Jack of Diamonds 12-04-97 to 16-01-06
As I write this review of Jacks life I find it hard to believe he has gone and his head does not rest in my lap as I type. I must try to stick to the facts or I will never be able to finish this.
Jack was home bred from Gem (Diamond Duchess) who was from Enfer Donna Dianna and Out of Gloom and Blaze (Lynmoss Vermillion) who was from Lynmoss Cinderella and Questenberg Quebec of Charbonnay. He was a very special dog right from the start very people friendly and willing to please.
However he wasn’t the easiest dog to train in the early days for a couple of reason.
Firstly his speed he could do half an agility course before I had got past the second jump. On one walk our dogs flushed out a rabbit. Jack went from the back of the pack and overtook the lot including the rabbit which disappeared down a hole. Jack carried on at full pelt until he finally looked round with an expression that said where’s the little fella gone.
The second problem was he had a very strong herd / guard instinct. He wanted the whole family together where he could keep an eye on them. This was very useful when herding our sheep. He would hold the main flock while our collie rounded up strays but it was infuriating when he would shoot out of the ring run around Glenda and Claire before coming back to complete an otherwise good round.
But we persevered and as he matured things improved. KC good citizens went ok and we also enjoyed working trials were we got CD and UD certificates of merit fairly easily and were well on our way to the coveted Qualifying Certificates when he tore out a claw on the scale. The BSD agility world championships were now on the horizon. I did not want risk repeating the injury so trials took a back seat and we never competed again. We did do some tracking and searching just for fun which he really enjoyed.
Agility was always our main activity. Jack never won out of novice but we always came back from competitions with some rosettes, and regularly with trophies including many good places in intermediate and open.
We were ready to go to the first BSD agility world championships in Belgian in 2003 but Glenda decided to have another baby (Sara) the weekend of the competition. We were able to go to the world championships in Spain in 2004 where after a sticky start Jack was an absolute star finishing 6th in the individual competition. We also had the honour of being anchor in the winning team at the BSD WC in Germany in May 2005. These were trips of a lifetime and a marvellous experience. I had never imagined that a dog would take me across Europe, to the Camargue, Catalan, and camping in the Black forest.
One of our last competitions was at the Hereford County show where we had a fantastic day out and succeeded in getting 12th in novice agility, 2nd in snooker and 1st in pairs.
Shortly after that Jack had a stiff neck so we finished the season early, even with a very limited number of shows he had finished 15th in the Vapresto league.
As he recovered we went on long walks and did some fun training, during the Christmas holidays we were getting ready for the new season. Then in early January we did an agility league match, and he did not seem right, in fact he was seriously ill, but that big brave boy always eager to please still did a couple of decent runs.
I took him to Sue our vet the next day but it was no good he had Haemangio Sarcoma an aggressive type of cancer, 10 days later he had gone.
I will always treasure our time, adventures and walks together. So many people have written and called me describing their first meetings with him and how friendly he was. At training, shows and demos I could trust him to be off the lead and he would seek out a dog lover and push his head under their hand or wriggle onto their lap. He was a great ambassador for his breed and dogs in general.
Ok boy that’ll do
