Holidays, events, competitions and returning to as near to normal as possible has delayed our monthly blog and news for the past few months.
THE PHEONIX RISING FROM THE ASHES
Since before the pandemic began our van has needed attention. We felt ashamed driving around in a shabby vehicle that was advertising a caring, respectable, responsible and professional charity assisting needy animals. Seemed to us that it showed if we can’t look after our essential ‘tools of our trade’ how can we look after the animals. Then one of those spooky coincidences happened and Mark Tinworth drove through the gate bringing a donation of no longer needed dog bed and assorted things. It is Mark’s enterprise MT Graphiques of Gorron who achieved a marvellous transformation of our worn out looking van. So, same trusty work horse of a van but new colour and graphics. We now show the world what we are made of and our rescues are groomed and transported in a smart vehicle we are all proud of. We’re really happy with this!
Our shop is open all week and we have lots of new stock for you to see. On our (now discontinued Items for Sale at page) we have some lovely antique pictures for sale.
VIDE GRENIER
In July we had a wonderful response to our sale at the Salle de Fete in La Bigottiere. Thank you to all our benevoles and a special thank you to everyone who bought our goods and supported us so generously.
Whoops! We lost the photos! Sorry!
Your generosity has helped us to pay some vets bills and provide special dietary needs for 2 of our rescues.
CLUB PROJECT
We go back as far as June when 2 of the Grande Daze benevoles and myself gained our Moniteur Educateur Canin Niveau 1 (Canine Educator/Instructor Level1) and Puppy Instructor Certificates. I’m sure that you will all congratulate us on the achievement.
All 3 of us spent months learning to adapt our expertise to be compatible with the expectations of the French canine training. In fact, to some extent it was a sharing of ideas. Our dogs performed wonderfully and we are all proud of their response to our commands – they were exemplary!
Now we have the official French qualifications and are recognised, our project for this year is to build our Canine Club and to be affiliated at Centrale Canine next year. We are excited and proud to say that once we are affiliated we will be able to organise official agility competitions.
Our aim in the Club is to offer different classes: Puppy Class, Obedience Training, Agility Class and Hooper Class (look out for more information about this). We have operated such classes for some time but new things are being added. We look forward to seeing you at these new training sessions and hope that you will find them as interesting and exciting as we do ourselves.
FUN TUNNELS
We participated in a non-official competition which consisted of tunnels only without any other agility equipment. The dogs taking part were Reboot, Kaos, Okinawa, Fleur and Lucky Luke and what alot of fun we all had. It was interesting to see how the dogs responded in a new ring with people they had never met before and a totally new environment. None of us had ever worked with just tunnels but our dogs performed like it was routine and they almost seemed to be showing off and didn’t need humans to tell them what to do in this ‘game’; they already knew the rules! Some of us were quite surprised at our canine friends abilities! How could we doubt them?
AGILITY RESULTS
We managed to get to compete in the Agility Competitions and increased our standing:
Hera is now Grade 2 Agility Level along with Finn and Pip; who all performed beyond our expectations and made us very proud. These Grande Daze rescued friends showed how wonderful it is to give a dog a new go at life.
These 3 dogs have gained the necessary points to participate at the Selectif of Grand Prix de France. at the end of this month (September). The winners at this event will go through to compete in the Final in a few months time – we are hopeful and working hard to achieve the best possible outcome. We’ll keep you posted.
Izzy and Kodie have the 1st part of Brevet and Fleur is not far behind. Part of the Brevet is a clear round in the agility run and it is necessary to have 3 clear rounds to be upgraded.
29TH AUGUST – SEGRÉ DOG SHOW
Five of our pedigree dogs competed in the above dog show and we were pleased to have really good results for everybody. We all gained a heap of experience and were excited to be in the honours ring.
We had:
2 – Champion of the Breed – Griffon Bruxellois
1 – Excellent and Best in Breed class – Young Jack Russell (made it into the Honours Ring)
1 – 3rd Excellent – English Bull Terrier
and
1 – Prometeur for our youngest participant who was too young to be considered the winner
THANK YOU FOR READING MY BLOG. HOPE TO SEE YOU AT GRANDE DAZE.
TAKE CARE AND KEEP SAFE. ANITA
grandedaze.com 