Kody's down to 3 legs

I got home from work today to find Kody holding his left leg up and refusing to put any weight on it. I checked his paw and couldn't find anything but I did discover a small but quite deep puncture wound halfway up his leg.

I would imagine Megan is the culprit as they do play very rough and she is a known leg biter when she is play fighting with any of them.

I have cleaned it up and dressed it anyway and i'm sure it will be ok in a couple of days time. Kody thinks his leg is about to drop off at any moment though and is feeling very sorry for himself, throwing himself down and sighing loudly every couple of minutes. Hopefully he will cheer up when he realises its roast chicken for dinner tonight!

Not much has been happening really, I have had a good couple of swimming training sessions ready for my swimathon which is only about 6 weeks away now (scary!)

I did do 10 minutes contact and weave training with Megan and Heidi earlier (we are just trying to do a few mins a day at the moment in between rain showers and other plans) and all is good. I'll hopefully have a video of Megan and Heidi training by next weekend so I can post an update and if Kody's leg hasn't fallen off by then we should get one of him too :o)

Club Training

Last night I took Megan back to club training with Lucy. We had a good class working mainly on jumping. We did a few weaves and see-saw training, I think Megan had forgotten the see-saw at first but she soon remembered. We didn't do any contacts so I couldn't test them but at least that gives us an extra week to practice before next week.

Im at work all weekend this weekend so not much happening for us really. I have entered a couple more shows as camping seems to be filling up really quickly on some of them and I don't want to miss out!

Her Enthusiasm is Back!

For the past couple of weeks Megan has been a bit grumpy and not really all that keen on training, I put it down to her hormones after her season. Today however she seems to have a new lease of life and has been really enthusiastic when we have been training.

Her contacts are just brilliant, her A-Frame today has been 100% and her dog walk about 80% success. I have been thinking for a while about taking Megan back to club training and have decided now is the right time to do it so after contacting Lucy she is going back to AgilityBuds on Thursday night. I think she is ready to test those contacts in a new environment now so that hopefully we have still got time to iron out any issues before the season starts next month.


Kody did some good training today although he did only have a quick practice but I want to ensure he is remembering to stop on his contacts after we did try to get him running them earlier in the winter.

As for Heidi, I'm tearing my hair out a bit! She is such a difficult dog to train but I wont be beaten. Running her contacts isn't working, at speed it just doesn't enter her head that she needs to hit the contact point so we are going back to a stop and have done a little bit today before it rained! I think it will be an easier skill to train and reinforce in the time frame that we have.

Heidi is modelling her lovely new coat that she got for her birthday in the picture.

Happy 3rd Birthday Heidi!!!

Swimathon 2011

On 9th April 2011 at 5pm I am taking part in the worlds biggest swim, Swimathon 2011 to help raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care. I am going to attempt to swim 5k which is about 200 lengths of the pool where I work. I have never tried to swim this kind of distance before however have been training for a few weeks now and am up to 70 lengths.

I would be grateful if as many of you as possible could sponsor me, I apologise if you already have. It doesn't need to be a large amount, just whatever you can. I will be making a donation as well as doing the swim, I am putting £1 in a pot each time I go swimming training as I don't actually have to pay to use my pool.

My aim is to raise £100.

To sponsor me follow the link below and then put in my full name (Katie McManigan). You can do it securely with a debit/ credit card.

https://secure.artezglobal.com/registrant/search.aspx?EventID=17081&LangPref=en-CA&Referrer=http%3a%2f%2fwww.swimathon.org%2fpage.php%3fpage%3dSponsor_a_swimmer

Thank you in advance and I will keep you all updated with how my training is going over the following months.

Windy Weather

The wind here has just been terrible for the last week or so. It has prevented us doing any training really, the dogs would blow off the dog walk! Today it has been so bad when we got back from our walk I opened one of the van doors and it blew straight out of my hand and snapped the hinge. Not good, I managed to get it closed again but thats another thing that needs fixing now!

I had to collapse the A-Frame today too, its not the easiest thing to do on your own anyway but doing it in gale force winds is even harder but it had moved across the garden and I was worried it would blow over and smash a window.


Tomorrow i'm at work and then Wednesday the dogs have hydro and then its the start of a very busy fews days for us all. On Thursday the Mali's are off on their holidays to stay with Sandra, Im taking Brian to Kidderminster for a massage with Natalie then taking him to my mums. On Saturday i'm off to Kent and on Sunday have a family wedding where I am doing the photos. Monday I will be heading back here and collecting Brian on the way and then back to work on Tuesday for a rest!!!

Bad Back

For the past few weeks I have had a back back but today I managed to get seen by a chiropractor. Its nothing too bad, my pelvis is just a little bit twisted which is what is causing the pain but the lady I saw was confident it can be fixed. I had a small amount of treatment today and am going back on Friday for another.

I have been quite busy lately with my photography, I haven't had a massive amount of jobs but the ones I have had are quite large, I got one wedding album complete and ordered last week but I have another wedding on the 13th and a wedding fayre on the 20th.

Me and the dogs have done very little training since Dog Vegas, only a few quick sessions on the weaves really, we have either been busy or when we are free the ground is just too wet. We have been on some really nice long walks though over the past few days where the dogs have been paddling in stream and generally getting as wet and muddy as they can. The usual 3 all went to hydro yesterday again too, Heidi has improved again, this time not being aided by Anne very much at all and jumping off the ramp to get the ball, i'm sue she will continue to improve over the coming weeks too.

(Megan watching Over the Hedge)