6 podiums for Le and Bu, 8 podiums for Slovenia
Let me start with BIG THANKS to FCI and this year judges who announced no table and 30-40-60 jump heights! What great news, showing agility IS making progress afterall also on WC level. - So happy to see this huge progress in thinking and also in course design! It really made the difference and made it all even more fun!
That sure helped with the attitude as I must admit I was not looking forward that WC that much, running with just two dogs, especially as Bu is getting older - and while still a great team dog, we of course can't do much in individual part, so that made it even harder to leave speedy little To and Bi at home... But in the end, Bu did just as great as needed in team part and with two clean and smooth runs, helped our Large team to silver in jumping and silver overall, what is the best our team ever did. She was a bit slow at first, I think she was careful about the surface - but then got faster&faster every next run and definitely looked great for an almost-10-year-old.
But obviously, my focus was on Le, the super midget. She started somewhat slow in team jumping and also knocked the long jump what costed us 1st place in team jumping, but thanks to wonderful Canadian physiotherapist, we got her back in shape and running much better for the rest of the runs. We went clean in agility team run and helped our Medium team to bronze in agility and bronze overall.
In individual jumping, we had to start as 1st (and last year 2nd - not sure why we always get those starting numbers???), so I was not that focused and we went a bit wide, but clean till the 2nd to last jump... - where my focus dropped too much and we almost got a refusal, saved it, but lost so much time that we ended on 10th place... - But I knew that with a good agility run, we can make that up.
Agility individual medium was certainly the hardest one from all courses on this World Championships and caused record number of eliminations ever on World Championships. But all you really needed for that course was lesson 5 of Lolabuland Foundations Class, so Le didn't have any problems with it 🙂 My focus again dropped after perfect see-saw (the part we're always most afraid of), but we saved that too, won that run and won overall, meaning Le is my 2nd dog earning the World Champion title what is another achievement that never happened before!
I'm super happy also for Roland's 2nd place in small and for all the 8 medals Slovenia won (Bu and Le were part of 6 of those!) - the most from all countries! I think that's really impressive achievement, given we're such a small country with maybe 200 dogs doing agility all together (all levels, some not competing yet), with no indoor facilities at all and only 25 trials per year. But then, all our dogs have great foundation training and they were all handled with just simple fronts, blinds and rears - no fancy moves win again! 🙂
Congratulations again! Thank you so much for posting your runs.
Silvia -- lesson 5 is a really hard one 😉 but yes, with your help thinking it up your students are also doing not too badly 🙂 Do you normally use dog massage therapists/chiropractics ? just curious…and also I noticed many shaved Shelties in WC. Is there a reason ? we never see clipped Shelties here
Well, we would use them if we had physiotherapists like Canadian one… We don’t, so… And yes, many Shelties and BCs get shaved over the summer here. Why? Because we don’t believe the myth that heavy coats help with cooling 🙂
That is such an impressive achievement by not only you and your dogs, but by the whole Slovenian team!! 😀 And I find what you write about your handling so relieving, as “less is more” really is the handling that fits me the best Thanks for a really interesting read!
Yeah, the less changes I can make the better -- less chances to mess things up! 🙂
Awesome!! Thank your for posting. Team Slovenia rocks!!
Love seeing this! But somewhat sad, that inov has desided to discontinued Bare grip. You know, the shoes that make you stay on feet no matter how slipery it is.
Are you sure about that? They discontinued even with the new model??? I need to get some more if so!!!
Yes…On their website there is no more bare grip 🙁 But quite some people are asking them to reconsider or to design new model.
Oh no, that’s bad 🙁 I need to order more until they are still available!