3/23/05
Hi ,
I came across your article on agility on the Canadian Beardie website. We live in the West of Ireland and have 3 Beardies (Ernie,Bert and Fozzie). We have been competing in agility with our two 5 yr olds quite successfully over the last 3 years and our youngster is doing quite well in the show ring. I hope you like the attached photo taken at the recent St Patrick's Day show in Dublin! Beardies are made for agility. They'll never compete with the Border Collies but they're always such crowd pleasers. Having said that our team of 3 Beardies and a GSD won the team agility event at the above show!
I'd love to hear more about your group
regards
Eoin Fleetwood
3/28/05
I'm sure you're familiar with the Muppets. Our brown Beardie is named after Fozzie Bear!
We had a great weekend on the Agility front with Ernie 1st and Bert 3rd in the big Agility Class beating a couple of Border Collies that had competed at Crufts.
We'd love to be signed up for the Agility line.
Thanks
Eoin
3/29/05
Our dogs kennel names are as follows;
Fozzie: DOB 11 June 2003 Shelly's Brown Bear (he won Green Star
Dog [Best Dog] at our recent St Patrick's Day Conformation Show)
Ernie: DOB 11 April 2000 Falaflow Lough Corrib
Bert: DOB 11 April 2000 Falaflow Lough Fraioch
Both Ernie and Bert were bred just outside Edinburgh in Scotland and are named after lakes.
Our owm kennel affix is Clarinbeard but we
have yet to reregister the dogs in this name.
Regards
Eoin
3/31/05
We live in the southern part of Co Galway and the Clare border is only 10 miles away. Clare is a beautiful county(Cliffs of Moher, The Burren,etc) with a rich history of traditional Irish Music and a proud sporting tradition(esp Hurling). Indeed it's the first County that a lot of Americans visit on Irish trips as Shannon Airport is in Clare.
Our dog training Club is based just over the Clare border in Limerick ( our website is www.dogtraining.ie).
If your ever planning a trip to Ireland you would recieve a warm welcome in Galway from us and the 3 Beardies!
Regards
Eoin
6/2/05
My first appointment went well. We even had fine weather! I was delighted to have 5 first time winners out of the 8 classes that I Judged. Our Agility schedule is hotting up. We have a 2 day show this holiday weekend where Ernie is defending the trophy for Open Agility and next weekend we have our biggest show of the year which acts as a qualifier for Crufts. Keep your fingers crossed and you might see a Beardie doing Agility on TV at Crufts next year!
Best wishes
Eoin >>
8/17/05
Hope you are all keeping well in Beardie hyperspace!
Thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that our 2 Beardies, Ernie and Bert, represented Ireland at the KC international Agility festival in Peterborough, Uk last weekend. They both did us really proud with Ernie finishing 40th in the Kennel Club British Open ( out of 135 Dogs- mostly Collies). Bert had 4 clean runs out 6 and although he was never going to challenge the Collies on time he certainly made up for it in style and grace!
Our BAD tshirts were recognised and admired.
Keep up the good work on the website
regards
Eoin Fleetwood
11/28/05
In Ireland the most advanced agility class is Premier. To qualify your dog must have 5 novice wins or 2 open wins. Bert gained his 1st open win in June of last year and his 4th novice win the following week. So we've been on the hunt for that elusive open or novice win for nearly 18 months! At times I've put myself under so much pressure to get a good run and ended up messing it up for him and even when he's had a good run he's been pipped by a faster dog!
Anyway this Sat I hadn't a notion of Bert gettng a win as there were alot of Collies entered from Northern Ireland but, guess what, Bert beat the lot of them with the only clear round! Beardies may not be the fastest but they're steady. Anyway it felt as good as the day Fozzie was made up Irish Show Champion !
And speaking of Fozzie he won his 12th Green Star at the same show and in doing so confirmend his place as annual show champion for the breed.
And last but not least Ernie, who has been
a premier dog for nearly 2 years now, won the large dog jumping
class! It could take us a while to get down off this cloud!
Eoin
11/29/05
Fozzie has had an exceptional year for us. He gained his Irish Show title in August which means his Irish Kennel Club name is now Ch. Shelly's Brown Bear the equivalent to Gb Ch or Am. Ch for conformation. To be Annual Champion for your Breed you have to have aquired the most amount of points for your wins over the calender year. We're thrilled that Fozzie has won this as he is still one of the younger dogs on the show circuit and he is consistantly beating the older dogs. He has also gained 2 CACIB which means he needs 2 more to be an International Beauty Champion according to the FCI rules. As an Irish Champion he is qualified for Crufts for life and we hope to show him at Crufts next March.
Ernie and Bert jump over 2ft 6in jumps and both were clear in that round and Ernie beat a whole bunch of Collie dogs too! I love it when the Beardies beat the Collies!
Anyway our shows are winding down for the winter. We have just one more agility competition before Christmas and then a break until St Patrick's Day in March.
