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Occasional series of articles on show venue’s we have visited

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Friday 30 May and mid morning we load the dogs into the van, hitch up the caravan and set off across the country to Thetford in Norfolk for the West Suffolk DTS double show weekend.

A new venue for the show this year at the Thetford Rugby Club ground, which must be a testing time for the organisers, as you never know what might happen. Thankfully the only hiccup seemed to be the proposed Friday night fish and chip van letting them down, but Sarah Connell had managed to get a message out via the internet so most campers would have known and made other plans.

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Obedience Championship Scene 2014 Part 1

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

As we are now at the end of May and with the Crufts Championships fading into a memory it seems like a good time to catch up on what’s been happening in the Ticket classes.

Starting off with the Midlands Border Collie Club show on the 19 April, the first day of a double weekend from this club plus the bonus of the Border Collie Club of Gt Britain show on the same ground on Friday 18 April. The shows were held at Cattows Farm, Heather, Leics, which was a new venue for this year. The ground was quite rutted in some places but thankfully the better areas were kept for the rings, the clubs had worked hard to ensure their shows would go on and I am sure we have all worked on much worse surfaces. One good thing was that the camping, parking and the rings were all on one level, within easy reach of each other and there was an added bonus of some lovely dog walks in the surrounding area. From the judges comments the hospitality was second to none and the competitors were well catered for.

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Spectator report from the Obedience World Cup -Crufts 2014

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

The fourth and last day of Crufts 2014 and we are back at Hall 5 of the NEC for the Obedience World Cup competition. This year we have 9 countries competing as we welcome back the Republic of Ireland, the other countries being Wales, Scotland, England, Northern Ireland, Canada, Germany, Belgium and Holland.

Canada is once again represented by the one-man team of David Holzman and in a brilliant show of sportsmanship the team from Holland have got the okay to lend their reserve pairing of Annemarie Ibelings and her WS ‘Phoebe’ to the Republic of Ireland who were only able to bring a team of two with them.

The judge for today’s competition is Stella Henstridge who first became interested in Obedience in the early 1980’s and competed at the Crufts Championships for the first time in 1993, she has been the manager of the England team for the past 6 years so obviously knows this competition really well.

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Spectator report from Obedience Championship – Bitch day

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Time flies and its already day three of Crufts 2014 and hardly any traffic on the M42 so it took us no time at all to get to the NEC from our hotel, probably spending more time in the car park queue than on the motorway. So into Hall 5 nice and early with plenty of time to catch up with a few friends who are competing here today. Once again the benches are a blaze of colour from the good luck cards and balloons. Grabbing the customary coffee we then made our way up to the seats ready for the start of today’s competition.

The judge, Nigel Slater and his team line up in the ring at 8.40am ready for the parade of competitors and then to the music of ‘Here comes the Girls’ the teams started to enter the ring, Gerard Paisley introducing each team as they came in with where and under which judge they won their tickets in 2013. There was a loud cheer from the Welsh contingent as Jane Moran entered with ‘Nellie’, and not to be outdone there was an equally large cheer from the Scottish fans as Denise Robertson and ‘Taylor’ entered. Kathy Russell entered with two of her dogs ‘Nyla’ and ‘Zuri’ as they had been drawn in consecutive running orders, Kathy having already been round the ring earlier in the parade with ‘Oddi’. Already there was a good atmosphere around the arena and the stands had started to fill up.

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Spectator report from Obedience Championship, Dog Day

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

We were lucky this year to get a good deal on a hotel quite close to the NEC so not too early a start on Friday morning and just a junction up the already slow moving, busy M42 and we arrived at the venue in good time. Walking across to Hall 5 at about 7.40am there were plenty of people and dogs milling about the concourse, quite a few of them it seems trying to find out just where they were supposed to be going.

We made our way round, avoiding the cumbersome toe crunching trolleys, to where today’s competitors were setting up their benches with good luck cards, banners and balloons, always a very colourful display which really does give an expectant buzz about the place. After dropping off some card to friends we had plenty of time to grab a coffee and take our seats ready for today’s competition to start.

Just after 8.15 the handlers came into the stand to watch a run through of the heelwork from some of today’s ring stewards, quite a flowing round, starting off in fast pace but not too much of it then there is a zigzag laid out in tape in the corner of the ring near the entrance, the ASSD down will be given on the zigzag, and a large circle which is worked in slow, then normal and has the ASSD sit position on it, nothing to trick dog or handler which is always nice to see.

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Inter Regional Competition Crufts 2014

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Thursday 6 March 2014 and we have the first day of this years Crufts Dog Show at the NEC in Birmingham and the start of the Obedience competitions. Obedience is at the heart of virtually every dog sport/hobby from Agility and Flyball to Canicross and Breed Showing and this year is a celebration of 60 years of Obedience Competition at Crufts.

To kick off the four days of Obedience we have the Inter Regional competition sponsored by Our Dogs. Seven regional teams select a total of seven dogs plus a travelling reserve to compete in classes from Beginners to Class C, each team is restricted to a total of two border collies/working sheepdogs and three of any other single breed, so we always have a good variety of breeds strutting their stuff in the ring. This year those other breeds included, a Standard Poodle, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Spanish Water Dog, Newfoundland and a Rhd Ridgeback. Giving the competition a re-vamp from previous years a non-standard exercise has been included in each class, hopefully giving spectators and handlers just a little something different to enjoy.

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Looking forward to Crufts Championship Obedience 2014

By: Gemma Henshaw

So here we are once again, just under a week before a good many of us make our annual pilgrimage to Birmingham for Crufts 2014.

In Obedience we had a much better year, weather wise, in 2013 than in the previous year meaning that all scheduled Ticket shows went ahead, although at least one did have to re-schedule as a result of the weather, The ground for the Midlands BCC two day show and the Border Collie Club of GB’s one day show, was under a thick blanket of snow and the decision was made on the 25 March to cancel all three days, luckily they were able to re-schedule to the 15 September at Birmingham.

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The British Obedience Championship Scene Pt 4

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

A bit of a delay in writing this last report on the 2013 Championship season but all the delights of Christmas and New Year crept in and pushed this slightly to one side.

So a look at the last set of Championship shows from 2013 and the teams who have qualified through to Crufts 2014.

Starting off on 1st September and a journey north into Scotland for the East Kilbride DC show, many of the judges remarking on the superb hospitality shown to them by the club, the catering also had to be first class judging by the many excellent remarks made by all who were there. Margaret Harvey was in charge of the bitch ticket today and awarded her 1st place to Karen Davies and ‘Ob Ch Stillmoor Celtic Banner’, working a superb round, ‘all exercises carried out with accuracy and attitude’. The dog ticket judge Sharon Dunstan’s top spot went to a delighted Jackie Duck and ‘Ob Ch Tyefold Xander’ their first ticket win of the year.

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Scenar Therapy for Dogs

By: Susan & Gemma Henshaw

Development –

A team led by Alexander Karaseu developed the Scenar system, which was primarily used in their space programme as a means for astronauts to tend to any injuries whilst in space, although many doctors and scientists remained sceptical of its use. But then the economic climate in Russia led to doctors seeking non-pharmaceutical methods of treating their patients.

The Scenar system was put to the test in hospitals, clinics and by ambulance medics and they found Scenar had the effect of reducing significantly the need for surgery and long term use of drugs, and in recent years the success figures have been quoted at 80-90% across all medical conditions.

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Book review: Collie Psychology by Carol Price

Review by: Ellen Sellers

Inside The Border Collie Mind
It has often been said that the Border Collie is the breed that has it all – brains and beauty. Initially bred to herd sheep, over time the Border Collie has developed into one of the most varied and versatile of all breeds, proving to be an expert in a huge number of fields including agility, obedience and working trials.

However, despite their many obvious talents, the strong instinct, drive and sensitivity of this breed has meant that the Border Collie is certainly not the most straightforward of dogs.

In this book, Carol Price, canine behaviour specialist and Border Collie expert, helps us to understand the intricate workings of this special breed’s brain. Covering a wide range of topics from the history of the breed, to understanding herding instincts, the reason behind obsessive and manic behaviour and providing the recipe for raising a problem free dog, this book is enlightening for even the most experienced Collie owner.

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