Story by Karen Winzar
After Jan Egil Eide April’s visit the Cairns crew were given a mountain of homework and the team got right to it. Setting up courses from his previous global events and sequence training has been a part of our weekly training. With ore European style courses are being designed by local FNQ judges from the Cairns City Kennel Club, Tricia Williams and Karen Winzar who have taken part in an online course designed by the Guru himself, the team was feeling optimistic about his return visit in September.
September came around so fast and all of a sudden Jan was back in Australia and headed up far North to Cairns. We booked him to judge a double Jumping and Agility Trial with the knowledge that some other clubs had few or only 1 Q from Jan for the entire event. But we were not deterred!
Saturday’s Trial started out rough with dog after dog disqualified for a variety of reasons. The whispers started going around “maybe we just didn’t train enough” and “maybe the courses are just too hard.” What were we to expect from this international superstar Judge from Norway?
The course was adjusted to Jumping Open and it was the big dogs up first. Yes, our very own ‘Giraffe’ Impulse and his excellent handler Kayla James stepped up to the plate and WOW, they smashed it! “QUALLIE” cheered the whole group with a roar of admiration. The smile on Jan’s face screamed of vindication! And that was all that was needed to lift the groups spirits and reset the ambitions of the brave for Sunday’s round 2.
Early in the morning and yes too early for some, the course was set. Agility Novice with some of the newest dogs to the ring saw Sadie and her handler Christie Smith take out 1st place with a Q and she wasn’t finished yet. The very next course Jumping Open and she took out the class again with another 1st place Q. Not to be outdone Erin Elliot from Townsville got a Novice Jumping Q with Bandi and Alexandrea Bailey with Wegz in Excellent Jumping. Not bad for a weekends work in Agility in the FNQ.
If we hadn’t already pushed ourselves to the limit at the trial, we were about to with a 2-day Seminar to address some of those skills that needed more work. Jan said he was very impressed with the work we had been doing and could see a great improvement from his trip back in April.
With 4, 4-hour sessions and different working groups we managed to have 23 dogs working on the same 44 obstacle Jumping course that would push our knowledge, skills and stamina to the edge. To say our brains exploded with information would be an understatement. I think we can safely say that Jan is welcome back anytime to Cairns and we are grateful for the opportunity that Equicanine provided us. We would also like to thank the Trials sponsor K9 Pro for the amazing prizes.
