Agility dog meets Croc
 When
Virginia Harry posted a request for a 'Frisbee' dog on the Canine Forum, Mandy Melville- Love
decided to offer the services of her four year old Border Collie, Jess. It wasn’t long before
she was involved in succession of telephone calls and e-mails from Keith Cotton from Foundation
TV, describing what the production company wanted her to do.
The challenge was for the second
series of Globo Loco, a children’s TV programme which is shown on ITV. It was described to me
as being a mixture of You Bet, Bonzai and It’s a Knockout. The contestants have to bet on
whether the challenge will be successfully completed or not and they win stuff like Playstation
2, bikes, computers, etc.
 Their
idea for us was to have Jess catch ten Frisbees in 60 seconds. Easy! To ensure that we were
what they were looking for, I recorded a 30-second session of Jess in action and sent it off to
Keith. He was delighted, but because Jess had caught nine Frisbees in 30 seconds, they decided
that we should catch 15 Frisbees in 60 seconds for the show. Okay, we can do that I
said. However, it wasn’t long before we received another e-mail saying that they’d upped the
ante and we now had to catch 20 in 60 seconds. Now that was a challenge!
Just over a week later I received 30
Frisbees in the post to practice with. Initial training was good, and we were hitting between
18-21 in 60 seconds. My confidence was growing.
 On
Tuesday 14 October we travelled down to Maidstone in Kent and stayed overnight in the Hilton
Maidstone, all expenses paid. Jess thought she was in doggy heaven, having a double bed to
herself! Unfortunately I didn’t get much rest as Jess was disturbed most of the night by doors
shutting and general ‘hotel movement’, which she isn’t used to. Nevertheless we were both ready
and raring to go on Wednesday morning.
The recording of the challenge was
taking place on an athletics track at Canterbury High School. When we arrived at 1:30pm we were
treated to lunch with the crew. There was a lovely array of Chinese food on offer, but what did
Ed and I have... sandwiches. Anyone who knows Ed will tell you, he’s usually eaten at least
three burgers before the judge has done their briefing at a show! I guess it must have been the
nerves.
We’d just missed the Shetland Pony
who drinks beer, but apparently he’d managed four pints in three minutes! Are they sure this is
a children’s TV show?
At 3:00pm they were ready for
us. Filming started with general shots of Jess and I playing, just Jess, just me, etc. Then
Jess had to get up on a table (agility commands came in useful here and the crew were very
impressed) for footage of Jess and me with the trophy. Unfortunately the crew made the mistake
of piling the Frisbees up on the floor, so Jess was distracted quite a lot wanting to get to
them. Nevertheless we persevered and after about an hour and a half we were ready to do the
challenge.
The
Challenge
This turned out to be much harder than I anticipated as we were given limited space in
which to throw. We couldn’t throw out to the left as the truck-mounted camera was there, and we
couldn’t throw out to the right too far or any further than 20ft as they would be out of
shot. All in all, therefore, the throws were going to be pretty close range, which isn’t what
we’d been practicing. Oh yes, I forgot to mention, there was also a strong wind!
 It
was decided that the Globo Loco Crocodile would hold the Frisbees for me so that I didn’t have
to bend down to pick them up. This was great, until dear Croc wandered off away from me and I
ran out of Frisbees. I heard ‘15’ shouted from behind me, only five more to go. Panic was
setting in, and I was becoming erratic with my throws. The whistle blew... damn, we’d only
managed 18. I was disappointed, but everyone else was very impressed. The crew decided to go
for it one more time without Croc, but Jess was tiring by this stage and our performance wasn’t
nearly as good.
Next I was asked to just throw the
Frisbees as if I was doing the challenge so they could film me.Then it was Jess’ turn; I had to
throw Frisbees towards the camera, trying not to hit it, so that they could get some close-up
action shots of Jess. Then it was the turn of the Frisbees! A Perspex sheet was put in front of
the camera lens and I had to hit it, so that they could later jiggle about with it to get some
special effects. Luckily I managed not to decapitate the crew in the process.
After two and a half hours, my
challenge was over and done with... phew.
 CITV
also wanted a piece of the action, so it was Croc’s turn to throw CITV Frisbees for Jess. She
didn’t care who threw them, so long as someone did. Finally, they wanted me again. I had to
throw a CITV Frisbee at close range so that Jess would catch it and hold it in her mouth
showing the CITV logo. This didn’t go too well, as the logo was either upside down when Jess
caught it or she didn’t hold onto the Frisbee long enough…..well, it had been a long day. We
managed it in the end though and ‘it was a wrap.;
I was told at the end that they had
enough shots and so would show it on TV that we did successfully complete the challenge,
because the wind played a huge part in our performance. At least we’ll keep some pride!
Jess was given a pile of Frisbees to
take away and some doggy treats and she slept all the way home. All in all it was a great, if
tiring day, but I would definitely do it again.
 About
the author...
Mandy
Melville-Love started agility training in late 1999 with Bromsgrove DTC, at which time she
only had one dog Jess, a rescued Border Collie. In 2001 the year was filled with competitions
and the bug really bit! This was the same year that she got her second dog, Sally, also a
rescued border collie.
2002 saw Jess and Mandy
really get it together, coming home from most shows with a lots of lovely ribbons. It was also
the year when she fell in love with Dylan, a blue merle Border Collie advertised on the
Agilitynet Rescue Me pages.
At Milton Keynes in May
2003 Mandy won out of Elementary with Jess. This year has been a great year so far,
with them winning the First Contact Starters Agility class at North Derbyshire on 26 June,
winning out of Starters and qualifying them for the final next year.
Mandy is also now an
instructor at Bromsgrove DTC.
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