Brave at the double at KST (Feb 2025)
Another local show – this one organised by Will’s trainer, Katherine Stickney – gave Will and Brave the chance to continue to develop their bond and fitness early in the year. Just three days after his 3rd birthday, Brave was clearly in the mood to celebrate in style!
With just two runs in the day, the pair got off to a flying start with their agility run. A really controlled but deceptively quick clear round gave the RAW pair a winning start to their day:
This was Brave’s first win at Grade 4 and he was justifiably proud of this achievement:
Will and Brave’s second and final run of the day was a jumping round. Despite a slow weave and not moving quite as confidently, Brave still did a super job to go clear again and do just enough to claim another 1st place finish:
Brave now has two of the four wins needed to move up to Grade 5 and the points accrued today also mean that he has achieved his Agility Warrant (Bronze) – what a great way to celebrate his birthday!
Many thanks to Kathryn Stickney and all the volunteer helpers for a lovely show and to judges Hayley Newman and Debbie Fuller for great courses. The RAW team have fingers crossed that the good form continues as Will and Brave attempt to get the wins needed to move to Grade 5!
Training with Barrie James – the Welsh legend (March 2025)
In between competitions, it is always great to take advantage of visiting trainers as well as working with Will’s regular trainer, Kathryn Stickney.
This time, Barrie James was in town and Will and Brave made the most of the opportunity. Here are the highlights:
The session really showed how much Brave has progressed in the last few months. There is still plenty more to learn and to practice but the signs are good for a busy year ahead both in the UK and overseas.
Many thanks to Barrie who, as always, made the session challenging and fun packed with great advice. Will is looking forward to sharing judging duties with Barrie later this year.
Brave shows super stamina at South Devon (March 2025)
Will & Brave faced an unusual challenge at today’s show. After their first two runs they headed off to an intensive 2 hour training session with World Champion Dalton Meredith before heading back to the South Devon show for their final run – a true physical, logistical and competitive challenge!
The first run of the day was a jumping round. A nice clear round had the occasional wide turn which cost some time meaning Will and Brave finished in a creditable second place:
After the team’s second run ended in an elimination following Brave missing the weaves, it was off to training with Dalton. After training with him a few months back, Will was hoping Dalton would recognise the improvement and Brave did not disappoint:
Two hours later, it was back to the show for the final competitive run of the day – an agility round. Despite the fatigue that both dog and handler must have been feeling by now, the enthusiasm of both to work together was clear to see in a lovely clear round:
This gave the pair a well deserved win with a couple of seconds to spare.
The first place finish means Brave is just one win away from reaching Grade 5 – he is growing in confidence and consistency week on week. Exciting year ahead!
Many thanks to the team and helpers at South Devon AC, the judges, ring party and Dalton who all contributed to a really enjoyable day.
Brave hits Grade 5 with The Four Tops – Pawsability Clean Sweep (April 2025)
Every so often an agility handler and dog just have one of those days where everything just clicks and goes their way. Today was one of those special days.
Brave and Will had 4 runs at the brilliant Pawsability show with Brave needing one more win to reach Grade 5. First up was an agility round:
What a great way to start the day – clear round, 1st place and Grade 5 status secured!
The next run was a jumping run and the next goal was to maintain the consistency that the RAW pair have shown in recent weeks as part of their WAO preparations:
Another clear and another win – super signs that the combination was really clicking today. Something special could be happening…
Run 3 was another jumping round:
Three runs, three clears and three wins so far for this special pairing. Will and Brave had one more run and Will was determined to take this chance to achieve something that he had never done before, even with the incredibly reliable Rudi at his peak – to win 4 classes in a single day. The final challenge was another agility round:
Despite this being the fourth run of the day, there were no signs of tiredness as the pair put in their best run of the show to secure another clear round and another win – the perfect day was done. A really rare feat achieved for the first time in his career by Will. A rightly proud Brave suggested he also knew he had done well:
Thanks to all at Pawsability for another great show and to Mike Bendell and Alison Grimes for setting lovely courses.
So Close at Kernow (April 2025)
With Brave in limbo, he was given a rest this weekend and so all the RAW focus was on developing the Will – Bossy partnership at the three day Kernow Easter show.
Day 1
As has been the norm at this show in past years, the heavens opened and Will and Bossy ran in heavy rain and a strong wind. The first run for Bossy, running at Grade 7, was a jumping round. Very unusually for Bossy, she was slightly distracted and went to see the judge part way round:
However, this was still a clear round that gave the pair a 4th place finish – the detour certainly prevented a much higher finishing position!
The second run of the day was the big one – the KC Agility Stakes. A top five finish in this agility run would see a pairing through to the semi final at the Kennel Club International Agility Festival in August.
Will and Bossy set off at a rapid pace. A tiny loss of concentration (where it looks like Bossy Looked at the judge again) meant a refusal and 5 faults:
Every other part of the run was sharp, precise and fast on a lovely, challenging course. At the highest level, there are very fine margins:
Despite missing out on a prestigious top five finish, there are so many positives to be taken from the run. Bossy clearly has the speed and the pairing have the skills to compete at the very highest level. The summer and beyond looks very, very promising and exciting!
Final Day
Will had the honour of judging in Ring 4 on the final day of this prestigious event. He had 8 jumping classes to oversee, all 4 heights at Grade 4-5 after judging all heights at Grade 6-7:
The courses were certainly challenging but the consensus was how much fun they were to run. Experienced international handler, and a top judge himself, Mike Bendall showed exactly how to run the G6-7 course:
Out of Limbo in style at Barnstaple (May 25)
This was the first show for Will and Brave after the end of the limbo period, so they could start to try to gain wins to progress towards Grade 6.
In beautiful weather in a stunning new location, the Barnstaple show proved to be a hit.
On day 1, the pair had three runs, starting with an agility run. Brave wasn’t quite at his quickest, but still put in a very solid clear round:
This lovely run was good enough for first place to give the RAW pair the first of the four wins they need to get to Grade 6.
The next two runs were both jumping rounds and were very similar in outcome. Both contained one small timing error that meant a refusal and 5 faults in each.
The first meant the pair finished 3rd and the second run was good enough for 2nd place.
So a great start on the journey to Grade 6 but also a couple of very near misses – exactly why it is so easy to get hooked on agility. It is the ultimate ‘if only…’ sport! Day 2 to come…
The main highlight of Day 2 was the first run of the day, a jumping round. Brave was paw perfect with a clear round that was just quick enough to claim another win:
With the other two of the day’s runs not quite going to plan, it was important not to be too disappointed with the runs that went awry but more to consider that this was Brave’s very first show as a Grade 5 dog and he racked up two wins to mean he is already half way to Grade 6.
The RAW youngster loves being top of the podium!
Many thanks to BADDAS for a fantastic show at a super new venue and the judges and lovely ring parties for their work through two hot days.
World Agility Open Championships 2025
All the runs, photos and background as Will and Brave represent Scotland at the WAO. This is Brave’s international debut after winning his place on the Scotland team when he was just two and a half years old. Brave managed top 10 finishes in two of his runs – a fantastic debut on the world stage!
Winning, Judging, Keeping Cool and Smiling at the Cornwall Mega-show! (July 2025)
Day 1 – Monday
Will and Brave started the week long Cornwall show with four runs, two agility and two jumping rounds.
Brave started the day needing two wins to progress to Grade 6, at least one of which had to be in an agility round.
One of his agility runs was one of his best so far:
This lovely flowing course from judge Guy Olliver suited Brave down to the ground and this lovely clear round gave Will and Brave the win.
The RAW Agility pair were quickly on to their next run, a jumping round. Once again, the team were looking very good and delivered another clear round on Hayley Newman’s jumping course:
This gave Will and Brave their second win of the day and means Brave progresses to Grade 6!
Brave now goes into ‘limbo’ meaning he continues to compete at Grade 5 for the next 25 days. His first Grade 6 competition will be at the Kennel Club International Agility Festival – quite an introduction!
Day 2
After getting the wins required to move up to Grade 6 yesterday, the next target for Will and Brave was to earn the points awarded for clear rounds to take them past the 400 required to gain their silver Agility Warrant.
The team needed just 8 more points to achieve the mark and a lovely clear round and a 1st place finish in agility did the job:
Our RAW youngsters finished the day on another winning note by taking first place in their jumping round. It certainly wasn’t the cleanest round Brave has ever run, but he was smart enough to put himself right through the weaves after a tricky entry and maintain decent speed to the end. Four wins in two days is a fantastic return:
Brave now has a couple of days to recover from his exertions as Will is judging on Wednesday and Thursday is a rest day for the whole show.
Day 3
As the weather got warmer, Will had the honour of judging the agility rounds in Ring 1. The classes included all heights running a G6-7 course, all heights running a G4-5 course and a G1-3 course for large dogs – 11 classes and around 200 dogs during the day.
As always, Will took great care in the design and preparation of the courses noting a slight change in course plans for the G6-7 dogs from small dogs to the other heights to allow a safe line into the dog walk for all heights:
As diligent as ever, Will ran the course with Brave (a Grade 5 dog!) the evening before to make sure it would be safe all the way around for all the competitors the next day. Brave loved the step up and performed impeccably!:
A big thank you to Cornwall AC for inviting Will to be the Ring 1 judge, to the fantastic ring party that ensured that all ran smoothly throughout the day and to the handlers and their dogs who showed some great skills and gave some lovely comments about the challenging but super-fun courses
Day 4
Day 4 (Thursday) and all dogs, competitors and helpers have a very well earned day off!
Day 5
The Cornwall AC management took the brilliant decision to start competition at 7.30am each day for the rest of this show. This was in light of the weather forecast for incredibly warm weather in the coming days and the welfare of dogs was at the heart of the decision.
Gazebos, paddling pools, short walking times and ringside water sprays were all deployed and the organisation and planning worked really well today. All rings were done by around 2.30pm and all dogs, handlers, judges and ring helpers seemed to cope well in the heat.
Will and Brave again had 4 runs. They saved their best for the final two runs. Their jumping run was the quickest across all Grades and our pair were only denied the win by a clipped pole on the penultimate jump:
Their final run was an agility course that didn’t quite go to plan but still turned out well! Slightly messy and Brave was a little wide in places too, but did get the only clear round in their grade and was again the fastest time across all grades:
This was the pair’s 5th win of the week and set them up nicely for the weekend which, in addition to their regular runs, will feature the Cornwall Jumping Cup Final (which Will and Brave have already qualified for thanks to their consistency in jumping rounds this week) and a team event on Sunday.
Day 6
As Brave had already won a place in the final of the Cornwall Jumping Cup, Will withdrew Brave from his two jumping runs today to rest his dog before the evening final on another very warm day.
It turned out to be a very wise decision. In the cooling evening breeze in front of a lively crowd, The RAW pair put in a lovely clear round (with Will managing to stay upright despite a slip) that was the fastest amongst the medium finalists:
Will and Brave are Cornwall Jumping Cup Champions for 2025!
Thanks to Ian Burnard for judging and setting a fast, crowd pleasing course that had to cover Grades 1-7.
Day 7
The final day of this fantastic event. With a heat warning still in place, the course walking again started at 7.00am with classes opening at 7.30am.
Will again chose to limit the number of runs that Brave did. It had been a long week and with another hot day to compete in, Brave only ran two classes early in the morning.
His best run today was a lovely agility course from judge. Layla Whitaker. Apart from a big leap off the dog walk (a classic sign that Brave was tired!) the pair ran well and finished with just 5 faults:
Unexpectedly, this was enough to put them in first place and gave the RAW pair their 7th win of the week.
A huge thank you to Kim Lawer and the team at Cornwall Agility Club for a really wonderful week. Thanks too to all the judges, members of ring parties and anyone else involved in the show.
Bossy finds it tough at Tuffley but Brave wins again (July 2025)
Will‘s first championship show of the year gave the ups and downs we all associate with agility.
Will was delighted to be back in partnership with Bossy to run in the championship class at Tuffley. After an elimination in the agility round, the new champ rules gave Will and Bossy the chance to still qualify for the final by winning the jumping round.
So, it was an all or nothing round that was so close to providing that win. One tunnel trap proved a temptation too many for Bossy and meant an elimination:
So, disappointment but very exciting that Will and Bossy can perform at the highest level after a long time apart. The next three shows all provide further championship competition for this pair.
Brave started the show in mixed fashion but showed what he can do in a nice agility round only spoiled by a missed dog walk right at the end of the round which meant a 2nd place finish:
The second day gave Brave two clear rounds and much more consistency. The first, in jumping, gave Will and Brave a third place finish:
Will & Brave’s final run of the show was a super agility clear round on a lovely flowing course:
This gave the pair a very well deserved win.
The RAW Agility Summer Road Trip (August 2025)
Will, Bossy and Brave undertook a mammoth 12 day agility tour that would see them competing in three of the biggest shows in the UK – Kennel Club International Festival, Dogs In Need Agility Society and Welsh KC.
Will, Brave and Bossy took on the challenge. You can see how Brave accumulated 8 wins, went to the brink of reaching Grade 7 and qualified for Crufts and see Bossy competing in three champ shows in under a fortnight by clicking the link below (picture clue shows you it went well!)
The RAW Agility Road Trip – Click here
Brave goes Ballistic at Iconix – Grade 7 achieved and much more! (August 2025)
The week after their fantastic road trip came to a close, Will and Brave were at one of the show highlights of the year – the Iconix Summer Fiesta with fantastic judges both UK and International, amazing long flowing courses, a stunning venue (Dallas Burston) and the chance to reach the coveted Iconix Final.
Brave started the show needing one agility win to reach Grade 7. On day one he had two agility runs. The first was in a huge field in a combined Grade 6 & 7 class:
This lovely clear round in high quality company was good enough for 5th place (as the highest placed Grade 6 dog) – a super start!
Their second run was in a graded class, meaning they would only be competing against other grade 6 partnerships. In the main ring, the team once again delivered:
This put Will and Brave into the lead and facing a very lengthy and nervy wait to see how all the other competitors fared – the wait was worth it! First place meant Brave had the win he needed to progress to Grade 7 – the highest grade!
Will quite rightly was in the mood to celebrate and after a very late night/early morning finish Will was up bright and early on day 2 to take part in the Iconix Grand Final qualifier. Only the winners in this class would make the final:
This super run by Brave, where he made great adjustments in the weaves and the final tunnel, meant another clear round and another first place. The RAW pair had reached the coveted Iconix final.
With qualification guaranteed, Will decided to miss two other scheduled runs in qualifying rounds to allow rest time for Brave and, more pressingly after the night before, himself!
The finals evening is a great affair with an excited crowd, super course commentary from Neil Ellis and a whole bundle of prizes for the winners. There were 14 dogs in the medium final and Will and Brave had been drawn to go early with a running order of no. 2. A fast clear on a really challenging but exciting, flowing course from judge Stephanie Semkat in a noisy atmosphere faced Brave and Will. No worries!:
That put Will and Brave into 1st place and the held on as pair after pair either got eliminated or picked up faults. Will and Brave were the 2025 Iconix Champions:
With a whole bundle of prizes to cart home, Will still found some energy to go out for more celebrations and a final day of agility. With the weather changing to very hot on Day 3, Will took the wise decision to just give Brave one early morning run. The little fella has had a lot of agility over the past three weeks and has some important runs to make in the coming weeks.
Brave was still determined to make the most of the day’s single run in a jumping class:
Yet another clear round and another win for this remarkable little spaniel. What a weekend for Brave – 5 clear rounds in a row on the some of the most challenging, exciting courses he has faced, 4 wins, reaching Grade 7 and becoming the Grade 4-7 Iconix Fiesta champion for 2025.
Brave is only 3 and a half and is now looking forward to several years of competing against the very best at the highest level – very exciting times for Will and Brave!
Will & Brave up with the best at British Agility Championships (Nov 25)
What a weekend for Will and Brave. They were competing for the first time at the British Agility Championships at the magnificent Onley Grounds Equestrian Centre.
Brave normally competes as a medium dog jumping over poles set at 400mm height. As this was being run under rules of the World Agility Open, he is small enough to be allowed to jump at 300mm height. The competition was still incredibly tough with really enjoyable, challenging courses being set by excellent judges including Roman Lukac (Slovakia), Pau Serrano Ciratusa (Spain) and Simon Brenca (Switzerland).
The Championships consist initially of 4 rounds – two jumping and two agility. Points are awarded according to position and after 4 rounds, the top 15 pairings in the league qualify for the grand final (as long as they have no more than one elimination over the four rounds).
For a dog brand new to Grade 7 in an imposing indoor venue and top-level courses, this was going to be a challenge for Brave. The first run was a jumping round:
This was the perfect start with the pair fast, in sync and happy. This gave the pair second place in very exalted company. They were only bettered in this class by Louise Godwin and Drift. To put this in context, Louise and Drift are the current World and European Champions!
The next run was an agility round in the main arena:
Another rapid round with just 5 faults for the weave entry gave Will and Brave 5th place – two top 5 finishes in such exalted company!
The next run was their second jumping round. Again it was quick and exciting:
Another clear round gave our pair a fourth place finish and (amazingly!) guaranteed them a place in the Grand Final before they had even run the final qualifying round. But, Will was determined to maintain the high standards he and Brave had set so far and gave it everything in the fourth run – an agility round:
Another clear round with some last second saves by both Will and Brave (which also fooled the camera operator at one point!). This time an 8th place finish meant the RAW pair had finished in the top 8 in every round, qualified for the Grand Final and most impressively topped the league table:
Will and Brave, over four rounds at the highest level had shown super consistency and finished ahead of the current world and European champion and a host of experienced international pairings. This wonderful qualifying series of runs meant Will and Brave would run last in the Grand Final.
Such was the difficulty of the courses, only 12 pairs qualified for the final, the rest having more than one elimination. The pressure of the occasion and having to wait to the very end didn’t seem to affect Will or Brave who absolutely rose to the occasion.
Louise and Drift ran directly before our pair and put in a stunning clear round befitting their World Champion status, so Will and Brave had to go for it at top speed, taking risks as they went – they were not going to settle for a comfortable top 5 finish, they wanted the win!:
With an elimination close to the end, the final win eluded Will and Brave but they were far from downhearted. Brave had an absolute ball and seemed to enjoy every second of every run. Will was delighted with the performance of his little spaniel that showed the pair can absolutely compete at the very highest level with the best in the country in the coming year. So much to look forward to!
Brave finishes the year on top at KST (Dec 25)
The last competition of the year for Will and Brave was at the local KST show organised by Will’s trainer, Kathryn Stickney.
Just two runs today, one jumping, one agility. After a couple of refusals in their jumping round (that was still good enough to finish second), our pair finished 2025 with a smooth clear round in an agility course set by championship judge Hilary Poole:
This was good enough to give our pair a deserved win in their last competitive run of 2025:
Brave was rightly proud of his achievements!:
Many thanks to Kathryn, the judges Hilary Poole and Heidi Vague and all of the organisers and helpers for making the show run so smoothly.
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