Ryton (moltens) 8 Feb 2025

2025 kicked off to a start with a few of the club travelling to Coventry to attend our first outing of the new year at Molten Magnet's indoor event.

We were low in numbers and dogs today with Jemma bringing our newbie member Beth with Bonnie, Bessie, Mabel and Maggie (Indie was still on maternity leave!!). Julia and Tina brought Jessie, Zarah and Charly, Teen and Dean brought Lottie (& Jovi), Claire brought Stan and Eddie. So our teams were: Roman Warriors with Bessie, Stan, Jessie and Mabel; Viking Warriors with Maggie, Bonnie, Zarah and Charly; and Wash Wally with Lottie and Eddie (not competing).

Julia and Tina had the lights with them so the first task of the day was to set them up. Chris had not come to this event so had left them in our charge for a change but all went well and they set up first time.

This was Beth's first competition with us and we had thrown her in at the deep end (after around 6 training sessions with her young dog Cleo) and she was running Bessie on starts in Roman and Bonnie in 2nd slot in Vikings.

Romans were up first and once Beth got the hang of the lights she put in some really good starts including a roller... The dogs loved being back in the lanes and ran well losing 2 and winning 2 of their heats throughout the day. They ended up in 2nd place in div 3 with a fastest recorded time of 18.90 secs.

Vikings were in div 4 and ran steadily all day. Beth found in more difficult running in the 2nd slot with Bonnie as she had trouble judging the crosses, not something we were worried about as we wanted to make sure that she had an enjoyable day, and as a new handler she really did an amazing job. Throughout the day Vikings lost all their opposition as all the other teams broke out so they ended up winning the division with a best time of 20.66 secs.

The final team was Wash Wally with Eddie and Lottie. This was a training session for both of these dogs; Eddie to continue to build his confidence in the ring and Lottie to ensure she completed a box turn in competition. The 2 dogs ran really well, Lottie was running first in the morning and managed a 4.01s, Eddie really seemed to be enjoying himself in the ring again leaving Claire without any real issues now. In the afternoon Eddie took the starts and even managed a roller and had no issue with Lottie running in.

We felt that the day was a good success and the work that Lottie and Eddie had put in was well worth it.

It was a long day having arrived just before 7 am and returning home between 9 & 10 pm, we hoped we had not put Beth off but it seems not. She confirmed to us after the event that it was a great experience to run seasoned dogs in her first competition and that she had really enjoyed her day with us and was looking forward to the next one. A big thank you goes to her for coming up trumps as we couldn't have managed without her, she did a grand job.