Champions in the making

Thank you to YKC for inviting CaniX to their Summer Camp last week. It was a well orgainsed event run by very motivated people.

The kids were given many projects during the week - an exhausting timetable of canine disciplines as well as cake making, dance routines, fancy dress and a whole lot more. We thoroughly enjoyed the talent night where the kids were put through their paces on the dance floor to songs like Thriller and Rescue me. One of the 8 cakes had a CaniX runner attached to a dog. We were thrilled to see that the kids enjoyed it enough to include a CaniX runner and dog on their cake.

CaniX ran 10 training sessions over 4 days for 76 children from the age of 6 to 16; with a 600m CaniX race on the final day. The training focussed on looking after your dog before, during and after a training run or race and working together as a team with the emphasis on fun and enjoyment for both kids and dogs. They took to it like ducks to water. While some of the dogs didn't pull straight away (baby steps) most took off like rockets and gave the kids the ride of their lives. There was lots of whooping and hollering and it was a great thrill for us to be part of such enthusiasm. The kids had excellent control in place, some training in agility, flyball and obedience so half the job for us was already done.

All breeds were catered for right down (excuse the pun) to the cute little Papillons who made their junior handlers work to keep up.

To sum up, what we saw was endless enthusiasm and excellent potential. The power of some of the larger breeds proved a little too much to handle for some - but give the kids a year or two of growing and I am sure we were watching the next European CaniX Champion - just in time for EuroCaniX 2012 in the UK!