The Back of Bourke

They say when you are deep in the outback, you are at the back of Bourke. Well here we are at the official Back of Bourke site which is to the north of the town of Bourke in NSW.
We stopped here for a break on the way to Charleville. It took ages. We slept most of the way but we were glad to go for a walk when we got to the caravan park.

Peake Gold Mine, Cobar

How many times do we have to tell these humans we are TOLLERS. We are not Golden Retrievers, so why did they bring us to a gold mine? We did the best we could, sniffing at everything, scratching at likely places but we found no gold. All they did was walk along a path reading signs and looking at old mining equipment while the real mining operation was happening on the other side of the fence. We tried to get where the gold was, but they kept pulling us back, no wonder we could not find any gold.
We are in outback NSW and we had to have the tic treatment to stop nasty insects biting us. Unfortunately it makes us feel a bit under the weather, especially Hannah, so we are having a quiet day today.

Bush Tollers

We are in the Bush for our holidays. The pic shows us at a roadside stop  where we had lunch in the bush. Lots of green and flowers because of the wet winter we had, but now the sun is shining and the days are great. We got to Cobar in NSW and took the humans up the street to see the town, but then they got hungry, had dinner and drank wine so that was the end of the day for us. We went to sleep and will start exploring again tomorrow.

Hannah JD

My little sister has got her Jumping Dog (JD) title. The pic shows her just breaking the timer beam on the last jump, so it is the instant she became Champion Hannah CD, JD. Not only was it her Title, but she also got First Place, and just to make it a family affair, Fur Dad Rio and Fur Auntie Cherry got their Master Agility Titles.
Keith had to judge unexpectedly in the afternoon after the scheduled judge withdrew because her dog Max had taken ill and sadly passed over the Rainbow Bridge the day before. We were all upset over the sudden end to a good dog.
While Keith was Judging, Kathy took over the handler role in Masters, and I nearly got her round, but we had a mistake and some time faults.

Games Tollers

WE PASSED!!!
The Games trials at Gawler were on today, Hannah passed her first Gamblers Novice trial, we were in Strategic Pairs and we Qualified in Novice Strategic Pairs, and I was in Excellent Gamblers and I WON IT.
The pic shows us with the dog blanket I won.
We nearly passed in Snooker too, but Hannah missed a colour on the Scramble, and I missed a colour on the Dog Walk, which was the last obstacle of the course. So close, but no cigar.
The week has been strange. We have not been to training because of heavy rain which made the grounds too slippery for us to work at the Agility Dog Club or at home, we did not do our Tuesday training either, so we were lucky we even got round the course. The humans forget what to do if we don't put them through their paces regularly.

Hannah's Passes

Hannah has two Novice Jumping passes after the weekend in Barmara. She nearly got her title, but she knocked a bar after leaving a tunnel into bright sunshine so got 5 faults for that, and was a bit over time in the other trial. The pic shows her with her sash and qualifying cards.
She was in Agility too, but had some trouble with the weavers, and dropped a bar or two, but she is well on her way to passing Agility novice.
I had some good runs too, with some bad ones thrown in. I was 0.9 of a second over time in a Masters Jumping, and I had stopped to look at a dog with a bell round its neck for a couple of seconds. We got nearly all the way round the Masters Agility, but Keith ran out of breath with just one obstacle to go and could not call me in time to steer me on to the right obstacle so we got a DQ. Overall it was a good weekend with some good results for us in the trials and a great time playing with all the other dogs on the grounds.

Hard Luck Hannah

We were in trials again last week- end, Hannah was trying in Novice Agility and was doing very well until she missed a tunnel entry because a UFO flew over and distracted her. We have it on Video, look at Hard Luck Hannah under Video links. Its a bit grainy because it was taken on a phone. (All UFO sightings are grainy by law). She did not get a re-run, so she failed.
Sometime during the day Hannah hurt her neck and was not working too well. We thought it might be the SRMA back again, but by Monday she was back to normal.
Dopey Dad sent me over the wrong jump in Masters so we failed that one, and then I found some yummy bits of meat on the ground on the way to the ring, and then threw up halfway round the course. Keith panicked when he saw me with froth round my mouth after doing a fast section, but it was just a bit of junk  that would not stay down. Anyway, no passes again, but we are failing at a much higher level!