31 March 2008

I took some more photos of Saffy at training last night. she is nearly 8 months old and growing up fast. It was quite difficult to get good photos of Saffy as she still struggles to stand still for more than a milli second. When at ring craft she does stand reasonably well but seems to move as soon as the judge looks at her.

She loves training at the club with me. She is very sociable with the other dogs but will try to steal their toys and titbits if she get the chance. She does get into trouble for greeting people a bit too enthusiastically. People she knows get poked very hard in the eye with her nose and it can be quite painful.

Saffy is used as my demo dog if I need to show how anything is done. She works well in spite of the distraction of the other dogs. She is very focused on me.

30 March 2008

Took some video of Ruby doing the dog walk today. She is still not happy doing the full DW but is much happier. She now enthusiastically hops onto the DW and trots along. I am asking her to do more of it and once she is running along the full length I will raise it again.


After she has done the DW we go and have a game of football. The strange noise in the back ground is Ruby

25 March 2008

At agility tonight we set up long straight runs of 4 jumps and a tunnel at the end. Ruby liked racing me as we did the 4 jumps in a row but I found she would not go ahead to the tunnel. This surprised me as I have spent time sending her on to the equipment from a distance.

We did the weave poles with the set up making it easier to do the poles with me on the right and Ruby really struggled. Part of the problem was that the exit from the weave poles was just a bit past the upright of the A frame and I automatically turned towards the A frame about 3 poles from the end which caused Ruby to pop out of the weaves. . I found it surprisingly hard to keep running straight but when I did Ruby stayed in and completed the poles. Ruby was much happier running the poles with me on the left. I have worked on her running poles with me on either side and at a distance from her. She can do this fairly well in the garden but obviously needs more wor at the club. She weaves much slower at the club too, but I can't really use the football as an incentive there.

24 March 2008

We went for a lovely long walk this morning. Stayed out about two hours. The dogs had a great time Saffy was a bit slower than when we started but Ruby was still zooming around as much as ever.

Finally got my seesaw out this afternoon. Ruby had seen it once yesterday when I tested it on the lowest setting and after some initial trepidation decided that it really was not too scary and went over it a couple of times. As the lowest setting does not work particularly well I put it up on the next level. I put it up at the side of the house next to the dog walk. The DW is now set at a whole 1ft high now and Ruby has been hoping onto the midle and doing the down ramp but is still reluctant to do the whole thing.


I took some liver and Ruby out to the seesaw and didn't say anything. Ruby trotted on to the DW and promptlytrotted all the way to the other end.then back again. I could see her taking little glances at the seesaw while determindely trotting back and forth over the DW for bits of liver. I let her do this a few times as she was happy with the DW then I changed my position relative to the Seesaw and waited again. Ruby came up looking worried put one paw on the seesaw and so I clicked, ran her out and played a big game of football with her. I will probably only do that one more time today and then leave it until tomorrow. Her dogwalk and Seesaw phobia is hugely improved but taking things slowly works far better with Ruby.

I brought Saffy out for a go on the seesaw. It is small enough that I can encourage Saf up the ramp, and have her pause at the tipping point while I feed her and allow it to tip very slowly. At first she was not sure about the movement but after a couple of goes was much more confident. I want her to learn to do the seesaw steadily. I don't want her to rush it and hurt herself.

Just went out with Ruby again and she did the DW several times and then again put a foot on the seesaw so again I clicked and called her off the seesaw for a game of football. I think the penny has dropped for her about how to get a game of football as she spent ages afterwards whining by the door ASKING to go out t0 the DW. This is a dog who at Christmas was so stressed by the DW that she could not eat within 20 feet of it and I was seriously considering giving up agility as her fear of the DW was making her frightened of the rest of the equipment. Even the sound of another dog running over it would cause her to shake.

Just went out to have a last go on the seesaw before it gets too dark and Ruby did half the DW and then came straight to the seesaw looked at me and put two paws on it. Of course I Clicked and called her off for a really good game of football.

I did it again with Saffy too. Already Saffy is quite confident tipping the seesaw and she really works her socks off for liver..

22 March 2008

I took the dogs for a long walk this morning. We went round the pond and met dad walking his dogs so walked with him for a bit. Saffy got into trouble for jumping on Mimi to make her squeak so she had to stay on the lead after that.

Once we left dad I decided to go across the fields as the farmer has finally moved the cows. We went into the big field and as soon as i took their leads off a hare popped up in front of them so they all set off in hot pursuit. totally ignoring my calls to stop. The chased the hare down the long field with the hare well out in front, then the hare decided to take cover in the scrub land next to the field so the dogs all followed it through and disappeared from view.


Casey very quickly came back. He is never gone long so I waited for the girls to come back. Then Ruby came back shortly followed by Dora but there was no sign of Saffy. This is rather unusual as Saffy is very good at coming back. I was rather surprised she hadn't been with the others.

I waited about 10 minutes and was starting to get a bit panicky as Saffy is only a baby and not used to finding her way about. then I thought I heard something over the sound of the wind, it was Saffy yelling so I climbed the fence and set of to look for her. Luckily i found her fairly quickly she was the other side of a stream and couldn't get across to get back. I called her a few times and seeing me there encouraged her to try to jump it. She almost made it but landed up to her elbows in thick black mud. I think all the girls must have been in the stream as Ruby and Dora are pretty muddy too.

having gathered all the dogs we set off back to the car. I was hoping that some of the mud would come off before we got back to the car. Saffy and Ruby were running and chasing each other and rolling round play fighting. unfortunately when they got back to me I could smell that it wasn't just mud they had been rolling in. they had obviously found a cowpat too. Thankfully we were almost back to the car so I got them on leads and took them home where I had to start bating the 3 girls.


Saffy In the shower.




Saffy Getting her own back. Yes that is my bed. I came out of the bathroom after cleaning it up to find Saffy rolling about on it.


clean again

21 March 2008

I am way behind updating my blog. have been adding Saffy's blog and the puppy blog to this one.
Did agility at mums this morning. remembered to take the camera with me

Ruby posing on the contacts



Saffy doing the tunnel

08 March 2008

CRUFTS - The day has dawned. Got up at 4:00am. Didn't need to be up quite that early but woke up and couldn't get back to sleep so got the last few things ready.

Set off at 5:30am had a good journey and arrived about 7:00, found the bench and unpacked and made ourselves at home.

After we checked in we were free until 8:45 when we had the parade so went along to discover dogs with Saffi and stayed there. I also stayed there while the others competed. I found I was getting too nervous watching .

When we went into the ring to compete Dora was switched on and working very well. I was having problems with my feet though. I kept stumbling over them when doing turns. We managed the heelwork and went on to the recall. Dora was came really fast and crashed into my legs causing me to step back. She did sit really straight though. We lost 4.5 points over all and came 8th. I was really pleased with her and did enjoy my day once I stopped feeling nervous.

SAffi spen most of the day on discover dogs as no-one else turned up to releive us. She was very good talking to the people and asking them for treats. Dora was on discover dogs too and lots of people asked if she was a Belgian too.