When we first thought of organizing Silesian Open the idea was to have a cool competition, on nice carpet, with good judges and great competitors from abroad. We started 3 years ago with 150 competitors mainly from Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary, this year we had 250 from 17 different countries and at some points 1500 people watching on livestreaming... 😲
Well, Silesian Open 2017 was one to remember for many reasons. First of all, the temperature, which got well below minus 20 (seriously I haven't experienced it here for at least 10 years, maybe more). I'm sure in a year or two it will be really funny and we'll all tell stories how it was minus forty at Silesian 2017 yet we still managed to survive, nevertheless it caused lots of problems with cars not starting, one dog cutting her leg really badly probably on ice etc. Mojo, who has no undercoat whatsoever was freezing even in the warm hall, so finally I had to get her the warmest Back On Track possible and then she went back from the mannequin challenge frozen dog back to her bouncy happy self. I wish all the problems were as easy to solve ;). Secondly, the judges - we managed to invite both judges who will be at the World Championship this year and they both did a great job. Mirja's courses were crazy difficult (and I got eliminated on most of them with both dogs), yet still safe and fun to run and I actually wanted to be challenged like that, so I know what to train :). Petr's courses were a bit more open, yet crazy fast, so presented another sort of challenge. All in all, I think we will have really interesting AWC this year :D. Thirdly, it looks like we're getting better at this - we were still crazy busy, but I think we ran around with more purpuse and less stress than in the previous years 😜Fourth, meeting so many friends from so many countries was great and I really liked the atmosphere 🔆. Last but not least, I'm really really happy with my dogs. Brava was spayed in the beginning of December and it looks as it was the best decision possible as something was already wrong with her and she recovered really quickly and is as fast as ever or faster :D. She won all the runs that she finished (that is all the ones in which I didn't disqualify us) and set really cool times (I think only Say beat us consistently, but she is like from another planet, so that doesn't even count, right?). Brego got awesome contacts, great weaves and managed to get on the podium on fourth and fifth place amongs over 140 really great large dogs. He was a bit tunnel obsessed though :).
In the end Brava as usually got the most important course just right and won the medium final 💚💛💜💗💙💖I just couldn't love this dog more, she is pyrfect!
Brego was defending his title from last year and got pretty nice run with one dropped bar, so I'm really happy with him as well :). I believe that we can find something valuable even in the not favourable things most of the time and as unfortunate it is to have a 44cm dog in large category, I think he is the dog that restored me to running agility for the fun of it, without having any pressure to win, but just focusing on getting the best possible run. In many aspects he is the best dog I ever had, with tons of drive, really tough at work, always giving his best, so running him is awesome fun.
Some videos thanks to Alena Zbozinkova:
It was also the first competition for Zelda (of course not as participant) and she did great, meeting lots of people, playing in the hall etc. She also met her brother, sister and mother. Well, the siblings are the same really, except Puck isn't as fluffy :P But they are all crazy and very loud :D.
Mojo even ran some tunnels in the evening, but for her nothing is the problem (barring the cold, but now she is in a mood again).
