o'cockaigne

On Wednesday, August 25, we left for Göhlsdorf near Berlin, where Simon would take care of the International coursing for the sighthound racing club Phoenix. It was the first time for Crumbaugh and Charlaigne to make such a long trip with the caravan, but they adapted well and found it very exciting to arrive and walk in a different, unknown location each time.

After we had set up everything on Thursday and had a nice walk with the hounds, we found a beer stand opposite us when we returned. They were still working on some things but as soon as they were done we could come and get a beer. Well don’t let that tell you twice! On Friday Simon built up the course and Cytaugh, Crumbaugh and Charlaigne were able to stretch their legs. The three of them thundered across the field, beautiful to watch. Cytaugh is still the fastest but Crumbaugh was nearly as fast as his mother!

A total of about 100 sighthounds were entered for the coursing on Saturday, but because it didn’t go very smooth in the morning, it was around six o’clock before all courses were run! I hadn’t entered Cytaugh for the official coursing, but luckily she was allowed to do a round of coursing with Crumbaugh and Charlaigne afterwards. They enjoyed it again! Crumbaugh in particular was so fanatical and wanted to get on the field every time so badly that he couldn’t get past the field during normal walks, very difficult!

On Sunday was the CAC show and I had entered Charlaigne for this. It had been nice weather every day before, on Sunday the rain came pouring down from the sky. There was 1 veteran bitch, 3 youth bitches (of which Charlaigne was the youngest) and 1 open class bitch entered by judge Hanna Wozna-Gil from Poland. The moment I entered the ring it was dry and Charlaigne showed exemplary. She walked along nicely without acting crazy and also stood still reasonably well, amazing! She finished first!! But when she had to come back to compete for BOB, it came crashing down again and she wanted nothing more than to go back to the caravan! Initially we were supposed to leave again on Monday, but as the weather forecast did not predict better weather, we decided to pack up and leave during an hour when it was dry.

No sooner said than done, but against expectations it was very busy on the road and we did not arrive at our overnight place until late in the afternoon. Monday afternoon we were back home.

The following weekend, Simon should have judged a coursing in France, but it was canceled due to a too low number of entered hounds. Too bad, it would be nice to do some coursing in France again. Then again next year. But this canceled weekend gave us some more air to prepare for the trip to England.

To be continued!