12th March 2012

We had a lovely walk this morning. I took a foootball out with us and all the dogs love playing with it.

Well actually Lilly would prefer it if the Bostons would find something else to play with as they keep trying to take the ball.

Two onto one is not really fair

Spice reigns triumphant!

29th January 2012

I was out for my normal walk yesterday morning. I had Lily, Daisy, Pippa and Spice with me. We were walking along minding our own business when up ahead I saw a woman with a smallish brown terrier on a lead coming towards us.

As soon as he saw my dogs the Terrier started barking and lunging at the end of his lead. As they got closer to us I could see the lady was struggling to hold him and was being pulled along by him even though he was quite a small dog. In the interests of avoiding any trouble I decided the best thing to do was to move off the footpath and stood in a driveway to let them both pass.

My dogs were very good, they just stood with me and waited while the lady and her ferocious hound passed. They did look fairly incredulous at the amount of noise the other dog was making but they didn't bark back.

As she drew level with us, the lady stopped, looked at me and my dogs just standing there and said to me "four dogs?!!. Gosh, you have got your hands full with those, haven't you!!. Then proceeded to drag her  dog off away from us. He was now hanging back still trying to get at my dogs and still barking his head off. It was a real struggle for the woman to pull him away. Once they were safely gone we carried on with our walk. All four walking nicely on the lead.

16th January 2012

While the weather is so cold and wet we have to
make do with playing ball in the house. Which is fine except that sometimes the ball lands in the wrong place.

Poor Daisy desperately wants to get her ball but won't walk on the wooden surface to get it. She insists on keeping 2 feet safely on the arm of the settee and stretches as far as she can to try to reach the ball. To make sure I am aware of the fact that her ball has landed on the table she makes the most horrendous shrieks and howls and pathetic sounding wails until I come and rescue the ball.

I just wish I could get her 2o2o contacts as good on the a-frame as they are on the settee!

14th January 2012

So many people have comented on the fact that I have not updated my blog for such a long time and asked when I would start it again that I thought I had better start updating it more regularly.

We have had a very good year competing at agility. We won into Grade three at the beginning of the season .

Lily has only been competing for a year but is doing very well. Regularly getting placed which is quite an acheivement considering the large grade 3 classes usually have nearly 200 dogs in them.

The photo is Lily with the rosettes and trophy she won at Wilmslow show last weekend where she won a 3rd and 4th in agility and a 14th in jumping

Milo also started competing last year and has had several places in grade 3. Daisy is also doing well with several places in grade three culminating in winning into grade 4 at the end of the season last year.

Ruby has now retired from agility due to having a fall from the dog walk which reawakened her fear of the contact equipment. I am finding running 3 dogs is plenty, Running 4 was getting to be hard work.

28th January 2011

The Boston Babbies are now 6.5 weeks old. Very lively and into everything. I wanted to take pictures of them standing but that proved a lot more difficult than I expected as they just don't like to stand still.

We have had several people round to visit. It seems as if they know when we are expecting visitors as they run round and play and play until the visitors arrive and then fall asleep while the visitors are here then wake up once they go again

This is James who is now Theo

Jesse

Jesse

Belle

Belle

Jingle

Jingle

22/01/11

Today was Agility Addicts Show. The first one we have been to for absolutely ages and it was really nice to be back competing again. Unfortunately Lily is still in season so she had to stay at home so it was just Ruby and Milo, who was competing for the first time.

Ruby was first in the ring. It seemed to be quite a complicated jumping course and I wasn't sure how well we would do but Ruby surprised me and jumped clear. She did everything I asked and I was able to handle her exactly how I planned. Actually that is not really unusual with Ruby as she is always really good at following my cues, the problem is more often that I get it wrong and she does what I say. We got a clear round but were just outside the places.

Next was Milo's agility runs. He did really well. We did get eliminated but it was because I didn't make sure I got close enough to the tunnel to pick him up so he got a bit confused about which jump to do next. Once I got him back we carried on and everything went smoothly until we got to the sea-saw. He loves the contact equipment and in spite of me yelling sea-saw he shot straight up it and into space. Thankfully he landed well and the judge told me to put him back on it again to make sure he hadn't frightened himself too much. He went straight back on but much slower this time and did it properly. Although we were eliminated I was really pleased with how he ran. He went where I said most of the time and going over strange equipment didn't seem to bother him at all. On the next run we corrected the previous mistakes but did something else wrong so got eliminated again. He did do the sea-saw properly though.

Next was Ruby's agility runs and as we are still working on her dog walk phobia I decided to do them not for competition and just do a couple of jumps and then the dog walk and leave the ring. She was a little unsure but didn't get too stressed out about it. We will keep working on it and hopefully will get over it again.

Finally was Milo's jumping run and it was a very nice course with several changes of side but each one was at the tunnel which made it quite easy. His first run was fantastic, he did went exactly what I said and got a clear round. Not bad for his first ever competition. He was 6th but unfortunately the places only went to 5th, but I am still really pleased with him.

Milo was measured as well and I really was not sure if he would be small or medium. He is so close to the cut off point for small but luckily the measures decided he was just small enough to be small. I am glad about this as he is quite a stocky dog and he would struggle to jump the medium height jumps. I just have to hope he doesn't grow at all in the next year.

15th January 2011

The puppies are almost 5 weeks old now. They are full of life and really getting playful now.

The weather is quite mild at the moment so they have been outside a few times now.

Today Clare and Eryn came for a visit.

10 January 2011

puppies 4 weeks old playing with mum.

06 January 2011

I have been quite ill with flu so haven't updated the blog for a few days. The puppies have now moved down stairs into a pen in the living room where they can get used to household noises and meet the other dogs.

They have started on solid food but are not eating a huge amount as Daisy is still feeding them quite a lot. She seems to be managing 4 puppies better than 6. They like toddling round the living room and love to meet the other dogs, especially daddy Milo. He thinks they are great fun too.

27 December 2010

7he Boston Babies are 2 weeks old today. The time goes so quickly. They all have their eyes open and are starting to get up on their legs now. They move about a lot and I have had to put up a barrier to keep them in the crate now as they can get out. I will move them down stairs to the bigger pen some time this week.
Daisy is still feeding them and they are very solid chunky puppies they all weigh about 750m grams each. James was the smallest but he is now the biggest. Daisy is eating much better this time than when she had her last litter.She is still thin but thankfully not suffering from the calcium deficiency this time. She is eating about 1.5 pounds of chicken a day which is a lot for a dog that only weighs 14lbs.

Jingle


















Belle











Jesse












James

25 December 2010 - Christmas day

Christmas day. Now the children have all left home apart from Robin things are much quieter on Christmas morning. As Robin was still asleep I took the dogs for a walk as soon as I got up. then when we got back it was time to open the presents.















All the dogs had a new squeaky toy and a back of treats. They all managed to open their presents. Then things got a little noisy as they all walked round squeaking their toys until Casey managed to de-squeak his and then tried to steal the others. I put the toys away so we could have a bit of peace.



















For breakfast the big dogs had a turkey wing each and some of their treats. TheBostons had a bit of turky neck so no-one missed out on Christmas dinner apart from the baby Bostons who just had milk.

22nd December 2010

The puppies are doing very well. They are feeding well and putting weight on regularly. They doubled their birth weight today. They are very active strong puppies. Daisy is looking after them very well and is eating much better than when she had her last litter. I am hopeful she won't suffer from a recurrence of the calcium deficiency she had last time. She is obviously feeling much better after her cesarean as she keeps demanding I get her favourite toy out and play with her , but I am very mean and refuse as it would strain her stitches too much to be playing tuggy so soon after an operation.

Jingle



















Belle














Jesse













James

14 December 2010

I haven't posted for some time but thought it was time for a catch up.
Many things have changed since I last posted, the main one is that Saffy no longer lives here. I had been having increasing problems with her dislike of living with other bitches and she turned against Ruby and would attack her on sight.

It was proving very stressful having to keep them separate all the time so eventually had to make the heartbreaking decision to look for a new home for Saffy. She could have gone back to her breeder Jan but as Jan has lots of dogs I thought is would be better to find her a home where she could be an only dog, so in mid October Saffy moved to Norfolk to live with Gareth and Bobbie. She has settled in very well and is obviously loving being an only dog.

While we were having to deal with keeping Saffy and Ruby separate Daisy also came into season and it became clear recently that somewhere our system of keeping all the various dogs separate there had been a miscalculation. At the end of November I noticed Daisy was getting fatter. A quick trip to the vets confirmed my worst fears Daisy was pregnant. Thankfully (?) with the size difference the only possible father could be Milo but it was still a shock as I didn't want to breed from Daisy at the moment. I was also very worried about the pups as Daisy had been going to agility, competing in competitions and playing wildly with her toys. Not things I would usually do with a pregnant girl.

Another problem was not knowing when the pups were due. The vet scanned her and said she was at least 6 weeks which meant that she almost certainly caught right at the end of her season.
Things started happening on Sunday but no puppies arrived until 5:30 Monday morning when a little girl arrived, then at 8:00 a very big boy who got very stuck and when I finally got him out I was unable to get him breathing. Next at 11:00 came another boy. No problem this time thankfully. Unfortunately after this things ground to a halt so at 2:00 it was off to the vets for an oxytocin injection. This failed to get things moving and the vet said there was a puppy stuck so the only alternative was a cesarean. Thankfully the vet was bale to get both remaining puppies out and the stuck one was still alive so we now have 4 puppies 3 girls and a boy.

18 August 2010

Friday 13th certainly lived up to its reputation as Ruby badly cut her paw when out for a walk. I noticed her limping and when I checked there was a lot of blood.
Unfortunately we were due to go to the Working Belgian Shepherd Society agility show that night and this meant she would not be able to compete.
Much to her disgust I decided to leave her at home and not even take her with us in the caravan as I know she would not rest if she was at an agility show, sore paw or no sore paw.

When we got to the show it was raining quite heavily but I managed to get the caravan set up without too many problems. Unfortunately the rain carried on to the following morning and I had to run the first couple of classes in the rain. daisy did really well in her first jumping class going clear. although a couple of handling errors by me meant our time wasn't fast enough for a place.

Saffy also had a very good day getting 2 clear rounds in jumping and agility and also coming fourth in her agility class. She was also best BSD in 3 of her classes.

Sunday was not quite so successful. Saffy ran two very nice agility rounds but just missed her A frame contact in both of them. A real shame as she was much faster than the winning dog so would have won if she had got them.

Daisy had a mad moment in her agility class and ran over to the pole picker and then the judgeto see if they would make a fuss of her. She loves people and finds it hard to ignore them. Hopefully as she gets more experienced she will learn to wait until she has finished her runs to speak to people.

6th August 2010

I am back from a lovely 9 days away staying in my caravan with the dogs. We went to the Adams Agility show, then stayed on the site until the Derbyshire Agility show the following weekend. Ruby did very well at both shows getting numerous clear rounds.

Finally Saffy has managed to get a couple of clear rounds too. One in a pay on the day class and one in a jumping class so she has actually got a point in her agility record book. Only 199 to go to get her Bronze agility warrant!













The venue was a lovely place with lots of space for the dogs to run and play





























In the week there were some fun games to do and training too. Saffy did really well winning the tennis ball dunking game, getting 6 tennis balls out of a bucket of water in just 17 seconds. She also had a go at the the teddy bear rescue where they dogs had to retrieve teddies from a square. At first she seemed to think she was doing a scent exercise but then got the idea and brought them all back.

Lily entered her very first agility competition. A fun class consisting of just jumps and tunnels. We did the anysize class with low jumps and much to my surprise she won it. She was delighted with the squeaky toy that was her prize.
Daisy was entered in several classes and did really well getting mostly clear rounds, although she did disgrace herself in one class by running up to the pole picker and trying to get him to stroke her.

On Saturday as a break from agility we went along to the BSDA Championship show which was being held just down the road.
Lily came second in Junior which was very good as she is such a baby, only just out of puppy.
Ruby did really well winning Limit, and then went on to come second in the obedience.



















Unfortunately I made a mistake with the entries so Saffy wasn't entered in the obedience.

21st July 2010

Today is Lily's first birthday. It is amazing how quickly they year has gone.
We started agility last night and once she settled into the class she did very well. She happily jumped the jumps and was really good at following my body language . She wasn't sure about the A Frame but I am sure she will soon get the hang of it.

Rosie and Lily playing

18 July 2010

Saturday was National Working and Pastoral breeds show. This was Lily's last show as a puppy as she is one on Wednesday. She did really well winning best puppy in breed.














Gordon has now left home and gone to seek his fortune in London, so it is getting much quieter here.



















Italy is still here at the moment and she is getting more like her mum every day














Here she is making sure that Splodge knows who is Boss.














Splodge has been rescued.

16th July 2010

Every morning I take Lily Daisy and Saffy up to the golf course for their walk. Once there we play ball. Well Saffy plays with her Frisbee and Lily and Daisy have their tennis balls. Both Daisy and Lily have their own personal tennis ball and will not fetch each others ball If they run to a ball and find it is not their ball then they just give me a filthy look and come back without the ball. Luckily they are pretty good at keeping track of which ball I am throwing.


















Saffy














Lily is very enthusiastic and hurls herself in the air to catch the ball while it is still in the air.