It’s over a week since the EM Lure-Coursing in Marianske Lazne took place, and there has been some time to reflect the whole event. The drive there and back, the camping among the Finnish team and the actual coursing have been -mind the pun- coursing in my head ever since. Even while working at the International Lure-Coursing event in Tampere last weekend I had the EM event as my comparison: how did this go, how was that done and so on.
I’m still amazed and surprised about the performance of our Ness. The more I think about it, the more I’m amazed about the recovery of the dog. He truly is a big guy with a big -and healthy!- heart.
The event -all in all- was extremely well planned, executed and pulled through by the competition personnel. There were some slight issues with scheduling and executing things in time they were scheduled to be, but as the weather was so benevolent towards the competing dogs, nothing was drastically off the comfort zone.
If you have a lure-coursing dog, and you have the change to participate EM event or similar big scale event, do make your best to be there! The atmosphere is very unique, nothing like the national competitions. It’s amazing to see such a large amount of sighthounds passing each other in peace, with owners and spectators passing them in ‘organized chaos’ from here and there. The atmosphere is completely different from dog shows, which are about the same in the amount of dogs. One member of the Finnish team wondered this too, and came to the conclusion that the sighthounds are really racists, despising other breeds only because they are always surrounded with sighthounds.
In these events this holds true, not necessarily in the everyday life.
All in all I’m very pleased to have been able to take part in the event. I’m also very grateful for the people who took their time to visit us at the Finnish camp: I didn’t take the time to go around the camps to see people. Even though I try my best not to be so competitive, I’m too concerned about my dogs and their performance in these events, so I’m too attached to them in the events.
Now it’s time to focus forward.
Next event is just around the bend. And we will be ready this time!
Fast enough to catch the lure 