Canix running

The Hawarden Estate Winter Trail.

At last, my first real race and a chance to compete against other dogs on over 5.5 km of tracks, fields, gloopy mud and puddles.  It was fantastic with lots and lots of barking as 20 dogs and humans prepared for the start of the race in the grounds of Hawarden Castle.

 As it was my first race I stayed back at the start until most of the other dogs had crossed the start line and then away I went dragging my human behind me.  One of the things I have to remember when Canix racing is that I should always be ahead of my human so I'm setting the pace and I have to stay on my lead all the time.  Running ahead of the human is difficult for me as I normally run alongside or slightly behind him when I'm on a lead.  I got it right most of the way round and didn't get told off by any of the marshals.  There were some small dogs like me but there were some really big dogs as well, but they were all really well behaved so I wasn't frightened.  I did overtake a few dogs and was 12th dog to finish in just under 30 minutes, that's not bad for a first attempt.

The castle grounds were lovely, if I'd been off my lead I could have explored and sniffed around in the woods and found lovely smelly stuff to roll in.  The weather was a bit chilly (for humans) but just right for me and it didn't rain during the race.

Lots of wags and woofs,

Dexter