March 2010....

So what's been happening since I last blogged, Chippenham small/medium show, Downland, Kaiser went on his first training session away from club and the conservatory is finally taking shape.

Chip Small/Medium - I know a lot of people don't like indoor shows but I do lol - I find them more sociable and you know what surface you are running on - no worries about dogs or handlers slipsliding in the mud! Cad was having a cheeky couple of runs in the Champ but he still did some nice bits I do have those 2 runs but on Dennis's video camera and getting them off there seems complicated due to lack of correct wires or something like that - hence I have now bought my own video camera! I enjoyed watching the Champ final with Karen and Todd and Bernadette and Zen in it and Zen won the medium CC yay! So 2 E's in the Champ for Cad, nice clear on a very straight forward 6/7 jumping, it was a scratch pair as Cad's partner was in season - - another doodle :) they did 2 lovely clears - then we found out we had 25 faults on the changeover - you could not hear the tannoy but afterwards we found out (as others did) you had to hold the baton the whole time the second dog ran - it will make me cross to go on about it but it did put a dampener on things as I did not know my pairs partner and felt bad for letting them down after two lovely runs grrrr! We then got a 4th in the Graded 6/7 Agility - I was pleased with this as there was a tunnel handling point and Cad worked it lovely :)

Kaiser has been a very herdy/easily distracted boy! We have worked hard on this but I was not happy to take him on any training sessions away from club as if someone was doing something that was badly distracting him (like chucking a ball right by him down to the empty end of the indoor school) I know them and can ask them to stop just while I run (I would not find this so easy with people I don't know!). So he has not done any training days but anyways having worked hard on raising his concentration levels I booked to do a 2 hour group session with Gemma Hanekom - I like Gemma's handling of her dogs - always so very smooth and encouraging and I thought 2 hours was a good length to try after rather than some training "days" which can be 3 hours - yes of course we are not running our dogs for the 2 or 3 hours - lot's of listening/watching/learning - so I have a good few things to work on but I was pleased to get Kaiser into a different training location and get some new ideas on things to help us improve :)

Downland - I do like this show - 2 rings and you can watch from the upstairs viewing area - only thing was I had toothache for about a week and did not feel on top form at all and this seemed to rub off on Cad! We had a clears in 6/7 jumping just out the places and in steeplechase but I am finding I get more of a buzz doing the agility runs - we got 6th in the 1-7 Agility and a missed weave entry in the pay on the day agility - my fault (as ever!) Cad thought I was pulling him off the weaves I think! In the 1-7 I would have liked Cad to run down the dog walk a bit more so in the pay on the day I paused and he ran right down - only thing about videoing is it can make you what I call over-analytical !

Here are our runs in the 1-7 Agility and Pay on the Day Agility - I am not sure what I did to the second clip but you have to double click it to play on YouTube or at least on my screen it's all the wrong size - so I tried it on the blogger upload too - think I am being a technophobe doh!

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The conservatory is taking shape now - some people have said "is that not finished yet" ! But as ever it was not quite that simple! After the base and brick wall there was a wait of a few weeks for the glass/frame/roof etc to arrive and it's not just the conservatory but I was having all the back guttering/facias/soffits/wooden cladding replaced with white upvc and also 3 new windows so quite a major job! They have done a bit more so I need to take some more photos!

Crufts

On Thursday we set off early for Crufts - we wanted to get up there nice and early in case of any delays and to get a good parking space and I am glad we did as some people got held up with road closures/diversions!

Cadbury and Dennis's terrier/terror Rosie had qualified for the mini/mixi pairs - really proud that they had qualified for this and so glad that Cadbury actually got to run at Crufts this year - the last two years he had been a reserve for a medium crufts team so he got to go - watch agility - get all excited and then come home again!

We got to watch Pia and Maisie in the British Open Jumping and they did a fab run to come 2nd :)

Here is Cadbury waiting out the back by the DFS cloth......was a bit dark there so not a very good photo!



The course for the smalls was quite straightforward...the course for the medium and large dogs was well tricky - pull throughs from behind which are not my strong point lol (Cad is fine - it's me!) hence the need to really run and get all the turns in! I was soooo proud of how Cadbury ran bless him - Dennis's Rosie was on a bit of a gooooo slow! They placed to 6th and we came 7th!

Bill Glover kindly videod us:-

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I then did some shopping - there was not really enough time to watch agility, compete and shop in one day but I still managed a quick whizz round the shops and bought two new dogs beds and some lovely fleecey purple bedding

I bought one of these raised beds at Olympia - I had always wanted to see if the dogs like them and yep they really do so I bought two more!

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and bought the normal stuff like smoked bones/toys/new bowls etc!

Well Done to everyone else we know who is at Crufts - I am loving watching the live streaming and also have paid the fee to watch the videos of previous events :)

Wet Wet Wet!

That's the weather right now! It seems to rain everyday :(

I was only in my house a mater of days and the company said they could start the conservatory - luckily we can go and stay at Dennis's as the layout of my house means the dogs just can't be here with something like going on and also the garden was made unusable while there was a deep trench for the footings (can't have mad dog, old dog, semi blind dog and scruffy superstar dog falling down a deep trench!!) The dogs would have had to be elsewhere in the house with me or in the van if we did not have that option. Here are a couple of photos - the Builder is almost done but keeps getting held up by the constant wet stuff!





Had a mini house warming even though I am not actually back at the house yet (can't have the dogs running into things like a cement mixer in the garden!) it was a really nice evening and was funny to be giving guided tours of my house but not to be trying to sell a house!

Apart from walking them and going to North Downs twice a week not done anything with the dogs - way too wet - have judging at Mid Downs coming up and then Cadbury and Dennis's Rosie have qualified for Crufts in the Mini/Mixi so am looking forward to that :)

I always seem to need a photo of Fleet to close a posting on the blog - so here is one with Cadbury herding him - wow Cads is so young there!

New House

Well I finally moved into the house, you really do forget how much you have to do when you move house - I still have one bedroom full of boxes and still have so much to sort out!

I bought the house knowing I wanted to put a conservatory on the back - they are starting that today, digging out for the base and then putting the concrete base down and also I am having a wall round as I did not like the idea of full length glass.

Here is a scan of the 3D image of the conservatory and what the back of the house looks like now - so the conservatory will go across the double doors on the left that come out from the kitchen and also the window in the breakfast (dog!) area. The garden is not massive but there is a bit more than you can see in the photo as there is a patio at the end of the garden and a big-ish shed and it backs onto trees (I so did not want a house that was overlooked yay!) - I am planning on finally getting my artifical lawn put down once the conservatory is finished - I have had it for about 3 years and it's still in big heavy rolls!
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Dog wise we have not really done that much - have been training Kaiser twice a week at North Downs under the watchful eye of Matt and Amanda and I am really pleased with how he is working - his concentration is getting better and he is a very sweet dog, the only thing apart from training that we have done is a training in the ring thing at Lesley Oldens I thought it would be good for Kaiser to get a go somewhere else as he will not have done a show from Downland till Easter - again I was pleased with him - he had a couple of lapses of concentration but as the saying goes we are getting there! I love this photo of Kaiser as a pup.



I could not finish a posting on the blog without putting a photo of Fleet - this time last year I was getting nervous about going to Crufts with him in the Team....

Slowly........

Not much happening really hence the title slowly! I did enter Wilmslow (that was cancelled) but even when I entered I was in 2 minds if I would go - moving/weather etc etc - but I did want to go to see how young Kaiser was progressing (or not!) - to not go to a show from Downland to Easter (judging at Mid Downs) seemed not good with a young dog!

Today I picked up 3 canvas's - they are photos of Fleet that I had put onto canvas, he is coming with us when I move into the new house...I will try and take some photos of them when they are up in the new house.

The snow is driving me slightly insane - it stopped us getting my stuff out of storage and taking it to the new house grrrrrr - no photos of my guys in the snow - right now I just can't take photos as there is one missing...

On a more jolly note I thought I would post a photo of my new sofa's - they have not arrived yet (probably be here for next Xmas lol!) - chocolate brown leather - a 2 and 3 seater with recliners



Have fun with your dogs and stay warm x

Just a short post to start the new blog, I had to start a new blog for technical reasons too dull to go into!

I wanted the first post to be about Fleet - I don't want it to be all doom and gloom although that is how I feel right now but Fleet was such a happy dog and he always made me smile :) so I am just going to put a few of my favourite photos of Fleet.

Fleety Pup aged 4 Months

Chilling in the caravan

I can Fly.....Natures Menu Final

I do really enjoy reading everyones blogs and I will try and keep mine more up to date now I have started again, I am in the process of moving into my new house so will try and write a bit about that while there is not much agility going on.

Hug all your dogs tonight - we don't know how long we have them for xx