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Jersey Dog Show
The following article was written by Valerie Bamber for the Agility Zone, and was featured in the March 2010 issue, who have kindly allowed it to be reproduced on the Festival website:  The Jersey Agility Festival has long been one of my favourite shows. It has been run by the Rees family for the past eleven years and held under the auspicies of the Jersey Kennel Club. In 2010, it is being run for the first time by the Scallywags Dog Agility Club, who have undertaken to carry on the good work, although we shall look forward to seeing Sally and Andre as competitors. The Show takes place at the beginning of May over three days at the Beauvelande Camp Site about ten minutes inland from the village of Gorey. The ground is wonderful, with spacious, flat grassy rings, which are beautifully mown. It is a small show and counts for nothing in the great points contest of the UK but is attracts people from England, France and Holland as well as the Channel Islanders themselves. Some people camp on the very well run camp site and in recent years it has also been possible to take a caravan. In the first few years that the States of Jersey allowed caravans, the owners of the camping site met the caravans off the ferry and escorted them to the camp site. The ‘green lanes’ of Jersey are high banked, twisty and barely wide enough for a car presenting quite a challenge for a caravan. It is a step too far for me, for although I tow my caravan many hundreds of miles every year, I flinch at the thought of meeting someone coming the other way. Other people stay in hotels and bed and breakfast places. For those of us, who live in the South West, the journey is relatively easy as the fast ferry from Weymouth takes about four hours, calling at Guernsey on the way. The journey passes quickly as there are always plenty of Agility people to talk to and with whom to compare notes. I stay in a hotel in Gorey, where my dogs are made very welcome. The hotel is opposite the beach and the golf course and both provide superb dog walking. The Golf Course is on Crown land and this means that it is open to everyone. It is great to see how the golfers and the local dog walkers co exist so well together. There is mutual respect and the dog walkers keep out of the way of golfers teeing off whilst the golfers pause to allow the dog walkers to pass in safety. There is no dog mess and no litter and everyone is very pleasant and friendly. Walking my dogs morning and evening, I soon found myself accepted into the community of Jersey dog walkers and made new friends The Jersey Agility Festival is a very happy and relaxed affair. On most days each dog gets four runs from ABC Agility to Pairs, Helterskelter and Collie Jumping. However the centre piece is the competition for the Jersey Agility Dog of the Year. There are four qualifying rounds, two of which are Agility and two Jumping. The categories are Small, Medium and Large Grades 1&2 and Small Medium and Large Grades 3-7. Marks are awarded in each of the Qualifiers and then a Grand Final is held on the last afternoon, usually judged by a well known local Judge. In 2009, it was Graham Partridge, a very popular Judge from Cornwall, who has recently judged at Olympia. Everyone sits round the ring and cheers and at the end the Grand Presentation is made.  It is great fun to sit round the rings talking in a polyglot mixture of French and English. In 2009, we had
a French Judge to add to the excitement. This gave
those of us, who will never compete on the International stage a chance to see just how different competing abroad would be.
The courses were entirely different from any I have experienced in this country. They were very long and quite difficult to
handle. There were unusual entries to the Weaves and the Dog Walk and A Frame were positioned so that both ends presented
a threat whenever the dog went over a jump. It was brilliantly and fiendishly designed. The times were
pretty tight too and if a competitor hesitated for a second, the Judge waved his arms and pointed to the next jump. Many of
the English competitors found this disconcerting to say the least! The Festival is a very sociable occasion.
An evening meal is held for those who care to attend. The Festival is sponsored by a local Garden Centre, which has an excellent
café and take away. This is usually full of Agility people during the days surrounding the Festival, for many of us
make a week of it and becomes more in the nature of a club house. The Garden Centre helps to pay for the rosettes and trophies
and also provides a doggie goody bag for each competitor, given on the production of a schedule. This year it contained a
ball with one of those plastic things, which enable the feeble to throw a ball a long way, a dog toy, a large chew, several
packets of dog treats and a key ring. It is a lovely and much appreciated idea. Another gathering place is the fast food van at the show. Not only does it produce tasty bacon and egg baps
but the lady, who runs it also provides home made fruit crumble to die for. So good is it that it has to be ordered on arrival,
for no matter how many dishes she makes, there is never enough. Everyone is expected to help for part of two half days. This
is brilliantly organised, so that one knows what one has to do, where and the time one has to do it and the name of the person
with whom one is sharing the job as well as the names of the other people in the ring party. It is all written down on a brightly
coloured sheet of paper and everyone involved gets a copy. No messing about reporting to the Ring Manager, who isn’t
there at the stated time and no being told to go away and come back later. These are both particular hates of mine, which
wastes everyone’s time. Wherever one goes on the island, whether
it is shopping in St Helier or dog walking in St Catherine’s woods or on the sandy dunes on the far side of the island,
one is sure to meet other Agility people. I sometimes wonder what the people of Jersey make of these bands of foreigners greeting
each other all over the island. Then at the end of the Show, after all the presentations and the Grand Draw is complete,
we say farewell to our Jersey hosts, make plans for the following year and board the ferry after a most enjoyable time.
The schedules are out for the 2010 Show and I am sure that Scallywags will continue to make it just as successful and enjoyable
in the future as it has been in the past.
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