Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Girl's Road Trip

Holidays from work plus lots of agility trials cancelled in Victoria due to ground conditions equals the perfect opportunity to go on an interstate trip.  So a couple of weeks back I left the hubby and the boy dogs behind (much to the dog's disgust, although I suspect L. likes the peace and quiet sometimes) and headed off to South Australia to meet up with a friend from agility and her two girl dogs.  So now we have girls' big weekend away and we all had such a good time that we intend to do it again at some stage in the near future.


The motel where we stayed - very nice digs !
 One thing that I loved about South Australia is how much more dog friendly it is compared to Victoria.  We stayed at a motel in Glenelg, right on the beach, and for an extra fee, the dogs were allowed to sleep inside.  That's what I call dog friendly, not some place that advertises itself as dog friendly and then doesn't allow dogs to come inside and there are a ton of those around. 


We had our own little unit with the courtyard you can see on the side.

View from the motel, which was right opposite the marina.


The beach was just down the road - literally.  Our dogs had a great time running on the beach together and we got lots of long walks in as well.


Ivy waits not so patiently for the ball.

Ivy's buddy Zee who puts up with Ivy's pushy behaviour - sorry Zee !

The beach had the strangest foam I have ever seen - it resembled snowballs, or at least balls of suds from a giant washing machine.  Very weird !   I don't think the dogs could quite figure them out.

As well as having a great time at the beach, the girls also had a great time trialling - lovely courses all day which was very refreshing after some of the crap we get here.  We both came away with passes - and some oh so close runs too.  Ivy finally managed to crack the Novice agility ring with a pass in 1st place, and we  got our first pass in Excellent jumping, also finishing in 1st place.

 We managed to follow that up with another pass and 1st place in Excellent jumping back in Melbourne the following week - and a lovely Novice agility run where we were clear right up until the end, a fast run home with obstacles in a straight line and she moved well ahead of me when told to 'go on' - then pulled up after the broad and ran to her lead, which would have been fine apart from the small sized (just legal) lollypop tyre that was the last obstacle that she didn't even look at.  (Yes, we do get a lot of courses here with the broad jump as the last obstacle - LOL)
So yet another 'one little thing' agility run - but we will iron those little things out sooner or later and are still having a lot of fun in the meantime.

And a big thumbs up for our SA agility experience and hopefully another one to come soon.  Girl's road trip rocks according to Ivy.  Long walks on the beach, chasing balls on the beach, lunch at outdoor cafes, shopping strip walks, pigs ears, good friends to play with and of course agility .....what more could a girl want?