Rain, Rain, Rain!

After 5 days of no bandage Megan's foot is looking considerably better as you can see from the photo (taken yesterday), she is hardly limping at all now and isnt trying to lick it either so it means she doesnt have to wear the buster collar so much.

Yesterday was a bit of a lazy day where we were stuck indoors all day as it hadnt stopped raining and today hasn't been much better as i've been at work this morning and its bouncing down again now! We were forecast to have heavy snow on Wednesday but when I checked earlier its just rain now thank goodness! Im hoping for at least one dry evening this week so I can put Heidi through the weaves again a few more times before agility this weekend.

We have 4 days of agility coming up which i'm really looking forward to, we are going to Dog Vegas from Friday until Sunday then from there we are heading off to my mum and dads and going to the Bretford DTS' Easter Egg'ility competition on Monday in Solihull and then we are staying at my mum and dads until Wednesday as I have booked Brian in to have a massage on Wednesday with Natalie in Bromsgrove. After that we will be heading back here, so it should be a good few days from the end of this week. Just hope we get some sunshine over the weekend and not just loads of rain!

Don't Look If You're Squeamish!

I had really hoped for good news today when we went for Megan's check up at the vets but sadly that wasn't the case. She now has an infection in her foot, the antibiotics she was prescribed just haven't worked at all so today she has been given some different ones and had an injection to start her off.

We saw a different vet today and she has decided it would be best to leave the wound open now with no dressing on it. I have taken a photo of it tonight and posted it at the bottom of this post so if you're a bit squeamish don't scroll down too far!
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I have to bathe her foot now at least 4 times a day in salt water and that combined with the fresh air should dry it out and hopefully all being well it should be fully healed in 2 weeks time. If it has shown no visible signs of improvement in a week though we have to go back and they will take some swabs of the infection and target it with some different drugs.

The good thing is she is happy walking on it now around the house although she isn't too happy as she has no choice now but to wear the buster collar to stop her licking it. When she goes outside it has to be covered with a plastic bag.

Having got back from the vets quite late I decided to give agility training with Brian a miss tonight but if its sunny tomorrow I will hopefully do some with him and Heidi then.

Megan's foot:

Training Heidi

Today has been a lovely sunny day and a chance to get the dogs outside while I got some jobs done inside. Megan is really back to normal now, in fact she is pretty much bouncing all over the place, I don't quite know what she will be like this time next week having had only lead walks for yet another week. The good thing is her bandage is still on (nearly 4 days now!), I have put one of my socks over the top of it with a little bit of tape round it and she has left well alone.

Brian is still on rest until Thursday night apart from his daily walks to see if he improves, he doesn't seem to be ill in any way so that's a good thing!

Its just over a week now until Easter Dog Vegas and Heidi is entered into her first Grade 1 class, she is doing just 1 jumping class on each day so I thought it was about time we got some more training done and linking the weaves with other obstacles. She cant go to club at the moment due to being in season so we have been to York Rd.

I really couldn't fault her enthusiasm today, she was so keen to work which was brilliant. I have videoed her training from today and posted it below. Tomorrow I hope to do a little bit more with her but I'm on lates so I wont have as much time. I have already set up 12 weaves to save me time in the morning, I'll just have to put the jumps up. I put her through 12 poles at the end to check she remembered and she did and these are on the video too.

I know in the video at times it looks as though I am pregnant but I can assure you I'm not, I just have Heidi's tuggy stuffed down my trousers as I had no pockets!!!!

I Spoke Too Soon...

...about Megan's foot healing nicely! When I got home from work yesterday evening Megan had chewed a hole in her bandage and pulled out her stitches. I was less than impressed so this morning we headed off to the vet again (4th time this week!). He cleaned it up and luckily the underneath has started to heal up and it's now just a surface wound. There isn't anything else they can do for her with it, we just have to keep it bandaged up until it heals completely. Currently our vet bill is on £460 so I can honestly say I'm glad for pet insurance!

We got back from the vets at 10.30 so I decided to go to Dog Vegas anyway. We would have only missed our Helter Skelter run so still 2 agility and 2 jumping to do. We got there about 12ish and I had missed walking the agility course so I watched a few dogs run before running Brian. Anyway today we got 3 clear rounds out of 4 runs which was really great but out of the placings. Brian has seemed slow still today, like he is really tired. I am going to rest him now until training on Thursday night to see if he picks up. I hope I'm not getting another poorly dog!

Obedience & Agility Training

This week has been a pretty busy week for Brian. On Wednesday evening we went to our first obedience class at the new club we had found. It is very similar to the one we used to go to before we moved so it was not a total shock to the system. Brian really enjoyed himself and I did too. We are not doing anything serious, I just wanted to do something with only Brian as I do often feel that with the girls being younger they need more attention and I don't want him to feel he misses out so this will be 'our thing'.

As it happens only Brian was able to go to Agility training last night too. The girls are dropping like flies at the moment (Meg's poorly foot & Heidi is in season). He seemed really tired though, I don't know if its the change in weather but it's considerably warmer here this last week and he seems shattered!

Today he is on a good rest day as tomorrow we are off to Dog Vegas for the last of their winter shows. As I only have Brian to run it should be much less of a rush than normal and we dont really need to be there until about 9.30am which is nice.

Megan had her check up with the vet although I had to change it to last night as I doubted the bandage would have lasted until this morning. We have to try and make this bandage last 7 days (I'm not holding my breath), so she is back for another check up and hopefully one last bandage next Thursday. The vet said it's healing nicely which is great!

Going for Gold

Just a quick post to say Megan successfully passed her Silver Good Citizen test tonight. She certainly hasn't let her paw bother her, she is back to her normal cheerful self today after a good sleep last night and as there isn't exactly much moving around involved in the silver test we decided to give it a go. I had forgotten about the road walk but the tester let us walk about 50m, cross the road and cross back which is the minimum you need to do and she had no problems.

I do intend to have a go at the Gold with her but not until September, I'm hoping to do Heidi's Silver test with her next, hopefully starting after the Easter break.

Stitched Up

Megan is home safe and well from her day at the vets. They did her op this morning and they phoned at lunch time to let me know she was ok and I collected her about 4pm. She is a funny puppy, she was quite happy to go off with the nurse this morning wagging her tail. I bought her a big monkey for being such a brave girl and she has cuddled up with him and had a sleep. She is still quite drowsy from the anesthetic and is napping again on the sofa. She has got to go back on Friday for a check up so its lead walks only for her for a little while.

I took Brian and Heidi to the beach today and they had a great time, Brian is absolutely shattered, Heidi made him play with her and chase her as she didn't have her usual playmate so he is curled up on the sofa too! Looks like I'm in for a quiet evening :)

Poor Megan

First of all Happy Mothers Day! I got a lovely surprise this morning, my clever babies have learnt to use the Internet to get me a mothers day card, some beautiful flowers and a teddy bear. (I suspect they had a little help from daddy though!)

Poor Megan has badly cut her pad today. We went out for a walk this morning and they all ran around all crazy. When we were nearly back a t the van I called them all to get their leads on and I noticed one of them was bleeding. It turned out to be Meg but there was too much blood to check it properly so I put them in the van and headed home. When we got back I cleaned it up and there was a very deep cut on her front right pad.

I phoned the vet and as it was out of hours he said he would meet me there in 20 mins or so. He had a good luck at it and has bandaged it up for tonight and gave her an antibiotic injection but tomorrow morning I have to take her back at 8.30 am and leave her there til 5 so that they can give her an anesthetic and stitch it up. Poor Puppy :(

She is not impressed with the bandage and keeps trying to pull it off although she has given up for the minute and gone to sleep. I'll keep you updated with how she gets on tomorrow evening.

Crufts

Wednesday night was Heidi's jump and weave workshop. It went very well although it was mostly jumping and not much weaving but I guess doing some is better than non. In the jumping part we worked on getting very tight turns and handling from a distance.

On Thursday I headed off to Crufts for the day. It seemed to take forever to get there but I had a really good and enjoyable day out, the dogs were spoiled, getting new bones which are huge, see the picture of Brian with his! (Picture taken on my phone which is why its poor quality), the also got a bag of pigs ears, and new waterproof beds for in the van and I got a couple of books too. I stayed to watch the Malis in the ring but had to leave before they had finished or I would have never got home!

Today I have done a fair bit of spring cleaning, I have had a major tidy up downstairs, shampooed the carpet downstairs and sorted out and thrown away all of the broken dog toys as they have had plenty of new ones lately so they wont miss the ones I threw away! Tomorrow I plan to clean the carpets upstairs and finish painting the see saw and if the weather stays fine we might pop and do some training later in the day but ill see how it goes.

Well done to all the people we know who got great results at Crufts and well done to Lucy & Ben for winning the International Jumping today. (Hopefully ill get to watch the run later)

12 Poles

The video below is of today's weave training where I have increased it to 12 poles. All the dogs did very well, Megan is much more confident and has speeded up a little.

When you watch the video look at how muddy Heidi's legs are! She had been in the pond and when I got her home she had to go in the bath along with Megan as I just couldn't get the mud off!!!

A Practice Run

This morning I was on a Child Protection course for work and I used up the rest of my annual leave to take this afternoon off. We have done some more see-saw training today and Megan is now up to 3 bricks underneath it and although she isn't flying over it she is accepting that it moves and doing it.

Tonight was a practice run of Meg's Silver test as it's next week, I cant believe how quickly it has come round to be honest. Tonight went well and we covered everything, I just need to read over the questions part although it is really common sense!

Tomorrow evening Heidi & me are doing a 3 hour jump & weave workshop in Lincoln so it will be a good opportunity to put her weaves into practice.

I have pretty much made my mind up now that I'm going to go to Crufts on Thursday. I couldn't decide whether to go or not but I am now. It will be a good day out and a good excuse to spoil the doggies (not that I need much excuse!) and I'll also be there to cheer on the Mali's in the breed showing. Good luck to everyone we know who is competing over the 4 days and hopefully I'll see you there!

Watch Them Weave!

The video below is the dogs weaving and a little bit of jumping from today. Unfortunately the camera battery went towards the end so there isn't as much of Megan as the other two but I'll video her again later in the week.

Meeting Brett & Bradley

Brett & Bradley

As I thought the dogs had a great time staying at my mum and dad's. Yesterday we all met up with my uncle Steve and his 2 dogs Brett & Bradley and went for what tuned out to be a very long, wet and muddy dog walk on Cannock Chase. All 5 dogs had a great time charging about together and got on well considering they had never met before. 2 hours and 5 tired doggies later our walk ended and we had some dinner at mum and dads before coming home last night.

I took the weaves and did some practice with them too over the weekend and it went well, I had hoped to get mum to video them but I took my camera with a video rather than the video camera and by the time I'd taken some photos the battery was flat. I'll try and remember to take it to York Rd this week and set it up on the tripod to video them.

Today the dogs have had a lazy day whilst I have been at work, I took them out before I left and I must say its nice to be walking them in the daylight not the dark now, it makes 7am dog walking not seem so bad! I am fairly certain the monkeys have slept all day because when I came in the front door they were all just stretching as if they had just woken up!

Weave Sucess

This week has mainly been concentrating on the dogs weaves and I can honestly say its been a good week and I'm chuffed to bits with all of them. Heidi has for the past 3 days been getting 6 weaves about 70% of the time, I have realised with her its best to do it a couple of times of doing it correctly then move on to something else and go back a bit later. If I do much more than that with her she gets way over excited and just does the first thing that comes into her head (which isn't doing it correctly!). This has worked well and tonight in class out of 5 attempts she did all 12 poles 4 times spot on. I really am pleased with her progress.

Megan too is now weaving 6 poles totally vertical, she is quite slow but I'm sure her speed will increase as she gains more confidence in them. At the moment she needs to be guided a little to her entry but I'm not worried about that, I'm just pleased she is doing it!

Tomorrow morning we are heading off to my mum and dads for a party, my little brother is joining the Army on Sunday and they have hired a pub and are giving him a good send off so im really looking forward to that as there will be lots of family to catch up with who I haven't seen in ages. The dogs will obviously be spoiled at mums as always and I'm sure we will get out on a couple of long walks to tire them out. We are back home on Saturday evening though as I'm on earlies on Sunday. Joy!

See-Saw & Weave Training

Well we have had a 100% improvement in the weather today, the sun has been out all day and it has been quite warm. I had to take the van to get the heater fixed today, I think they will probably have it until Thursday but hopefully it will be done by then.

We have made the most of the nice weather today by getting some outside jobs done this morning (Cleaning green slimy moss off the patio) and then I took the See-saw off its base and put it onto a brick on the floor for Megan. She is still not overly happy with it but at least she is doing it now and learning where it tips. I will do the same with her tomorrow at the same height and then gradually increase it to build her confidence on it. I kept it on the brick for Brian and Heidi too so they could work on their contacts and it worked well.

This afternoon I bundled the 3 of them into my car (its a bit of a squeeze now Megan is big!) and took them to do some weave training at York Rd, Brian's weaves are really great now, to think last year he hated the idea of the poles even touching him, now he flys through all 12 with now probs at all. Heidi and Megan were hard work though today, Heidi was over excited and wanted to do it at lightening speed, resulting in missed poles, usually the first 2. Megan seemed a little distracted today, she was doing 6 V's nicely but when I close them up a bit further she loses interest in it. Still, she is only young and we have plenty of time to work on it.

Weather permitting (I haven't checked the forecast) we will hopefully do some more of the same tomorrow and maybe a bit of jumping too to break things up a little.