Dave and Mary will be flying to San Francisco immediately followed by the All Winners Show in Amsterdam where Mary will be taking some of her own dogs to perform a routine and also hold some clicker training demos.  Her overseas travels for the year will then be completed during the first weekend of December when she will be training seminar in Turin, Italy.

Mary's diary is already filling up quite well for next year with trips lined up to a couple of new places including Iceland and Japan as well as a return visit to Russia, this time probably incorporating both Moscow and St Petersburg.