Arooo roo! roo!



Look at what I've got!!!!!! Ha ha!!! It has a figure on it, and it means I beat lots and lots of other dogs in agility and came home in 6th place!!!! Mum was amazed, because I had jumped and then sniffed, jumped and then sniffed, sniffed all the spaces between the weave poles, cheking out all the rabbits and the girlie smells, and then I took off as fast as my legs would take me. Mum said it was a lightbulb moment when I realized that agility is about racing and competing with the other dogs not just having a Sunday morning saunter around the golf course.

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Huh huh huh, now when I stand in the queue ready to go into the ring, I scowl at the other dogs, I say "grrrrrr, ro-ro-ro-ro" and then shout "let me in, you get out, and then I'll show you what it's all about grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" Then when mum shouts "GO" I take off way past her and wait for her to tell me which way I should go. At the end of the course I shout again "A-ro ro! ro! and wait for her to give me a big hug even though I might have got something wrong. Mum thinks it is great now that I get in that ring and show everyone that Setters are not thick stupid good for nothing dogs after all, and that Setters can actually beat those black and white things. Mum has often heard comments such as "who in their right mind would run an Irish Setter in agility" so here's her answer "I would" she says, "and isn't it lovely when they beat those black and white things who are often very scatty and knock many poles down and even go the wrong way on many occasions".
We are not just beauty you know - we are brains too.... oh yes. As for Tallulah, she was very jelous of my prize, and snorted that if she hadn't jumped over the top of the dogwalk contact, she would have beaten the lot of us and taken home the trophy!!!! Tally thinks taking short cuts is the intelligent thing to do, but unfortunately, the judges don't agree. Tallulah has far too many of those black and white friends. They have evidently been telling her that the coloured thing at the bottom of the dogwalk (which the humans call 'the contact') has teeth in it. "That contact MUST be jumped at ALL costs" she tells me everytime I prepare to go into the ring. "Be careful Barkley, it is dangerous - it WILL have you and bite your toes one day"..... oh come on Tallulah, I have stood on it many times and I haven't had my toes bitten .... well, not yet!

One day, a few weeks ago, mummy wasn't well, and Aunt Tracy ran Tallulah around a course at Newbury Showground. Mummy warned her to be careful about Tally's contacts, and Aunt Tracy was careful - very careful!!! In fact she made a BIG point to show Tally that there were no teeth in the contact. Tally trusts Aunt Tracy very much indeed, and listened to her. However, the judge thought differently and gave poor Tally 5 faults, probably because he knew that she is neurotic about teeth where there are no teeth!!! Aunt Tracy was really angry when she discovered that they had been faulted, and mummy was very disappointed after she saw the video because this is what she saw:


What do you think? did she? or didn't she? We think this shows Tally did believe Aunt Tracy and put her feet on the teeth place. From this, we can't see how she could possibly have missed it.

Tally has been very unhappy recently, with spells of coughing, choking and lethargy. She had also been piling on the kilo's so mummy took her to the vet. Rory the vet man stole some of her blood and sent it away to the vampires. When the vampire read back the results of their tasting, they said it had a normal flavour, but when mummy and Steve the Vet checked the values, they realised it was not normal. Tally has a thyroid problem and now has to take some of the same tablets which mummy has to take each morning. I hope I never have to take those.

Here is Tally Tallulah looking very hypothyroid. It was a very hot day, and this made her feel even worse. In fact, she coughed and spluttered that she didn't want to do agility at all that weekend, and the others weren't all that interested either, so we went to visit Aunt Rachel and went for a lovely swim in the River Ouze near Ely instead.

Daisy Mae experienced her first ever very hot day at a show, and she too wasn't impressed by it either.


She has fully recovered from her operation now, and is smelling very nice. I might even go as far as to say she is starting to smell quite fanciable, but I wouldn't say that within hearing distance of her. She would probably get the wrong end of the fetch stick. Oh, I had better be careful with what I write here, because Grace, my fiance, reads my blog, and she won't be too impressed. Of course Grace, Daisy Mae is rubbish, and whatsmore she is red and white so that just won't do.......... Honestly Grace, I have cleaned up my act at agility shows now, and I do go jumping these days, not off to play golf ..... honestly deer rest I am being very loyal and faithful to yew.



Oh, a noise. Who is that???? There is somebody outside the gate, I had better dash now and go see them off.