Agility legend Alan Bray is our Ace Canine Healthcare ambassador it's a pleasure to share his agility competition plans and results with you along with news on fabulous agility dogs Ticket and Ticita.

This is part two Alan's open narrative giving an insight into the preparation and dedication needed to compete in agility at international level and representing Team GB.

We have travelled via the ferry over the North Sea from Harwich to Hoek of Holland if competing in North or Eastern Europe such as Denmark and Czech Republic or the Channel Tunnel Folkestone to Calais which we did for South Holland and Belgium this time. Remember we pay for all our travel costs as well so you need to choose your route wisely!

It's usually an unearthly start time of 0330 to get an early morning channel crossing then onwards from there - remembering to drive on the right! And the clocks are an hour forward in British Summer Time so you lose an hour going out but gain an hour coming home! 

Getting through the Pet Passport control is always a worry that you have the correct documentation and then the customs is always a fun event and can take ages for passport control having to go through both English and French customs with sometimes getting pulled over for a full drugs search by either or both of them! 

Then drive across Europe and find the hotel which we have to pay for as well plus all meals and drinks, park up and set up your dog friendly room and explore a bit to get your bearings and see where to eat and exercise your dogs etc. Prior to starting we have a team welcome drinks and meal to get us altogether prior to the event.

Then the team commitments start with formal training in the venue which is manic!

The venue was split into three identical rings with three different countries training in each ring for anything between 8 and 16 minutes total for all your team and that's your lot! So, don't do anything heroic just get your dog used to the surface and equipment and make sure you do simple things you don't want a problem on the eve of competing! 

Then you have a vet check, documents check and measuring for those dogs not already having an FCI measure and informal training away from the venue to keep us ready to compete.

Then we have the usually x3 days actual competition

We were lucky enough to land, Bronze, Silver and Gold Medals which we are very proud of. The courses were very, very tight compared to the UK being set at 7 metres maximum compared to our 10 metres between each obstacle so this meant my large powerful Border Collie Ticket was constantly looking further forward than the next obstacle which made it difficult to control him. But we managed it to land the medals! 

Three days solid of competing with two dogs over 200+ metre courses takes its toll on the old ankle and knee and hip joints plus the feet of course so thank goodness for I-Flex from Ace Canine which kept me ok throughout the competition just taking a one a day capsule really does help as I can remember the pain I used to be in when I got out of bed in the morning and couldn't put my feet down flat on the floor before I took this! 😀 

i-Flex joint care for Humans.

Big mention to my small dog height team mates Marc Wingate-Wynne, John Clayton and Jason Smallshaw who carried me when my cocker spaniel was overawed with the indoor noise and wouldn't work you guys were brilliant thank you so much! 😀 

The World Cup differs from the European Championships where the Europeans work like our Championships with a jumping and agility qualifier then the final from scratch ran in reverse order if qualifying for the final.  Whereas the World Cup is the best of the combined jumping and agility rounds with no final round.

Ticket my Border Collie worked beautifully with just a 5f on the challenging jumping course when he ran past a jump because of not being used to the small ring size and 7 metre distances but I managed to not get an E so finished a creditable 9th out of 85 dogs from all the countries competing but it is a really tall order to get on the podium from there.

So, I knew Ticket had to do a great run on the agility to try and catch the 8 dogs ahead of us and thankfully this he did blasting around the agility course winning by a over a second and half to haul us into Bronze position overall and an Individual Gold great stuff what a good boy! 

The atmosphere was electric with x4 indoor rings with x4 different countries all chanting and blowing their air horns, bells and heaven know what else in support of their team mate so it was bedlam in there and your dog needed a lot of visual and body language support to get around the courses. 

There were opening and closing ceremonies with each country being introduced to the crowd and parading some with their own dogs as well all holding their national flags. 

Top three from each class were introduced onto the podium at prize giving with supporting team manager and national flag held behind them for photographs and the relevant national anthem played which was respected by all. All countries make a really big thing of this and some provide team "tunnels" for their award winning team mates to run under to the podium! 

It was good to sing God Save the King though!! 

Our Juniors competed at the same event so it was great to see the youngsters doing really well and also us supporting each other.

These were very long days though with course walking at 0700 - if you miss it then tough your not allowed to walk again and then the actual competitions with the last day finishing at 2200! Bit late for yours truly! 

Then there was the little matter of packing and heading back to the channel on early Monday morning for the 1318 train hoping there aren't any hold ups and then home to unpack wash everything and then get back to teaching again Tuesday morning! 

Thank you to Amy Louise Challis and Anne Challis and Andrew Challis for looking after our dogs while we were away.

Thank you to Stacey Irwin Burns for all her help with Ticket from since he was a pup and Shannon Springford for our training together with Team GB and our team management Jackie Gardner without whom non of this would have happened plus our ring manager's Bernadette Bay and Alison Gayton who ensured we didn't miss our runs as its all very confusing when your waiting to go and trying to keep up with what's going on as well as concentrating on your dog and the course you are about to run.

And finally a huge thank you to my beautiful Louise for your help and support x

We did however have a tragedy while we were away as in the first night there our beloved Tesla Girl took ill and had to go to sleep which Lou's mum Anne took care of her as she and Lou bred her and brought her onto the world so she was with her at the end.

💔

But, I feel so guilty that I wasn't there to hold her while she went and the house is so empty without her 😢 I still expect to see her smile and head tilted to the side with her pricked ears saying hello when I come home 😞 

 Alan Bray

www.ace-canine.com

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