Stewarding Appointment

Looking forward to my first Stewarding appointment at Lauder this Friday and Saturday

Wish me luck (hopefully won't send too many handlers left when I mean right ) and any top tips will be appreciated

Oooh good luck!!!

Best of luck with it Nick

Thanks Annette

Thanks Kirsty - off to read up my notes from the Stewarding Training Day I had

Well, just finished my two days and really enjoyed watching the WDEx competitors. Judge looked after me very well as did the everyone running base. Great experience that I would recommend to anyone.

Thoroughly exhausted, enjoying a beer and waiting for the Curry to be delivered

Well done Nick. Was the competition hot?

Enjoy your well deserved beer and curry

I did enjoy the beer and curry

Four qualified WDEx and one WD Only. I was very pleased that most articles were recovered from the squares I laid.

Very interesting being a Steward compared to a competitor. It's actually more tiring. You are less nervous (of course....), and you spend most of your time saying things in your head like 'go on', 'brilliant', 'well done' - you often feel like shouting it out! You just really want all the dogs (and handlers ) to do well.

I will ask to Steward again.

Well done, you can learn a lot from stewarding. From watching handlers and dogs, listening to tracklayers and the judge. Being removed from the dogs working means you can observe how different handlers and dogs approach the exercises and what TO do (from experienced good handlers ) as well as what NOT to do from those for whom this may only be their 5th trial.

Yes, learnt a heck of a lot

It's very clear when you are watching how the handling affects the dogs.

I was marking C&A in my own head and it was interesting to compare the marks in my head compared to the judge's actuals; learnt a lot about what the judge was looking for when I did that.