My Mutinous Dog

A lie in of sorts. I set the alarm for 7am, which is late considering I have a dog show today. L delays me further but what can you do.

I get to Worcester, which is where the show is, a bit late but still in plenty of time for my first run. There are some fantastic courses, nice and testing. For one particular course the best approach is to leave your dog at the start and go stand miles away beyond the first two jumps and the dog walk to protect the tunnel entrance which isn't the next obstacle. Amazingly for grade 5 dogs, most handlers can't do this and dog after dog rockets into the tunnel and are eliminated. Watching this, I know that if we get this right then a good placing is on the cards.

When it's our turn, we pull the move off perfectly. The rest of the course is going to be a doddle compared with that. That is if your dog remembers what to do with a set of weave poles. Doggo's normally so good with his weaves but today he misses out the first pole. So all our good work is wasted.

Never mind, we pull off some more great manoeuvres in the next course and again Doggo misses his first weave. I look him in the eye but he looks away. Is he doing this deliberately? Is this payback time for something?

Third course, yep you guessed it. Same thing happens again. So not a good day. A rare rosette-less day. We're not on speaking terms. Guess who's in for extra weave training this week.

Get home and head off to the Ilkeston beer festival, leaving the mutinous dog at home. Ha.

Unfortunately at the festival, all the festival glasses are sold out. Determined to get one, as it's the first Ilkeston beer festival, we keep an eye out for someone who's too drunk to remember where they've left theirs. Eventually we hit the jackpot and get one. I have eight halves; L has seven. It's a good night.

L does beans and cheese when we get home.

The FA Cup Final that apparently everyone wanted to see, Man U v Chelsea, although I don't know anyone who thinks this, is predictably dire. Everyone knows all the best finals must have an underdog and this didn't have one. The great finals are those rare occasions when the underdog wins. This might not happen so much in the boring Premier league but it still happens. That's why Forest v Yeovil was such a classic. The underdog won.