Christmas Spirit & A Little Bit of Snow?

Well if the weather man is to be believed it looks like we are in for a sprinkling of snow tonight and tomorrow, good job I'm not at work tomorrow!!!

Today I was on earlies and we were pretty quiet at work so it seemed to get me in the mood for Christmas, I got home about half 2 and wrapped up (although not very well as I was still freezing) and took the dogs for a good walk, there is loads of mud about so they had a great time and didn't come back very clean. It gave me the opportunity to get Brian and Megan in the van for the first time (Heidi went in it on Saturday for Flyball). Megan wasn't bothered but Brian as usual managed to create a drama for himself. Instead of getting in steadily he dived in, slipped on the wooden floor in it and then clashed into the back of the cage, vet bed went flying and he was left unimpressed sitting on the crate tray! He will get used to it though as long as he stops being a maniac, (I can but hope).

When we got back I decided to put the Christmas tree and decorations up as it's only 10 days til the big day. I was rather impressed with my mini tree and Megan hasn't bothered about it at all.

There are three stockings on the fireplace now waiting to be filled by Santa, I wonder who has been good this year and will get a pressie or two?

Flyball

Today we have been at Flyball training with Heidi and had a brilliant time. Heidi is really enjoying it and was much more relaxed today as she knew what she was there for as soon as we got out of the van. She had a good few goes, even a few with someone else loading the box.

I took the video camera so the video below is of some of Heidi's runs at the beginning of training and also one of the 3 other dogs that she runs with. The last bit is of them playing as it got dark before we left.

We haven't got training next week as we are off to Dog Vegas so no more until the new year but we are looking forward to it already!

A Sad Farewell to Preston

Today we said a sad farewell to Preston (Our BMW X5). I know we didn't have him all that long but he hadn't turned out to be as good for the dogs as we had originally hoped, Brian struggled with jumping up into the back and there is no way I could lift him and to be honest he was such a nice truck we didn't want it covered in dog hair so my car became the dog vehicle!!!

Anyway today we headed off to Tamworth to trade in Preston for our new van. (Pictured left) Apart from the horrid wheels which will eventually get replaced it is really nice and will be much better for the dogs especially when we are at shows and stuff. We will get some cages fitted in the new year but tomorrow we are going to secure three crates into the back as a temporary measure so it can be used straight away and as it is wooden lined we need to sort out a better floor and wall covering before the cages get fitted.

Agility Class

I have just got back from training with Megan and Brian and we had a very good lesson. Megan has had her jumps put up to medium now and had no bother at all. She is doing really well and tonight we did a lot on the A-Frame which is her absolute favorite (she even had a sneaky go when I wasn't looking!)

For the past few weeks that we have been Brian has been doing full height jumps here and there, tonight he did them for most of the lesson but he does get tired easily and we had to lower them at the end, I'm not really sure what to do about it really, I think I will end up just running him in Anysize to be honest. He did however do a lovely set of weaves tonight after I was moaning he never does them in training!
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We have decided that next year as Conor works away quite a bit that I am going to run Heidi as well. I will be taking her to training at Lucy's from January in Megan's class so Thursday nights are going to be a bit hectic next year!

This Weeks Activities

We haven't done a massive amount this week, we got to York Road to do some agility on Tuesday working mainly on weaves. I couldn't fault Heidi on her speed or enthusiasm, just her accuracy to work on now. Brian was doing them well, I just don't get him, he can do them at home and when they come up in competition but he just can't do them at training, the only thing I can think of is that they are wooden ones at class and he is only used to plastic ones. Megan's weaves are coming along nicely, she can do 6 v-weaves now with only a small v. I am really pleased with all of their progress though.

We didn't get to class last night as I started my new job on Wed and did lates on Wed and yesterday. We have done another 2 CaniX runs this week with both of the girls, they are really getting into it now, it certainly wears them out. Brian loves it too, he just runs along with us and gets to dive into all of the puddles and get really muddy.

Today has just been a day of catching up on housework and ironing and going to Tesco's (which I hate). I got a new Christmas tree though, our old one is 8ft and to be honest I don't trust Megan to leave it alone so I have brought a 4ft one and will stand it on a table in the corner so hopefully she wont bother with it. I'm certainly not putting it up yet though, it's far to early!!!

Tonight my mum and dad are coming up for the weekend which will be good, dad is going to plaster our utility room so I can finally get it painted!