Busy as can bee!!

Blimey, what a busy few weeks! Everything seems a bit mad at the moment, and I seem to have very little time to myself (or for blogging!). So, what have we been up to?!

Well, on the 6th Sept mum and I took Finn and Willow to a UKA agility show, and it seems so long ago now that I can barely remember what happened! I do know that Willow came away with another Clear Round rosette, and Finn and I did the fab-est round but just clipped a jump (but I was so pleased as it was so beautifully flowing, and I got all my front crosses in exactly the right place!). Can't remember much else though! We then followed that up with a trip down to Devon on the 8th to Lauren's for a private session to see how we were getting on with the homework she'd set last time (and I think she was pleased with progress!).

Saturday 12th saw the Irish Retriever Rescue Fun Dog Show arrive, which kept us busy all day! The sun came out and summer made another brief appearance. I'm not sure yet how much money was raised, but it seemed to all go well!

And then to this week. Well, I really have been quite a busy bee - I've found an agility venue from which to officially run my classes! We've been running a couple in our field on a Saturday morning, but can't expand what we're doing there for bureaucratic reasons, so have been looking for a suitable venue elsewhere for the past 6 months now without much luck (have been to see a few, but for various reasons they haven't been suitable), and finally the search seems to be over! While mum and dad were away on holiday, I expanded the search area a bit and sent a few last-ditch emails off to a couple of equestrian centres further from home, and one invited me over to have a look, and it all seemed fab! Went over on Tuesday for another meeting, and we've got the green light to go ahead!! So I'm ecstatically happy, but also slightly scared as I actually have to make it work now! So the rest of this week has been spent planning what needs to be done, how to get started, what equipment to order, how to redesign the website, posters etc, along with running the usual classes, working, and trying to train Finn! Need to find time to keep researching to stay abreast with the latest training techniques too. So much to do!! Can't complain though - it might be hard work for the next few months as we try to get it all up and running, but if it means I can make a living out of doing what I love then that would be amazing!

So I'm feeling pretty elated at the moment! Oh, almost forgot, I've also found the most fantastic breeder of Working Cocker Spaniels; she seems to really care about what she's breeding, is open minded and actively researching info on every doggy topic going, has brilliantly low inbreeding co-efficients, does all the health testing available, and is breeding dogs with excellent working ability and sound temperaments. And we're going to meet her and her dogs in November, with the hope that I might have a pup at the end of next year! So that's pretty exciting too!

So I'll leave you for now as I've got too many other things to do! But I'll leave you with this slide show of some pics from our agility classes! What fab dogs they all are!! :-)