Snoop is now retired from full height agility. I was told the signs to look for to decide when to retire a dog were: going lame, knocking poles, measuring before jumps etc. But good old Snoop showed no signs of these. The only reason to retire him was that he is very fast approaching 10 years old. It is the plan for him to do some anysize/ veteran classes for a while before completely stopping. I just don't want him to get an injury that he cannot recover from. The only signs of old age is that he has slowed slightly, and gained a few (very few) grey hairs. He has been a dog in a million, teaching me agility and more often than not getting me out of trouble, when I gave him the wrong command. He went from Grade 1 to grade 6 and gained his agility warrant Gold. What more could I have asked for. I am going to enjoy running the anysize classes with him, it will be so much more kinder on his joints just running fairly straight line courses on lower height jumps, though I am going to miss the completely impossible/ complicated courses in grade 6.
Dre is coming along nicely, he is still the 'devil dog' but slowly starting to calm down.
Holly is still the sweety she has always been and quite enjoying agility now, even overtaking me sometimes.
Flash is coming along nicely, he can pretty much do all the equipment, though needs some fine tuning. He is so much like Snoop, I actually forget which dog I am runing. Next year could be an exciting year and one I am looking forward too. I did miss not attending many shows this year but that is another very long story.
