Thursday 27 November 2008

it's all in the name!!

Saw this article on msn news this morning...

pa.press.net - 27.11.2008 00:02
Dog shoots man in freak accident

A hunter was shot in the bottom by his dog when it jumped into his boat and landed on his gun's trigger.

Matthew Marcum was preparing to set out on an expedition in Portland, Oregan, when the accident happened.

Recovering after hospital treatment Mr Marcum said he held no grudge against three-year-old Labrador, Drake, who he described as "a good dog".


Very childish but it did make me giggle!! lol

Tuesday 25 November 2008

Puppy Fix 2

A stunning litter born in Belgium from Spark and Mouse.

Three Boys...
2 blue merle and 1 black/white

Three Girls...
all slate merles


You can see lots more pics of these babies here

Puppy Fix 1

Some pics of Norman's pups from Oz and Bracken.

Sadly there were complications with this litter, Bracken had a womb infection and needed to have a c-section and spay. Only 3 pups survived...

Black and White Dog

Black Tricolour Dog

Chocolate and White Dog


(These pups all have homes)

Monday 24 November 2008

Another flyball marathon...

I am really rubbish at the moment and have completely failed to take any photos for weeks! We have now been flyballing 3 weekends in a row (unheard of for a winter schedule!) and on all 3 occasions there's only been 4 of us and we've been running 2 teams in div 1 as well as 1 team in div 2 and judging/ring party duties so we've barely had time to eat and walk the dogs let alone anything else! We had actually only entered 2 teams at Newark and Deeside but as other teams dropped out with the dreaded kennel cough we ended up running our 3rd team simply to avoid everyone having to run against an empty lane. Alison and I are actually the only two to have completed this 3 week marathon as we were without Paul at Selby, Gemma at Newark and Trish at Deeside. We should have a full compliment at Doncaster in a couple of weeks and back on grass (well turf actually)...can't wait!

Deeside was a rather novel experience as it was held in an ice rink!! (without the ice of course! lol)...I really wish I'd taken some pics as it was pretty cool!! lol It was another hectic one...we were helped massively by the Notts Supadogs again, practically their entire team were boxloading, colecting balls, on the line, running a dog at some point! We also had help from the Steelers with Janet doing the line and Kenny boxloading for the Pawz, thanks guys :)

The Demonz finished 2nd in Div 1 and the Racers 4th, with individual split times on these lights it became pretty apparent that all our dogs are running well off their usual pace on the rubber matting, I guess it must just be the lack of grip affecting them. The Pawz came 5th in Div 2 with another of those really unlucky days...a ball mis-firing from the box in one leg cost us the race, Kenny managed to get a new ball in in time but of course, it was Drakes' leg...the only dog that would be bothered, he got down to the box and went 'oh look, there's already a ball on the floor here...I'll take that one....daft (or maybe actually not so daft) spaniel! On another crucial leg a ball fell out of my pocket as I released him so of course he stopped and looked at it and I had to re-send him...we lost the race :( On a positive note Dottie ran a blinder all day, she actually ran faster than most of the Demonz (both teams running 13"), seems the rubber matting suits both her and Ethan as he ran really well too.

I had a day off on Sunday, just catching up with things I needed to do. I had hoped to get Fi to agility training (not been for about 2 months!) but the weather was horrendous and I just had so much to do at home. Hopefully this is the last time I'll have to spend an hour sweeping leaves off the yard as the trees are all now looking pretty bare! I gave a few of the dogs a really good groom, those with a lot of coat that seem to be constantly dropping it! I'd like to say I got all my paperwork sorted and got the office all neat and tidy again as I had planned but...I'd be lying! lol

A few small 'well dones' over the weekend...

Joy and Wren made their agility debut at Newton Heath and managed an 8th in Grade 3 jumping and a 10th in the agility :)

Vicki had Diesel at the WofEBCC show and got a 3rd in Puppy Dog :)

Wednesday 19 November 2008

Showing off...

Mac and Dot posing with their recently received milestone awards...

Mac with his 'Ice Blue Moon'

Dottie with her 'Silver'


and a random pic of Sweeney while he was visiting with Sharon, Rachel and Megan a couple of weeks ago (found it on the same memory card! lol)...

He is such a happy little dog! :)

Where does the time go?

Ooops...bad blogger me...more than a week without an entry!

Another busy one with one thing and another. We raced down at Newark at the weekend, although Gemma couldn't make it we did end up taking Bailey, we entered an extra team at the last minute as a space became available so ran the usual lineups. Demonz and Racers in Div 1 together again. Didn't feel quite as 'slick' this weekend but at least Mac didn't run out...it must have been seeing Bailey in the other lane as he came off the box that had distracted him at Selby because they were in opposite lanes this time so Mac was turning away. I do like the flooring better at Newark, when the dogs run wide and off the matting it's onto concrete rather than slippery gym flooring. Although they felt good, all 3 teams were well off their usual pace as were most other teams I watched run so I can only assume the surface just didn't run that well. We had a couple of unfortunate incidents that lost us races and ended up 3rd and 5th in Div One and 2nd in Div Two. Teal picked up her graduate award and Drake got his Advanced (already...don't know how he manged that so quickly!). We did have a really nice weekend, we stayed in the local travelodge so had a leisurely trip down on Saturday afternoon so we could walk the dogs, chill out and enjoy a meal together and have a nice relaxed start in the morning. It was nice spending some relaxed time together, something we don't get to do the same over the winter season.

The team social continued as we all went out last night (although Trish didn't make it), Paul had booked us all tickets to see The Feeling at Preston Guild Hall so we met up and went for a meal first before going on to the gig which was, I have to say, fantastic. Only a fairly small audience but they really did put on a good show, the music was great and there was enormous energy from the band. They really know how to work the crowd with their own catchy sing-a-long tunes and the odd crowd pleasing cover lobbed in to really rouse the troops. There was also the odd unexpected curve ball thrown in to keep the crowd on their toes such as lead singer Dan diving off the stage to 'crowd surf' to the back where there was a microphone stand and acoustic guitar set up for his next solo song and then coming on for the encore dressed as a marching band playing percussion instruments through the middle of the crowd, they marched right through the middle of me and Gemma (never realised how small they all are before!). It's nice when you go to see a band that makes and plays great music but are real performers too.

Not much else to report really, our first litter of cockers turned a year old this week, I did see Maizy on Saturday, she's lovely. They've all turned out to be such super little dogs and they're all doing really well in their training. Oz's latest litter arrived yesterday, Norman Johnson's bitch Bracken (Wildfell Bit o Heather) had 5 dog puppies, a choc/white, a black tri and 3 black/white so looking forward to pics of those. We're racing at Deeside this weekend although I had really wanted to go to Newton Heath agility show which is just down the road from my house. Trish isn't coming so we've just got the two teams entered, bit of a jiggle of dogs so we'll see how we get on.

Monday 10 November 2008

Selby College...you win some, you lose some...

I haven't been very well this past week with a very bad head cold and sinus infection so I really wasn't looking forward to racing this weekend. Saturday morning was an early start as we were flyballing over at Selby College in North Yorkshire. Paul was working so Trish, Alison and I piled all our gear and dogs into my van and travelled together to meet Gemma there.

Selby College sports hall isn't the ideal venue for flyballing really, there is very little room inside once the ring is marked out, it's very very noisy as the sound of barking and shouting etc echoes a lot and there is a very short runback area so the really fast dogs never quite hit maximum speed which is always telling in the times. The faster teams are always worse affected than the slower ones. Quite a lot of forward planning had gone into working out how exactly we were going to run 2 teams in the same division since the Demonz and Racers had both been seeded in Division One...and there was only 4 of us! We took crates into the hall and set them up along the side so that we could have one team crated while we ran the other...Frosty and Dylan made pretty short work of my crates...bending and breaking the bars in their frustration at having to watch the other team run! Our friends from Notts Supadogs were brilliant and Steve boxloaded for both the Div One teams with Jo watching the line for us. There were 8 races in the morning session of Division One of which we were involved in 5. Having arrived in multiple layers to fend off the cold weather we were soon all down to our t-shirts and vests! lol

For several of the dogs this was their first time running indoors on rubber matting...Teal, Dylan and Faith. It is quite a different experience to running outside on grass, everything is much closer and louder and feels quite different. I was most concerned about Teal since I'd taken her in to be measured here last year and she'd been a quivering wreck! I was just hoping that after having a litter and a season of competing which has seen her really grow in confidence, she would be ok. Thankfully all 3 were fine, although Teal looked a little worried when we first went in she soon came round and got excited and was ready to race. She really benefits from running with Faith, they seem to really wind each other up! Mac hasn't run indoors for the last couple of years following a groin strain sustained at this venue back in the winter of 2006/7 which he took quite a while to fully recover from. It is one of the problems of not having the entire floor area matted, just the lane areas...if you have a big powerful dog miss the ball and run wide to chase it they can easily lose their footing on the slippery floor and sustain and sprain/strain. I decided to run him this weekend but he wore his wrist protectors and had his feet 'paw waxed' and he ran fine...I am always a little on edge though!

The morning's racing went really well with both teams winning their first two races. I'll be totally honest and admit we were just cruising with the Demonz. The were entered on a seed time that was a second faster than the 2nd seeded team, as often happens at one day tournaments when the entry is limited, you get quite a spread of seed times within each division and the racing isn't as 'tight' at the larger summer comps. We did have to work a little harder with the Racers though. The last race of the morning session we were racing each other so we had a brilliant little band of helpers from other teams. Martyn from Notts boxloaded the other team and Jo ran Misty. Young Lucy from Wire Sparks ran Bailey start dog in the Demonz and her mum Marina ran Mac start dog in the Racers (Marina owns and runs Mac's son Zephyr so she's used to handling a big strong lad!). Julie K ran Faith in the Racers (she got the nice easy one! lol). Actually...everyone that ran a dog for us owns a pup I bred...one big happy 'Bryning family'! lol. Alison and I stuck with Dylan and Lexie in the Demonz and Trish and Gemma stuck with Frost and Teal in the Racers but Gem and I ended up swapping after Teal ran wide and slipped on the floor which knocked her confidence and she came looking for her mummy (bless). It wasn't the tidiest race ever with Mac running out twice (I think he must just have been distracted seeing Bailey in the other lane and run wide??) but the result was as we expected and the Demonz won it. Straight out with those two teams and back in with the Pawz for Divison Two!

The Pawz really did run brilliantly in Div Two...I don't quite know what's got into Ethan but he's gone up another gear and was really up for it. We had some really silly/unlucky moments on lost the first race when we really should have won it (damn!) but I was pleased with how they ran. We were straight out with them and back in Division Three which I was judging and the rest of the team were ring partying. I had tried to get someone else to do it for me as I really wasn't feeling up to it but to no avail...at least Peter had swapped with me so that I could have my own teammates ringpartying. There was some good racing in this division but I don't think I enjoyed it as much as I usually do, with a banging headache I was having to work really hard to keep my concentration and was feeling particularly impatient with the people faffing about at the start. It really does drive me nuts when racing is behind schedule and we're all ready to go and there's one person dallying around catching their dog or arranging their clothes or toy or anything and making everyone else wait, I just think it's really inconsiderate and selfish to be honest. A cup of tea or a can of coke wouldn't have gonme amiss either. Most people don't mind judging/ring partying but it's common courtesy for the tournament organises to at least provide them with a drink. Have to say, my ringparty were brilliant, Demonz and Kiveton...they were a great help keeping everything ticking along quickly.

We then had 2 divisions off to get some lunch and get the dogs out for a quick run before the afternoons racing started again. Quite unbelievably the Demonz and Racers went back into Div One for their last two races of the day and were both unbeaten making them 1st and 2nd in that division!! The Pawz still ran well but that bloody cocker spaniel struck again and when we were two legs up in the last race decided to run down to the box and....do a poo in the middle of the lane!!! This dog craps for England and drives me absolutely mad. Every single competition he will crap in the ring!! I'm sure he doesn't actually need to go because he can have just been and will still do it. I think it's just become a habit so we've been telling him off and stopping him from doing it which is why I think he went to the box end...BAD COCKER!! He got told off and then wouldn't run for the next two legs...just running down to the box and coming straight back up without his ball...we lost the race...I could have killed him!! The rest of my team however were struggling to compose themselves as I had to pick them all up off the floor laughing!! Am going to have to think of a new 'Drake Strategy' as the telling off one clearly isn't working...maybe a change of diet or pre-competition feeding regime??

All in all it was a good day. Faith was presented with her Graduate Award (that she gained back in August!) and Dottie finally got her Silver. Frostie also got his Pearl Award. We're at Newark next weekend but only taking two teams so fingers crossed all goes well (and no crapping cockers!)

I should have been at Border Collie Club of Great Britain 'Pup of the Year' with Spark on Sunday but I was just so tired and poorly I couldn't face going. I was planning to go over and do some flyball/agility training with 'the Doghouse' lot but I couldn't face that either. I hate being ill and not being well enough to do all the things I want to do. Everyone keeps saying I need a break but I don't want one!! I guess my body is forcing me into it! lol

Thursday 6 November 2008

More pics of the kids...

...Two of Chief's sisters at nearly 8 months old...
Surf (Bryning Time to Fly)

Duffy (Bryning Time Will Tell)

A Mac-Kes daughter, Ice (Bryning Osprey) at the summit of Carn Fadryn on her recent holiday to the Lleyn Peninsula (North Wales)...

Monday 3 November 2008

proud granny pics...

lol...this is what I call the pics I get from my puppy owners :)

Had a few mailed over the weekend...
'Chief' (Bryning All Time High) is Eabha's brother, approaching 8 months old..


'Rush' (Bryning Gold Rushed) taken at a UKA show when he was around 15 months old

courtesy of John Ord Photography

'Rio' (Bryning Makin' Waves) at her first flyball lesson, a natural like her parents! :)

An incurable case of 'reservitis'

Well, what can I say...2 shows in 2 days and a huge pile of green cards and rosettes which, although always nice to get placed, is really frustrating!! Orlaith, Viggo, Ethan and Dottie have all missed out on their '09 Crufts qualifiers by a single place since these were my last champ shows of the year and the entries have closed for the rest. It is hard when trying to fit champ shows in around flyball and agility and while there's no way I would be taking them all since I already have Spark, Dazzle, Kitten, Faith and Eabha qualified, it is always nice to have a choice. Ethan went really well on Sunday (not quite sure what came over him but he was absolutely full himself!) to come 4th in a large limit dog class which was great but just one place off getting his stud book number is pretty dissapointing. Spark bucked the trend with a 2nd in Junior Dog on Sunday, I missed his class on Saturday (nevermind!). Scottish weekend is an exhasuting marathon but it was good fun as usual and always nice to catch up with everyone over a couple of days.

Weekend Results
Saturday - Working and Pastoral Breeds of Scotland - Judge Mr R J Thomas
Orlaith - 4th (Reserve) in Minor Puppy Bitch

Sunday - Scottish Border Collie - Dog Judge Mrs Anne Layte (Pittensair) / Bitch Judge Mrs Carlolyn Ward (Caristan)
Kitten - 4th (Reserve) in Junior Bitch
Dottie - 4th (Reserve) in Post Graduate Bitch
Viggo - 4th (Reserve) in Minor Puppy Dog
Spark - 2nd in Junior Dog
Ethan - 4th (Reserve) in Limit Dog

On a good note...Orlaith's brother Diesel had a 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th and one of Mercy's pups, bred by Heather, won BPIS on Sunday at just 6 months and 1 day old!

I did take my camera but no piccies I'm afraid!