Happy New Year!

Holiday Fun

Well Santa came to our little monsters, he bought them plenty of toys, some of which have survived, some didn't last more than a few hours.

We have managed to get in our first contact training session working on the A-Frame and we were pleased with how it went although we have a lot of work still to do. Unfortunately it has rained all day for the past couple of days so the grass is too wet to train on at the moment.

Yesterday we took the dogs on a new walk and today Brian, Megan and Heidi have been swimming. Heidi didn't actually swim but she got in and sat on the ramp and got wet and played with her ball so it was certainly good progress. She let Ann & Katie shower her and dry her off with a towel and play ball with her afterwards too so we were very pleased with how the session went.

Tomorrow my mum and dad are visiting for a few days so there will be lots of dog walking I am sure!

Merry Christmas!

Well its Christmas eve, there are 4 stockings hanging up waiting for Santa, I wonder what he will bring to our fury kids? And the big question is, does Santa think they have been good enough this year?...We shall see!

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Christmas Tree Is Up!

We Finally got round to putting our tree up this evening and it looks quite good now we actually have room for it! The dogs have also got a stocking each which has been put up. I had a clear out of broken and scruffy toys earlier and Kody looked a bit worried that they were going in the bin, I did tell him that if he has been good then Santa will replace them with nice new ones.

Our new contact equipment arrived over the weekend but it has been so cold here and I don't want the dogs getting an injury that we haven't had the chance to put it to any use yet but hopefully we will do over the christmas break. Tomorrow is my last day at work until the 4th of Jan so we should have plenty of opportunity.

Brian and Megan went swimming again today and they both did very well. We took Heidi in for a visit as we are hoping to get her swimming this year too. She was a very good girl and let Rod and Ann stroke her and give her treats. She has her first experience of the pool next tuesday although she will probably just get her legs wet for the first few trips as she doesn't like to swim but I know it will be good for her. If all goes well with Heidi and we can get her swimming we will then attempt to get Kody going too but that will be later next year.

I got my results for my teachers course too yesterday and i'm pleased to say I passed, I was beginning to think my results were never going to arrive, everyone else on the course got theirs a few weeks back but mine were delayed in the post.

Hope you like Heidi posing as a reindeer!

New Walks

 Yesterday me and the doggies went on the first new walk since we have moved here. Most of the snow has gone now so I braved taking them out and they loved it. They do enjoy having new areas to explore. Our walk was up a track that is about 100 meters from our house so not too far at all. They all came back extremely muddy and pretty tired.

Kody has been a bit under the weather this week, he didn't seem himself at all for the first few days but he has perked up last night and today so we are not too worried to be honest I caught him with his head in the dog food bin on Monday so I think his problem was that he had eaten too much and had a tummy ache!

I have added a few photos of Megan at Hydro on Monday, I'll add some more later on in the week.

Back Online

Well the snow is finally going although the fields are all still covered. We managed to move house on Tuesday, only a day later than planned. The new house is lovely and despite some slight issues with no heating for the first few days it is all sorted now and we have settled in well and our internet was finally put on today!!! The dogs are loving the space both indoors and out, they have pretty much exhausted themselves each day with their new adventures.

Brian and Megan went to hydro today and so are shattered now. I got some really good photos of Megan swimming, I'll post some later on in the week when I get a bit more time.

After nearly 3 weeks off due to bad weather and then pre booked holiday I am back to work tomorrow, I'm so glad there are only a couple of weeks left until the Christmas holidays!

A Long Journey Home

Conor made it home to us after a very long trip. He hired a car to get him back from the airport but got stuck in the snow about 3 miles from home and by this time it was 4am. I called to get him some recovery and by 9 am they hadn't arrived but a passing tractor helped him out. He then got stuck again half a mile away so walked the rest of the way and the recovery 4x4 originally booked, arrived at 11am so we then walked back down to the car. The hire car had to be left in the next village as we couldn't get it to ours!

Today we had a walk up to the next village to get some milk and check on the car and we were very pleased to see tarmac through the snow for the first time in a week! We decided to attempt to drive into Grimsby in the car to get a few supplies from Tesco. The main roads are not too bad at all but the B roads do still have quite a lot of snow on them.

We are still hoping to move on Monday  but we need to dig the van out tomorrow as it is still abandoned outside our gate which is where the removal vehicle will need to go. I guess we are now just going to have to wait and see how thing go over the next 24 hours or so and hope for the rain we have been forecast as well as a bit of a thaw.

Megan seems to have an enjoyable afternoon, she has just been sat glued to Ice Age, she really seems to like all of the Ice Age films and doesn't move when they are on!

Stranded!!!

Well it seems as though we are now stranded at home. Today has been constant snow, we have no electric (meaning no heating etc either) from about 8am until nearly 3 this afternoon and no mobile phone network either. This afternoon I took a walk up to the next village which is about a mile away to get some matches (so I could at least light the hob), but that didn't provide me with any enthusiasm that this might improve over the next few days. The roads up there are like here, pretty much unusable, cars are just abandoned in the roads where people are just getting stuck.

It really couldn't have come at a worse time though, Conor is due home on Thursday and flies into Birmingham, as it stands there isn't any chance of me getting out to get him. I think its the worse snow fall we have had here. As if that isn't bad enough, we are meant to be moving house on Monday but I'm not holding my breath as I doubt a removal lorry will get up here.

Anyway above are some pics of the doggies in the snow, they are enjoying it at least! (Brian has decided is a bit too deep now!)

Vans and Snow don't Go!

Well today has turned out to be a really s**t day! The snow has continued to fall on and off this morning but as several cars had been in and out in our road I thought the outside world might not be so bad.

I was due to start work at 3 so decided to set off at 2 giving me an extra 35 mins travelling time. I got about 3 miles away from home (which took ages) and in that time got the van stuck twice, the second time it just wouldn't bugde so I had to reverse down the hill a bit and turn around to head back for home. My mobile phone signal has been a bit iffy today (probably due to the weather) but what a surprise, when I was stuck it had gone off. I made my way back home, getting stuck on a hill once more and the only way to move was to zig zag slowly up the hill. I got back into our road and got stuck about 2 metres from our house so had to be pushed a little way and the van is now abandoned outside our gate!

It won't be going anywhere for a few days until some of this snow has gone (and yes I know we are forecast it for the rest of the week but I'm happy being in denial over that one for now).

Me and Conor had been thinking about getting another 4x4 at some point as a second run around vehicle, it may be arriving sooner than we had planned!

Megan has found a good snow game to play, she runs as fast as she can, throws her front legs forward and back ones out behind and skids along in the snow like a sledge! It's quite amusing to watch.

The pictures are from last year, I'm not loving the snow enough to go out and photograph them today, maybe tomorrow when I have stopped being a grump!

First Lot of Snow

Well yesterday morning we unfortunately woke up to a blanket of snow. Actually it didn't turn out to be too much of a problem, it provided a lovely back drop for some wedding photos it was just very very cold! It pleased the dogs to have the white stuff back, they do love it and are especially pleased to find its still there this morning.

We currently have a skip on our front garden so that we can get rid of some rubbish that we seem have accumulated and the malis think its the best game ever to play chase around it and with snow its even more fun! The video is of the girls playing in the snow yesterday, Kody had worn himself our playing chase with them earlier and Brian had as usual just woken up so wasn't really in the playing mood! (Sorry its poor quality, I only had my phone to hand)

Will It Be A Repeat Of Last Year?

I'm led to believe according to the weather forcast that we may be in for some snow over the next few days. As much as I like the snow I dont think I could face another winter of it like last year, we ended up will almost 3 full months of it here so i'm really crossing my fingers that it doesn't happen over the next few days, especially as I have a wedding to photograph this weekend!

Course Complete

On each Sunday throughout October and November I have been on my level 2 swimming teachers course. Today was our last day with both our 2 hour written exam and 2 hour practical assessment. I have passed the practical side as we got those results today but I  have to wait another couple of weeks to get the results of the written exam. Whilst it was an enjoybale course and I learnt a lot, I am so glad its over!

On the Subject of Swimming, Brian and Megan both had good swims on Friday. Brian is now swimming with just a harness and not a jacket (Its only taken about 4 years to get to that stage!). Megan is getting more and more confident every time we go which is good, this week she even gave Ann a slobbery kiss! I am going to be taking some photos for Ann for her new website so this week I had a go at photographing our dogs swimming. It is much harder than it would seem as the lens steams up the second you get in the door. I did get a couple of good photos of our dogs and I have some new ideas to try when we next go. Hopefully after a few more sessions i'll be ready to photograph their own dogs in the pool.

Progress...

After a successful day of weave training with Megan I thought I'd post a video of her progress so far. I have videoed every session we have done and it is clear to see how much of an improvement she has made. Her performance isn't perfect yet but at the moment she is about 1.5 seconds quicker through the weaves than she first was which is obviously a good thing!

I began some jump grids training with Heidi and Megan today too and it went well. Heidi did have a couple of poles (even though they were on small) but that is due to her getting over excited and not concentrating, when she concentrates she does really well, its a work in progress though!

Tomorrow Brian and Megan have hydrotherapy and this weekend I actually have Saturday off!!! I think I might go Christmas Shopping though as I haven't started yet and could do with getting a chunk of it out of the way as it is fast approaching yet again.

Training With Lucy

I had been a bit conscious that we hadn't been to the field to do any training for nearly 2 weeks due to bad weather so on Monday we managed to squeeze in an hour before it got dark. I thought Meg might have forgotten her single stride weaves but she is doing it every time when the V's are open, its just closing them up now thats taking its time. Still we have all winter and i'm confident she will get there.

Today we had a couple of hours of 1-2-1 training with Lucy. Each dog had 40 mins each. With Heidi and Megan we mainly worked on tightening turns and my handling (which at times was poor!), and with Kody we did a bit on contacts and then some jumping and handling. It made a nice change to train with someone else as we no longer go to club. I think in the new year we may have a session every couple of weeks for a while.

Tomorrow all being well I plan to get to the field in the morning and start some jump grids training, mainly focusing on Heidi as she knocked a lot of poles today so it was a gentle reminder that we could do with attempting to sort it!

Wet & Windy At The Beach

As I suspected the weather was terrible today meaning no training for the dogs. We did however have our beach trip. I am very glad I invested in waterproof trousers or I would have been soaked! We didn't go all the way down to the sea as it is quite a long way and looked very choppy today. There was a thin layer of water all the way up to the sand dunes so the dogs still got to get wet.

We walked a good way along the beach along the sand dunes so that I could have a little bit of shelter from the wind and rain. The dogs splashed around and ran up and down the sand dunes and generally had a good time. We had about 10 minutes of sunshine where there was a rainbow but then it was back to dark clouds and more rain. Needless to say, we didn't see anyone at all!

Not sure what's going on with Brian's ears, maybe he is trying to look like a Mali too!

Jumping Grids

At the start of October Heidi was due to go on a jumping grids workshop but unfortunately Conor had to go away the same day and so we couldn't go. As we have had a pretty wet and miserable day I have begun watching Susan Salos jumping DVD so that I have some idea what to practice with Heidi to try and combat those knocked poles!!!

Tomorrow should be our training day at the field but having checked the weather I think it's due to be wet all week so the dogs may get a week off this week. Still it gives me the chance to plan what I want to do for next week should it be dry.

The dogs are full of beans at the moment, mainly I think from being indoors much earlier now as its dark and with it being cold I'm less inclined to leave the back door open all day for them to come and go while i'm in and they end up lazing around the house. Tomorrow I plan to wrap up and put on my wellies and waterproofs and take the dogs to the beach. They'd end up wet in the sea anyway so the rain wont make much difference to them!

Not Loving The Dark!!!

I'm certainly not loving the change in the clocks this week! It's just so dark, I keep thinking its time for bed and its only 8pm! On the plus side it has been light when I have been walking the dogs before work but I know that wont last long.

Brian has finally been given the all clear by the vet which is great news and he celebrated by going to hydrotherapy yesterday. I took both Brian and Megan, Meg watched Brian swim and got very excited from watching him. I had to put Brian away though while Megan had her swim as he just whined to get back in!

We have managed to get some training in at the field on Tuesday morning but it was so windy I had to pet the jump wings in so decided to just work on flick flacks as it doesn't require too many jumps. Megan also did some weaves, I have decided to leave the first and last 2 poles quite open and we are currently working with the middle 4 totally upright (having been successful with the middle 2 and 3) and the others are at a slight V. She is struggling with the 4 though so we are not ready to move on yet, the good thing is she seems to always be entering with a single footed action now and I'm confident she will get it in the end.

We are without our van at the moment, last winter the heater packed up and it spent 5 days with a local garage while they played around with it but they didn't end up fixing it. now that we have got some cold mornings I'm struggling to get the scre

en cleared so it has gone to VW to be fixed. Good news is they have discovered the problem (2 hours labour at £60 an hour!) and tomorrow they will be replacing the broken part. I have got a hire van so I can go out but the dogs can't go far as we have no cages and I don't have enough crates for them all so they are having a lazy day today and tomorrow with just some walks to the field.

A Walk Along the River Bank

As a change I decided to give the dogs a day off training today and take them for a nice walk along the river Ancholme. I work right next to the river and see people walking their dogs there all the time but didn't really realise what a nice walk it actually was. I popped into work and went for a swim whilst the dogs waited in the van then took them for their walk. They were not supposed to get wet, I thought the bank was quite steep so didn't think they'd get in...

...Well how wrong was I?! It evened out the further down you go and I only came back with 1 dry dog and that was Kody (although he did have wet legs). I couldn't keep Brian or Megan out, they are real swimmers and Heidi got soaked as she fell in trying to get to Brian! Still they seemed to enjoy themselves and have slept all afternoon although Megan and Kody are now full of beans and are back to their usual wrestling games, I dont think they believe in giving me 10 mins peace!
.

1 Paw At A Time

We have had a couple of good sessions of training at the field this week so far and I'm pleased to say Megan is now doing the v-weaves with a single footed action. The plan now is to reduce the angle that they are at until she can do them upright. I' really pleased with how quickly she has picked it up so far, lets hope she continues with the same good progress. I am keeping a video diary of her training on this so I'll post it once we have completed the training.

We haven't really been up to much else lately. We have ordered our dog walk and A-Frame so we can start our contact training but they aren't due to arrive until mid December so we are currently working on jumping skills until then.

Brian has another check up at the vets on Friday and Kody is going too for his injections. I'm really hoping they give Brian the all clear this time (I seem to remember saying this before) but I really think he is the best he is going to be now and he is so much happier in himself and seems to have put a good bit of weight on too so fingers crossed!!!

Happy 2nd Birthday Megan!

I can't believe our puppy is 2 today, it doesn't seem like that long ago she was a tiny little puppy. She has of course has some presents, a mini space hopper like the big one she loves and another toy and some treats too. Her daddy has promised to get her a new teddy when he gets back so i'm sure she'll love that as she really does love teddys!

Anyway, Happy Birthday to Reno, Zippy, Speedy, Eva and Zippo. hope you all have a lovely birthday x

Dog Vegas

Today we have been at the Dog Vegas show. I was running just the girls but the main idea today was to do some 'in the ring training' rather than competing as such. The aim was to ensure that Megan had a WAIT at the start of EVERY class and that they both got their weaves and would then be rewarded. Well it didn't go exactly to plan...
.

...Megan  broke her wait in the first 3 classes which is really just down to naughtiness as she has a very solid wait at home so for the last 2 agility classes as there was no weaves in them (how annoying when that's what you want to train) I decided to run NFC and use the time to get our wait. We did have success but most of our course time was used up with me trying to win the battle but when she realised I could keep putting her back as often as I wanted until she did it, I won. I let her do 3 jumps as her reward for waiting. The second attempt at this was pretty much as the first was but to be honest I think it was worth while doing as she seems to know there are only so many times I can put her back at a normal show so sometimes the smaller shows are worth entering just for training things like that.

Only the jumping classes had weaves in and unfortunately both of the girls missed them on each time, Heidi chose the tunnel every time and Megan ran past them totally on one run and on the other went in about halfway down so obviously still more work to do on those.

Generally though not a bad day out, Heidi got quite stressed being indoors as it's very crowded and noisy but she coped with that by playing with her toy and being very focused on me whilst in the que and obviously getting lots of tasty treats for being such a good girl. I know she isn't happy in some situations but all I can ask of her really is be try to accept it and to be good and today she certainly did.

(The pictures are of the girls playing wrestling earlier in the week!)

Training Video

We have continued to work on our 2x2's since last week and the girls have definitely upped their game (C'mon girls!) On Friday and today we have been on 6 poles and it has gone very well. The issues we had previously had with Heidi's right hand weaves seem to have gone and she is doing them well. I videoed today's session and I'm glad I did as one thing I have noticed that I always do with Heidi (and never with the others) is stop dead once she has completed the weaves to throw her toy instead of continuing to run with her until we have passed them so that is something I will stop doing from now on (Bad mummy!)

As they all did so well today I ended the session with a couple of goes on 12 poles which I may have rushed on to a bit too quickly. Heidi and Brian both came out at 10 almost every time, Kody slowed considerably once there were 12 and poor Meg, she tries so hard but she can't double step 12 poles and so she tries and then ends up strolling through them so from tomorrow we will be getting the V weaves out for them all-Kody to increase his speed, Meg to teach a single footed action and Heidi & Brian in the hope that it will keep them in until the end.

With the dark nights drawing in we have been doing some shaping and clicker training at home to teach the dogs some new tricks but also so that we can introduce some bits into our agility training later through the winter. I have to say Megan seems to be the brain box for this, she really seems to like shaping. Kody and Heidi are doing well with it too, I think I have found Brian the hardest, we have been working with a cone and it took forever for him to interact with it but when he finally did I clicked him a few too many times for some things and now he thinks the game is to kick it over! Not quite what I had in mind but its new to me too so we will all learn together I guess.