The briefing was quite exciting as we finally felt like we were actually at Crufts. Lots of questions got asked and they showed us a photo of what an acceptable cross is which surprised me as it was fairly tight and I did wonder how they would judge it by eye…
The time finally came for us to go in. They wanted all teams ready in the holding ring so we had to get our dogs ready even though we were the last team to go in the ring. It was boiling hot in there so the dogs all got very very hot and they could hear that flyball was going on the other side of a big curtain so keeping Cai calm was almost impossible. I wasn’t too worried as our goal had been to win our first race which would qualify us for Saturdays racing. We knew before who we were racing and as long as we made no mistakes we knew our dogs were much faster than them so we just had to go in and run perfectly with no distance markers and no warm up… sounds simple!
The first 3 races were run and then it was our turn. We ran into the ring and Cai didn’t seem bothered at all. The ring feels so much smaller when you are in it and you are concentrating on your dog so much you don’t even notice the public. We had been drawn in the lane nearest the cameras so every time I looked up and the big screen they had images of our dogs on there. Cai look superb if I do say so myself! We quickly measured our 40 foot marker and lined up. With the flyball they really rush you so you go straight in and race with no time to get nervous. Cai ran start as usual. The judge blew the whistle and we were off. Cai was flying as he always runs well on rubber matting, Flash did a perfect cross into him and was well ahead of the other team. Jasper kept us ahead and Breeze went last winning the leg for us. It was fantastic to have breeze with us after nearly dying a few months before. Sadly I could see her already tiring and getting affected by the heat.
Cai was perfect in the second leg but we got faulted for two early crosses, having watched the video back later though they were really wide but that shows you how hard it is to judge by eye when the dogs are going so fast.
That put pressure on us as we couldn’t afford to get faulted again. The last leg was just perfect! We were miles ahead of the other team and actually got a ‘wow’ from the commentator. Thankfully we didn’t get faulted for our changes. That qualified us for Saturdays racing so there were big smiles all round. We left the ring thinking that was it to find out we were racing for placings! We got a few minutes break and the dogs got a quick drink then we were back in again.
We won our next race too and stayed in the ring to race for 1st and 2nd. The dogs were really tired by now and all effected by the heat and so were the handlers! I’m wearing shorts next time. We didn’t expect to win as we were racing the fastest team in the UK but the dogs did there best to try. We ended up 2nd gaining us a lovely Crufts rosette and a lap on honor round the main ring. Who would have thought four years ago my Cai would be leading everyone round the main ring at Crufts. This just shows you that you should never give up as you can achieve anything if you try hard enough.
