And so it begins...

The hectic spring/summer schedule got underway this weekend starting with flyball at Rotherham on Saturday.

We had decided on a slight change of teams on Saturday and had both the cockers running together in the Pawz (always a gamble!) while Dottie moved into the Racers. At this stage in the season it's very much about moving dogs around and see what does/doesn't work. I'm pleased to say that this did work! :) Both teams ran really well. The Pawz were seeded bottom in division 3, Paul and Pip went start, I ran Drake second (and have the extensive bruises to prove it!!), Gemma ran Teal 3rd and Alison ran Ethan last. The 4 really gelled well, Teal ran in past me and Drake running out no problems and we didn't get cockered once!! Both ran like little angels all day :) Steve did the line for us and, for a team we'd never run before, even in training, the changeovers were near perfect :) I was so proud of our little team. They finished up coming 3rd with a fastest time of 20.08 (I think).

The Racers were seeded 3rd in Div 3 and this lot took a little longer to bed down. Paul and Mac went start. Mac really wasn't running that great, will have to get Katherine (Chiro) to have a quick look over him next time we see her. He seemed to be really struggling off the box. Gemma and Bailey ran second and Alison and Lexie third. Alison struggled a little running Lexi in behind Bailey simply because she's not used to running behind a dog that's so fast!! It does take some getting used to! I ran Dottie last dog and I was SO pleased with her...she was storming!! lol It wasn't til the afternoon that we really got changeovers sorted and by that time the ground had really started to go off so the times weren't great. They did run 18.88 in the morning which matched the fastest time the Racers have ever run. This team finished up 3rd too. I think we'll probably stick to this combination at Angelsey this weekend.

Div 1 was very exciting and I was really very proud to see all the Brynings putting in some cracking performances. Young Lucy and Tarn (Bryning Tarn - Jaff X Spangle) running start dog in the Live Wires and winning the division with a fantastic time 17.62. Zephyr and Nell (Mac X Molly) running in Wire Sparks and finsihing up 2nd with another sub 18.00 time. Ollie (Storm X Flick) and Charlie (Ethan X Dazzle) running in the Rotherham Razors and putting in some fab performances. I did actually video Ollie and Charlie in a couple of legs...
Ollie running start dog...

Charlie running last dog


Only running the two teams was lovely as we had quite a bit if time off over the day to catch up with folk and walk the dogs etc. We even managed a very civilised hot lunch in the pub! :)

Dora and Bolt were with us too and had a lovely day enjoying the sunshine and just running free round the van. Toni from Rotherham got some lovely shots of them playing so I'm hoping she's going to send me a couple. Bolt developed quite a fan club and Gemma even begged me not to send him to Bermuda so she could keep him!! lol (Don't think the family waiting patiently for him since January would have been that thrilled!).

Here's me, Alison and Gem sitting out of the breeze and enjoying a hot chocolate in the back of Gemma's car lol

There was an awful lot of giggling coming from the back of that car!!

And here's the boys waiting for their next run....

Eth using his bowl as a pillow (hmmm...very comfy! lol)

Mac man...

I think my van crates could do with a scrub!! lol

We left abut 7.30pm and I headed straight down the M1 to Joy and Becca's. I hadn't anticpated the 30 miles or so of roadworks that had us down to 50mph a good stretch of the way so the journey was really rather tedious!! We arrived about 9.15pm to a lovely hot meal! Thanks Joy! :) Then I got to have a good nosey at Wren's pups, just 12 days old and eyes starting to just open slightly...absolutely gorgeous...glad I'm not having to choose one!!

Becca had had a good day at Shuttleworth show with Teal having her first grade 7 agility win. Well done girls :)
Here's the winning run...


Sunday morning we had a very civilised lie-in 'til 8am, got the dogs walked and the pups had a good hour or so playing in the garden before we had to give Bolt a bath and blow-dry in prepartion for his journey to his new home in Bermuda.

Here he is just ready to leave for the airport...

They've opened a new animal reception centre at Gatwick now which is much better and we saw Bolt off on his way. I got an e-mail late evening to say he had arrived safely and was making himself at home.

Back to Joys' and we had some lunch and faffed about and then did some training with Teal. (My Cocker-Teal, not Joy's Teal...confusing I know!)

Firstly we did some on lead seesaw work, just teaching Teal to check herself for the 'tip' (she's a bit gung-ho on this piece of equipment!); this was definitely starting to sink in so hopefully more repetition at home once ours arrives this week should have it sorted. Then we just did some contact work. Joy took a couple of vids so you can see how she's getting on...


I'm pleased with what we've got just 10 weeks into her agility training. I can't stress how much easier it is starting with a dog that has already done flyball and totally understands the concept of working for a reward. She's a joy to train because her enthusiasm is limitless! I love this little dog :)

Am hoping to make training at Hest Bank on Wednesday, flyball training on Thursday (Mac's 7th birthday!!) and then off over to Anglesey on Friday morning for 4 days of flyball fun!! There are only 6 divisions running over the weekend so we're looking forward to a lovely relaxed and chilled out weekend. I can't wait!

Four Week Pupdate

Fi's babies are 4 weeks old today and I moved them from their small pen in the dining room into an extended one in the utility last night. It was quite late by the time we'd finished training, eaten and caught up with Eastenders (although wishing I hadn't bothered...it was complete pants...how much longer can they drag out the 'long lost daughter' storyline??!!!) Anyways...I had put all the other dogs to bed and the pups were having a whale of a time scampering around their 'double-sized' pen. I must apologise for my shouting at Dora in the vids...she was whining and yapping (and doing my head in!) because she decided that although she'd been out playing all evening, she didn't want to go to bed and would rather play with Fi's pups too...she can be SO demanding...little minx!

Here's one starring 'little mouse'...



Here they are mauling each other and trying to finish off Faiths' tea (they'd already had theirs!)...





sorry that last one ended a bit abruptly because the camera batteries died!

How patient is Faith? Bless her, she's being such a good little mum :)

Star pupils and class clowns!

'Perfect Pip'

Well, the weather stayed fine enough for us to do some flyball training last night. Conrad, Jackie, Paul and Alison came over and we spent quite a long time with the babies first. Radley was a little star and as she gets more confident about what she's doing she's starting to demonstrate her dad's speedy turn off the box! I have high hopes she's going to be one speedy little dog! We trained her mostly with Teal to begin with and also did a little with Faith, while her pups are only just 4 weeks old she just did a little bit over the low jumps and wasn't exactly speedy! I hope we can build her back up gradually and have her back to full fitness for the Euros...keeping fingers crossed!

We then got Squirrel out....the less said about her performance the better!! I'm putting it down to her being in season at the moment! She was AWFUL...the attention span of a gnat! I have ordered her some new 'different' tennis balls as this seems to make quite a big difference to whether or not she's going to keep hold of it. She doesn't like small balls but sometimes struggles to hold onto the harder full sized ones so we're compromising with full sized softer balls that she can 'squish' a bit! She would have to be different!

I then decided to get Viggo out and just have a look at him...the first runback he did was actually more like a 'walkback' lol He was really unsure about what was being asked of him (this is Vi all over!) and slowly stuttered over the hurdles. However...the second and third he started to get the idea and was really getting into this game, pulling on his harness and running down with purpose! Then we tried sending him up to Paul for his squeaky ball until he was having the ball rolled down the box front (and doing some nice turns actually! lol). He thought this game was great and just kept running up and down the jumps by himself. Now this is quite cute and at least demonstrates that he knows what to do but could get quite annoying if it becomes a habit! For now I want him to enjoy it and be happy but we'll have to nip the 'laps of honour' in the bud! lol

We then ran Pip (Paul), Mac (Conrad), Drake (Jackie) and Ethan (Me) together while Alison boxloaded. Now, for a first attempt at running a (manic) trained dog within a team I was really impressed with Jackie and Conrad! Mac and Drake are not the easiest dogs in the world to run (one pulls like a train and the other wriggles like a cobra!) but they did a really good job. There is so much to learn about running a dog that experienced handlers take for granted. Pip was putting in some lovely four-footed turns off the box, she's running really well at the moment. Mac was a bit of a plank about the starters netting still being up and kept running out but we got him sorted. Drake and Ethan both ran fine although I was finding it harder and harder to see Drake (an almost entirely black dog!) coming back as it started to get dark so my changeovers were seriously suspect!

All in all it was a good session and I was pleased with (nearly) everyone. Gold stars to Radley, Viggo and Pip and a big red penned 'must try harder' for that naughty terrier!!

a different kind of weekend

I can't say I had a quiet weekend it's just I didn't spend it doing the stuff I normally do and the dogs were a bit neglected as a result (poor doggies)

Friday night I stayed in on my own as mum was babysitting Charlie while Nathan and Sue went to a murder mystery evening. We had been talking about this for a couple of weeks because they had to dress up in character for the evening and Sue takes this sort of thing very seriously!! Nathan was supposed to be some French aristocrat and Sue his theatrical lover all set in the 1920's...here's a pic of them in character...

Don't they look fab?! I told you Sue takes this sort of thing seriously!! lol

Meanwhile...my evening was spent putting new tags on all the dogs collars (ok, so we moved 2 months ago but I've been busy!! lol)

buy one get one free on e-bay but actually really good quality tags and split rings, pleased with them!

And taking cheek swabs from Faiths' pups to send to Australia for TNS testing...

all done and ready to pack up and post.

Oh...what an exciting life I lead!! lol

I've taken cheek swabs from lots of dogs including young pups before but what a fuss this lot made!! Had I known beforehand I might not have attempted it single handed! I'm wondering whether Alan might also be able to detect the 'drama queen' gene from these samples...I'm determining it must be a recessive gene because Reeky and Fi and the entire litter exhibit this trait! lol

Saturday Gemma was moving into her new house in Sale so came to pick up our old fridge freezer and we went to pick up her new sofa. We got the fridge/freezer in the van (just!) and took the trailer to collect the sofa doing our best Chuckle Brothers impersonation throughout (to me...to you...to me) lol and eventually managed to get it all at the new house. I got home around tea time when my mate Rach popped over and stayed for dinner, just watched tv and chatted and chilled out which was nice. Then I had LOADS of stuff to do before bed...cleaning out the puppies, utility and dog room etc so it was after midnight before I got to bed which was of course after 1am because the clocks had gone forward (ugh...I love the lighter evenings but hate losing an hour!). Alison was picking me up at 7.15am and we were heading down to Birmingham for the BFA AGM so I set my alarm for 6.30am.

Well...you guessed it...I had changed every clock in the house but NOT my mobile phone which I use as an alarm so...7.15am, Alison arrived and...everyone was still in bed! We got on the road for about 7.45am but made good time and arrived in plenty of time. I have to say, I haven't been to the AGM for a couple of years as it's fallen when I've had pups due but I have always enjoyed them and this year was no exception. It's always nice to catch up with everyone before the start of the summer season. There was a really good atmosphere, plenty of lively debate and a lot of really good proposals were carried. The hot buffet provided by the Wolf Pack was also excellent! I just took Mac with me and he had a nice walk at lunchtime (it was a beautiful day) and it was so nice not to be driving...thanks Alison! :) The rest of the dogs had a nice chilled out day at home, out enjoying the sunshine so I didn't feel too bad for them. Did of course mean that Teal missed agility training for the 3rd Sunday in a row!

Monday evening I unpacked the new electric fence posts and made wings for the flyball jumps so we can start training full runs for the baby dogs.

There was equipment scattered all over the garden after the recent high winds so I spent a while picking everything up and sorting it out. Put up a few agility jumps, channel weaves and play tunnel and did a bit of training with Teal who was DEAD keen after her agility drought recently!

She's really working on ahead nicely and picking up the weaves better. Although she seems to have forgotten what 'wait' means!! This often happens as they grow in confidence so we're going to have to do some 'wait' proofing I think. All in all though I was really pleased with her :)

Hoping to do some flyball training this evening (weather permitting!) and plan to be at agility training on Weds evening as normal.

Growing like weeds!!

Fi's pups are 3 weeks old today and growing like weeds! I will move them downstairs later on and also give them their first 'solid' meal. They're definitely getting ready to move onto solids now. I will also take the cheek swabs for TNS testing this evening and postthem off to Alan in Australia (and keep everything crossed for as many 'clear' results as possible!)

Our little sable girl is still little (just 700g in fact) but she is bright and lively and developmentally she is just the same as the others, she is a real cute little thing :)

Here's a few individual pics and some group ones taken this morning...



You can see the individual pics better on the Current Litter page of my website.

'Quick, slow...Quick, Quick..slow'

It's been a funny few days with long periods of total inactivity interjected with short bursts of intense activity! I've been laid up with 'flu' for a couple of days so haven't done much apart from the bare essentials with the dogs and puppies. I really didn't think I was going to make Stocksbridge on Saturday but slept most of the day on Friday and drank about a gallon of lemon and ginger tea with honey in and dosed up on paracetemol and amazingly felt not too bad when I woke on Saturday morning. Paul and Alison arrived at around 6.15am and we all piled into the van and headed over to Stocksbridge on the outskirts of Sheffield for my first flyball tournament of the year. This is a venue I haven't been to before and I was really pleased to see the lovely big exercise area available to run the dogs on. It was another superbly organised affair from the Sheffield Speeders, we started off with dog measuring, the first time I've had my lot done since the new jump height rules have come in, as expected Teal measured 8" and Drake 12", this is the final measure for both of them so I can now apply for their height cards. I also had Dottie and Lexie measured and they have both now come in as 13" height dogs under the new rules (5" below shoulder height). We just ran the two teams, as expected the Demonz were seriously outclassed in Div 1, we've decided we probably won't run under this team name again until we get Dylan back running later in the year (fingers crossed!), they were running mid 19's most of the day. The Pawz were also a little off form running mid 20's but after such a long break and on the indoor rubber matting I was actually really pleased with everyone's performance. Both the cockers in particular runnning really well. Thanks must go again to the wonderful lot from the Notts Supadogs for their much appreciated help in box loading, ball collecting and running Mac and Dottie. I judged Div 4 which turned out to be a fiercly contested affair, I must admit I was (secretly) really pleased when the Nunnies won it running two of the Oz sons (Bray (choc/white) and Shimmer (tri blue merle)) that Pam had bred, two very handsome young boys. I must thank all the teams and the very patient ring party for putting up with my coughing and sniffling throughout, I think I'll sterilise my whistle before I use it again...god knows what germs it must now be harbouring! lol

Sam and Andy popped over in the afternoon although they weren't racing 'til Sunday so I got to have a cuddle with Eabha and I also snapped a few pics of Sparks' brother Charlie.



(no...he hasn't got a short tail...he just wouldn't stop wagging it while I was taking his pic! lol)

Dora and 'Jerry' came and were impeccably behaved, I was quite suprised by Dora who is quite a cocky little madam at home but wasn't too sure about all these people and all these big dogs somewhere new...she'll soon get over that...she's got a lot of flyball to go to this year! lol

Here she is eating a biscuit...

Jerry was just 'Mr Cool' and took it all in his stride and as the day wore on I was really starting to weaken towards the idea of just keeping him. Watching him trot about on the field with his stunning movement already showing at 11 weeks old I was seriously beginning to wonder whether I was quite mad to let him go! Fortunately(?) a lovely lady came today and took 'Jerry' (now known as 'Stanley'), he's going to be living relatively close by and will hopefully be competing in obedience in the future. I really hope things go well for him because he's a super little fella, I was very sad to see him go.

I woke up this morning feeling really rough again, maybe I just wasn't up to a full day of flyball yesterday after all?! Just seemed to take me ages to get going. Needless to say I didn't make it to agility training and just had a quiet morning at home. We had a steady stream of visitors this afternoon. Conrad, Jackie, Amy and Jess came over and we did some flyball training with Radley in the garden. She's doing really well and was doing full runs and triggering the box by the end of the session and even had 'mummy' Teal running in on her doing close changeovers. We just need to do some chute work to perfect that box technique and she should be ready for starters! :)

Nathan (my brother) and Sue popped over with Connor and Charlie; they'd been into town and Charlie was sporting his new hat and shoes...HOW cute is he??


Once all our visitors had left we finally settled down to a roast dinner and Sunday evening tv. Here's a pic mum took of me and 'the girls' watching the 'Dancing on Ice' final (and HOW good was Ray Quinn?!!)...

...to be honest...I think I may have been the only one of us actually watching it lol
(check out my poor red nose...tissue chaffed from excessive nose blowing!! lol)

So...off to bed and hoping for a return to feeling 'normal' in the morning!!

The Birthday Boy!!

Viggo is one year old today but still very much a big goofy pup!

He has a really lovely faultless temperament, very laid back and easy going and really friendly with people and dogs alike. He's a very easy boy to have around. :)

Here's a couple of 1 year old birthday snaps...



I am really plaesed with the way he's shaping up, his head has really come on in the last few months and he has the most fantastic angulation which gives him a lovely long easy stride with drive and reach to die for. He is however still very much a rangy pup so I don't think I'll have him out in the showring much this year, if at all. He still has a lot of maturing to do.

The same can be said for his flyball training which I haven't started yet either, I just feel that he needs a few more months to really grow into himself and muscle up before I ask him to do anything that requires both speed AND co-ordination. lol

Vi does enjoy a game of fetch but has a rather vague understanding of the word 'retrieve'...rather than fetch a ball straight back to me he likes to run back and forth throwing it in the air and catching it with gay abandon instead (see below!).




At least he's enjoying himself I guess! lol