Finals

Well its all over.

We have one Australian National Champ, and that is Diane Reid and India (Taste of).

On a course where there was only ONE clear round, Dianne and India performed to the highest level on won Open Agility.

Also, Fiona and Fya were 5th and Ross and Ice were 6th.

A fantastic effort.

In Masters Agility we had a lot of finalists, but it was not our day. There was a tunnel entrance right beside the down contact. Tana thought that was so attractive and jumped right in from the dogwalk downramp. C was called for the down contact on the DW, Ace and India popped the weave at the end, Cannon went off-course at No. 3 and that was that for us.

Novice Jumpers. Lyn and Josie had a great run until the 4th last obstacle when she ran past the tunnel entrance having left all of the hurdles up – bugger!!

Open Jumpers. We had Karen and Dianne running a very tough course with a 180 degree away turn from a tunnel exit with the distance line at the tunnel. Indy popped the weave and continued to do the tough bit really well. Tana and Karen had a moment or two of confusion at the distance challenge enough to put them out of the running too.

Masters Jumpers saw 3 kiwi dogs go clear with Flare 4th and both Ace and Abby also in the top 10.

The Australian jumping dogs were just so very impressive to watch – furiously fast and very accurate. They certainly have skills which we lack here in NZ for the most part.

The people here have been fantastic to us and we have made a lot of new friends. We just can’t say enough about how welcoming they have been – THANK YOU AUSTRALIA!!

Footnotes:

Forgot to say – On Games day – Ice leapt up at the end of the Pairs run and bit Ross somewhere he would rather we didn’t mention……………Luckily he won some prizes in the second chance draw today so has two brand new balls (red tennis ones).

One other moment that is best forgotten by those involved was when (on separate days) both Fiona F and Ross managed to walk the Novice Agility course thinking it was open. Ross even carefully checked with the judge re the table ruling (no open courses had a table all weekend).

The kiwi team spirit has been fantastic – thanks in large part to the supporters with their tutus, wigs and flags. We became infamous for our noisy support during both the runs and prizegiving and managed to rope in a few ‘honorary’ kiwis. So much so that an Aussie Sheila racing Peter to put up a hurdle during the finals tackled him in the ring bringing him down very impressive!!