Happy Birthday Mac Man

Well the 'big man' is seven years old today. SEVEN!!! Already!!! I can hardly believe it! I don't think anyone has told him quite how old he is yet because he does still insist on behaving like an over enthusiastic puppy all the time!!

I remember vividly the day I drove over to Shirley's to see a litter of pups. I had in my mind that I wanted a dark marked choc merle with green eyes and she had just the pup so I arranged to go and see them. I was working in Penrith at the time and went straight from there to Shirls in North Wales one lovely sunny summer evening...a 3 half hour drive! I then spent another 2 hours watching the pups and meeting all Shirls dogs and trying to make my mind up which one to take!! Poor Shirl...she had the patience of a saint! None of the young pups quite took my fancy, there just wasn't that 'thing' but when Shirl said she had a couple of 16 week old dog pups that she'd been given backword on I said I'd take a look. She opened the kennel door and these two stunning young boys bounded out. Mac just followed me around the field and wouldn't take his eyes off me. He was a big chunky flashy marked BLUE EYED puppy, not what I had gone for at all but there was just something about him. He was coming home with me. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate that someone else had turned this puppy down and given me the opportunity to own such a fantastic lad. I feel very sure that he was meant for me.

That weekend we were at the Nuneatons flyball tournament at Sharnford when Pam Harrison spotted Mac and dashed over to ask me where he was from and was he for sale?!! After much pointless persuasion she accepted I wasn't letting him go (lol) and they headed off over to Shirls on the Monday to collect his brother, Indi....they also came home with a pup from the other litter in the form of Tigger!! I don't think Pam would regret that day for one minute. They've proved to be really smashing dogs.

So I have Mac to thank for the longtime firm friends I found in Shirley and Pam :)

I wouldn't say Mac has always been the easiest of dogs to live with, he went through a very difficult 'teenage phase' where he was very hard work! I soon realised that for all his bravado he was actually very lacking in confidence and all he really wanted was for someone else to make all the hard decisions for him. Once we had agreed that 'someone' was me things improved dramatically and we formed a very strong bond. He's a very friendly lad, he absolutely adores people and will accost anyone that comes to the house or people he meets out on walks to play with him. If he can't find a toy he'll just find the nearest thing he can...a plastic bottle, a piece of wood, a shoe! He's very enthusiastic and incredibly keen to please. Whatever you ask of him he will always try his hardest and I think this is the thing that I love most about him.


At this moment I don't have anything from him and this worries me, he has a work ethic that none of my other BC's can quite match up to and tends to pass it on to his offspring; this is something I don't want to lose. Hopefully I will have another litter by him at the end of this year and keep something from this, my next 4 sec flyball dog (not asking too much then!! lol)