Well wouldn't you know it, I wasn't even at Agility Training so I missed my boyfriend Tyson doing the best Agility ever.

Last Saturday the Boss was really pleased with me I did good Agility all day, I worked off lead without running away to look for the B..naughty word, hopping fluffy thing. On Sunday we had a busy day at home. On Monday a new class started at Dog Sports called 'Nothing Serious - Play to Learn'.

We had twelve dogs there. There was Inka a 5 month old Great Dane Puppy, Ice the six month old Bichon, two black spaniels, four german shepherds, me of course , Bear the Beardie, Charlie the pigdog and who else - gosh I have forgotten but anyway there were twelve of us . Oh I know it was Buttons the Golden Retriever. Buttons used to come to training in Ngongotaha a lot when I was little but he got too busy and couldn't come anymore. Monday nights suits his boss to take him to class. I worked quite hard on Monday night especially as my boss was busy and not taking much notice of me.

On Tuesday I had my annual vaccinations (all of us had them Midge, Boo, Chan and me). Chan looked really sick after his vaccinations and I felt a bit funny too. Anyway the boss was so worried about Chan she didn't notice I was a bit off colour. So we went to Obedience class on Tuesday night. I was awesome. I didn't want to run away, I did all the obedience exercises including off lead heel work. My stays were really good. I was quite tired at the end of it but when we got home I got onto a Rat and I really wanted to 'get it'. It is eating the boss's apples and kiwi fruit. So I worked till latish.

This morning we went for our normal walk with the Donkey and by lunchtime I was really droopy. No energy, asleep straight away when I laid down so the boss decided I should stay home at Agility Class time. I thought so too. I seem to have had a bit of an over energetic week to here.

So that is how I came to miss Tyson's big moment. When I first met Tyson, I thought he was a really boring fella. He was handsome but he didn't get excited about much. He couldn't play with us, he just walked around with his ears back and his tail down. He thought he was cool, he said he was cool but I reckon he was just plain scared of everything. Remember about the Dump Adventure, that was all about Tyson. Then he met Katie and he started coming to Agility.

He didn't really like Agility. The rest of us were naughty when we were learning and ran too fast and grabbed the toy or the food all the time and didn't do the work. But Tyson did the work r e a l l y s l o w l y and sometimes he wouldn't do anything at all and he didn't really want the food and he didn't play with his toy or chase a ball or anything. We all felt sorry for him. I asked him why he didn't want to do it. He just looked at me and said 'Nah' and shook his head and walked away. Odd.....

At Agility Class on Wednesday we all work together from Juniors up to Super Seniors. We do weaves practice at all levels and get marked on them. Then we do contact practice and get marked on that. Then we all do three courses. We start with a Juniors course of about 10 pieces and then we do a busy course will lots of things and then we do a Seniors course that us Juniors can still play on if we like. Some of the dogs that go there are competing in Kennel Club Agility Champs and some of them are nearly good enough and doing ribbon shows, some are learning to be good enough for NALA courses and some of us are just beginning. It is a two hour class from 5 till 7 and we usually run over time. Each class Juniors, Intermediate, Seniors and Super Seniors are competing for a ribbon. When they win they go up a class and the biggest loser from that class comes down to the next class down. Whew it seems a bit complicated, but it gives everybody a chance to succeed.

My boss told me about tonight like this. There were 5 dogs in Juniors, usually there is 6 with me. Gem, Wally, Cairo, Bree(my sister)and Tyson.

We have to do weaves first Juniors do six open weaves at the level they are working and the seniors do closed weaves with times. We get a weaves mark. Then we do contacts and we get marked on them. Then we do three different courses. The first course is Juniors but everyone does it. It only has ten pieces and is a warm up for the Intermediate, Seniors and Superseniors dogs.

Anyway tonight Tyson did good weaves and got a full ten points. He did his contacts without jumping off which is great because he really likes jumping off the A frame. Then he did course 1 and was okay. Then course 2 which had twenty pieces and he blitzed it. When he got to the Senior course with 12 proper weaves and everything he was on fire. He had the fastest Junior run on that course. Wow. So he won the purple ribbon . GO TYSON MY HERO.

I think the reason he is getting really good is because Katie searched the pet shops and found a real dinkum possum tail. It is a real Man Toy, like it has been torn off a real possum and Tyson probably thinks he did it and he could because he is so strong. None of those mamby pamby pink fluffy squeaky things for him to play with. He really loves grabbing the possum tail and he gets really excited and if he does good work he gets to play with the tail. So at last he understands what fun it can be to do Agility.

Oh and by the way the other two ribbons awarded tonight went to Tui in Super Seniors and Nala in Intermediate. I wish I had been there now. See you Saturday Ty keep up the good work.

Fae the Fat Fairy. mwah xxxx