Spryte News and Trialling Days

It’s been a while since I posted - I had been trying to find the time (and, if I’m being honest here, the inclination) to bath young Spryte up proper, give her the full grooming treatment so that I can get some recent (13 month old!) photos to go along with the brag of saying she achieved her Herding Test title on that Sunday the 19th of August. Robyn and I did a swapsies – I took Tag (Ch Winpara Secret Obsession ADM JDM JDO SPD GD SD) and ran him in Novice Strategic Pairs for a qualifying card and a 2nd place I believe it was. Robyn took Spryte to the Herding trials that day and came back with both the required passes for her Herding Test (HT) title. Considering this was only her 4th time on sheep I was mightily impressed with the little pipsqueak. Thanks to Robyn of course who knew which direction to walk and where to turn! So the photos of the Spryte mite are still forthcoming – I have got as far as combing her out and tidying up her feet today. We shall endeavour to bath her next weekend.

Raven received treatment last Tuesday – the nasty one (Doxorubicin). Her WBC’s were back at 5.2 which was a relief to say the least. However this treatment has knocked her around a bit more this week than when she had the drug the first couple of times. She’s been more tired, nauseous and generally just feeling a little off. Not that there has been a day when she has knocked back food though! And it certainly didn’t stop her from doing some training Thursday night and bits and pieces of UD everyday. The weekend before was kind of a wipe out – we had a CAWA fundraising trial on the 26th of August. Agility, Jumping and one Strat Pairs run. Let’s see – 8 runs in total – 4 with Raven, 4 with Cypher. The weather was atrocious – cold, wet and windy to boot! Raven didn’t finish a course since a bar came down in each. And Cypher – well he just didn’t switch on, he had a bar down in one, 2 bars in the other, went into an off course tunnel in Open Jumping and DQ’d in Masters Jumping by back jumping a bar! Thankfully Mr Reliable was back in our Masters Strategic Pairs run and he and partner Sage pulled off a lovely run for 1st place and our first pass in SP Masters! Raven and Nifty also managed to keep it together (with a couple of hiccups) to claim their first leg with a 4th place. I also helped Lisa out and ran Emmy for their first leg of SPDM and a 3rd place. So at least the whole day wasn’t a total write off – which when you got as cold and wet as I did is a fairly significant saving grace!
This weekend panned out somewhat better. Raven qualified in both Masters Jumping and Open Jumping, I completely fluffed her on a Masters Agility course that really leant itself to her style of running (at a distance!) and then in Open Agility she actually missed her DW contact (I must admit I was pushing the lateral limits of an independent contact with her in that one!). But it was a thrill to run and not one bar down. She was starting to show a bit of fatigue I think though today. Either that or she was just not quite herself yet after treatment. She came 4th in both her jumping runs, this combined with a feeling that she wasn’t as full on as she has been recently just means that she has not quite returned to 100% after the chemo this week. She has a week off this week so hopefully she’ll bounce right back soon. She and Nifty also did a cracker of a Strategic Pairs run today – no mistakes and we finished with a pass and 2nd place.
Cypher was much more on track today as well, he came 4th in Masters Agility and also qualified in Open Jumping 3 seconds slower than Raven. We had a few hiccups in SPDM in the afternoon and even without any hiccups pairs were running out of time so no joy there. I have posted photos from today below;