Happy New Year. 2024 sounds incredibly interesting, but I don’t believe that we should put too much pressure on it to perform!
I have a wonderful follow up from Michelle Howard regarding her trip to the World Agility Championship with her dog Bob in the Czech Republic. On a side note, she has 17 dogs and does the most amazing work with them.
Michelle writes: Bob travelled well. CemAir was remarkable and cleared a row of seats and allowed him in his crate seat-belted in, in front of me. The passengers around him fed him chicken and mayo sandwiches, so Bob was happy.
Next leg was Cape Town to Amsterdam. To travel in cabin, the dogs are pretzeled under the seat in front of you. In your foot space. It’s not comfortable for them or me. And it’s a long time. No water. No food, no pee breaks and they have to remain in the bag and quiet. Bob is known for ear-spitting war cries… he is very vocal.
The flight was delayed resulting in a run from one terminal to another to make the connection. It’s a 25 minute walk. I took Bob out his crate and ran with him. I did more terminal running on this trip than agility running. Then onto Prague, they held the flight while we ran. We arrived but our bags did not and the dog food was in the missing bags.
Bob only got to pee at 15:00, and he had been in the soft crate from 21:00 the previous night. At least he got his legs stretched and some brekkie during the connection issues and runs. He also does travellators perfectly.
Our baggage was dumped in the middle of the road outside the hotel at midnight. Bob’s hard crate (for the flight home in cargo) had been broken by the airline. And yes it was shelled and wrapped, but still broken. The first weekend’s competition in Prague was absolutely amazing. Bob was super Bob. The courses were challenging and he just rose to the occasion.
We then moved onto Liberec. This move was fraught with all sorts of logistic issues. It had us all stressed, the entire team. We were split up all over the city and for me transport became an issue. Bob got uptight, I got uptight.
In the team event, we beat Canada, the UK and the USA so we can be proud our team held their heads high among these well-oiled machines. We have a lot to learn from these them.
I loved the courses. The standard of agility was mind blowing. Our team had challenges and none of it was actual agility. And much of this comes down to funding and support. But in true SA style, we held our own. And we danced and shouted, ran barefoot and made a lot of noise.
Coming home was the most enormous stress. They lost my bags and crate again. Then the air tags said the small dogs were left in Amsterdam and we saw the large dogs loaded onto the flight not the two small ones.
The dogs were collected at 03:00 from Amsterdam and got out of the crates at JHB at 23:30. Bob developed a massive bladder infection and I caught Covid which developed into long Covid. But we are home safe and sound and thank you all for the support you offered us.
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