Episode 29 - New members

new um new handlers we did we did um it was a yeah it was a learning weekend um we we had two injuries really late injuries um we had mabs and who was this other injury oh no we had zebra on the day yeah um which meant that we had a handler with two dogs in the same in the same team which proved difficult it's not something we've done it before but it's not something we've practiced recently and I've always run Charlie haven't I and he'll

run for

me so we tried different variations and it just wasn't working so we ended up going NFC which meant that we could put a three dog team in and we could alternate her two dogs so she didn't have to run them together which was a lot more chilled and it meant we could concentrate on the faults and it was much better um and then the second day we were on the team and the faults we corrected the day before and hunter especially um running wide dropping his turn second day was much better so he ended up winning the um Is it the Inca Award? Most improved.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So Hannah was really pleased with that.

That was nice.

So nice that we managed to give them time for a bit more training.

And you know what? You get so much more out of a session.

And I remember talking to Donna Cully having a training session when we had that training session with Donna Cully and she said to me at the time just go NFC if it's all going wrong just go NFC or go into a competition and if for whatever reason before you get there there is something you want to work on in training just go NFC because the dogs will get so much more out of training in a competition environment and she said that sometimes she would go to a competition knowing that

they were going to go NFC so it used to really disappoint me going NFC because obviously you're not racing you're not getting your points you're not do you know what I mean it just didn't feel like you'd spent a lot of money to go and then not compete.

Yeah.

But now it's absolutely fine.

And I'd much rather that we gain experience and training out of that competition than, you know, scrap it together and just...

Exactly.

And nobody gets

anything out of that and everybody comes away.

You're a bit

jaded, aren't you?

Yeah.

And because I was obviously chucking you all on Flyboard Geek, wasn't I? We

know.

LAUGHTER And obviously we knew what was going on on the ground.

So sometimes we just didn't answer because we're just like, Nikki says this.

Oh, I'm not even going to answer because it's all going horribly wrong.