Storm chasers - oswestry - 11&12th september 2021

Friday 10th September saw Wash Warriors travelling to the Welsh borders to Oswestry, one of their favourite venues to compete at Stormies 1st competition since lockdown. Chris, Julia and Tina were joined by Jemma and Ashley, Talitha, Josh, Ella and Zeeve and Abigail. Due to lack of numbers Vicky and Abi helped with box loading and the line for which we were very grateful.

Between us we took 16 dogs including 3 of Bessie's 9 week old puppies (Jessie, Eadie and Mabel) who took over the event shelter for the weekend and provided hours of entertainment!!

Saturday saw Wash Warriors competing in division 6 seeded 1st. Running in the team were Millie, Zarah, Charly, Jack and Bonnie with Talitha running Zarah for the first time due to the lack of Claire. The team ran well smashing the division and coming home in 1st place. Best times for the dogs were: Millie 3.97 sec, Zarah 4.99 sec, 5.29 sec (thanks to Bonnie speeding him up), Charly 5.25 sec and Bonnie 4.54 sec (her best recorded pb), the fastest time for the team was 20.28 secs giving us a seed time to work on in the future. With double points being awarded for the next year this gave Bonnie the boost she needed to gain her ukfl cadet award - hopefully the first of many.

Sunday Wash Warriors ran again this time in div 4 and seeded 1st again, however today was more of a challenge and they came away with a respectable 2nd place. Best times were Millie 4.16 sec, Zarah 4.65 sec, Jack 5.35 sec, Charly 4.6 sec (if this was correct then and all time pb for him) and Bonnie 4.68 sec, the fastest overall team time was 20.35 secs only slitghtly slower than the previous day.

There were no little leaguers this time but we had 2 pc slots with Zena, Pickle, Bessie, Milly, Willow and Luna taking part. We had some individual work to do but also teamed the dogs in pairs to run and practice taking wide crosses. They all ran really well and are coming along nicely now.

The puppies were introduced to flyball with Julia, Jemma and Ash taking them in for a look. Mabel and Eadie were not so sure, however Jessie took a lot of notice and given half a chance would have been in there with the runners!! The puppies drew a lot of attention and fuss and it was good for them to socialise as far as they could as not all vaccinations had been completed.

Looking forward to the future again now with new dogs coming on so well we are looking for a second open team by the end of the year.