Welcome to the Blog of Rosie Ison & her Scruffy Mutts.

Fozzie update

2012-01-16T02:47:00.000-08:00

Well Fozzie started to go off lead last Tuesday and all is well with his leg. Over the past 4 days I have got braver with him. The first 2 days I was paranoid and every time he tried to run off after the other dogs I called him back, put a couple of the others on a lead and then let him go again. Since Friday I have let him run with them and have relaxed a little, although I am still not letting him have mad run around moments with them yet. He is now going up and down stairs again. I actually thought this would be good rear end exercise for him. If all is still well at the end of this week, once I've extended his exercise further, then I will re start some agility training. I will just start on very low small jumps and gradually build him up to full height again. I have cancelled his entry at Mid Downs in March ,so that even if he was fine I won't be tempted to run him. So all is looking good at the moment. :-))

I've decided to let Disney go back to Obedience training(just for fun) He is still so full of life and I feel I'd like to do something on a one to one basis with him again.
Here is a little video of Disney taken last week. He so makes me smile and laugh, and particularly at the end when he tried to do his hide your eye trick when we supposed to be doing DC.

New Year News

2012-01-07T14:47:00.000-08:00

Well 2011 has gone and here we are into 2012. I am trying to be positive about 2012.

I took Fozzie to the Chiropractor yesterday and went away feeling a whole lot better and far more positive.

I went through the whole history of Fozzie and the events leading up to him holding his leg up, and without even touching him she was confident that it wasn't a patella problem. The symptoms just didn't point to it. She was also certain it wasn't a cruciate problem either, because although he was holding his leg up typical of a dog with a cruciate injury, there was no lameness/limping at all even when he eventually put his foot down. He was also able to bear weight on it to pee, and he certainly didn't have any problem putting his weight on it to jump up at the work surfaces or stairgate, and even on the day he walked into the vet, he jumped up to say hello to the receptionist. Marisa said that even a slight cruciate strain or tear would cause swelling( he had none) and limping ( he had none) I trust Marisa completely. She has done wonders for Woody on several occasions and she has also had huge successes with MANY agility dogs, her reputation is country wide.

So she did her magic on Fozzie. She found his pelvis was very out and also his lower back. She put everything back in place and was happy with what she had done.

So Fozzie now has to stay on the lead again till Tuesday, and then let off lead and then its wait and see. I now have to gradually increase his fitness and by the end of January I should be able to start re introducing him to agility. I don't think he'll be ready to compete at the first show of the year in March but hopefully by Easter in April he should be able to compete again...fingers crossed.

However if after he returns to normal exercise he starts to hold his leg up again, then the first thing is to take him back to Marisa to make sure everything is in place, if it is then it obviously it is a leg problem, but she's confident it isn't.

I got a new photographic background from my sons for Xmas. I was very excited about getting it. I have long admired the photos taken by the professionals of dogs using white backgrounds.
I'd had a play around before Xmas with 2 pieces of white hardboard, and I took some nice shots of my son's cats( below) but I knew to take dogs I'd need something bigger and more substantial.

Sully

Satsuma

So as soon as Xmas was over I couldn't wait to have a go. Apart from taking the photos my biggest hurdle was learning how to use photoshop to edit the images afterwards.
Well the photo below is one of my results :-)

My Lovely Boys

Then last week my friend Jennie asked if I could take some pictures of her dogs....GULP,my first "other peoples dogs" photo shoot. Well it all turned out ok, but I still have quite a way to go before I am perfect :-)

Jennies Gang

December catch up :-)

2011-12-23T15:46:00.000-08:00

Well its almost the end of the year and Xmas is but 2 days away. Where has the year gone?

2 weeks ago I went down to see my best friend Jane down in Devon and her 18 x 5 wk old standard poodle puppies. I took Chip with me ,but I now wish I had taken Fozzie (more on that later)

Chip is such a wonderful dog to have around puppies, so gentle and patient, even when they decided he may be fair game for a quick suckle..lol
I had 2 wonderful days there(thank you Jane) and I was soooo tempted to have one of the Apricot girl puppies. She is related to my late Libby and reminded me of her so much. But I have my heart set on another hairy cross breed. One day in the future I will have another Standard Poodle but not now.

Talking of hairy crossbreeds, I had the opportunity back in August of actually having another first cross min poodle/collie. However the timing was totally wrong. Lauras Rupert was only 7 months old, and we had our holiday to Canada booked. I had pick of litter and they were also red merles. I was disappointed about the timing but put it out of my mind, that was until I heard last month that due to unfortunate circumstances the one the breeder had kept was re available . Sadly by the time I heard she had gone :-((

So next year my search will start.

Back to Fozzie. When I went to Devon I left the other dogs at home. When I arrived back on the Saturday I wanted to take them all for a lovely walk. Laura and Steve are good about looking after them, but Laura hadn't been well so they hadn't had very long walks while I was away. So off I go. Nothing happened whilst I was out, well at least I didn't see anything and after an hr we came home. It was an unadventurous walk and the dogs pottered around, ran a little but by their normal standards it was pretty boring. Fozzie was 100% when I got in.
I went out almost immediately to go xmas shopping. I was gone for about 4 hrs, but when I got in Fozzie was on 3 legs. He wouldn't weight bear on his back right hind leg at all. There seemed to be no discomfort, heat or pain and he didn't object to me touching it, he just wouldn't put it down. I have some Metacam so I gave him a dose and as I went to bed at midnight he still was on 3 legs. However in the morning he was completely sound. He was supposed to be doing a training session but I decided to err on the side of caution, (and I'm glad I did) and I didn't work him. He was fine all day, but he then went onto 3 legs again during the evening ! Next day he was sound again, however when I took him out for a pee he hopped a couple of time. I gave him the once over and I felt he was showing discomfort on one of his toes, it seemed a bit warm ? I decided there and then to take him straight to the vets. My vet could feel nothing and the only place she got any minor reaction was on his knee.

Between us, and especially as he hadn't eaten we decided to get some xrays done to rule out any bone problems. My vet also said when he was sedated she could check his cruciate. The xrays found nothing and she felt his cruciate was ok, but without an MRI scan she couldnt be 100% ! but she did find that he had luxating patellas on full extension. At this stage she felt that this could possibly have been the problem although they've given no problem up till now. His grooves are very shallow and there is an operation that is very successful that could be done if this becomes a problem.

So I was sent home with strict instructions to give him 10 days rest, anti inflammatories and then slowly introduce lead walking, hydrotherapy etc. If all is well then we can continue as normal, if not then we can consider the operation before any arthritis appears.

So from that time till now he has been fine, no lameness or leg holding at all. He did 5 mins of hydrotherapy today and seemed great . However Laura said she though he was slightly lame when he got up to go for a wee about 3 hrs later :-((

Then I was watching TV tonight and I noticed him licking his front paw. When I examined it he had skinned the pad right off !!! How the hell he did that I just don't know ? I put some cream on it and a bandage and he was then limping on the front leg ,but worse still was holding his rear leg up at the same time ???? I rubbed his leg and he then put it down and walked normally. I am now totally bewildered as to what could have happened to him. Are these 2 things connected ??Why did he go onto 3 legs with his rear leg up ,when his front leg was bandaged ???
So its back onto rest again and wait and see :-( I will keep you updated , I just pray that this won't be the end of his agility career :-(

Rupert update

His agility training is going really well. He's mega keen, mega noisy and mega fun. Laura is loving him.
Laura has decided to try running contacts using a hoop. She isn't disciplined enough to train everyday and doesn't like using a clicker, so doing running contacts with a mat and marking it would be difficult. She has spoken with several people and has decided to try this method with the understanding that she may have to do a 2 on and 2 off if it all turns pear shaped. At the moment he is driving to the end head lowered to go under the hoop, sometimes he's a little higher on the contact that I would like but more often its great so fingers crossed.

Rupert is very toy orientated and extremely motivated by the toy so this is great.

So this just leaves me to say Have a Very Merry Xmas and Happy New Year.

Catch up time again.

2011-09-26T16:33:00.000-07:00

I've just realised that I haven't done a proper catch up for nearly 2 months.
Lots of news and results but I won't bore you with every single run we have done since middle July.

At the end of July it was the Agility club show. I was called in on the second day to judge as one of the judges had been taken ill suddenly. Fortunately I was able to use her course with a little bit of tweaking to make it personal. It was a scorching afternoon, and I really enjoyed myself. The bonus being as I wasn't called till lunchtime, I had been able to run at least 5 of my runs in the morning. Usually when judging you can't run your own dogs , but under these circumstances I had been able to.
Chip unusually had a good weekend and had a 5th in Grade 6 jumping and also a good place in Grade 6/7 agility.

Following the Agility Club came the KC Festival and DIN in August. I had a fantastic 2 weeks agility holiday . The dogs all worked really well. Fozzie did some lovely runs and so did Woody. I have done a little compilation video of Fozzie's runs. Unfortunately I only got a few of Woody's runs . I also got a few of Disney's runs. More about Disney later. I somehow always seem to get the worst of Chips runs, and the best go
unrecorded, but to be honest , as I've said before, I've saved my videoing favours for Fozzie this year. I am sure people get very fed up with me keep on asking them to video me.

Fozzie and Woody both qualified for the Finals of DIN. I was so absolutely thrilled. Woody's run went very pear shaped and sadly he got eliminated, however I was just so pleased to have got him into the Final.
Fozzie was FAB. He was doing a stonking round and was clear right up to the dogwalk, I was really pushing him and he missed his dogwalk contact :-( The first time he has missed a contact in competition and it was in a final :-( He would have ended up 2nd and I can't pretend I wasn't disappointed . A real "if only" I was however still really pleased with his performance and theres always next year. I've also posted that video.

Disney only did a splattering of runs. One was the YKC Jr Final at KC Festival. He was being a real star, but 2 jumps from the end he suddenly realised I wasn't there and came out to find me. Beth was really mature and good about this, she just came and got him and just put him over the last jump.

He also did a pairs run with Jennie and Stella at DIN and he went clear, unfortunately Jennie got eliminated but we still had a great time.

Here are a few runs from each dog from that fortnight.

FOZZIE COMPILATION.

Fozzie in the DIN Final

Disney at KC Festival & DIN

Woody .

After this marathon Agility fortnight we went to Surrey Agility Show on Bank Holiday Monday. A one day show with a lovely atmosphere and once again a lovely day.
Fozzie was a star and came 2nd in Grade 4 Agility, only being beaten by literally a fraction of a second. He also did a lovely grade 4-7 Helter Skelter run and came 11th beating some fast Grade 7 dogs. It was a real blast with a horrible angle to the weaves which he picked up beautifully. Unfortunately I had to dash to the ring from scribing so no video.
Chip did a couple of lovely runs with just a pole down and Woody also did some lovely runs and also got placed in Grade 4 jumping.
Here is Fozzie's Grade 4 second place video.

Last but not least was Letchwoth in Sept. This show had a high and a low. I made the decision to retire Disney at this show. He has lost most of his hearing and I wanted to retire him whilst people can remember what a great dog he is and whilst he was still enjoying it . In my time I have seen many good dogs carry on running well past the time when they should have been retired. I have watched them struggle over the jumps and I've wondered to myself how fair that is. Disney will be 14 next year and it has been the most wonderful partnership of 12 years. Lots of my friends including his breeder came to watch his last run and they all clapped. It was very tearful and emotional.

However the high of the show was Fozzie winning Grade 4 agility and he is now a Grade 5 dog. He won the class by 3 seconds and even beat the Grade 5 time by 5 seconds !! Although it was a nice run I can still see places he and I can improve, so I am excited about next year now. He had a very lucky seesaw in this run. He definitely got it but it wasn't a good contact by any means. I am always critical of my runs and one of the reasons I video my young dogs so much is to see how I can improve my handling and to see what needs to be trained more.
Fozzie has already done more than I could ever have imagined when he first started and I am optimistic about his future in agility now.
Here is his win

I just had to put this video on as well. It is a little compilation I did of Disney's finest moments in his agility career. From his first run to his last. The quality of some of the video and stills is poor but it was pre digital.

Just a couple of pics

2011-08-27T17:36:00.001-07:00

I have downloaded a new blog writer for my iPhone in readiness for my trip to Canada and the holiday blog I intend to do. So though I would try posting a couple of pics to see if it works ok.

Posted using BlogPress from

my iPhone

Rugby July 2011

2011-07-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was Rugby Agility show. The weather forecast was awful and I hummed and harred as to even bother to go. Eventually I decided to go even if it meant I wouldn't run my dogs. I was so pleased to see when I got there that they were using JDA equipment and all the contacts had rubber surfaces. I hate putting my dogs over wet contact equipment especially the dog walk. I am seriously thinking of getting my dog walk re surfaced with rubber for this very reason.
As it turned out I ran all but one of my classes in the dry and the sun even came out :-) Saturday afternoon was positively beautiful, with blue skies and sunshine.

Fozzie was fab again, and did a lovely Grade 4 agility run, coming in 3rd. The time differences from 1st -3rd place were tiny and I think if he had only driven more to the end of the dog walk, and hadn't been slightly tentative as he entered the weaves (I think this was because he had missed the entry on his 2 previous runs) the result could have been very different. He also had a bad angle over jump 9 ( shabby handling on my part again !!!) so here were 3 things in one run that could have been improved on ! This is why its so useful to video runs ( if I can) it shows just where the time difference is made or lost . In Grade 4 Jumping I also did some bad handling after the rigid tunnel which put him on a bad line to the jump ( familiar story !!) he also lost speed after a couple of turns. He still ended up in 7th place, so not too shabby. In 2 of his other runs they had terrible weave poles. The first 3 poles were slanting in opposite directions. I saw many dogs miss their entries and I knew that this may be a problem for Fozzie and Yes it was :-( He did fabulous runs but missed the entry. I intend to go into my field and deliberately set my V weaves up so the poles are all over the place so he learns that no matter how the poles are he enters correctly.
Here are his 2 good runs.

Chip and I once again were just not in sync so nothing to report there.

Woody was a good boy and came 11th in the grade 4 jumping ( sadly no video) Unfortunately on the Sunday the only run I did in the rain happened to be Woody's. We had been in a long queue and when we joined the sun was out. However in the 10-15 minutes we queued a black cloud came over and typically the moment we got to the start line the heavens opened. I was only wearing a T-Shirt and got soaked.
Woody sadly slipped as he took off for a jump, mistimed it and crashed the jump. He hurt his back leg and got up on 3 legs. I was panic stricken. I stopped and gave him a rub down and a little massage and Amanda the judge came over to check all was OK. Fortunately he must have just dead legged himself because he suddenly put his leg down and seemed ok..PHEW !!

Disney didn't compete this weekend.

As I type I am looking forward to 6 weeks off work starting tomorrow :-) As you know I am a childminder and all the children I mind have this years school holidays off. So I am off down to Devon to see my best mate Jane on Sat or Sunday for a few days. Followed by a long weekend at the Agilityclub show at Ardingly. I am then back home for about 5 days and then off up to Northampton to spend a few days chilling before the KC Festival and DIN. So I am sure the 6 weeks off will fly by.

Rupert Foundation Agility aged 7 mths

2011-07-19T07:22:00.000-07:00

Rupert started his foundation agility classes last week, and this week I went along to watch and obviously video. He certainly is enjoying himself

Lots to catch up

2011-07-08T14:42:00.000-07:00

Well at long last I've found the time to catch up and update my blog. I've been nagged constantly by my best friend Jane over the last few weeks, and as I'm going down to visit her in Devon in a couple of weeks I thought I should do a drastic update.

So whats been happening since April........

First up is Rupert. He has now turned 6 months old. He's had his first posh haircut and looks really cute. He seems to have stopped growing and certainly hasn't got much knuckle and Laura is really hoping he will be a small. He certainly measures small with a bit of room left so maybe he will, unfortunately if he goes over he will end up being a very small medium which won't be so good.

Laura had continued to take Rupert to pet obedience classes but was finding them quite boring so has stopped now. After my agility classes on a tuesday we've started some very very basic foundation work with him. Going through jump wings with poles on the ground, some lefts and rights, a few tunnels and some walking over the dogwalk with the plank on the floor. Laura hasn't decided on what method to train her contacts yet. I am encouraging her to try running contacts but she hates using the clicker and I feel the dogs need this marker for the running contacts so they know what is right. I feel to compete with the top small/medium dogs nowadays running contacts ( taught properly) are definitely the way to go, as long as enough time is put into them, this is where I think Laura will fall down, I'm just not sure how committed she will be with it. Whereas a stopped 2 on 2 off contact can be taught with less work. She's hoping to start a proper foundation class at another club soon so maybe that will spur her into making a decision.

Rupert continues to be full of enthusiasm, very up for everything and is beginning to get quite noisy. Here are a few pics and a little video of him doing his obedience.

SHOW NEWS

Well I've done some lovely shows during May and June. My favourite by far was JDA show at Shuttleworth nr Biggleswade. The weather was glorious, the setting was beautiful, company was fabulous, great rubber surface on all the contacts and best of all Chip won his first Grade 6 Agility :-) On top of this Fozzie did some lovely work with several top 5 places and also qualified for the end of show finals. Unfortunately Fozzie is getting a pole down in most of his classes, however I just have to go and upset myself & go and see what his times were. In at least 3 classes over 2 shows he had the fastest time. This pleases me because I now know he is capable of a grade 4 win when it all comes together and the course is right for him. I am loving his attitude most of the time, however he can still go into la la land if things go wrong, he just stops and sort of stares into space as if he doesn't know what he's doing there. When he is the zone he's fab . I have noticed he has stopped stretching out as much over jumps again, so I am going to start the grids again. The other major issue I am having with him is the lunging/barking and being a general pain when we are queuing, he is obsessed with the dogs working. he totally wears me out before we even get in the ring and I'm sure this doesn't help his or my focus. This is another area I am working on . I now get him to lay down whilst queuing, and if he isn't then I am trying to get him focussed on me via play or titbits. This is work in progress.

Woody was fab as usual. He is definitely slowing down and I only do 2 classes with him now, sometimes only one. He'll be 9 at the end of the year and having a lot of time out last year with his shoulder injury I don't want to over do anything with him. Having said this he has produced some lovely work and several top ten places over the last month or so.

Disney is a star :-) I entered him in his first allsorts over 15" jumps. He LOVED it. I made an error in his first run and pulled him off a jump, but he went clear in his second run. They weren't giving places just treats for clear rounds. I just loved working my special boy.

However at Thames I had entered him in a normal class and he was great. Because of the way the show entries closes at some shows he'll be in allsorts and some in standard classes. I am getting him videod at all shows so I can check for myself he is ok jumping still. I am not doing any agility classes with now though.

After JDA I went onto Dartford and Keston in Essex. This was a lovely weekend but the weather broke on the Sunday and we had torrential rain. I used lot of Chips runs as training to practice his wait and also try some different stuff I've learned, including the*funny* turn which I succeeded in one run..you can see it on the video in a very tricky grade 6-7 class.

The following weekend was Thames. The weather once again was wet and windy. I didn't get any video of Chip or Woody :-( I got a little of Fozzie and I am sooooo pleased with his contacts but once again it was a pole issue. I didn't do one of Chips or Woody's runs on the Sunday because of the weather, I just couldn't risk them hurting themselves. Fortunately Fozzies were all in the morning before the really heavy rain came, as was Disney's single run.

The weekend before last was Lansdown at Bath Racecourse. I had decided never to camp at this show again as I hate the journey. There is a very long steep hill up to the racecourse and I struggled with my van last year. However Steve said I could borrow his VW camper van for the weekend. I thoroughly enjoyed using it. It was very cozy. I only took the 3 younger dogs with me and at night they all found their own sleeping places, Fozzie deciding it was him to have the best spot sleeping right alongside me in the bed. But what a strange weekend weather wise. On the Saturday it was freezing cold and windy and also a bit drizzly, then on the Sunday we were sweltering in 30 degree heat !!!

. Its a nice relaxing show with only 2 graded runs for each dog on each day. Over this weekend Fozzie decided to keep the poles up but had an issue with the weaves and just couldn't find his entries ! Chip missed a contact on each day :-( and I mucked up his jumping runs. Woody once again was a good boy and in the very last run on the Sunday went clear and ended up in 6th or 7th place I think. They hadn't done the prize giving by the time I was ready to go at 5pm and unfortunately I had to leave to be home for a family BBQ.

Very limited videos from here because of wether and also trying to find someone to video for me. Everyone hides when they see me approach with my camcorder ;-)

However I do have Woody's round.

MY GIZMO UPDATE

Well its been a bit up and down like most diet/fitness regimes. I still wear my arm band constantly and find it fascinating. I burn on average about 2,600 calories a day and walk in excess of 5-6 miles, then way more on show days. However over the past 3 weeks my diet has slipped. I had lost 11lbs up till then. I then put on 3 lbs over those last 3 weeks, however since last week I have now managed to lose 2 of those lbs again. So I'm now back on track, that is until I go down to Devon in 2 weeks !!

Last weekend I had a lovely weekend with my Mum and family. She came up to stay and we went up to Windsor for the day. Mum will be 90 in Febuary but she still managed a day of sightseeing ,finished off with a ride on the ferris wheel and a lovely meal out.

I just had to post these lovely pics of our day out.

My Lovely Boys :-)

Me and my Mum

The Family minus one daughter !

Windsor Castle

Sunny April evening walk

2011-05-01T05:57:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to share these 2 pics that my hubby Steve took. I don't often get good pics of all my dogs together with me included, but I just love these.

April News

2011-04-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

What a fabulous April we're having weather wise. Hot Hot Hot. My weekend shows have now started, more on these later, plus a Rupert update .

But first my new gadget :-

Back last October I started Weightwatchers. It started well and I lost some weight, I really wanted to lose a stone in weight before the agility show season, however with the stresses in our house around that time with my Dad taken ill suddenly, then tragically dying . Then Lauras illness, and then the loss of little Jake the diet all went to pot.

So from November through to March the weight seemed to pile back on. We are going to Canada in September and so with renewed motivation I looked for another diet/exercise option and stumbled across this gadget called ki-fit on the Internet.It was developed originally for the medical industry to monitor patients in comas and on life support to see how many calories they burned and has since become a great hit to help people alter their lifestyles. Its basically a band you wear all day and night on your arm. It measures the amount of calories you burn, how much and what sort of exercise you do during the day, how many steps/miles you walk during the day and also how much sleep and what quality of sleep you are getting.You download the data onto your computer each day via the website and then you input your calorie intake. From this you can set the calorie deficit you would like and the machine keeps track of it. 500kcal a day deficit should give a steady 1-2lbs a week weight loss.I'm addicted to it. Its so motivational to know EXACTLY what calories/exercise/steps I'm taking every day, and if I've not done enough exercise to reach that 500 a day deficit I can do something about it ie go for a jog round the block with a dog.

Read all about it Here

So far I have lost 6 lbs in about 3 weeks so I am dead on target. I now know at agility shows I walk/run in excess of 10 miles a day, when I judged last weekend I walked over 10 miles just by moving in a figure of 8 in the centre of the ring !! . The weekend before I burned in excess of 3500 calories on one day !!! So watch this space. They reckon I should reach my target on July 27th (its that precise !!)

SHOW NEWS

2 weeks ago was my first weekend show of the year..Wallingford at Newbury.

Disney competed in one run per day and although slower , as you would expect at nearly 13 yrs, he still amazed me. In his second run he was faster and I made a terrible handling error, but I was so chuffed with him. I have entered him in a couple of any size jumping courses at the next couple of shows, I now wish I hadn't as he is still running just great and probably will not be so good at the up and down courses of anysize. I'll soon know and then maybe can alter his classes accordingly

Fozzie put in a couple of nice rounds but had a pole down in each. I am loving his enthusiasm now. In his other rounds it was either a a case of shoddy handling from me, or he just wasn't listening !! I only have one decent video of him from the last 2 weekends unfortunately.

Woody was a star as always. he got a 5th in a Grade 4 Jumping and did some lovely work but sadly in some cases just not fast enough or had a pole down. Considering this time last year I wasn't even sure if he's ever be able to work again I am very pleased

The next weekend I was at Easter celebration at Ardingly. I judged on the first day. I had to stand in for someone who's Mum had sadly died and I only had 24hrs to design a course. It was Grade 1-3 Agility Pts 1 & 2 . I had designed a course that was flowing but did have some handling. I didn't want to have an ordinary up and down course, but I also had to bear in mind the standard I was judging. I was thrilled how the course ran for all the grades ,and I got some lovely comments from people afterwards. It was scorching day , about 26/27 degrees so I was glad it ran so smoothly.

The next day I was also ring partying as they were quite short on people. I found it difficult to run my dogs properly as I was quite tired from the previous day and it showed. I was very disappointed because it was the KC Novice qualifier , which I really wanted to do well in with Fozzie.

I hadn't walked the course properly, it was Fozzies first run and it just didn't go well at all !!! The only clear rounds of the day were from Woody again.

Chip in both the shows was just not in sync with me at all, but he is getting his start line wait. Its not a long wait but at least he stays put for the first couple of jumps.

RUPERT UPDATE

Rupert is now 4 months old. He is a cracking little dog with lots of personality. Laura is taking him to pet obedience classes, mainly for socialisation and to do some basic work with him. Its a little class locally with only 4 other dogs there. He's coming on nicely. Its not competition style by any means but as Laura won't be doing competition obedience with him that's no problem. I'd LOVE to get my hands on him, he has real style and attitude.

He's been in the agility field and gone through some tunnels which he found great fun. But that it as far as any agility goes. Its just good solid ground work for now. Waits, recalls, go ons etc.

I've been a bit lax with the camera over the last month but here are a few of him

JUST LOVE THIS PIC

Rupert 3 months old

2011-03-28T15:01:00.000-07:00

Oh Dear , I've just realised Rupert has hit 3 months old and I havn't done a monthly update.

Well we call him the pit bull poodle. His teeth are razor sharp and he loves using them !!!

He is very feisty, extremely confident, very intelligent and great fun. He loves toys and will tug , fetch and generally play with toys for ever.

His house training is about 95% there. He has never poo'd in the house ,and has only ever had the odd wee accident if he gets over excited.

Vaccinations are all done and apart from being sleepy after the first jab he had no after effects at all. He eats like a horse and annoys the hell out of the other dogs. Disney still HATES him and 2 weeks ago we started to let them mix. Unfortunately Rupert did not take Disney seriously when Disney gave him every possible signal to go away. In the end Disney had a go at him. Rupert then kept a very wide berth and would run to us for cuddles as soon as Disney came in the room. However today Rupert seems to have forgotten and is pushing his luck again..I did say he was a confident puppy !!!

Here are some pics of him taken recently after a bath and clip.

This weekend just gone we met up with Ruperts Mum, Dad and Sister. His Sister decided to beat him up good and proper..poor Rupert...Lol
Here is a family photo

Left to Right....Poppy (sister) Daisy ( Mum) Rupert and Bertie ( Dad)

Rupert aged 2 months

2011-03-02T06:03:00.000-08:00

Rupert has settled in so well. The boys are still in love and he is getting more and more confident every day. His house training is going really well. He goes immediately he is taken out and to date has only had 2 accidents indoors. He is almost sleeping right through to 7- 8am as well. Eating is not going quite so well and he is being a bit picky. I'm sure that will get better.

Today he had his first jab and he is feeling pretty poorly. He just wants to sleep and I hate it. I really hate vaccinations but the puppy jabs and first booster are so important. After that he will be titre tested to see if he need boosters each yr, just like I do for my other dogs. I feel very strongly that dogs do not need boosters every year and my Disney is proof of that. He's nearly 13 yrs old and he had his last booster at 2 years old. Every year since the titre test shows he is still 100% covered . I have had similar results with Woody and Chip. Disney's Mum died of an auto immune disease which has been proven can be a result of vaccination !! so there is no way I'll take any chances.

Little Rupert has arrived :-)

2011-02-26T13:15:00.000-08:00

Well Rupert has arrived at the Ison house. He's 2 months old today. He has settled in really well and Chip, Woody and Fozzie love him.

CHIP IS IN HEAVEN

Wispa tolerates him but Disney....... well Disney is just Disney. He HATES puppies :-( So he is being kept seperate from the little chap at the moment and is only meeting Rupert when one or other of them is safely in a crate or behind the baby gate. From previous experience it will take about 3-4 months before Disney accepts him. Its a real shame because I hate segregating any of my dogs and the other boys are so brilliant with him.

FOZZIE IS SO GENTLE

Rupert

2011-02-20T12:30:00.001-08:00

We pick up Rupert next weekend,and we are very excited about it,but in the meantime here is a little video taken this week when we went for a visit.

Puppy update

2011-02-10T15:27:00.000-08:00

Well he's had his first clip, just his face & feet . Apparently he was a really good boy. We can now see his face markings aren't quite symetrical, so as he's imperfect we can't possibly have him..ha ha ( I am only joking :-) )

New Beginning

2011-02-06T12:42:00.000-08:00

An exciting time for the Ison household, in particular Laura. In 2 weeks time a new edition is joining us. He's a Miniature Parti coloured Poodle who's name ,we think, is going to be Rupert.

We saw him today and he is wonderful. He is very outward going. We arrived at the house and he was the first one out to see us. He then spent the next 2 and half hrs playing with us, he tugged on a toy and interacted constantly with Laura. He was affectionate and just sooooo cute.

Laura has been so undecided about what puppy to go for next after losing Jake. Jake was a very special boy and she was tempted to go for a pure Lowchen, so we had been putting feelers out for a Lowchen breeder. I then heard of a litter of Lowchen x poodle puppies that were due soon. At first laura was really keen, it seemed like that would be the best of both worlds. However she kept worrying that she would always be comparing it to Jake. Then by chance we heard about this part coloured Miniature poodle puppy. He was the last in the litter to be chosen ,mainly because the purists in the parti poodle world prefer a 50/50 mix of black and white whereas he has more black on him. But personality wise he knocked spots of the others in the litter. However there was one problem and that was it was a boy. Laura had always said if she had another poodle it would have to be a little girlie again. We decided however to go and visit him and see. Well I think it was fate. Even if he wasn't the only puppy left he would definitely have been our pick of litter anyway. He showed himself off completely. Toy mad even at 6 wks old, he wasn't interested in the rest of the litter, he just wanted to play with Laura. None of the other puppies really came up to us at all, it was only him. It was truly meant to be.

Apparently he is due to have his first haircut tomorrow so hopefully we'll be sent some pics which I'll post.
Here is a little video also

Fozzie doing his progressive grid work training

2011-01-31T09:56:00.000-08:00

I'm really pleased with how Fozzies grid work is coming on. He's curving nicely over the jumps, so much better than this time last year. I am trying to do a little grid work a couple of times a week.

Wispa

2011-01-29T12:51:00.001-08:00

We were hoping that our new year would be a happier one, but poor Wispa is not looking good now.

She has been unwell since about October, she had a very slight cough from time to time and had had a couple of episodes where she went all wobbly on her back legs. She was originally treated for the cough with antibiotics , and when she had the rear end problem she went into the vets for the day. At first they thought she had had a stroke but she recovered so quickly they ruled that out, so she was put on a drip and given steroids.

She was kept on a low dose steroids for a while which also stopped her cough ??

However about 2 weeks ago, she started to cough badly again especially when she first got up from sleep, or got excited in any way. It was decided that Wispa really should have Blood tests, Xrays and Scans to see what was going on . She isn't insured so quite an expensive time !!

Well it appears she has quite a bad heart with fluid on the lungs as a result, a weak larynx, an under active thyroid and worse still kidney disease.

Tablets are helping the heart and thyroid, not much can be done for the larynx especially at her age, and she was put on a special diet for the Kidney disease.

Well after originally tucking into the food she stopped eating it. So I spent hours trawling the internet for various diets both processed, home cooked and raw suitable for kidney disease. The food MUST be low phosphorus and amazingly there are loads of food that are far too high in phosphorus.

It turned out that raw tripe is one of the best foods that can be fed to kidney patients.Raw tripe is very low in phosphorus and is very nutritious . She could also have a little high fat minced Beef and Lamb with it occasionally, Also pasta, short grained rice and fruit and veg.

So off we go and stock up on all the above, and originally as with the prescription food she tucked into it, however within 2 days she was refusing this as well. We have persevered but she is literally starving herself now, she can't be tempted with anything that she is supposed to have. Having said this she is still fairly bright.

We have since spoken with our vet, and although not ideal it looks like she is going to have to just eat whatever she wants, even though potentially it will damage her kidneys further. After all she HAS to eat.

Last night she wet herself over night, another worrying sign.

The prognosis looks bleak at this present time. Fingers crossed once again for dear Wispa. She is 14 and half now so at least we are more prepared than we were with Jake, but it doesn't make it any easier.

My Special Boys

2011-01-29T12:50:00.000-08:00

Training is back in earnest

2011-01-22T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well after a very long break over Xmas and the New Year, I started back training my boys 2 weeks ago.

I struggled to find the motivation to get out & get going again. Leave home at 7 pm & drive to a cold indoor riding school.Then a ton of mud to negotiate to get into the venue, therefore ending up with not only very muddy dogs but covered in dirty sand as well. After training for 2 hrs , helping to put the equipment away and driving the 35 minutes home I don't get back till just before 11pm. I then have to give Fozzie & Chip a half bath ( belly downwards) to clean them up. I eventually sit down with a cuppa at about 11-30 and then its bath and bed for me.

I hate driving in the dark nowadays, especially when its raining which it has on the last 2 occasions, so you can see why I struggle.

Having said all that its been really worth it as far as Fozzie is concerned. He is coming on fantastically and believe it or not his work has been better than Chip ( who really is being quite erratic)

I also did a training morning with Toni this week. Wow Fozzie actually bounced jumped 3 jumps in a row, something I couldn't ever have imagined he would do. Contacts are brill. He's super good if I am in front of or level with him on the dogwalk ,but tends to be slower if I'm a bit behind. I need to teach him to drive more to the end when he's in front of me.

So all in all I am really excited about the coming show season with Mr Fozzie bear.

Woody is just going to be trained at home. His shoulder injury from last year is looking great, and his jump fitness is being increased gradually.

I took Disney to my vet to have a health check. She is amazed with him and in her own words said he's more like a 2 year old.

My own field is looking very sorry for itself. The endless rain, snow etc has given it a beating so I am really limiting how much I use it, Roll on Spring :-)

Aww so cute

2011-01-04T15:39:00.001-08:00

Thought I would just post this picture of "Sully" He is my sons new addition. He is a Ragdoll kitten. Sorry the photo is not very good quality, it was taken on my phone without a flash. He spent his first week with an identity crisis. They had bought "him" as a "her". He was named Bella and my Sons girlfriend Emily was so happy. Then 3 days ago Emily got suspicious that she was maybe a he. I went round and checked and yes Bella was a boy !!
They were obviously disappointed but had already fallen in love with him so there was no way he was going back. The new name was a difficult one because nothing seemed to suit him after being a 'girl' for over a week :-)

New Year, New Start

2011-01-03T14:00:00.001-08:00

My Special Boy

Last year was the worst ever for the Ison family. So I've decided to give my Blog a new look for hopefully a great new year.

The year started with the death of my 19 year old cat *Fella*. In February my Mum was diagnosed with stomach cancer and had to have surgery to remove it. The operation made medical history, she was the first person in the country to have had such a tumour removed via keyhole surgery. Its been televised and shown round the world !
My daughter Laura had a bad year with her illness. She has had Ulcerative Colitis since she was 12 years old, now 15 years ago. This year she was also diagnosed with Crohns Disease. She has been in and out of hospital all year. In July a very good friend of ours had a massive heart attack & died. He had just retired from work and was so looking forward to resting and having holidays away.
In September Lauras little 14yr old toy poodle Wispa was very ill and we thought we were going to lose her. She had some sort of neurological episode and is still on steroids.
Then my dear Dad died in October. After having a heart attack he spent 2 weeks in hospital, but he lost his fight after originally seeming to improve in the first few days after he was admitted. We were all just coming to terms with this when Lauras little 9 yr old dog Jake died from Lung Cancer 3 weeks before Xmas. This was such a shock. Then a week before Xmas my sons little 4 year old cat *Sid* died from Pancreas cancer.

We couldn't wait for 2010 to come to an end and we all pray 2011 will be a happier and less stressful year.

On the training front I have done NOTHING. What with the weather , family circumstances & Christmas it has been 6 weeks since my dogs have seen any agility equipment. I am hopefully going back to training on Wednesday, but I will be running them on low heights so as to rebuild their jump fitness.
I have to say I have lost my enthusiasm for agility and haven't really missed it. I am sure once the weather improves and I start running the boys again I will feel differently.

Laura hopes to maybe get another little puppy in the spring , so that will be lovely and something to look forward to ( I think !!) She's considering either getting another Poodle or a Lowchen. Jakes Dad was a Lowchen and the breed standard for temperament could have been written especially about him. He obviously took all his personality from the Lowchen side . So watch this space !!

R.I.P Dear Jake 21/7/01 - 7/12/10

2010-12-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

Dear Jake

On Tuesday 7th December dear Jake lost his fight. Less than a week from diagnosis.
We are in complete shock. 2 weeks ago he looked and appeared perfectly healthy. He was being his normal pain in the butt, barking at everything and always being where he shouldn't and generally enjoying his life as normal.
Jake was a fantastic little dog with a HUGE personality and attitude.
As you read below 2 weeks ago he was taken to the vet because he had funny breathing. Last Wednesday he was diagnosed with Lung Cancer & a Heart Murmur. Everything seemed ok with Jake and we were just waiting for the results of the tests they did.
However on Monday he started to go downhill quickly. He completely stopped eating and was having to be syringe fed & even then he was spitting most out. He started trembling badly and showed little interest in anything. The only time he perked up was when Laura got his lead to take him for a stroll to relieve himself. On Tuesday morning the deterioration continued and he started to vomit frothy white stuff. He just lay uncontrollably quivering and looked pitifully thin.
We rushed him to the vet and he said there was nothing that could be done. The Cancer was very aggressive and Jake was struggling. We had to make the decision that everyone dreads and gave him sleep.
Laura is inconsolable and I am also hurting so much. We are now going through the *what ifs* and *if only* scenarios that everyone must go through.

Jake was a manic little character and mega fast. In his agility career he only ever had about 7-8 clear rounds , which made him advanced( Grade 7)He was either absolutely fantastic and unbeatable ,or completely terrible! He developed a problem with his back legs and suffered with the heat which would make his back legs go weak. He was so hyped by the agility , by the time he got in the ring he was totally exhausted and would misjudge jumps & knock poles badly.When the new heights came in and he was measured medium it made it even harder for him, so he was retired 2 years ago after he had competed at the KC Medium Olympia Semi Finals.
He has left a huge hole in our hearts and in our house . He was only 9 years old.
Rest peacefully little man. You annoyed the hell out of me sometimes ,but boy how I really miss that now and wish you were still here to carry on annoying me .

Prayers

2010-12-03T06:57:00.000-08:00

After a terrible tragic October, we now face another awful month.

Please say some prayers for our Dear Little Jake.

2 weeks ago Laura noticed that he was breathing deeply and every now and again would cough, he had also lost a bit of weight, however the symptoms seemed to disappear as quickly as it came. However last Thursday when he was sitting next to her she noticed his breathing was exaggerated again. She took him to our vet the next day and she listened to his heart and found he had a heart Murmur and what she thought was slight fluid on the chest. She gave Jake various medications and said if there was no improvement with 3-4 days she would refer him to a heart specialist. Over the weekend Jake seemed to deteriorate more and by Monday he was really picking at his food. Jake is normally a real pig with a passion for bananas but he just wasn't interested in anything we offered. He'd go to eat it then drop it on the floor. Clearly something wasn't right. Laura phoned the Vet and she immediately phoned the specialist who fitted Jake in on Wednesday morning. Our Vet was now also suspecting Lungworm as a possible culprit. On Wednesday morning Laura took Jake to the specialist and he did a thorough examination and suggested Jake may have a pneumonia going on. He admitted Jake so he could do some tests and X Rays. When Laura phoned back at 3pm she immediately knew something wasn't right, they told her they would have to ring back because they were actually in the process of doing a sterile procedure with Jake ! Laura waited and waited and eventually got the call to come to the surgery. She had to wait right to the end when everyone had gone , she was then called into the consulting room and told to sit down. She just couldn't ever have been prepared for the bomb shell that came. He was almost certain that Jake had Lung Cancer, and when asked the prognosis he said he could possibly only have weeks not months to live ! He's only 9 years old .. From that moment Laura really couldn't take in everything he was saying. She was so upset and just couldn't stop crying. I would have gone with her if we had known it was something so awful. Poor Laura then had to drive all the way home on her own in a terrible state.

The next day I phoned the specialist to speak with him and get the full details which Laura couldn't take in. Briefly it seems they were equally as shocked at what they found. Jakes lungs are filled with about a 100 or more cm sized lumps.
However there is a 2% chance that he may have something called Granuloma Lung disease, which apparently is very rare but can show up like cancer on X Rays. So they have taken a sterile wash/biopsy straight from the trachea into the lungs and sent it off for testing. The results will be back Monday and we are praying with all our hearts that this is what it is.

If not then we have some hard decisions to make. The Vet is talking about chemotherapy ,but I'm not sure about this even though off course Laura wants to give it a try. The vet says 50% of dogs respond really really well with no side effects and although not a cure will prolong life for maybe a yr or so. However there are dogs that respond badly and are very ill. I feel if Jake only has a few weeks we want to make them nice not miserable.
I think once we know on Monday what is the exact prognosis we can then talk and make more informed decisions then.
Yesterday Jake really perked up and has started eating again( he is on other medication for his heart and breathing) he wanted to play and was bouncing around the garden. This had cheered Laura up, and given her hope that they will find these granulomas.
I took some photos yesterday of Jake in the Garden playing, its hard to imagine he may be so ill :-(

Thank goodness October has gone !

2010-11-17T15:55:00.000-08:00

I thought I ought do an update as its over a month since I have.

October was a BAD month for me. My Daughter was taken into hospital, she has Ulcerative colitis and Crohns disease. She's had it for about 15 years now but its really taken a bad turn for the worse. Then my son got blood poisoning and was very ill. They think he may have been bitten ! by what we don't know but its now 4 weeks since the first signs and he is still suffering. But worse still my Dad was rushed into hospital at the beginning of the month with a suspected stroke/heart attack. he was in hospital for 2 weeks and after the first 3-4 days seemed to be rallying round. He was conscious, talking and generally being stubborn like only my Dad could be. We had a couple of jokes with him, one being me saying he needed a shave and maybe he should start going for interviews for Santa. He laughed and agreed. However over the following week he deteriorated rapidly and after about 10 days we were told that the prognosis was very bad. He was a strong character and was stubborn to the end, he held on way beyond what was expected.
On Monday 18th October Dad passed away with dignity at 6-30pm with all of his family around him. He was 92 years old, a fantastic Dad, wonderful husband and will be greatly missed by everyone.

Dad March 11th 1918 -- October 18th 2010

So it was with a great relief when November came. I went back to training with the boys who had been very neglected during the previous 3 weeks. I actually think the time off had been good for them. Fozzie did a training day with Natasha Wise. He was awesome( as our American friends would say) I am thrilled with how he is progressing. Training back at both Pachesham and Bookham was also great. He is focusing much more and up till now I couldn't work him side by side with another group of dogs at Bookham. He would just run off to chase the other dog which is just not fair on other people, so I would wait till there was a gap and no-one working or they would stop running a dog when I went. Well in the last 2 weeks I have been able to run him whilst another dog works. However It has to be a fairly non exciting dog, but Fozzie has managed to compete a whole sequence with another dog on course.....great progress. However he is getting more and more hyped by other dogs working , which I'm not happy about so I'm now working on getting him clued into me totally whilst waiting out turn. If I relax even a little he lunges on the lead barking which I really hate.

Chip is driving me to drink..hic hic. He has become very headstrong and I just can't get into tune with him. We are all over the place. When he listens and works he's totally fantastic..turns to die for, reliable contacts and fast. however if he's not in the zone he's a total nightmare..sometimes reminds me of his Uncle Disney !!!

Maybe its just me ..lol

We had our last show of the year last week, North Downs. I didn't enter Disney, I'm not sure how much I will do with him now. He's as keen as ever but he is 12 , so I am going to just wait and see what next year holds.

I entered Woody in 2 classes and bless him, he got 11th in Grade 4-5 Agility. He had the first pole down in the jumping but did the rest of the round beautifully.

It was Fozzie's first Grade 4 show & he did a Fab Grade 3-4 Jumping coming in 12th, A missed weave was his only downfall in the Grade 4-5 Agility, but it meant I could train his contacts. However on his last run he was VERY naughty on his start line waits. He had no intention of waiting at all and after the 3rd attempt I removed him from the ring. No wait means no play !

Chip was a disaster..so naughty and my crap handling didn't help. I sort of gave up in the 5-7 jumping, He didn't wait which put me in a bad position for the second jump which he crashed, he then went on to miss another jump had another pole down and then flew into the wrong end of the tunnel..all a total train wreck really. His agility was marginally better, but not much !! His best run was the 6-7 jumping but I left him for dead by running to get myself into a better position, so he came round a jump. The rest of the run was actually pretty ok, so at least we finished on a more positive note.

We have lots and lots to work on over Winter. Fozzies start line is a must, I am going to try something different with him. With Chip its all going to be control work because this is what I've lost since his increase in speed and confidence.

Very little video of North Downs apart from Fozzie's runs including his naughty start lines. He does make me smile though. Here is the video

Happy Birthday Fozzie.

2010-10-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

HAPPY 2nd BIRTHDAY FOZZIE X

HE'S DONE IT !!

2010-09-27T07:21:00.000-07:00

CLEVER FOZZIE

My clever boy Fozzie, aka The Hairy Muppet has WON grade 3 agility, so moving him up to Grade 4 :-) I am so proud of him.
I really wanted to win out of Grade 3 with Fozzie. Its a lovely class for baby dogs to start out in, but I wanted more of a challenge than just straight up and down ! Also the class sizes of Large grade 3 are enormous. Most shows split Grade 3 into at least 3 classes because of the shear numbers, often in excess of 600+ dogs !! If they don't split then the class sizes are huge. Fozzie won out of a class of 285 dogs ! The class he won wasn't just an up and down( thank goodness), it was tricky with lots of handling. At the end of the class only 23 dogs had gone clear !!!!

He nearly won out the day before but he knocked a pole. He had the fastest round including the fastest 5 faults ! Coupled with the show a couple of weeks ago where he was beaten by such a small margin, I now knew he had the potential to do it , it was just a case of wondering if he actually would !
So in his last class of 2010 ( unless we brave the cold and do North Downs in November) he did me proud and won it. Whilst watching the video I can still see places where we can improve things so he has way more in him. It will be lovely to be in Grade 4 with him next year, the same class as Woody..Phew less course walking ;-)

Who would have thought that my little lad who bought me to tears so many times at the beginning of this year, and who I thought may never make an agility dog did so well.
Roll on the 2011 show season. However lots of winter training & areas to work on.

He's got a bit naughty with his start line waits during the last month or so, he's great at training but he's got very show wise, so that's one area to work on during winter. However his weaves have turned out brilliantly and also his dogwalk contact. I have been doing a quick stop go up till now at shows, but in training I do stop, play & then go. But for the last 2 shows I have done almost a running dogwalk (or so it appears) I still give a release as his feet touch the ground but it is instant. I am sure this has helped the speed.

Here is a video of his winning round ,and then one below of some of his other runs including the near miss ! Also his last run on this video is the Helter Skelter. Although he had 2 poles down, he had a lovely jump style for most of the round.

Almost there !

2010-09-20T03:23:00.000-07:00

Well only one more weekend show to go and maybe one winter show and that's it till next March :-(
I just wanted to post this about Fozzie this weekend at Trent Park with a small video. It was a Grade 1-5 combined jumping class and it had an angle after the weaves over a jump. Ideally( with a more experienced dog) I would have switched behind the weaves to pull Fozzie over to the jump, however it would have meant an acute switch behind the weaves and with the previous issues with the weaves I didn't want to do anything that would upset Fozzies confidence. My other option would have been a front cross after the weaves but once again I felt I shouldn't do that, also only having 6 weaves it didn't really give enough time for this !! I ran Woody in the class first and I was able to get to the end of the weaves and push him over the jump( No video I'm afraid) Woody did this beautifully and ended up clear and in fact ended up having a run off for a place..I left before the prize giving, but I think it was for about 12th. Anyway I digress, so back to Fozzie. He picked up another gear in this class and unfortunately cut in front of me at the end of the weave to take the jump straight in front. Extremely shoddy handling from me caused this, I just needed to be quicker by the weaves get to the end and then POINT towards the jump !!! I really need to smack myself for this, Terrible :-( Studying this video it made me realise I really don't give him as much help as I should i.e hand signals
However what I am so pleased about was his jumping and attitude. He's really driving over the jumps and is so much more committed, also his style is improving ten fold.
I hope Lisa and Gemma watch this video , because they gave me so much advice re jump grids and exercises to help him understand *how* to jump,and I am sure that has helped along with a thorough warm up massage/stretch routine beforehand.

I am now so excited about next year with Fozzie. He has come a long way since we started training this time last year. I didn't dream he's ever become this good. OK he hasn't reached the dizzy heights of Grade 5 or 6 like a lot of his fellow puppy mates have, but for me he has done amazingly and I am very proud of him.

Here is the video.

Just wanted to finish this post with Mr Woody..3 runs at the weekend and 3 places, to think 6 months ago I thought he may never work again !!! What a boy :-)

Back to Normal and Great News

2010-09-07T06:39:00.000-07:00

Well September has arrived and my agility holiday is over. I had a fantastic time. We started our holiday at Paul Moores & Kate Smiths place. They have a lovely house with a huge field for camping plus a lovely area for their agility equipment. We stayed there chilling out for 3 days before the tiring 10 days ahead.First was the KC Festival at Kelmarsh hall, then onto DIN at Ipswich.

Woody was well back on form with several top ten places, who would have thought that 6 months ago I thought he'd never compete again !! I tend to take him or steer him wide on most turns which costs time unfortunately ,however the last thing I want to do is wrap him tight round the jumps and potentially risk an injury again. Woody has never been a particularly tight turning dog like Chip so its not a problem.

Disney continues to be a star for his age. He makes me laugh & smile everytime I work him. He can be Soooo naughty but I just love him so and really appreciate how lucky I am to still be working him, and with him being in such wonderful health still.

Chip did some lovely work at the KC Festival but it all fell apart at D.I.N and I don't think we had one clear round !!!

My star was little Fozzie bear. He suddenly realised at the KC Festival that he could weave and boy could he. He got faster and faster. He is still struggling with the jumping and in nearly every round had a pole down. He is still not stretching as much as I'd like and regularly deer bounces.. Over winter I shall go back to regular grid work again, that certainly helped before.

Then last weekend we were at Letchworth. He was once again doing some terrific work but if for any reason we stopped on the course he became very distracted by everything around him and would just stand & stare around him. After a couple of attempts to get him to concentrate I would then just finish on a jump. If he is fully focused on his job he is fab and doesn't notice what is going on around him.

On the last day I was overjoyed to just get another clear from him & get a 14th place in Grade 3 Jumping. That was with a couple of wide turns and a couple of stutters. Then out of the hat on his last run of the weekend he came 2nd in Grade 3 Agility !!! He was leading the class nearly to the end. I had mixed feelings as to whether I wanted to win out or not. I wanted too mainly because it would give me such confidence and also it would mean that he would be in the same classes as Woody, but the other half of me wanted him to stay in Grade 3 for the start of next year. In the end he was beaten right at the end by 0.08 of a second !! When you see the video you can see why. He was slow on his down contact of the Dog walk & also he didn't drive to the last jump and did one of his funnies over it, both these things cost him definitely more than 0.08 sec , more like 1 second + !!

I have put on several Videos I have done over the past 3-4 weeks of all 4 dogs.
First up is a compilation of Fozzies runs at KC Festival and DIN

Woody at KC Festival

Chip at the KC festival

Disney at the KC Festival

Fozzies 2nd place at Letchworth

Fozzies Jumping round at Letchworth

Lastly Woody's 6th place at Letchworth

Fozzie at Agility Club Show

2010-08-07T14:03:00.000-07:00

I am off on my 2 week agility holidays tomorrow, so before I went I thought I would quickly post this video of my last show with Fozzie.This was the Agility Club show at Ardingly.
I was overjoyed. He got his weaves in all 3 classes on the Sunday and even gained his first placing at a KC show.
So this has given me renewed confidence with him.

Woody was also a good boy.He only had 2 classes over the weekend but I am thrilled at how his jumping is now.

Huge catchup of all my June/July shows on my return.

Meet Apollo !!!

2010-07-27T14:40:00.000-07:00

I bet you read my title and thought I had succumbed to the tempatation of another puppy again?
Well no not this time...I've got a new car !!
I had a little shopper Daewoo Matiz before, I loved it but it really was just a little too small. I found I was using it more and more, and only using my van for dog shows or dog walking. Any journey where I was taking just one , maybe two dogs ,as long as it was a clean journey ie where the dogs were clean to start with and were not going to get dirty at the other end (like a vet trip or media work etc) I was using the car. Far easier to park, more economical to run and nicer to drive.
I felt the time had come to upgrade it a little so I decided to get an automatic( a first for me) Honda Jazz. So far I love it.

So meet Apollo...if you look at the number plate you'll know why she is so called !!!!

Back to Agility..I have the Agility Club show this weekend. I will update my blog on the agility shows since Axtane after this weekend, after this I am then on my marathon 2 weeks away to the KC Festival and D.I.N.
Briefly I am pleased with Fozzie, still no clear rounds unfortunately.. just the dreaded weaves still being a problem. His jumping skills are coming on, I will post some videos next time. I just haven't had the time to edit & download the last few shows.

Happy Days

2010-06-21T03:06:00.000-07:00

Well I have just had a great, albeit cold, weekend at Axtane show in Essex.

I was overjoyed with Fozzie. Wow he was brilliant. No clear rounds but he works his little socks off. He even got his weaves first time in one class, sods law though I got him eliminated ! It was entirely my fault, I didn't call him quick enough :-(

The work I am putting into him doing jump grids and single jumps , teaching him his take off point, coupled with a thorough massage & stretch before running is paying off big time. I would now say 50% of his jumping is really good and he's stretching right out.
Here is a video of his runs

My other great news is Woody.
He did 4 runs and got 4 clears including an 11th place !!
He still isn't jumping as fluidly as previously & he's a bit stuttery, but I am sure that all he needs is to get jump fit now. He was SO happy to be competing again and I am so happy to be running him again..he's such a lovely honest boy.

Here is a video of a couple of his runs

Disney was ..well Disney. I am having such fun running him I don't really care what he does. He doesn't get trained much so I can't expect great results all the time. I think I should strap large ears to him and then he can really fly from the seesaw like in the Disney Cartoon *Dumbo*. He was always a monster for flying seesaws, now he's even worse. I have to laugh, he's so enjoying life.

Chip worked really well all weekend, with just a pole down or refusal. A couple of eliminations ( all my fault again) I wish I could run faster !!! He did however get 4th in a very tricky Gd 6-7 jumping course. No videos of him or Disney I'm afraid. Its hard getting people to video for me all the time, I'm sure people see me coming to the rings and hide in case I pounce on them to video me ! So I save my favours mainly for Fozzie at the moment and off course Woody this weekend.

June update

2010-06-14T09:58:00.000-07:00

I was told off at the weekend for not updating my blog ( sorry heather ;-) so here goes.....

Where shall I begin ? We had almost a month off from shows during May, I actually really enjoyed my time off from shows catching up on things at home.

Chip has now been castrated and all is very well. He was very uncomfortable for the first 48 hrs and could hardly walk. He went 24 hrs without a pee because he couldn't stand up let alone walk, not because there was anything unduly wrong just because he wouldn't. About 5 days after the op, he was still quite swollen so I took him back to the vets. He was quite red so she gave him an anti-inflammatory jab, and within 24 hrs everything was so much better. I started working him again after 3 wks and competed after 4. He has gone up a gear and is faster then ever now I think.

Fozzie continues to be an ongoing project. I have great highs with him and then awful lows. One training session he is wonderful and then the next he's dire. About 2 weeks ago I was going to give up with him(seriously) I had an awful session with him at club. He was unmotivated, couldn't care less, wouldn't play and then when I did work him he did 2 obstacles and went off to sniff the sand and look for horse poo. I did try & persevere but I found myself getting increasingly cross and that is just a no no.
I came home and considered pulling him out of any training/ shows etc until next year.

I was also hearing all about the various other puppies of his age that had just come out at shows, doing wonderful stuff and here I was still struggling with Fozzie. I know one shouldn't compare but you just can't help it..There's Charlottes Scandal, Karen's Yazz,Bernadettes Zitzy Pups, Pia's Sola, Sharons Diesel (to name a few) who all came out at roughy the same time and have all gained top 5 places at KC shows and some have even won out of Gd 3. Then there's also the comparison to my own previous dogs..EVEN my standard Poodles. ALL my previous 5 dogs have come out at 18mths and have gone clear immediately and gained several top 5 places within their first few months. Disney even went from Starter to Senior in his first season and Chip from Gd 3 to Grade 5 when the criteria for moving up the classes took longer!! Where have I gone wrong with Fozzie ??
Everything with Fozz has been 1 step forward and 2 back, its just been soooo frustrating.

However I have decided to stick with it and continue.
We went away the following week after the bad club session to Devon(more on that later) so he had a nice week off and when we went back it was like having a different dog !!! He was fab. Great waits, motivated, keen, he did all is weaves everytime and really listened. I was so pleased with him.
I've decided after this that if I ever get to training and he switches off and I become frustrated to just leave and go home.

Woody is still having treatment and massage in the hope that maybe he may be able to work again. I went to see a lady associated with Galen therapy massage called Liz Pope ,who studies the way the dog moves etc. She then gives you exercises to build the dogs muscles correctly. I am now into week 4. She reckons it takes 6 weeks to see full benefit ,but recommended I ran Woody after 3 wks to see if there was any improvement.
I ran him in one run on the Saturday just gone.Sarah warmed him up thoroughly for me first and yes there is definitely an improvement. He started off really well, no measuring or stuttering, however by the last 4 jumps he did start to stutter a little before the jumps. I personally now feel this could now be a fitness problem. So I am going to start jumping him very little and often to regain his jump fitness. Fingers crossed.

Disney still continues to amaze me. Last week at Dartford & Keston he got a 1st, 3rd & 4th. Then this week he came 2nd with Beth ( my niece) in the junior under 12 class at Thames.
This is quite amusing because that will qualify him for a semi held at KC Festival in 2011, which if he was successful would gain him a place at Crufts 2012 !!!!! Mmmm Disney will be nearly 14 by then so not sure that will ever happen:-(
Here is a little video of his run with Beth.

Going back to shows. Fozzie is having good days and not so good days.(surprise surprise) I am still struggling with his jump style and he just can't weave in competition. He is getting his weaves 99% in training and in my field,he can weave from every angle and it doesn't matter where I stand. I can recall him through, send him through, run behind him, run in front of him I can be close to him or on the other side of the field and he does them everytime, but in the ring he has only twice got them first time. I think( I hope) it may be just confidence, but I am not sure whether I should continue to run him in competition whilst he still misses the weaves 98% of the time at shows!!
If he wasn't getting them away from shows I would definitely pull him out, but he is so good at training.

I am going to do lots of jump training to try and improve his style so thats my next challenge. I have been doing grids but I'm not sure they have helped, so I am going back to one jump .

On Saturday evening at Thames show,after a diabolical jumping day with him, Sarah gave him a full massage treatment. Fortunately I have my vets mobile phone number so she was able to text me permission. Fozzie had extremely tight muscles on both his sides.Sarah worked on him for almost an hr and for most of it Fozzie was very chilled out. The next day I made sure I followed to the letter his warm up routine, well I was thrilled. He was fantastic and jumped several jumps beautifully.He was also VERY keen, we still had a weave issue but everything else more than made up for that. He didn't knock ANY poles, lovely contacts and more importantly not at all distracted. He made no other mistakes apart from the weaves...what a boy.
One thing I have learned is that I can't take him back time and again to get the weaves correct. I can try a couple of times but if I continue to try he worries more and just gets worse. I want to keep him happy so I will sometimes (rightly or wrongly ) just carry on with the course even if he's messed the weaves up.

I have posted a 2 videos. The first one taken last week at Dartford and second one taken this Sunday at Thames AFTER his massage. What a difference !!!

Visit to Devon.

I had a lovely few days down in Devon with my mate Jane. I only took Fozzie and Chip this time. They were such good boys. Jane has 8 (or is it 9) dogs! She breeds Standard & Toy poodles & Devon Rex kittens Several cats and kittens, ducks,chickens and at the time a gorgeous 5-6 wks old toy poodle puppy. Chip just let the puppy climb all over him and the dogs all mucked in together. Chip & Fozzie took no notice of the ducks/chickens etc. It was just a wonderful time with lovely walks. You can catch up with Jane and her menagerie on her blog by clicking on here or on her website here.

Walk in the Forest

Me & my Boys

What a View

Cooling off

Jane & some of her girls

Clive the pup teases Chip & Fozzie

Chip & Clive the toy poodle pup

I want you as my Daddy !!

Chip & Fozzie

How many dogs can you get in a lounge ?

Wonderful Day at Virginia Water

2010-05-21T12:25:00.000-07:00

Today we went to Virginia Waters in Winsor Great Park. My friend with her dog and kiddies and I spent 3 and half hrs there. We walked right round the lake & then had a picnic. Unfortunately Woody had to stay on the lead as he has just been to the Chiropracter again and isn't allowed off lead till tomorrow. Chip had to stay on the lead around the lake as well :-( as he has a slight open sore (down below..ouch !) and I didn't want him to get dirty water in it. Fozzie and Disney spent almost the entire walk in the water apart from when we went through the Valley gardens with all the wonderful flowers. The scent was amazing. The dogs should really be on the leads in the gardens, but by the time we got there they were being quite well behaved and there was hardly a sole to be seen. I put them all on the lead till we had done the above photo, within seconds of taking this Fozzie was in the lake again.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DISNEY

2010-05-19T15:07:00.000-07:00

Happy 12th Birthday to my extra special boy.xxx

Poor Chip & poor Rosie

2010-05-11T06:22:00.000-07:00

As I write this, Chip is at the vets being castrated. I hate any surgery , so I am worried sick. I am however glad I made the decision to get him done. This weekend he was terrible. He was bitching constantly and nearly everyone he met was greeted by the special Chip hug on the leg. It caused much amusement , but also embarrassment when he met complete strangers on walks and did the same thing !!!
I intend to give Fozzie the chemical implant in a month or so before I go ahead with castrating him. As with Chip I want to make sure I like the effect it has on him before I make the irreversible decision of castration.

I am also suffering badly. I have had an ongoing problem with my leg/buttock muscle called the piriformis for a few years now. It comes and it goes, but always seems to get really bad when I start competing with a new dog!! I guess its the extra hrs I put in with training etc. It felt stiff at the start of the weekend and driving to the show I started to get really bad pains(bad sign)By Sunday evening I was in agony. I have made an appointment with my physio to see her on Wednesday evening and its a bonus we have no shows for almost 4 weeks.In the meantime I have started to perform some self help with a tennis ball ! you can read all about it here I have to say it has already worked wonders and I feel much more comfortable. My physio will also give me ultrasound and acupuncture, so hopefully I will be back on track.

Taking about my journey to Tunbridge wells at Ardingly, well that turned into a nightmare. I somehow missed the turning off the M23. I have done that journey so many times , so I don't know how it happened. Well I went into panic mode. Here I was towing a huge caravan down country lanes I didn't know, sometimes single track roads as well. I didn't know whether I was going to suddenly find myself going up big steep hills or meeting a car/van /lorry coming in the opposite direction. I was almost on the verge of crying and I had very sweaty hands I can tell you. Fortunately (after a 20 mile detour) I arrived at Ardingly with a thumping headache and feeling very stressed. I will NEVER miss that turning again I can assure you.

With regard to my weekend competing...I was thrilled with Fozzie. He had a fence down in the Grade 3 jumping, but I just had to check his time. It would have been good enough for a 6th place, even allowing for the fact he didn't have to re jump the pole as it was already down ! I don't normally check times if my dogs have faults but I just wanted to see how Fozzies time would compare. Here is a couple of his runs.

Sadly I only worked Woody in one class and withdrew him from that after about 7 jumps. He is still not right :-( He going back to the chiro next week, then having some more massage etc. I fear that he may not ever compete again which is sad. He got so excited on the start line and flew over the first few jumps, but then started to measure again. I am only going to persevere for another month or so and if he's no better then I will retire him.

Chip had a nice place in Gd 6 agility and jumping on the Saturday, and on the Sunday he did a fantastic agility round. He was flying and was so tight, but for some reason the person didn't put his lead in the bucket, they just placed it near to the finishing line and Chip ran past the last jump to get his lead !!!! I was gutted.

Disney only had runs on the Sunday. He flew the seesaw in both runs, in fact in his KC qualifier it didn't even tip ( naughty boy ) Here is his run

May has arrived.

2010-05-04T05:22:00.000-07:00

May has arrived already, the time is speeding fast so quickly :-(
So whats happened since my last post.

I'll start with Woody.

He went to see Marissa on Friday. His pelvis was out, plus he had a small lower back problem. She has put him back together and now we have to hope he'll be ok. He came home with strict instructions to keep him confined to a small area and NO going upstairs. Its times like this I wish I lived in a bungalow or on my own!! because I don't think 8 hrs had passed before the stairgate got left open and next minute Woody was upstairs on my bed .....Grrrrrrr.

Lets hope he didn't undo anything, he is pretty gentle going upstairs.
I have to start jumping him again on Wednesday and see how he is, and then if all is ok he can run at the weekend.

Now its onto Chip. Last year he had the chemical castration called Superolin It worked fantastically and lasted much longer than I expected, however in the last 2 weeks its VERY clear that its effects have come to an end. He has become a hormonal teenager again. He is bitching terribly, he's moody, he's not listening to a word I say and worse still he had a fight with Disney last week. He and Disney have never hit it off, but just keep their distance from each other, but Chip has never been one to back down and he's definitely in a very bad mood at the mo. He NEVER ever starts anything but if someone has a go at him then he's more than happy to argue back. I suspect Disney( who can be a real misery) had a go at Chip for maybe just getting into his personal space and Chip retaliated. It was easily broken up and they immediately forgot all about it, so it wasn't really that serious, but I did notice a scab on Disney's back the next morning so he clearly came out worse.

Since then there is definitely some tension in the air and I suspect its the big rush of testosterone returning. Fozzie is swooning all around Chip and trying to lick the insides of Chips mouth at every opportunity, so he's clearly being very submissive to him, once again this only started about 2 weeks ago.

So I feel I only have 2 choices, either get him re jabbed with Superlorin or get him properly castrated. After a lot of thought I have gone with the second option. I want to keep Fozzie entire a little longer to give him extra confidence, and I don't want any challenges between him and Chip. Chip is 5yrs soon so I think its sensible to get him done once and for all. I liked the Chip that was chemically neutered so I hope thats how he'll be when he's properly done. So he is booked in for next Tuesday as I have nearly 4 weeks off from agility shows then, so it seemed a good time.

Bank Holiday Monday we were at Vyne show.
Disney was a good boy again and got placed in an incredibly easy very fast KC Olympia qualifier. He was only just over a second behind the ultra fast collies/shelties so I was very pleased. I know where he lost the time and that was on a very wide turn, so he's still up there with the youngsters.
Obviously I wasn't working Woody and Chip was just dire. He just didn't have his thinking cap on at all and once again I put this down to hormones.

Fozzie was a good boy. He did some good work and some not such great work. In one ring he was VERY distracted and couldn't really focus. However in a quite tricky Gd 3-5 jumping apart from the weaves he was a really really good boy.

I have started on his grid work and upped the exercises, so I am hoping long term that his jump style will improve, there is still a huge way to go.

I started him at another club last week. Its a very competitive club and the exercises were by far the hardest he's done and he was just brilliant. He is the youngest and least experienced in the group but coped really well.........well apart from if we stopped for any reason he ran over to the other dog working on the other side of the venue. He meant no harm, but was just so hyped by the environment he got a little fixated on the dogs working. After he had done it once they just made sure no-one else was running at the same time. Fortunately he hasn't ever done it at a show (touch wood)and they feel he will get used to the venue and environment.
here is a video compilation of Fozzies runs from Monday.

Show updates.

2010-04-26T13:13:00.000-07:00

Well the show season has got into full swing.
First was the Easter Show at Ardingly. Terrible weather leading up to the show meant that we couldn't camp on any of the grass so we all had to pitch our caravans on the roadways. The whole show was moved indoors or into the outside sand schools. I was judging on the Saturday. I was dreading it because the forecast was for heavy rain and I was outside !!! I set up 2 nice flowing courses that would run through fairly quickly because of the forecast weather. As it was, although a little chilly the rain kept off all day. I actually had a great time judging. I had a lovely efficient ring party, I was given a lovely lunch and a super Argos voucher & Easter Egg as a thank-you gift.

On the Sunday I only ran Disney and Chip. Fozzie was just a week too young and Woody was still not fit enough.
Disney was a good boy and came 7th in his jumping class. Chip worked well but his waits were BAD !!! So I decided that on his last round I would do what I had done last year. If he didn't wait I will take him out of the ring. I queued for about 30 minutes in the freezing cold and drizzle, put him on the start line and right on cue as I walked off after his wait command he was up and off. So off I went right out the ring. I didn't tell him off or anything, however he didn't get his lead to play with either.

The next weekend was Wallingford show at Newbury, It was lovely weather, what a change from Easter.It was Fozzie's first proper KC show and I was soooo nervous.

I needn't have worried too much. He was hard work in the queue and wouldn't play. He was totally obsessed with the dogs working and was lunging and barking. I resorted to titbits and tricks to keep him focused on me. He was also a little distracted during the start line wait, but once we got started he was great. I only ran him in the jumping classes and unfortunately he did miss the weaves both times on his first attempt, but did them on the second. His jump style is still work in progress, but he did extend a little over some of the jumps.

Disney was a star again with 2 x 4th places. He also ran in a medium team with Karen and Todd, Nancy and Zeki, Jennie and Stella. They were all fantastic and ended up in 2nd place.
Chip was great. He WAITED !!!!!! He also did some superb work with just a single pole down in most classes. Chip is such fun to work now. He's become very powerful and responsive. He had a slight mishap in his last run. For some unknown reason he gt his footing wrong going over the long jump and ended up almost landing on his head. I'm not sure what he did as I just saw him on the ground and then getting up. Others looking on said he really did take a tumble. Fortunately he is fine, but I did rest him for a couple of days just in case.
Poor Woody though. His first proper run after months of rehab turned into not such a triumph. He started off so well, but misjudged a jump and knocked it badly. After that he measured every jump. This is not unusual for Woody who has always been sensitive when he's knocked jumps and I put it also down to maybe him still not being 100% fit. The next day I ran him but pulled him out of the class after 5 jumps as I still wasn't happy.

Last weekend was the WBSDS show also at Newbury.
I was very pleased with Fozzie. Much more focused. I decided to do both the jumping and agility classes with him. He missed the weaves entry in all but one of the 4 classes & in that class he had a pole down. Several people thought he was jumping better, but there's still room for improvement. I have included a little video of 3 of his rounds including one agility round where the judge eliminated everyone who stopped their dogs on contacts and praised them !!!!!!!!! He had had loads of faults anyway, but imagine if he hadn't.

Disney once again excelled. He got a 3rd in Gd 7 jumping and 8th in Grade 1-7 jumping.
Chip was on fire. Great waits and he got 8th in an extremely tricky Grade 6 agility class and 6th in Grade 6 jumping. However I was most pleased with him in his other agility class. He was eliminated in the class, but he did the fastest dogwalk I have ever known him do and I was even behind him. He flew across it and did a perfect position at the end..WHAT A BOY !!!! I have to say that made my day.
I don't have any video of Chip or Disney's rounds as I was only really concentrating on getting Fozzies and Woody's rounds recorded.

Woody, however is my saddest tale. He is clearly not jumping well. He starts off ok but after about 4 or 5 jumps he starts to tuck up and measure. He has either hurt his back or its his shoulder injury or it could still be a fitness thing. I have him booked into to Marissa the Chiropractor on Friday just in case he has hurt his back. Dependent on what she says is to whether he returns to agility or whether I retire him. He was so happy to be working again, but I want him to enjoy life, especially his walks, and if that means no agility then so be it.
I have got his runs on video but I'm not sure I want to watch them over again.
I have however put the video of Fozzie on here.

Fozzies First Show

2010-04-11T13:21:00.000-07:00

This weekend I went to Thatcham UKA show at Mapledurham, nr Reading.An absolutely stunning venue right on the banks of the River Thames. The weather was glorious and the show very relaxed. I really only did the show so that I could bring Fozzie out and see just how he would be in the ring before we start the KC shows next week.

I was soooo nervous. I really expected him to run out of the ring or stop to sniff or something. However he was fantastic. He was a little distracted on the start line on the first day, but by the second visit his concentration on the start was much better.

His first ever proper competitive run at a bonafida show and he won the class !!! He would have also done well in the agility run if I had handled it better nr the end. I meant to do a front cross, but ended up trying to flick him over the jump and he ran past it, But I was very very pleased with him.

At UKA shows you are allowed to run not for competition and take toys into the ring. I did this on the second day in the Agility round. I was a little lax on the dogwalk and rewarded him for being slightly off, but it was totally my fault as I threw the ball too far past the end ,and he did try so hard. However his Aframe was 100% as you will see in the video.

I came away feeling so much more confident with him. He still has a long way to go but for his first show I couldn't be more proud of my little lad.

Hopefully this week I will get into the field to practice his weaves and then maybe he will compete at his first KC show this coming weekend.
Here is a video of 2 of his rounds

I ran Chip at the show to practice his waits and contacts. He came 2nd in his agility class but I trained all the others.

The best news is I ran Woody in 2 classes. On the first day I put him in the casual class as you can run your dogs one height below their proper height, which in Woody's case at UKA shows is standard height (which is about 2" lower than KC height)
So therefore I could run him at medium. He did the whole course and then I kept my fingers crossed he'd stay sound. On the way home from the show we also went for an hours walk, so I felt sure if his shoulder wasn't going to hold up I would soon know.
Luckily he was fine, so today I put him in the steeplechase class at the standard height(still lower than KC) He was great, I missed out a small bit of the course on purpose at it had a tight turn and I didn't want him to land and twist! He was little slower than normal, but he isn't 100% jump fit that is to be expected. I shall do some more little bits with him this week and maybe he will be able to do a jumping round this weekend. He certainly was a happy boy to be back.
Here he is in action

Chiropractor

2010-03-30T06:05:00.000-07:00

This morning I took Fozzie to see Marissa my Chiropractor. I wasn't sure whether I wanted her to find something drastically wrong, which would explain his funny jump style or whether I would have preferred her to find nothing.

As it was she found 3 small things wrong. 2 minor tweaks in his neck and one half way down his back. She put them all back as they should ,but in her opinion didn't think they would necessarily account for his jump problem. She said she could find nothing dire at all. However having said all that she did say some dogs may have found just those few things uncomfortable enough to make them jump differently(as she called it !!)
So the plan of action is to rest him for a couple of days and then see how he jumps. I have no plans for training this week as I am off to the Easter Celebration show on Thursday . If its not pouring with rain (or snowing) I will put him round my courses when I have set them up as I am judging there.
If he is jumping better then Marissa definitely wants to see him again in about 3 weeks, however if there is no change then its just a question of teaching him how to jump properly. She agrees Grid work is a must, as is rear end awareness exercises and also core stability exercises.
Fingers crossed.

Updates.

2010-03-25T14:27:00.000-07:00

Well I've had a busy time over the last week. My Mum( who's in her late 80's) was taken into hospital to have a serious operation. She had a cancerous lump in her stomach. They did pioneering surgery on her. She had keyhole surgery to remove it and apparently the operation was videoed to be shown round the world as there have only been 2 such operations done this way. They went through her belly button. Her recovery has been fantastic & she was out within 6 days of her surgery. Mum has now gone down to convalesce with my sister in Chichester.Hopefully it won't be long till she's fit enough for us to continue our dog walks together. My Mum is great and still can still walk 2 miles or more with the dogs. Dad is still in the nursing home, Mum is his carer and until she is 100% fit she can't look after him. So last week I was busy visiting Mum at the Royal Surrey Hospital in Guildford, visiting dad at the home in Woking, training my dogs etc etc.
Here's a picture of Mum & Dad taken last year on the 60th wedding anniversary, and another of us out on one of our walks, also last year.

So back to my dogs. I have started doing some grid work with Fozzie. He is good at it and is jumping quite cleanly. I have at last managed to book a grid jumping day at the end of April, so I'll learn how to progress on with it. His jumping style is the worse I have ever seen. He jumps like a deer, takes off too soon and lands sometimes on all four feet. He can't wing wrap cleanly because his legs are just not right !!! I have him booked into to see a chiropractor next week to get him checked out , it was suggested to me that maybe his neck/back was out which is causing this action.

His weave training has gone backwards !!! The week before I mentioned how it had progressed well, now he is struggling again and has slowed down :-( I am thinking that if he has got a neck problem this could be causing him to be funny in the weaves as well.

Contacts...well I am really pleased. I started doing the ball training at the end of the dogwalk and am happy with the result. Last week in class he flew across the dogwalk and at the last minute the toy suddenly appeared ( from someone else) at the bottom, he really drove to it and stopped beautifully. I have now put him on the lead as well and am only doing the down ramp for this ,I have started to throw the toy as he pulls against me. Its working well so far.

I just love the way the words in that song ,that I put on that video sum things up so nicely !!!!

His seesaw has also sped up.

I am still having really bad concentration problems with him and if anything distracts him, he's just terrible.

So hopefully on my next post I will be able to tell you what the Chiro found and we can go from there. I have been feeling very depressed again about him, I think I am just very tired ! I am worried that I won't be able to get him to jump properly. One things for sure if he has got a neck problem all bouncy tuggy type games(which he loves) will have to stop. I will have to find some other form of play reward.

Woody is doing really really well. He is still having his weekly swims & I have now jumped him over a few medium jumps and he seems fine. I am taking it really slowly, but boy is he happy to get out to play.

Jumping style !

2010-03-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Agility training with Fozzie is going well. We have some really good training sessions and then not so good ones. Its his level of concentration that I am struggling with at the moment,he gets so distracted at the slightest thing.

I am putting the jumps up to full height more and more now. What I & others have noticed is his jumping style. Because of this I decided to video him, and then slow motion it to see if there was a particular reason for his style. He jumps close to the jump and then goes a long way past, sometimes tucked up and landing nearly on all 4 paws.

It was suggested to me that maybe he needs to see a chiropractor, just in case he has a physical problem, but the few people who have seen this video just think he needs some grid work so he learns how to jump and judge distances.
I was so hoping to get to Gemma's grid training days, but I haven't been able to because of my work. So I have scoured the Internet for info on grid jumping and watched countless YouTube videos, so until I can get to a proper training day I am going to work on some grids in my field.

On the very plus side, his weave training is coming on in leaps and bounds.He gets his footing right more often than not now, and so his confidence has grown.

As regards his dog walk. Thanks to the Manners Minder he knows his criteria for the contacts really well ,and I have fazed the Manners Minder out completely on the A Frame. He has a lovely fast A Frame and 2 on 2 off position & I am really happy with it. I wanted to faze the MM out for the dogwalk also, as its such a big unit to take everywhere with me, and I still wasn't getting the drive I want. So I am now working on sending him to his toy. The MM has been great for getting the correct position,so I am sure he'll be fine with the change. Thankfully Fozzie likes a dead toy and will go to it happily. So I've started leaving the toy at the bottom of the dogwalk and will gradually extend the distance it is placed from the end. Ultimately I'd like to be able to throw the toy and Fozzie still stop, a lot of work I think !! Any help or tips gratefully received !
He is painfully slow over the seesaw so I've got to work on that a lot more as well.

I have decided not to enter him in any agility classes when he comes out until I have more or less what I want in training. I'll put him in the ring in jumping only classes to get the ring experience at shows. Maybe by June/July he will be ready for agility classes, but if I don't do any agility classes at shows all year then so be it.

On a really good note, Woody is 100% sound. I started jumping him over small jumps yesterday and he stayed sound. He has also started to go on hour long walks through woods etc and has also remained sound. Next week I will jump him over medium jumps and then the week after some full height. I don't think I will be competing with him till the end of April, I want him to be completely jump fit.

Here is the video of Fozzie jumping

Fozzies First Competition

2010-03-07T13:39:00.000-08:00

Today Fozzie did his first competition. It was a fun show at Scrambles. I entered him in the jumping and steeplechase class at medium height. I just wanted him to get some ring experience, complete with queuing etc.

First was the jumping. He did a great wait,but the first 2 jumps were a little tentative, however once he got going he sped up and was doing fantastically. I was going to run past the weaves(a set of 6 poles) but Fozzie thought otherwise and went straight into them! not bad considering this time last week he couldn't weave, He got his entry but the weaves were incredible wobbly (infact they took them out for the large dogs!!) and Fozzie skipped a weave. I just kept going and he finished beautifully. I was so so pleased with him.

After a little wait we then did the Steeplechase. It was a lovely course with a few handling bits and a few nice straight bits.Once again a great wait & Fozzie flew from the start. He powered into the tunnels & was extremely confident & no weaves to worry about in this class. He got very slightly distracted for a nano second by a dog in the adjoining ring coming down the dogwalk, but he didn't stop and we went clear. I had to leave immediately afterwards, but imagine how surprised and flabbergasted I was to find out later he had actually won the class !!!! Maybe he will be ready to compete properly at the end of April ??

Unfortunately I don't have video of either runs, because although 2 people videoed for me, both were uncertain how to work the camcorder so missed the runs

On Saturday it was the first show of the year, Mid Downs. I love this show as its so nice to catch up with all my friends after the long winter.

Chip was a naughty naughty boy. He was totally over the top and broke his wait in his first class. He then went on to miss his dogwalk contact as well !!!

In his second class , he did wait for a little longer but still broke it. I kicked myself for not leaving the ring with him, but I wanted to do his Dog walk contact if he missed it, which right on cue he did !!! I rectified it, and then took my own line out of the ring via the Aframe, which he got.
In his 3rd class( a jumping class) I decided no matter what if he broke his wait I would take him out immediately. I queued for 3/4 hr in the cold to run, set him up in a wait , got to the other side of the first jump and wham he broke (little b**** ) I downed him before he took the tunnel and he dropped like a bullet, I retrieved my lead and then called Chip out of the ring.
Last year I did exactly the same for the first few shows and it certainly worked. He soon learned that no wait meant no play !!!

Disney in contrast was a real star. I have been deliberating whether the time was right to retire him as he will soon be 12 yrs old. I therefore made the decision I would enter him in the first few shows of the season and see how he was. If I felt he was struggling at all I would stop. I want him to be remembered for the dog he was, not for what he had become. I asked several people to watch his first run, and Lians husband kindly agreed to video him for me( as I didn't take my camera with me) so I could see for myself how he was doing. Well he was great. To be honest I was so happy to be running him and so enjoying him I don't really remember if he got faulted or not. I seem to remember his dogwalk may not have been too good.

So I decided to stay and run him in the jumping class as well. We were going out for a meal when I got home, so I wanted to run him and dash so I went first in the class. I said as I went in I didn't care what he did as long as he has fun. Well he was FANTASTIC. He was fluid and fast. Well I had to wait and watch the next dozen or so dogs and he remained in 1st place for quite a while. Eventually he was knocked down to 3rd so I left. There was still a huge queue of people so I thought he'd probably be knocked out of 3rd place quite soon. Once again imagine my surprise to find he remained in 3rd place, beating many of the fast much much younger good dogs. Unfortunately no video of his run , just a wonderful memory. So Disney will continue for a few more months, I just love him to bits.

Obviously Woody didn't compete because of his recent injury. He is doing VERY well , he went to the chiropractor this week and she said he was 100% sound. If all goes well this week we can start jumping him again on low jumps and see how he is. It is now over 2 months since the original injury.

Weaving, Weaving ,Weaving

2010-03-04T11:37:00.001-08:00

Well the weather has picked up, the sun is shining and my field is drying out, so I thought I'd get cracking on Fozzies weaves. Phew its hard work ! I have never had such a difficult dog to get to weave, well maybe Libby my Standard Poodle comes a close second, but even she only ever had one hiccup !!

Fozzie just couldn't get the hang of straight weaving, so I resorted to putting guided on the weaves. I hate guides but I thought at least it would give him the idea what straight upright weaves were. He'd fly though the V weaves only very slightly out, but as soon as they went upright, it was a huge no no.

After I had put the guides on I took him through on the lead. I then let him off. He just jumped over the guides, so I put them higher. He then ducked under them !!!

I then totally despaired !!! So I decided to do something I had never done before and I lured him through with food a couple of times. After about 6 attempts he weaved albeit slowly.

I had a couple more attempts with him, put him through the V weaves to get his speed up and then left the weaves alone. I finished with a couple of contacts on both the Dog walk & A Frame, plus a couple of jumps and then went inside.

I decided to video so I could examine what was happening.
Here it is

I had several peoples feedback on this and several said the guides were in the wrong place, but as I had already tried the guides in several places, I decided to take them off altogether. Today I went out again. I also videoed once again and I saw the problem instantly when I played it back. Its his footing. If he paddles through he does them all correctly, slowly but correctly,However if his feet tangle he just cannot complete the weaves. I also had quite a bit of *I won't do that, you can't make me* attitude today..very very poodle like and very frustrating..as it always is with Fozzie. I really think I'll get a Border collie next time !!!!
Anyway here is the video of today highlighting his foot placement problem.

On the up :-)

2010-02-22T02:30:00.000-08:00

I am feeling so much more positive about Fozzie now, lets hope this is an upward trend now.

Within the last 2-3 weeks I have done 3 separate training mornings with him.
The first was with David Munnings. Fozzie was brill, David had set some quite hard sequences and Fozzie did them with confidence and speed.

The next session was last Friday with Nancy Hudson, I love Nancy's training & once again Fozzie was confident and worked really well, Nancy gave me lots to think about with my handling of him ,and I came away feeling very good & positive about things. I was extremely pleased with Fozzies A-Frame contact. I didn't use his manners minder, but he hit his contact position first time and was fast over it.

The last session was on the Saturday just gone and what a beautiful day we had for it ,the sun shone all morning and it was quite warm. This training was with Lauren Langman. I haven't trained with her before. I found her very motivational. Fozzie was a little star and once again I got some great help with my handling of him. I sometimes wonder how I ever managed to get a dog to Grade 7 and even win a CC when it comes to my handling !! I think its all about wearing comfy slippers(as Nancy said) With a new dog you have to learn all over again because every dog is so different. What I can do with with Disney & Chip ,I struggle with with Fozzie. I am sure once we have been a partnership for a year or so, he too will become my comfy slippers.

We only covered the seesaw with Lauren, but once the class was finished Sue said I could run Fozzie over her contacts. I took her up on this once everyone had gone home, because I want Fozzie to experience as many different contacts in different environments as possible. His first dog walk was very slow and cautious, however once he had done it once the next 3 or 4 he flew over. He likes me to be a fair distance from him, if I stand too close to the contact anywhere along it that also slows him down. That suits me as I not fast enough to be right up with him all the time anyway.
Because I have had these great positive training sessions with him, I have made the decision not to return to the indoor classes with Fozzie ! This is where I was having all the problems with dogs running up to him and once again concentration.

In my field I am now just concentrating on the weaves ...Hmmmmm not so great.

Teaching weaves is my favourite thing and I am very methodical, however because of the weather/dark evenings/work etc etc I haven't been able to train them as often as I normally do. I think its going to be a long time before he's a confident straight line weaver !!

Here is a video of his training session at Laurens. Unfortunately I didn't get video at Nancy's or Davids

Fozzies Obedience has taken a slight downward turn since he has became a little spooky. His concentration isn't so good now so he's not holding his heelwork position as well.
Here is a video also taken this week at Obedience training. We focused more on keeping him happy & motivated rather than precision. He did a bit of slow pace nr the end which I was quite pleased with because he was concentrating quite well.

He has now been on the Zylkene for about 10 days and I do think there is a slight improvement. He is still spooking at funny things but comes out of it quicker.

Woody.....well fingers crossed things here are also going in the right direction with his shoulder injury. He is now swimming weekly and has also started on a course of Cartrophen. The Cartrophen is really just to help his mild arthritis.
Last Sunday Sara came and gave him some Galen massage which Woody loved. I have continued massaging him and also using the pulsed magnetic unit as well.
As my vet says, at the end of the day we won't really know what has done the job, but to be honest I don't care as long as he becomes sound again. Unfortunately though I have made the decision to pull him out from Crufts. Even if he was 100% sound, he'd be physically unfit as he's had so little off lead exercise & no jumping since way before Xmas. On top of that,I just wouldn't want to run a dog who's just recovered from a shoulder injury on thin astroturf placed over concrete !! In my opinion just not worth it for 30 seconds in the ring. Beth (my niece) was obviously very disappointed but she was very grown up about it and fully understood. Hopefully Woody will be fit again by April to do agility again, but only if the ground conditions are perfect. However he only has to limp once after agility and he will be retired. I will possibly only run him in one class a day, but we will have to now wait and see.

I went down to see my best friend Jane last week in Devon. I only took Woody as she had 5 dogs in season, so taking Fozzie & Chip would have been impossible. Woody was fantastic, even when all the girlies kept flirting with him. The look on his face was priceless !!!! It was lovely for Woody to have some one to one individual attention with just me. Because of all the girls being in season long walks were out of the question , so we just did a couple of very short lead walks.

Chip also had a lovely training session with Nancy . I do so enjoy running him, he's fast,keen and honest.

Disney is doing great and I have decided to run him again this year. I took him into the field and he was as mad as ever. Once again I will cut his runs down & I'm not sure whether I will enter him in champ classes or not. I will see how he is at his first show and go from there. Its hard to believe he will be 12 yrs old in 3 months time. So I guess I should really start doing some training with him, if only it would STOP RAINING !!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chip Obedience and other stuff.

2010-02-09T15:18:00.001-08:00

Last weekend it was my inter club obedience competition. I dusted Chip off for this !! I haven't done much training with him since I started Fozzie. So since Xmas we have had a couple of training sessions but not much. Its like riding a bike, he hadn't forgotten just got a bit rusty.

Chip was wonderful. His round was beautiful, he had a crooked sit half way through, but apart from that a pretty faultless round until.......THE STAYS !!!

Chip has NEVER broken a stay..EVER. However he chose on this day to lay down on his sit stay. It cost him 2nd place !! In fact he would have been in first place going into stays, apart from that crooked sit. As it was he ended 5th !!
Here is a video of his round..Just lovely..I am so very proud of him.

Fozzie is doing well in the field with his spooky training. I have continued with the flower remedies, and actually someone commented last weekend how chilled he seemed, so maybe they are working. Unfortunately the Zylkene got lost in the post !!!!! I should however have a replacement order tomorrow. I am going to start it as planned, because this evening we went into the field and he saw a man with a cap on and spooked and barked at him !! So still work in progress.

I decided tonight that I ought to try him over a full height dog walk. He's 16 months now and I feel he should be doing it full height more often. I shouldn't have worried, He was fine and confident over it, and got all his contacts. He is fairly fast over most of it, but is slightly slower going to the end, but I am not going to stress over that at all at the moment. He's independent , looking forward & happy on it so that's more important. I put the manners minder which (3rd time lucky) seems to be working a treat now, past the weaves after the Dog walk. He got his contact beautifully and then went into the V weaves and got his reward at the end of them. I am still doing an incredibly fast release on the dog walk. He's such a funny chappie that I think if I make a big deal of his stop(when he's actually going across the dogwalk) he may start to worry. However if I just ask for his position on the end, I expect a wait of varying times. He certainly knows his position without a shadow of doubt. If he runs off the end, I don't reward, but then again I don't say much either. I let him work out for himself what went wrong and he seems to know.

I also thought that I had better start working him over some full height jumps. On Saturday when I first tried, he was terrible and kept going underneath them. I walked away from it, and today I put up just 2 jumps and Woo Hoo he went over them both several times. At the moment he has the most funny jump style, he sort of bunny hops over them. I hope that will change when he starts to get his pacing.

Weave training well...... He is still on V weaves, and occasionally channel. I am not happy with my channel weaves now they are fairly close. They have a lot of metal work all bunched up and I am concerned this is putting him off. When I trained Chip and my other dogs I used push in weave poles(hence no metal work) and I felt they were much happier. I am going to visit my friend in Devon next week and she has a set of different channel weaves to sell that hinge from the centre. I am going to take a look and if I like them I will buy them off her.
( Jane if you're reading this GET THEM WEAVES OUT !!!!)
His entries into the weaves on the whole are good from whatever angle.

Seesaw is still being held, so no progress there. Fozzie is due out at Wallingford in the middle of April. I have entered him but I am not sure he'll actually go in the ring. We'll see.

I am reading a fantastic book at the moment called " Control Unleashed" I'm hoping this will help with my training with Fozzie. It tells how to get total focus from your dog, especially the Fozzie type of dog.

Woody.. well he has had another slight relapse with his shoulder injury. On his 2nd off lead day(after wks of on lead walking) he became slightly lame again.
So its back on the anti inflammatories and lead walks.
He starts his weekly hydrotherapy swims this wk, plus he is also going to have some Galen massage treatment. I have also ordered a Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF) gadget. Its made by Medicur
I have had such positive feedback about these machines for animal use. Apparently not only do they accelerate the healing , they also help with pain etc. So I am hoping it will help me as well !! My vet raved about magnetic therapy when I spoke with her, so I hope its money well spent. This site tells all about its human use ,but many horse and dog people use them as well. I am sure it will be a very useful item for me to have. Have a Google, its well worth taking a look.

So Woody is costing me a fortune at the moment. Hopefully I will get all the alternative treatments paid by the insurance company. I don't think they will be prepared to pay for my new machine though !!!!!!

So lots to report. I'll keep you updated over the progress of Fozzie and Woody in the coming weeks.

Woo Hoo

2010-02-04T02:14:00.000-08:00

It may not seem like much, but to me its one step in the right direction. Fozzie played with 3 all black dogs today on our walk!!.
First a black Lab, then a Flat coat retriever & lastly a black Cocker spaniel.

He was hesitant at first but once he knew they were fine, he couldn't wait to have fun, and we haven't even started on the Zyklene yet..

Where do I begin....

2010-02-01T07:43:00.000-08:00

Sounds a bit like the love story song doesn't it !!!!

So Where do I begin....
Well the New Year hasn't started too well. Firstly losing dear Fella was the hardest thing. I am still struggling with the loss of him. I intend to do a tribute video soon, but I have to download some old photos and videos first onto my laptop, and I don't feel quite ready.

Woody has been lame on and off for about 3 wks. He was playing with Fozzie in the garden and came in limping. Rest and lead walks didn't resolve the problem so I decided the time had come for some Xrays, just to rule out any other underlying problem. Well he has fantastic shoulder and elbow joints, but his wrists are showing some arthritic changes. My vet is positive this isn't causing the lameness . However when Woody was under anaesthetic she couldn't extent his left leg, so she is as sure that she can be that its a shoulder injury.
So he came home with some anti-inflammatories and some very expensive Glucosamine/Chondrotin supplement. She wants him to be seen by a Physio or Osteo and do swimming as many times a week I can manage.

As regards to the arthritis in the wrists, she's happy for him to continue competitive agility , because as she said to me, if she xrayed most of the agility dogs over 6 years old,most would almost certainly be showing some form of arthritis because of the stresses put on theirs joints,so she thinks Woody's would be in the realms of normality.

I am not sure at this moment in time if I am going to continue working him, Its one thing jumping a dog that you don't know has a problem, totally different once you know. !!! I want to get his shoulder right, and then when I go back to the vets in 10 days time I will talk with her again. If, and its a big IF, he is sound in 2 wks I may let my niece run him at Crufts as she qualified him for the YKC. Beth has worked so hard with Woody for the last 2 years, doing all his training that I feel so sad for her.
Then possibly I may run him in the odd show, but only if the weather & ground conditions are just right, if not it may be allsorts classes..I really just don't know at this stage !!!!!!!

Then there's Fozzie !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He has become sooooo spooky/windy and anxious. I am sure its his hormones coupled with the second fear stage, but training is becoming a nightmare which I am no longer enjoying at the moment. In my field where he was most confident, he is spooking and barking at the horses and so isn't concentrating on the job. At the indoor venue where I train him , he is constantly looking over his shoulders at the other dogs. Its a small indoor venue with 2 classes running side by side & the distractions are immense. He's had several dogs run up to him when he's working, which upsets me (probably more than him if truth be told) I am now looking for a new class somewhere where there is only one class running at a time, with nice friendly dogs.( more difficult than you can imagine !!)

Then on Thursday I went to Obedience training..He was dire!! Once again I couldn't get anything out of him..he was totally distracted and worried. I actually burst into tears !!!.... everything is going so wrong.

Last year I was running 3 dogs and running around like a mad woman at shows. I joked with people that this year I'd be like a headless chicken running 4 dogs..how things can change so suddenly !!!

Disney will probably be retired by the end of this year , he'll be 12 in May !!!!!
Woody may have to be retired, Fozzie possibly won't be in the ring this year like planned..which may possibly leaves me just one dog to run at shows.....Chip.
At least I may have more time to enjoy my new caravan !

Anyway I have put Fozzie onto some flower remedies to help his anxiety.And I'm also going to put him onto Zylkene This product has apparently seen some great results using it with dogs that have similar problems to Fozzie. I'm hoping it may take the edge off his nerves and I'll be able to get him to relax & concentrate , certainly there's no harm in trying.

Not a very Cheery post I know...sorry

R.I.P Dear Dear Fella

2010-01-19T07:23:00.000-08:00

FELLA 1991-2010

Yesterday was one of the worse days of my life. I had to have my beloved cat Fella put to sleep.
We took him to the vets last night in the vain hope she may find something that maybe, just maybe, could be put right. Fella travelled to the vet on my lap purring all the way. Emily (my vet) examined him thoroughly, and discovered he had heart failure & his lungs were full of fluid, also his kidney's were like hard bullets. She said she could maybe draw some fluid away from his lungs, put him on some heart tablets and give him something to help his kidneys, and then maybe just maybe he would possibly rally round for a week or so. However she felt that this probably wouldn't be the kindest thing to do as he was already quite weak , and sadly we agreed.
He purred continuously whilst he was being examined and also whilst the needle was put in, he continued to purr right up till the moment he went ,and as his heart was so weak and he was so skinny, it was pretty much instantly.

I bought Fella into this world almost 19 years ago and I was holding him as he left it.

I love you Fella and I will never ever forget the 19 wonderful years I had with you.

Catch up time !

2010-01-16T06:37:00.000-08:00

I've been a bit lax with my blogging, so here's a bit of a long catch up.

Well as we all know the weather hasn't been great for any training. I am very frustrated because I really want to get cracking on Fozzies weaves and continue with his contact work.
I am having a problem with my Manners Minder again, so waiting for a new one to come..AGAIN !! I love this machine and really really want to persevere with it. Apparently there is a whole batch that had a fault ,which the manufacturer is aware of, so production is starting on a new load with the a new component in.
In the meantime I am just going to struggle on, but its so frustrating when the machine fails especially when Fozzie has done such a good behaviour and really deserves the reward. So a backward step again I fear.

Fozzie is due out in April, but we are so behind with his training I don't think it will happen. I have entered him (just in case) but there is no way he'll go in the ring without 100% weaves. And certainly no agility classes until I have nailed his contacts.

I am having a real problem with his concentration in both Agility and Obedience. He is soooo distracted. He has now decided the horses in the field next to mine are totally scary and he spooks at them a lot !!! These horses are the friendliest & nosiest we've ever had out there, and everytime I go into the field they rush over for some attention so Fozzie goes BERSERK !!
I made a resolution that I would NEVER be negative, never say no to him, or do anything other than be 100% positive around the agility equipment, but its very difficult when he rushes up to the fence barking and growling. Today one of the horses turned and kicked(luckily there was a fence between) I was hoping this may frighten Fozzie enough to make him back off, but no it made him worse. he really is a very strange little man.

I have continued to take Fozzie to Pachesham indoor training even though I am not that happy with him there, he gets very hyped and is once again a little neurotic with other dogs since he was attacked. I only do the jumping exercises there, I want to continue with what I am doing with his contacts here at the field before I take it into the class environment. The only contact I do there is the seesaw, only because I need someone to hold it for me(not possible on my own) but I won't be using the Manners Minder for the seesaw. I rarely use a stop with my dogs on the seesaw, so I am training that differently.

I have done a couple of Dave Munnings training sessions with him, and he was totally brilliant. He understands loads of various exercises and I am very pleased. Once again he can get very distracted if someone is playing with their dog by the side, but I work him through it. He definitely has a brain on him and seems to grasp quite complex exercises very quickly.
We are also continuing to have Toni Dawkins every month at my field. She does a small group of us in the morning with our youngsters and then in the afternoon for the older guys. Its great because for all 6 sessions the same dogs and handlers are there so good continuety.
The jumps have just gone up to medium height for Fozzie,and I want him to be totally confident with my handling and his jumping skills before I put him over full height. I may not even put him over full height till a month before he competes, I will just see. He is quite clumpsy over medium height and is knocking quite a few poles,once again I have been told its possibly because he's not concentrating fully on the job.

His obedience is going well, but his ability to become so distracted at the slightest thing means that he won't be entered in any shows for quite some time. The concentration for obedience is so much greater, and at the moment he loses position if the slightest pin drops ! His set exercises are however brilliant, and as usual when he's in the zone his heelwork is gobsmacking.

Woody has unfortunately hurt his front leg. We think he did it when he was playing with Fozzie in the garden. I rested him for a couple of days and he seemed fine so foolishly I let him run again. 3 days ago he started to limp again. This time he is completely confined to the breakfast/utility room. If I let him out invariably someone will leave a door open and he's straight upstairs onto my bed. So its strictly no stairs, and only 5 minutes lead walk. He hasn't seen my vet but I have spoken with them. If he's no better by Tuesday they want to see him. I will then ask for a referral to see a physio. Woody is at Crufts in March competing in the YKC with my niece, so we need to make him sound by then, if not I shall have one extremely disappointed person.

On a much much sadder note my 18 (neary 19 ) year old cat *Fella* is really poorly.

He had a stroke last October and seemed to have made a good recovery, however since then he has really started to look like a very old cat. Up till then people were amazed at him and often remarked that he looked more like a 9 or 10 year old. He's very thin now, whereas up to his stroke he was a fat pudding, and we are struggling to get him to eat . He's on a special prescription diet, because many years ago he got urinary stones .He used to love this food but now he won't touch it. I have tried various alternatives all to no avail. He will sometimes eat the small pate type cat foods and sometimes I can temp him with cooked chicken or raw chicken/tripe or beef mince but he eats very little.He's wobbly on his back legs too. However he still purrs all the time and still loves his cuddles. He looks a mess as he can't clean himself anymore ! Food gets stuck round his mouth, he's got weepy eyes(a long term eye problem which just couldn't be sorted) and now bed sores where he lays in a strange way.His coat looks a real mess too. He had to have his lovely coat clipped off last summer, because he got something stuck to it and it hasn't really grown back.Fozzie adores him and everytime Fozzie sees him he washes him all over.He sometimes gets a little over zealous, but I keep a very close eye on him. Fella purrs all the time and doesn't try to get way even when Fozzie stops. Fozzie gets him looking fairly respectable. I have attached a little video of his Fozzie bathtime.

We now feel that maybe the awful time we all dread has come for dear Fella.

I bred Fella, and in his entire long life he has never been anywhere but in this house, not even when we have gone on holiday. He is the most wonderfully natured cat and loves the dogs & kiddies, and I love him dearly. It will be the most terrible time which all the family are dreading.

Fellas bathtime courtesy of Fozzie

Fella about 10 months ago !!

The Dogwalk and Manners Minder update No 2

2010-01-01T13:54:00.000-08:00

I took Fozzie into the field today to work on his dogwalk with the Manners Minder. To say I am really pleased is an understatement . His first one was slow and tentative, but once he got confident & into his stride he was off. So far its achieving everything I could want. His focus is forward, I can position myself anywhere and he still drives to the end. He had one over run ( as you will see) but once I had encouraged him back to his position the next time he was perfect. I am doing a quick down & release at the moment to encourage the speed and I'm not being fussy with his position, as long as he has some part of his body/feet on the contact I am happy. He doesn't get rewarded if all his body is off the contact area.
I must apologise for my spelling mistake on the video. I only realised it after I published it...Ooops

New Year and New Look

2010-01-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year to everyone and I thought I would give my blog a new look for a while.

Xmas Pressies and the Manners Minder update

2009-12-29T05:14:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful Xmas. We went to my son Tony's for Xmas day and he cooked a superb Christmas dinner. In the evening the rest of the family arrived and we had such a fun evening playing games.I had also bought some indoor fireworks which caused great amusement. Unfortunately we had to leave the dogs at home , but fortunately Tony doesn't live too far away so we were able to go home to check up on then every few hrs.
On boxing Day we went to my ex sister in laws. Once again we played silly games and had a great afternoon/evening. Sunday we went down to see my Mum & Dad.
Mum finds it hard work nowadays having lots of people to entertain so we took all the food with us, so she could have a nice relaxing time with no stress. Once again all the family came.

I had some wonderful presents from everyone. I got a Motor Mover for my new caravan !!!! the Dawn Weaver book, several funny dog books, The Photoshop programme for my laptop, some wonderful croc slippers, a lovely warm hat, plus lots of other bits and bobs ,so I was well and truly spoilt this year.

AT MUM AND DADS

MANNERS MINDER UPDATE

Now back to the Manners Minder. I received it very quickly but it was faulty. It didn't click every time I pressed the remote, so it was very frustrating.Also if I was further away than about 2 ft it didn't work at all ! I contacted the person I got it from and he was fantastic and so helpful..great customer service which you rarely see nowadays.
He sent me a new remote which I received the very next day, however it was still faulty. So without a second thought he sent me a brand new until (which he tested beforehand) and that arrived also next day. This one seems fine but the weather has been so bad I haven't been able to try it outside on the contacts yet. I wanted to start teaching Fozzie it straight away , so I have started work indoors running him to a mat or doing an instant down and then bleeping the Manners Minder. Fozzie has grasped the idea indoors very quickly so I am hopeful it will get me the independent contact I want from him. I have attached a small video showing it. He is better going away from me than coming forward, which is great as I will rarely be in front of him at the contacts.

New Header

2009-12-27T15:04:00.000-08:00

For Christmas I got given Photoshop for my laptop. I have never done anything like this with my pictures before, just basic editing etc so this new header took me quite a while to do and isn't quite as creative as some blog headers!!!. However I am sure I will get better at it as time goes on....Maybe !

Snow, Snow, Snow

2009-12-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

Today we had a lovely walk on the common nr my Mums. The dogs had a fantastic time

Manners Minder

2009-12-16T13:24:00.000-08:00

Well I've decided to invest in a Manners Minder.
Its a training tool, and I am going to try it on my contacts with Fozzie and then maybe Chip. I train the contacts alot on my own, and I have been struggling with how I want them to be. I had started to do a 4 off position with him, but Fozzie started to jump off, so I then trained a 2 on 2 off position. Unfortunately if I was anywhere other than the very end of the dogwalk ,he'd creep down to the end position. If I placed a titbit container or toy at the end , he'd go quickly to it but he was self rewarding himself before I could get there whether he'd done it right or wrong. I want his contacts to be fast and independent and I was only getting what I want if I was actually at the end of the dogwalk or A frame. At club he'd happily fly across the contact as long as someone was standing at the end squeaking his toy or waving it around calling his name, just no good to me when I'm on my own. I have spoken with several people who have used the Manners Minder with great success. So I thought I'd buy one. It will also be useful for obedience sendaways , as well as go-ons in Agility. It will also hopefully be great for my own classes. So hopefully weather permitting over Xmas I will be starting work on it. Watch this space........

Off to Battersea

2009-12-08T00:30:00.001-08:00

Fozzie is 14 mths old now and you'd expect him to be growing up wouldn't you? He really is the naughtiest puppy/dog I've ever owned. This is what he did last night whilst I was in the bath !!!!! These shoes are less than 3 wks old and weren't cheap either . So he's off to Battersea today I just can't afford him anymore ;-) Mind you hubby was in same room but didn't seem to notice the chewing....... MEN

I now have no decent non doggy shoes to wear.

By Jove he's got it !!!

2009-11-22T14:02:00.000-08:00

Well today we had our monthly Toni Dawkins training day at my field. In the morning it was the young dogs/puppies. Unfortunately the rain (or should I say hail) came after an hr, it thundered and blew a gale so we abandoned ship. We were due to have another session in the afternoon for the older dogs, which I hastily cancelled, however literally 10 minutes later , the rain stopped and the sun came out !!! So it was all on again.

As I had done so little in the morning Toni said I could bring Fozzie back out to do some work in the next class. Obviously she had set harder exercises, but she made them slightly easier for Fozzie. Well I was amazed at him. As I said in a previous post he is far more confident in my field and boy was he today. I was overjoyed and it has made me realise I must stop working him at club and continue to get this drive and confidence in the field first. Toni also looked closely at my contacts. She agreed that he was beginning to anticipate the end position far too much ( as can be seen on the first Dog walk in the video) So she then asked me to show her what it was like with the mat ( as I originally taught) She feels for Fozzie this is by far the best way to go. We also did a couple of A-frames and although he didn't go as low into the contact as I would like , he once again had better drive and commitment over it.

I finished the day on a real high and what a wk....His Obedience is brill and now his agility is coming together.....HOORAY...
Here is a small video of him..Please post a reply if you can't watch it and I'll post a smaller blogger one.

Chuffed to Bits.

2009-11-20T04:36:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Fozzies Obedience training day. I am so very proud and chuffed with his attitude and his work. I have included a video taken. This will probably be the last video I take for a while, as really we are just extending/improving what he already knows so won't have much to show really. I will leave it a couple of months or more and re take some in the new year.

Hopefully his next video on here may be of some Agility training!! I am still struggling with him in the Agility, obviously Obedience looks to be his forte. Pity I'm not as keen on it as I am in agility

I have uploaded it in 2 formats because I have been told that some of you can't view Vimeo movies. Vimeo is a much better format with superior quality , I couldn't use youtube for this video because it blocked the attached tune !!! so for those that can't view vimeo I have also downloaded it via blogger.

DISCOVER DOGS

This was held last week weekend at Earls Court in London. I always love going to Discover Dogs and once again both Disney & Woody were invited to go.
Woody was invited primarily because of his appearance on childrens TV at the moment in *Gigglebiz*. He was such a good boy, but for some reason this year struggled with the surface, which meant he couldn't jump properly. However he wasn't an embarrassment even though he was up against all Grade 7 handlers bar one. He missed a couple of contacts, but that was my fault for not working him properly, because I was concerned about his jumping action.

Woody was the only non collie there and the children loved him, and all came to see him afterwards.

Disney once again absolutely adored being under the spotlight. It is truly hard to remember sometimes he is 11 and half years old !!! unfortunately he took a slight fall off the Dogwalk in the first round, and in the second round missed his A-frame but he still came in 5th !!

Video problem

2009-11-08T14:40:00.000-08:00

Just to say I have redone the video below of Fozzie at Obedience. I was told it was freezing half way through, so I re sent it to You Tube and its working fine now.

Long Time !!

2009-11-06T06:36:00.001-08:00

I really thought I ought to update my blog. I know my Mum reads my blog a lot and she'll be telling me off for not updating it regularly. I am always moaning at others for not keeping it up to date, and then here am I doing the exact same thing !!!!

So here goes.. this is all the news from end of September up to today.

I'll start with the shows that I did at the end of Sept and the one I did in October.

First off was Stour Valley. The sun shone most of the weekend. The boys all worked well and between them got some nice places ( no top 3 though and no video!)

Then onto Suffolk Five Rivers

Lovely show, and although its a long way to go its always worth it. We were once again really lucky this year by having the most glorious weather.
I managed to get locked into the huge exercise area on arrival day, which caused everyone much amusement. When I took the boys out the gates were open, and not a soul around. I had a wonderful walk and was gone about an hr, however when I got back the gates were padlocked shut. Fortunately I had my mobile phone with me and rang my mate Jennie, who in turn contacted the show organisers who then contacted the show groundsman,who eventually came and let me out!!!

We had a very successful weekend with Chip getting 2 top ten places in Gd 6. However in 2 of his rounds he ran past the last jump ( and he was clear up till then) to get his ball !! I have worked hard on Chip this yr to get him to go on, especially towards the finish line, and in training I use his ball, so I suppose I have to forgive him.However it was harder for him to go round the jump rather than actually jump it !!!
Disney and Stella won the medium pairs and Disney also got a 2nd in Gd 7 jumping. Woody again was a little star and got 4 places out of 4 classes including 2 4ths. Here is a video of some of their runs.

My last show was Mid Downs at the Autumn country Fair at Ardingly. I love this show with only one ring to worry about ,its nice and relaxed, but best of all a lovely show to look around. It was a bit of a chilly blustery day, but thankfully dry.

I was very pleased with the way both Chip and Woody worked, Disney couldn't compete as there were no medium classes there. Woody did 2 lovely rounds but unfortunately had a pole down in one and missed his dog walk contact in the other. Chip came 6th in the Gd 6 Jumping and was going really well in the Agility, but some shoddy handling on a jump near the end scuppered any chance of a place...duh !! You can see it on the Video. I have posted even the not so good rounds.

Fozzies Obedience is coming on really well. I am really pleased with him. He has a lovely action in heelwork and his set exercises are very clean. I have now just got to fine tune everything and he'll be ready to compete early next year.

Whereas his Agility isn't quite so hot and I am struggling to enjoy training him at the moment. He is a spooky little dog, and he switches off easily. I am really struggling to keep him motivated, and if he gets upset by anything then I just can't get a thing out of him. I am not sure if its an age thing as he is still so puppyish or whether unfortunately I just have to accept I don't have another willing agility dog this time. I know(and yes I've been told countless times) that Chip also didn't have the spark when he started, but he was always very willing, and didn't switch off, also he is/was as cool as a cucumber and never ever spooks at anything !! So with Chip I didn't have to fight and work with other problems as well.

I had a private lesson with Fozzie yesterday, and it was dire. He spent the first 15 minutes spooking,barking,growling at 2 horses that had coats on them ,they were in the field next to the agility field. I just couldn't do a thing with him & I was getting more and more depressed(which obviously didn't help matters). he'd do a jump and then start being paranoid again about the horses ! he'd then sniff the ground looking for imaginary titbits, and then notice the horses again. Eventually we did 2 lines of jumps, with a massive reward and that was the end of the lesson....one very expensive line of jumps !!!
When I got home I was so down in the dumps , I even starting having awful thoughts of re homing him. !!! I never ever thought I'd even consider such a thing !

Having said all this,today I've decided to * lift myself up,brush myself off and start all over again* as the song goes . I've given myself a slap on the face, pulled myself together and told myself to just accept Fozzie for what he is, and try and get the best I possibly can from him. I may just continue training him in my field for the time being, and not take him to other venues until I have built his confidence(and mine) up again. When I feel he's beginning to enjoy it again, then I will do some one off training sessions elsewhere so he gets used to other equipment etc.
I will see??

Fozzie also just over a wk ago had Lungworm(or suspected Lungworm as it was never tested for) The fact he responded so quickly to the Panacur ,coupled with the fact none of my other dogs started coughing also sort of confirmed it. I suppose it could have been an extremely mild case of Kennel Cough but NO dogs he had been in contact with have coughed so I think not. I now have to deliberate over the best preventative treatment to give him & my others. Advocate is supposed to be the best, but there are so many differing opinions over whether it is safe for collies and their crosses!!

and lastly......

Last week I went down to see my best mate Jane in Devon. I only took Woody with me,basically because I wasn't happy about taking Fozzie to Janes as she has so many other dogs, plus a 3 wk old puppy. As there was(at the time) an element of doubt about the kennel cough/lungworm we felt it best to leave him home. I therefore had to leave Chip as his companion. It was actually lovely just having the one dog and being able to give him 100% of my time, and Woody is such a good dog to have around. He is wonderful with all Janes dogs & puppies and totally trustworthy with all her Chickens/Ducks/Ferretts/Cats !!!!!!
We had several lovely long walks whilst I was there, and Jane is such a brilliant cook , we also had some lovely meals & cakes.Unfortunately my diet lapsed and hasn't really returned..Ooops.

However whilst I was there my 19 year old cat Fella had a stroke, he lost the use of one of his legs and also went blind suddenly. Why do these things always happen when I am away? However Steve my hubby was brilliant and dealt with it all. Fella has been on medication now for over a week and I am delighted to say he has made a complete recovery, regained his sight and is back to his old self.

I have joined a local private gym so I am trying hard to get fit. I try to go 3-4 times a week. I do aerobics one evening and then swim for half hr, Step class another evening followed by a swim, and then at least one gym session(bike,rowing etc) followed by a swim. All this coupled with my hourly walk every day with the dogs, plus my agility training I should be super duper fit by next year...he he.

So hopefully by my next post I will have lots and lots of good news to post about Fozzie.
Woody & Disney have been invited to run at Discover Dogs again up at Earls Court next wk.
I am really looking forward to that. I shall be taking Fozzie along for the ride and I am sure it will do him good.

Happy Birthday Fozzie

2009-10-12T08:21:00.000-07:00

My lovable, but very naughty hairy muppet * Fozzie * is 1 today.
Where has that time gone ?

My boys

2009-10-07T05:04:00.001-07:00

I have finished all my agility shows now. Serious winter training starts now, re training all the things I've let slip over the last few months.
I will post about the shows over the next week and add video as well when I've downloaded it.
In the meantime I just wanted to post this pic I took of my 4 boys last week on our walk.

Trial Run

2009-09-28T08:23:00.001-07:00

I've just downloaded an application onto my iphone so I can update my blog via the phone whilst I am away. So this is just a trial to see if it works ok !

Poor Fozzie AGAIN !!

2009-09-23T06:27:00.000-07:00

You may all recall on my blog back in April reading about Fozzies bad experience at the Easter show when he was 6 mths old. Just to recap he was badly attacked ring side by a Border Terrier, Fozzie sustained a very bad bite on his nose and abrasions to his lip. I reported it and have since heard that the owner got a tap on the hand and a fine of £50..big deal !! My Fozzie recovered very well although initially if a bouncy dog with a dark face approached him he did try and snap at it a little. Over the past 6 months Fozzie had gone from strength to strength and I had forgotten about his trauma. As anyone who knows him knows, he is a confident puppy and was approaching all dogs happily and in a very friendly manor.

Well yesterday and this morning all that could have changed
Last night Fozzie started his big boy agility classes. he was brill and all was going well until a black dog ran for the ball his owner had thrown him(which unfortunately landed by Fozzies feet) and the dog rushed in to get his ball & really growled at Fozzie. After that Fozzie got very worried by all the dark faced dogs in the class !!!

Then on my walk this morning ( an hr earlier than normal cause of work ) a black GSD had a go at him. I was coming round some bushes ,the dogs went round first, and suddenly I heard this scream. I ran round to see Fozzie disappearing screaming down the lane, and the guy hastily putting his dog on the lead.
I was too worried about Fozzie to ask the guy for his name . Fortunately Fozzie ran into an entrance leading to a field and then back tracked to me. However if he'd continued he'd have run onto a busy road and who know what the outcome would have been. By the time I had got Fozzie back the guy was long gone !!!

Fortunately there was no physical injury to Fozzie just mental. I now fear Fozzie will become a fear biter having had 3 bad experiences in his first year and 2 incidents of hostility within 24 hrs. !!

To say I am upset would be an understatement. My Disney has always been nervous of other dogs since he was also attacked by 2 dogs at a very similar age. Disney will never ever start anything but if a dog sniffs him, he'll react and ask questions later !!
I just pray I don't have a repeat of this with Fozzie.

FIRST AGILITY CLASS

However on a brighter note ,I was overjoyed with him at his first agility class.
It was a very hyper group (to say the least !!!) 6 dogs in the group and 4 of them real barkers and screamers(this probably didn't help the atmosphere amongst the dogs!!)
Fozzie was EXTREMELY keen and enthusiastic. The dog walk was set low on trestles and the instructor suggested trying him with a target pot at the end. Well Fozzie flew over the contact,no hesitation at all on the down plank and on the 2nd attempt even stopped in an almost perfect position. I don't want to rely on the target pot as its not a method I have previously used, but I am going to use a variation of this eventually !!!

September news

2009-09-12T15:06:00.000-07:00

Where is the year going? here we are almost half way through September, and only 3 more shows till I finish for the winter :-( It seems like only yesterday that I was getting myself ready for my first show in March !

So whats been happening !! Well first off the TV programme *Gigglebiz* that Woody has a part in has started to air on Cbeebies. Its on at 5-35 everyday. He has appeared in the first 4 episodes this wk,with the other 7 of his sketches slotted in over the next 4 wks. So far he looks brilliant ( even though I say so myself) If you want to catch up with some you can do here on the BBC iplayer. There have been some great comments about Woody already on the Cbeebies message board so I am a very proud mum.

Last week Beth my niece qualified Woody for Crufts. She came 2nd in the semi final of the YKC up in Birmingham. She also came 2nd with Disney and as the first place person has decided to take her other dog, Beth has qualified with Disney by default. However Beth can also only take one dog so she will have to decide who she wants to run at Crufts 2010.
Here is a video of her run.

That same weekend I was at Letchworth. I had a great time. It is a lovely relaxed show and the weather was lovely albeit quite windy.
My dogs worked well. Woody clocked up 3 top ten places(good old Mr reliable) but it was Chip I was so pleased with.He came 5th in Graded 6-7 Jumping .He got a second in the Grade1-7 power and speed, being beaten at the very end by 0.02 of a second..WOW !! And then went into combined 6-7 Agility and came 9th. He did a lovely round but once again a slightly slow dog walk & A frame contact made the difference between 3rd and 9th place!!! I only have one video of the weekend and luckily it was this one.

FOZZIE IS 11 MTHS OLD TODAY

I'm not sure what is happening to his coat !!! However I found an old photo of Chip at roughly the same age and his coat did a very similar thing along the back,so I am keeping my fingers crossed Fozzies will turn out just like Chip's.

The weird and wonderful coat ???

Well hows his training going?.......Well I had a brilliant session at Obedience on Thursday, he was very keen,fast & concentrated. In fact his recall was soooo fast that he crashed through my legs and almost ended up upside down ! I was then paranoid I'd broken him, he was fine though. We did about 15 minutes work and I finished on a real high.
He starts big boy agility in 2 weeks. I am very excited about this,but also quite nervous. This will be the first time since we did our foundation class(when he was 6 mths old) that he has worked in a group setting. I know when I try and do anything in my field with him when I have my other dogs with me,he is really terrible and only focuses his attention on them, so I'm not sure what to expect. This will surely be the title of my next post I expect.

So what have I been doing as regards his agility work ? Well the channel weaves are as near as they can be without him actually having to move his body. I don't like to close the weaves up any further until a) the puppy is about 1 yr old and b) I have got them going into the channels from all angles. I love teaching weaves so I am quite anal about how I do it, but I am quite proud of all my previous dogs weaves, so I shall continue to be this way.
The jumps I have literally just put up onto the small height. Once again I like to wait till they are nearly a year old before I start to jump them properly. Fozzie is fully grown now so I am happy to do this. He is very confident over these so I am pleased.
Lastly his dog walk.....Mmmmm Well......
....I was working on a 4 off dog walk hoping to get speed over the contact but with a controlled down on a mat at the end. All was going well until I put the dog walk on trestles. Once the angle of the decent was altered so was the behaviour I was getting. He started to jump from the end of the walk to his mat rather than run through the contact area to it ! I gave a lot of thought to this, and have spoken to a few people and have sort of decided to revert to 2 on and 2 off. Luckily Fozzie will happily run to a dead toy ,so I hope he will keep the speed we had got over the contact once we put in a stop. Work in progress should I say.
Here is a little video taken today in the field. The camera work is thanks to my 11yr old niece Beth.

KC Festival, D.I.N and other updates

2009-08-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

My holidays are almost over, I have had 3 weeks off and its been wonderful. Firstly some catch up news with Fozzie. Whilst away he turned 10 mths old,unfortunately I didn't get a photo of him but he really hasn't changed at all. I will get one at 11 months old in about 10 days time. He is still as naughty as ever and still stealing everything in sight. I can't relax much with him around. I spoke with the owner of his Granddad(on his dads side) and she didn't make me feel any better,she says he'll probably start to behave when he's about 10 yrs old.......noooooo !!!!!!!!
Here is a picture of his handsome granddad "Wizard" who is a show champion

As far as his training goes I am experiencing some problems creeping in ,which I am putting down to just his age I hope. He seems to get bored very easily and stops trying. If I throw a toy after he has done something ie the weaves he'll dash out and get it but seems in no hurry to get back to try again.He seems a little lack lustre. What he does is very correct but with not much enthusiasm any more. I am also seeing a lot of stubborn behaviour coming in. A sort of *I won't & you can't make me * sort of thing. Its the same with his obedience. He tries hard for about 5 - 10 minutes and then switches off. I am feeling a little despondent about it, but I am sure he'll come right. I had the same issues with him when he was teething, and I guess this is all down to hormones because yesterday he became a man and cocked his leg for the first time !!
He starts big boy agility lessons in about 3-4 wks time, and I am sure once he gets in with a group he'll liven up. It definitely isn't the same for me or the dogs training on my own, I think they need the excitement of others working.
Once we start agility I may stop his obedience training for a while, I will tick along with it, but I am wondering if he's the type of puppy/dog that can't cope with too many things.

So onto my agility holiday.......

Because we were having our house rewired I decided to go away earlier for the KC Festival. My friends Jennie & Andrea also wanted to go away earlier ,so on Sunday 9th August we departed. We stayed on a lovely farm site not far from Market Harborough & only about 15 miles from Kelmarsh Hall where the KC festival was being held. It was a lovely site albeit surrounded by rivers and streams, not so good with a bunch of water loveing dogs ! The daily walk was through a field of horses and fowls and then on the last day a flock of sheep were put in there ! All the dogs were great though. It was a very relaxing 3 days before we went up to the KC Festival and thank goodness it was !!! You'll see why when you read on...
Here is a picture from my caravan

So onto the KC FESTIVAL

Phew that's all I can say. It was enormous. On the Monday before we had driven over to the Hall from our farm to see what it was like,and as Norman was Judging and we were also booking people in on arrival day, we could choose where to camp. There were very few people there and no rings up so it was hard to judge distances. Jennie & Norman always like to be fairly nr the exercise area, whereas I like to be fairly nr to the rings what with running 3 dogs, so we chose what we thought would be a good compromise. It wasn't until everyone arrived and the rings were in place that we realised just how far we were from everything. I must have walked miles. I was camped in the same area as Hannah and if you read her blog on the Festival you will see she has sort of worked out how much walking she must have done with just 2 competing dogs,and I had 3 competing dogs!!. In particular it was worse for me on the Friday as my niece came up to run all my dogs.So in addition to my 3 dogs having 3 runs each with me, plus Disney in the KC Olympia semi's, I also had to go to the ring with Beth every time when she ran the dogs. I was totally exhausted,had a thumping headache by the end of the day and vowed NEVER again. Every trip back from the rings seemed like an eternity.
On the good side Beth ran the dogs beautifully, unfortunately a couple of small errors meant she didn't make the finals but she did brilliantly. Here is a video of her runs. I think I made an error on Woody's run and he didn't infact come 6th in that particular round but in the other one. !!

Woody was brill again for me, unfortunately only got a couple of videos, but here is one

Chip was ..well Chip !! I got some good start line waits from him, but I did some shoddy handling as well. I also had a very bad fall which didn't help my overall feelings for the weekend. It was in the Grade 6 Agility. I was really looking forward to running in the class. It was being judged by Nancy Hudson.I love her handling type of courses. Well I set Chip up in a wait and managed to get a 2 jump wait. When I released him he was supposed to go into the wrong end of the tunnel, however he cut in front of me and literally took me off my feet. I landed in a crumpled mess,hurt my elbow and shoulder and also my bad leg. I made a quick departure mainly through embarrassment !!!! I spoke with Nancy afterwards and she assured me it wasn't any bad handling on my behalf ,it was Chip being naughty !!!

Disney was either fantastic or terrible. He was also in the KC Olympia semi's. I really wanted him to do well as I fear that at aged 11 years his time is running out for Olympia. Amanda Rodgers had set up a lovely course , with some tricky bits but nothing I was really worried about. Disney set off wonderfully(hard to believe he's 11 yrs old) he tackled the bit where most eliminations were happening at the long jump and the 2 jumps after the cloth tunnel, I was now feeling good..into the weaves and then Disney took the wrong end of the tunnel. I really hadn't expected this at all. I sort of gave up then and stopped working him. I have to be honest and say I was very disappointed to say the least. I have included the video anyway. He was working so well.

From the KC Festival we went 120 miles down to Ipswich and Dogs in Need.
We arrived on the Sunday as once again we were helping book everyone into camping.
What a fantastic week weather wise,the sun shone everyday , although there was quite a wind.
Chip totally made up for performances at the KC festival and worked amazingly. He got a 3rd and 6th in Grade 6 jumping and a 9th in Grade 6 agility( with 5 faults) he had the fastest 5 faults and if he hadn't knocked the pole he'd have come 2nd ,only being 0.08 of a second off the winner !!! Once again it was a handling course as opposed to a fast flat out course. it was Judged by Dennis McCauley and was very tricky. Chip was superb with fabulous fast contacts and very tight. Unfortunately I don't have any runs from D.I.N on video, which is sods law as I had some of Chips best ever runs there, maybe that's telling me something ! When they are being filmed they never turn out the best..hmmm.
Chip was also in the Final of the Celebration Connection class,held on the Thursday. Unfortunately I placed myself in the wrong position for the tunnel/tunnel combination and he went in the wrong end ( me and tunnels eh ???????)
Still at least he got to the final.

Disney got through to the Championship Final but unfortunately flew the seesaw which he's been doing quite a bit of late.I don't train him at club anymore and I think my seesaw at home is weighted differently ! Still once again I was very proud to have him in it.

Woody once again came home with several nice places including 2nd in the fancy dress pairs.( Bathing Belles & Wrestlers) His partner was Roo handled by Andrea. Chip and Quiche came 5th in the same class. They would have definitely beaten Woody & Roo on time as they are both very fast,but Chip ran for his ball at the finish line and by the time I had got him back into the box we had lost about 3-4 seconds. We were told afterwards by the judges that infact as long as I was in the box Andrea could have gone,but we didn't know that and I didn't want to be eliminated.

Don't we look a picture

Unfortunately I didn't get any of my dogs into the end of week finals. Typically they did all their best rounds on non qualifying days and on the qualifiers completely mucked up ( I have to say some of the qualifying courses were extremely tricky)
In one of Woody's they had to go from angled 6 weaves to another angled 6 weaves. If dogs weren't getting eliminated or faulted there,they were getting eliminated on a very close tunnel to dog walk combination. I was very confident going into the ring with Woody because I know how honest he is. We got through all the traps and he went into the first weaves(which were at a horrible angle) but for some reason he stopped weaving and looked worried, he then came out of the weave. I jollied him up ,put him back in the weave and he continued perfectly. I don't know what was wrong with him but it cost us a place in the final !

Maybe next year I'll get 4 dogs into the finals...yikes !! 4 dogs to run ,how will I ever manage that.

Next weekend Beth is in the Crufts YKC Semi Finals up in Birmingham with both Disney & Woody. Fingers crossed for them. It would be good to get one of them to Crufts again next year.

Lots of catch up !

2009-08-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

I am off on a 2 wk agility holiday in just under a couple of days, so I thought I had better bring my blog up to date before I go.

Firstly a Fozzie update. Well his pre agility training is coming on very well and I am very pleased with him so far. I started a little foundation class for some friends with the intention of training Fozzie in it, but it proved impossible to teach and train so up till 2 weeks ago all my training was done on my own which meant no exciting start lines, just waits. He actually now has an excellent start line wait. However 2 wks ago I started training my sister in laws puppy for 20 minutes before the main class,this enabled me to bring Fozzie out to train with Charlie. It meant for the first time I could have someone hold him and wind him up and I could recall him down long lines of jump wings...great. I have also now started to place his mat at the end of the dog walk down plank (at very low height) and he is hitting his mat dead on. Next I need him to do it independently of me , so I can be anywhere and he still gets the criteria right. Up to now I have been mostly in front and rewarded with a click and then food from my hand,I now want to progress this so I am behind him but he still faces forward to get his reward. That is my homework when I return from holidays.

His obedience is also coming on well. I have sped up his recall and retrieve over the last 3 wks and his heel work position is getting better, however mentally he tires very quickly and struggles a little,I hope this will improve with age.

So here are 3 little videos of him. One obedience video taken yesterday, one of his agility work taken last wk ,and then a slow motion video of his contact training.

AND IN SLOW MOTION....HIS CONTACTS

HIS OBEDIENCE WORK

Show News.

Well at long last here is the video of Woody's lovely run at Rugby show a few wks back

and finally last week at Tenterden...

I was absolutely over the moon after last weekend. On the Saturday I was very despondent with Chip. We were just not getting things together and I had actually asked someone else to run him for me in some runs as i just felt I wasn't doing him justice.
Someone then gave me a real talking to,everything they said was so true. I was trying too hard with him and therefore putting too much pressure on both myself and him.They also said I could achieve with him and I wasn't crap like I was beginning to think I was.
So on the Sunday I decided to run him in the 2 runs he had. Well what can I say. He was brill. His 2 classes were both Gd 6-7. He came 12th in the Jumping ! there were some messy bits as well as some brill bits and I could see where he could make up the 2 seconds that split him and the top 3 places.
In the Agility he came 5th !!!! Once again a slow dog walk and a slightly messy turn made the difference between him and a possible win (time wise)
I came away elated and now more full of confidence,especially as he has the final of the Celebration Connection at the Dogs in Need show in 2 weeks. Here is a video of the 2 runs and the various mistakes.I apologise for the commentary by my very silly friends...enjoy !!!!!!!!

In loving Memory

2009-07-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

I just had to put a post on about dear Tommy ,who passed away today.

Tommy was Disney's twin brother and Woody's dad. Without dear Tommy I wouldn't have any of my boys ,as they are all descended from Tommy.

Tommy was diagnosed with cushings disease about 3 years ago and although on medication , had continued to lead a full and normal life. Last weekend he even had the fastest time in the KC Olympia medium qualifier up in Norfolk , but sadly knocked a pole. He was still as keen and fast as ever(Just like his brother Disney)

Tommy took a turn for the worse suddenly at the weekend.He'd been out for a lovely walk , then Chris (his owner) went out for a couple of hrs. When she came back Tommy was hiding in the bathroom and had suddenly gone blind and deaf. Apparently his liver was giving out toxins which cause this. When Chris tried to lift him he screamed and panicked. She rushed him to the Vets and he was put on a drip and stabilized, by the next day his sight had returned but he was still critical. This was all down to his Cushings disease.Yesterday he appeared to be rallying round and had even eaten a little and they were waiting for a specialist to come and see him,but sadly overnight he started fitting and deteriorated fast. Chris was called in and had to make the decision we all dread first thing this morning.

We were worried that this could be a hereditary condition,because between us we have 5 descendants of Tommy, but we have been reassured by the specialist and various articles on the Internet that Cushings is most definitely not a hereditary condition.Cushings syndrome is a hormone (endocrine) disorder caused by high levels of cortisol in the blood. This can be caused by taking steroid type drugs for long periods of time or by tumours that can produce cortisol.
We may never know why poor Tommy succumbed to this horrible condition, and to lose such a wonderful little man is so sad.

RIP Dear Tommy....18th May 1998 - 27th July 2009

9 months today

2009-07-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

Little Fozzie bear is 9 months old today. His training is coming along beautifully.I just wish he would stop chewing everything in sight !!!!!!!
I thought I'd post a pic I took.
I have just come back from Rugby Agility show and I will post video and news sometime over the next few days.

Holidays

2009-07-06T13:48:00.000-07:00

Well we have just had our weeks holiday in Devon. The weather was superb apart from one day when we had rain on and off. It was still very hot that day and the rain was quite refreshing as we were doing a long walk.

We spent a lot of time with my best friend Jane & her husband Graham and their 8 dogs. We did some lovely long walks,had some lovely meals and ate far too much(far too many cream teas Jane !!!!) So my diet started today.....again !

The dogs had a whale of a time. Because of the weather being so hot we decided to do mainly riverside walks,so the dogs could go in and out of the water and also there is a lot of shade from the trees. Normally we love doing Dartmoor walks but it is so exposed with no shelter. This was Fozzies first proper holiday and he loved every minute of it,however rather than be exhausted after the long days ,he seemed to get on a high and decided to be very naughty ! He chewed through the fabric crate he sleeps in at night, then started on the Caravan. The next day he thought the carpet needed some attention , and he has gone from bad to worse since then. He is constantly stealing things,chewing things and just generally being hard work. I really feel I must start more intense training with him particularly domestically. He really is an unruly teenager !!! The dogs all came back from the holiday very itchy, so the moment we got home they all had a bath, I found 3 tics on them. I don't think this caused the itchiness I think it may have been a combination of salt sea water from the beach trip and the river water, which although very clean it must contain minerals or something. They are certainly better since their baths but not quite 100%

The weekend before our hols I went to Lansdown agility show. It was VERY hard for me to go back to this show as it was at this show last year I had to have dear Libby put to sleep.It bought all those memories flooding back. I slept in my van as Steve (hubby) took my caravan to Devon ready for our hols. It was actually very cosy & comfortable.

Disney was a star again and came 2nd in a horrible grade 6/7 jumping course. Chip worked nicely again,he did some very good waits, but once again my handling let him down. Woody was a little star again. he did some lovely rounds and got a couple of places. In one round he was going so well up till he went into the tunnel,but when he came out of it he was in quite a state and very worried. It transpired that he came out with a Bumble Bee attached to him !! Woody is petrified of bee,wasps and flies at the best of times so this must have really traumatised him. Luckily the judge was brilliant and asked if I wanted to put Woody back through the tunnel. I did so and Woody was fine.

We were hoping to qualify for Crufts with our medium team at this show and we were leading all the way till the last team,who just beat us by a fraction of a second. It was real shame because Disney got faulted on his seesaw by coming off slightly on the side,but he definitely got his contact but still got faulted, if he hadn't we would have definitely won this and would now be taking our Sunbury team to Crufts for the 3rd year. We have one more opportunity to qualify next weekend so fingers crossed.

I thought you would like to see some pics of our holiday and a small video of the dogs just being dogs !!! You may want to turn the volume down becasue of Woody's barking...lol.

With our friends Jane & Graham

Just like Buses........

2009-06-22T11:30:00.000-07:00

..they all come at once !!!

As you all know I have just finished filming a childrens TV programme with Woody,due to start screening in August/Sept ? I have been asked several times why I don't do media work with my dogs full time ,and to be sure I'd really love to,however jobs for them just don't come that often especially long term ones and when they do they all come together ! So that's how the title of this post came about. Unbelievably I had a call for Woody to do another job whilst we were actually on set for Gigglebiz so I had to turn that down, I've then had a call from one of my other agents for measurements of all my dogs and what they could & couldn't do,this is for something later this year I believe, I then had a job come through for Chip and Fozzie but I am holiday when they needed them(damn) and then last week I had a last minute call for a job for Disney,however this job didn't actually go ahead. So in the space of 5 weeks I had 4 other offers of work for my boys. I know that I may not now get another call for months ,so in the meantime its carry on childminding and dog training with a sprinkling of media work in between!!!

So onto show news. Thames was on the 13/14th June.I had hurt my back badly on the Thursday before so I wasn't running at all well. I had a mixed weekend of results. Disney got a 1st in the grade 6-7 jumping,what an amazing little dog he is at 11 yrs old and still holding his own.Unfortunately I had borrowed Steve's camcorder and it had run out of battery. The Champ class wasn't quite so successful and he got eliminated in the jumping round,because of my back I decided not to do the other rounds.
Chip was a little star and did some nice rounds but either had a pole down or a refusal in his classes. However Beth(my niece) ran him in him in the junior class and he came 2nd.You can see a little video of it on Beths own blog here.BETHS BLOG.
Woody ,as usual,hardly put a foot wrong,he came 8th with Beth and had several good rounds with me also. Here is the one video I have before the battery went.

Last weekend it was Axtane. Well what a weekend we had.
Disney qualified for the KC Olympia semis again,his 5th Olympia semi !The semi will be held at the KC festival in August.He came 1st in Gd 6-7 Jumping and also Gd 4-7 agility.Here is a video of the KC run and the jumping run.

Woody,sporting his new go faster haircut !!!! didn't have such a good Saturday,mainly a weave issue.He kept coming out the last weave ! However he made up for it on the Sunday where he did 2 lovely agility rounds and got 2 top ten places.Video below.

Chip was working fantastically all weekend, just small mistakes in each class mostly poles. But I was overjoyed that he came 2nd in the Easter celebration connection class and also qualified for a final in August. The funny thing about this place is I really didn't want to run him, I couldn't get my head around the course and my back was aching, I actually asked several people if they would run him for me, but they declined because of the course. Anyway I decided what the hell I would go ahead and do it, and we somehow just got it so together.We went into the lead by over 2 seconds and stayed there for nearly the whole class and was then pipped at the post. I was very happy to be beaten by Ruth (even though I told her what course to take !!!!)
I am extremely pleased with Chips waits,he hasn't broken one for me for the last 2 weeks. I have included a video of him ,unfortunately I don't have the connection one..which is typical, I never have the best rounds on video ! The 2 runs I have posted are where he uncharacteristically made mistakes in the weaves, I ran the first and then once again ,because of my back ,my friend Norman Love ran him. That would have been a fantastic run but for those blooming weaves as you will see !!!

Filming all finished

2009-06-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

Filming for the series Woody is in, finished on Tuesday. They are still filming some more material for the programme, but all that Woody is in has been done. I actually got quite emotional saying my goodbyes. It had been a great time,Woody was a true star and the crew were so kind and friendly, and Justin Fletcher (the star) was such a lovely person and he adored Woody. We have an invite to go and visit him sometime in the future so he can have his fix of Woody cuddles :-))
The programme is called Gigglebiz ,its a comedy programme with several small sketches in it,and is due to be shown from the end August for 12 weeks,Woody is in one of the sketches called Humphrey.

So things are back to normal,or as normal as it is in my house.

Last Thursday we had an invasion of Gypsies in the field next door to my agility field,so every piece of equipment had to be moved out. We now have a front garden full of equipment !! However today they moved on,so going to mow the field and move everything back. It was a worrying time because at one stage there seemed to be some arriving every day. I haven't dared go over to see what sort of mess has been left behind !!! My guess it will be a long time till I can walk the dogs over there.

There hasn't been any shows for me for the past 3 weeks,but we will be making up for it over the next month as it seems there is something every weekend during June,plus we are going on holiday to Devon for a few days as well at the end of the month.

Its fortunate that I didn't have any shows scheduled as both Woody & Chip had to go to the chiropractor as both had slight neck problems. My chiropractor is convinced both were possibly caused by one extremely naughty puppy barging into them when we are out. Fozzie doesn't have any manners with the other dogs.

Talking of Fozzie,he is still chewing everything and anything,he has to be watched constantly as everything goes missing.

I can't end a post without a picture or video so here is one of Woody on set.

Poor Chip & other stuff

2009-05-31T13:31:00.001-07:00

Firstly what a wonderful week I have just had. I had a week off. The week long agility show I normally do at this time of year had been cancelled but I still had the week off because all the children I look after were on holiday.

The weather was really good especially at the beginning & end of the week. The middle was a bit miserable but it didn't stop me doing things all wk.

On the first Saturday I went to an Obedience show,my first for over a year,I wish I hadn't bothered really,Chip was very very distracted & worked abismally and I decided there and then the time had come to have him castrated..more on that later !! Disney was very high and was very excited but was very wide on his heelwork,so nothing for him. Woody doesn't do competetive Obedience,but I suspect he may have been better than the other 2 if I had entered him !! So I didn't even stay to do Chip & Disney's stays and just came home. I then picked up my son Tony and we went down to Mums to sort out her new broadband and laptop..well thats another long story !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sunday I went to an agility show,nice and near to me at Slough ,it was a glorious day and a very relaxed chilled show. Disney got a 2nd in the jumping( what a lad) and Woody also got a lowish place in the Agility,but he just wasn't running & jumping properly and I suspect he needs to see the chiropractor again,so he's booked in in 2 weeks.Chip once again was just not on this planet !!!!

Bank holiday Monday saw me down at my Mums again,first for a lovely walk and then another 3 hrs trying to fix the Internet and Laptop.....it resulted in a total meltdown of the laptop. !!!

Poor Chip also has a limp,we suspect a left shoulder injury. He was slightly lame last Thursday but it wore off,but returned again today so I am resting him for a while..NO training/jumping at all ,just a few short walks. Luckily there are no shows for a couple of weeks.

Tuesday I woke up all prepared to take Chip to the Vets to have the chop! However we went with the new chemical castration (Suprelorin) so he wouldn't have to miss any shows . He has had an implant which releases a hormone over the period of 6 months and gives exactly the same effect as surgical castration. So we were in and out in 5 minutes !! I will report on here how its all going over the next few months. It takes 2-3 weeks to start to show. If I don't like how he is, I just won't have him castrated properly in 6 months, If the reaction is good then we all know what his little Xmas present will be....POOR CHIP !!!
In the afternoon I went caravan hunting/looking with my mate Jennie.

Wednesday was puppy agility classes with Fozzie,I continue to be very pleased with him . Afterwards Woody had a slight haircut (thank you Shirley) ready for his next lot of filming in about 10 days.

Thursday I had a lazy day ,and then I started teaching a new 5 wk puppy foundation course in the evening. I was cajoled into doing this by my mates as they all have puppies between 6-9 mths and had nowhere to take them. It is a great little group and my niece Beth is also bringing her Nans 10mth old Standard poodle x Collie puppy Charlie along. It is all very basic stuff I am teaching with no jumping at all, just waits,go-ons, recalls,tunnels ,directions stuff etc and all with lots of motivation.

Friday was back to Mums for the never ending saga of the Laptop and Broadband..thankfully all fixed now and ready to roll.

This weekend was taken up with a bit of Spring cleaning.. VERY BORING,walking the dogs and letting them have some lovely swims. I also spent some time looking at the new Apple Laptops which I am seriously thinking of buying......gotta start saving now though. !!

Heres a little video taken on my mobile phone today at the River. I now have 4 water loving dogs because Fozzie got right in there with the big boys.

Disney's Birthday & Fozzies training

2009-05-22T12:59:00.000-07:00

Firstly I have to say a Huge Happy Birthday to my extra special boy Disney. He was 11 years old on 18th May.

FOZZIE'S TRAINING

Well his training is coming on big time. My early reservations are unfounded. He's getting stronger in his Obedience all the time. He now has learnt all the basics and its now just a case of fine tuning & practice over the next few months ready for his debut in the ring in about 3 months time hopefully. He is still quite reliant on his titbits being held in the hand for heelwork, so we have to wean him from them, so they can be in my pocket or pouch.

He has now done 5 puppy agility sessions, and is having great fun. It's me thats the problem. You get lazy when you have experienced dogs that know what they are doing and forget puppies need SO much help. I find myself doing things when I am handling,that I nag my students not to do all the time. Its so easy to see other people making mistakes,but also so frustrating to know that I am often making the same mistakes !!!!! DUH

I'd like to explain my training method for my contacts. Firstly I am running Fozzie over the dogwalk contact as fast as I can. Whether he hits the contact area or not is immaterial at the present , as long as he doesn't actually jump off the contact (hence the hoop) I will reward him. I just want speed and confidence at this stage. I am then teaching his go to a mat separately. I have only just started this and eventually I want him to run to the mat,lay down and look forward away from me. When I have got both these behaviours I will then put the mat at the end of the contact about 2-3 ft away. I am then hoping he will still keep the speed across with a stop at the bottom.Eventually I will bring the mat closer and closer to the contact. My reasons for trying this method this time is because all my other dogs were taught a 2 on and 2 off from the start,and they all have slow contacts on the down plank. Only time will tell whether this will work with Fozzie but I certainly want to try it. I'll keep you posted.

Here are 2 little videos taken this week showing his Obedience and Agility training.

May News.. Woody Filming,Fozzie & Shows

2009-05-12T06:23:00.000-07:00

Lots going on here at the moment,I just don't have a spare moment.
We are nearing the end of Woody's filming. Its for Cbeebies series called *Gigglebiz* which is a programme with several short funny sketches in.They have made 25 episodes and Woody appears in everyone,sometimes a big part sometimes just at the start and finish of the sketch called Humphrey.Woody plays Archie who is Humphreys dog(the Character played by Justin Fletcher) Woody has been fantastic. He is loved by everyone and has done everything asked of him. It is due to be screened starting the end of August.
We've been on location all over the place...Weymouth, at a wildlife park,farm,garden centre,several parks.Its been so much fun with a lovely crew and off couse with Justin ,who is the most lovely person.
Here are a selection of pics I've taken so far.

At Weymouth

FOZZIE NEWS

My Mr funny looking Fozzie is 7 months old today. I keep saying his coat isn't growing much, but when I looked at the photos I have just taken to put on here ,he seems to have sprouted more hair on his face since yesterday !!!!
His scar on his nose is slowly going and I am beginning to relax a bit more now when I am out walking him. I still put him on a lead if I am the slightest bit unsure of the dog that's approaching,but usually Woody & Chip are my guides as to how friendly the dog is and I then let him off. He is still very confident to approach them,so hopefully its had a happy ending. I have temporarily stopped walking him on his own,it was getting very difficult with the filming going on etc and as I said it helps having my 2 extremely dog friendly dogs with him at the moment.
His training is coming on very well,but once again lack of spare time means not much practice. Once filming has stopped we can resume it all with enthusiasm.

SHOW NEWS

Last weekend it was Tunbridge Wells.
Chip wasn't really with me at all over the weekend.We just couldn't get it together and once it went wrong it went wrong big style. Every round he was a little off his head, and I withdrew him from one agility round because he broke his wait again. So no places or clears for Chip.
Disney did some lovely rounds and finished up 6th in the Olympia qualifier. He did a fantastic Grade 6-7 jumping but ran past the second to last jump and was eliminated,but boy was he fast.
Woody..well what can I say about my perfect little star....6 runs , 6 clear rounds with 5 places and one run just out of places. They went down to 10th and he came 11th !!!

The week before was Vyne.

Woody was once again my star. 2 clears out of 3 and 2 places.
Disney was in the Champ class and he actually got through to the finals. He really worked well ,but unfortunately I am having to push him harder now and he flew his seesaw. His round was very tight and smooth and I have it on video but haven't got round to downloading it yet..I will soon.
Chip did some very nice rounds with just small mistakes on my side.

April news.

2009-04-27T14:18:00.000-07:00

Well I must start with an update on Fozzie. His nose is beginning to heal and I am very pleased to say that there have been no nasty after effects. He is still approaching dogs happily, initially I was concerned because he appeared to be slightly fear biting if the dog got a bit over excited nr him,but I think he was actually just playing. I was, and still am paranoid that he will get bitten again, so I am keeping him on a lead and only letting him off when I am 100% sure of the other dog or we meet other dogs I already know are OK.
Fortunately we have been to 2 weekend shows since the attack and so I have been able to walk him around the rings, albeit cautiously. I steer very clear of any dogs that look the slightest bit iffy. He has also met 2 very nice mannered Border terriers since and he has been fine. I thank god that he had a really confident,extremely friendly temperament before this happened,if he had been a nervy puppy or already had a slightly dodgy temperament am sure the outcome could have been very different.I am just hoping that once his male hormones come in & as he gets older , it then won't have any long term detrimental effect.

We have started a puppy agility foundation course , a couple of his puppy friends go along too and I am so far very pleased with him. Its only real puppy stuff,teaching them to go round poles,on wobble boards,waits etc etc but all with agility in mind. I don't believe in starting young puppies on equipment too soon,there is so much foundation work that can be done even before they see any real agility equipment. Fozzie has done a couple of tunnels ,recalls through very very wide channel weaves, and a wait and a recall through jump wings but that's it.

His obedience training is coming on in leaps and bounds and I am thrilled. When I look back at one of my previous posts where I was worrying about him I now have to laugh.

Here is a little video of him taken about 10 days ago( about 4 days after his horrible attack!)

Now some Agility news.......
2 weeks ago we were at Wallingford agility show at Newbury. Disney came 1st in the pairs with Jennie & her lovely dog Stella. I continued my training of Chips waits and he did some lovely work. Woody as usual was a star & got a couple of top ten places.
No video taken there.

Last weekend we were at the WBSDS agility show,once again at Newbury.

Disney,my little star, came 2nd in Grade 7 agility on the Saturday. He worked his socks off. On the Sunday there was a very tricky grade 6-7 course put up by Anthony Clark. I loved the challenge of it. It has a jump,tunnel under dog walk start.Dogs had to take the dogwalk. I watched dog after dog get eliminated at this point. I decided to trust Disney's training and his excellent start line wait and walk to the end of the dog walk and do a long recall,just telling him dogwalk. He did it perfectly and even got a cheer from the crowd that had built up round the ring to watch. He got the first extremely tricky weave entry and was going beautifully,until the last set of weaves, I flicked my shoulder slightly and he took a jump instead. I was very pleased with him,but could have kicked myself !!
Woody ,once again got a couple of lovely top ten places. He did one particularly nice jumping round but unfortunately had 2 poles down. As per usual the good rounds didn't get filmed whereas the not so good did.I have included this pole down round because I liked his enthusiasm. The other round was one of the better ones.

Chip was on fire. .He also did the very tricky course that Disney had done earlier and once again I left him in a wait and went 1/3 along the dog walk,he too went straight onto the dogwalk,however his downfall came with a refusal later in the course,but boy was I pleased with his work.He did his waits in all his other classes and worked superbly. He ended up 4th in Grade 6 agility on the Saturday and 7th in the jumping. I was totally overjoyed. I had resigned myself to the fact that my top ten places were over with Chip once he got into grade 6 ,but this clearly shows he has got what it takes and it has given me renewed confidence. I only had one jumping round videoed,luckily it was good one.

Poor Fozzie, & Easter Celebration show

2009-04-13T06:48:00.001-07:00

Well I am back from a very stressful weekend at the Easter Celebration Agility show.

On the Saturday poor Fozzie was attacked by a Border Terrier by the side of the ring. I was watching my friend run her dog ,and was just about to walk away to see her when the dog lunged & attacked Fozzie. It got Fozzie by the nose and wouldn't let go. Fozzie was screaming . Eventually the dog did let go & people rushed to help. I was in a right state as was Fozzie. The people with the terrier were totally unapologetic and just blamed me and Fozzie for the attack !!!!!!!! luckily I had loads of witnesses who saw everything. Apparently this dog is well renowned for being vicious and had in fact had a go at another dog not 10 minutes before he bit Fozzie!

The people didn't once ask how Fozzie was or say sorry, and they even tried to leave the show,luckily they were stopped.
This dog has bitten several times before but hasn't been reported, so is allowed to continue to compete and be a potential danger to other dogs,such as my poor Fozzie.
Well to cut a long story short ,it is being taken further this time and is being reported to the Kennel Club. So hopefully this will be the last time it will hurt another dog.

Other people at the show were fantastic and very supportive , so thank you Bernadette,Karen,Leah, Jason,Nancy,Jennie and everyone else who came to ask how Fozzie was. And of course thank you to Andrea who made sure the people didn't get away.
Luckily he was fine later walking round the ring and was OK with other dogs he met afterwards, although he was very very wary of border terrier type dogs. We met a little pug and Fozzie was extremely unhappy around him,I guess its a colour related thing?I just hope this won't affect him as he matures.

The good news is the wound looks lots better today.
Yesterday he was 6 months old and I always take photos of my puppies on every monthly anniversary(plus loads in between) so his 6 mth old one doesn't look quite so lovely with a scarred nose , but I have posted them anyway,plus one of his nose shortly after he was bitten. This was the top wound ,he had several punctures under the nose as well.

Mr Fozzie Bear

Back to the Show results..........

I have made up my mind that Chip will not be allowed to break his waits at all,so he gets one chance and if he breaks I take him out the ring. This happened on his very first run. However his next two were much more successful. He had a pole down in his second class and got eliminated in the KC qualifier(all my fault) but he worked beautifully.On the Sunday he still did his waits but once again had poles down.
Disney worked beautifully as well, he too had a pole down and an elimination on the Saturday and on the Sunday it was repeated. Its hard to believe he is nearly 11 years old. He is as keen as ever and still seems as fast, but he really can't compete with the young ultra fast medium collies( and shelties) that are everywhere now. I still just love running him and intend to enjoy every run I do for as long as he can.
Woody seemed a little off colour on the Saturday,then when I thought about it I realised he was just not jump fit. Unfortunately he hasn't had much training over winter(I have been concentrating on Chip) and it showed.He is VERY fit as far as exercise goes,but theres a big difference in the muscles used for jumping. Saturday he had 2 refusals(very uncharacteristic) and a pole down .On the Sunday he was much better and he came 7th in the KC Novice qualifier. He did another clear in the jumping, but was very wide and was just out of the places,and then I put him over the wrong jump in his last class,but he was jumping beautifully.

Great Few Days Training

2009-03-31T14:02:00.000-07:00

This weekend I had 2 agility training days,Saturday with Natasha Wise and on the Sunday with Toni Dawkins. I did them both with Chip. I was a little concerned at doing 2 consecutive days with him but I needn't have worried.

Natasha was brilliant, and I picked up several things to work on from her,even though I have an untalented dog ! :-) I had to put that in, sorry Natasha if you read this .Let me explain what happened........ She was explaining something to me about a line of jumps and she said that naturally talented dogs would nearly always take this line, whereas Chip hadn't ! She didn't realise what she had actually said until everyone started making fun of me & Chip( all taken in good spirit) Natasha went Scarlett and didn't know what to say. She hadn't meant it as it sounded, and apparently she was actually referring to one of her own dogs , however she couldn't stop apologising . Poor Natasha obviously felt bad about it as she even mentioned it again to everyone when they went for a meal later in the evening.

Luckily I have a thick skin .

Sunday it was Toni training over at my field.
Boy the weather was kind to us..the sun shone and it was quite warm for nearly the whole 3 hrs.
I struggled a bit adjusting to a different trainers ideas. Although Toni & Natasha aren't too different in their handling/teaching there was enough of a difference to confuse me a little. Chip was fine,just his poor mum that struggled.
I am overjoyed at Chips waits,he was rock solid 98% of the time. The 2 occasions he broke his wait on the Saturday,I just withdrew him,let some others take their turn and then set him up again.
On the Sunday with Toni we were working on recalling the dogs over the contacts with at least one jump in between. Once again once Chip knew what was expected of him ,he was fabulous.
I am so enjoying him, he is keen , responsive, turns on a sixpence and gives absolutely 100%.

That was our last agility training day till October and we finished it off with a fab meal down at the local carvery.

Obedience with Fozzie & Chip on Monday evening

I decided to pay a visit to my old Obedience club on Monday night ( Surrey DTC) down in Worplestone nr Guildford.
There were only a few of us there, and I was made to feel very welcome. I haven't been there since Chip was about 18 mths old.
Fozzie was very happy there in the new environment and didn't disgrace me at all.
I did a fast recall, Margaret held him whilst I went to the end of the hall for the recall.
He did a very small amount of heelwork,but what he did I was thrilled with,he was attentive and keen.
Janet gave me loads to think about & practice on our last training session at Sunbury and its all beginning to pay off. We then did some stays. I have done very little in the way of stays with Fozzie but he was just brill. I think it helped that he was a little tired by then, but I managed to get about a 45 second sit stay and a minute down stay.

I then put him in out into the van and got Chip out. WOW that's all I'll say. He was gobsmacking. Everyone commented on how he looked and worked. Chip has got so much stronger mentally/physically and it shows.

So with renewed keenness I have entered a few Obedience shows this year !!!!

Can I help ?

2009-03-25T06:38:00.001-07:00

My eldest son Tony came round last night with my belated Mothers Day present,a lovely bunch of flowers and some chocolates..I have told him I am on a diet,now I shall just have to force myself to eat them..ha ha

Tony is a real dab hand at flower arranging..I don’t know where he gets this flair from ,but hey I wasn’t going to stop him.

Anyway Fozzie was totally enthralled by what Tony was doing, I just had to take some piccies.

What you doing Tony ????

Arr you're arranging the pretty flowers

I can help..go on let me

Woo Hoo

2009-03-21T04:21:00.000-07:00

Phew after my doom & gloom post at the beginning of the week,things have taken a real turn for the better.

I took Fozzie for his second proper Obedience lesson on Thursday,not expecting great things. I had gone armed with some very yummy,very smelly liver cake that dear Karen had made for me(thanks mate )plus some beautiful left over roast beef.

Fozzie was brilliant. Motivated,happy and he tried so so hard.( sure it was the liver cake..lol) I finished on a real high and 100% more positive He has also now cut all his teeth so his whole demeanor has changed again. He's happy,playing and back to his naughty self. I haven't started to really tug again yet with him, although he clearly wants to ,I will leave it a while till his teeth have really settled.
Walks will still continue on his own as well for 90% of the time,sometimes its just impossible to take him out separately.

I have included a small video of him on Thursday at Class, I left the funny bit of him nr the end. It was just so cute(don't think Janet thought so !!!) he started offering up some of his tricks in desperation for his titbit,and it was so funny..bless him.

Feeling a bit down & First show of the year.

2009-03-17T08:31:00.000-07:00

I am writing this mainly for my own benefit so when I look back on this blog/diary in years to come I can say ,Oh yes I had forgotten Fozzie was just like that. We tend to forget just how our dogs were as puppies, and several times over the last week or so I have been reminded that my other dogs have reacted or been similar to Fozzie.

To get to the point I have been feeling a bit down/depressed at how things are progressing with Fozzie,he is teething badly so some of his behaviour/demeanour could be solely down to that,there is also the age thing going on,the stages of development most puppies go through.Some sail through these times with no hiccups,whereas some puppies react in strange ways .For instance he has become very spooky at things generally & we're getting lots of panic barking,once again I've been told and read this can be age related .

Fozzie has stopped tugging & wanting to play generally,I am sure this is definitely down to his teeth,as I said in a previous post.But also he is generally not so motivated. I watched a DVD that I did of Chip growing and was amazed at how wonderful Chips heelwork was at the same age as Fozzie.( will try & post some Chip video at a later date) I struggled getting any bond with Chip for at least 10 months ,but here he was doing figure of eight heelwork,with such want & style.
I think Chip did so well because he was such a serious puppy. In fact he was like an adult dog in a puppy body. He was never naughty,never chewed,very quiet and as I have said showed no emotion at all. When you look at the video of him at 5 months old you could have almost been looking at an adult dog working..

Now Fozzie who is very puppylike in everything, cannot do more than 3 steps of heelwork without switching off. Plus most of his other behaviours have slowed down and he's just lost the edge !!!

So me being me,I analysed everything I was doing,and I am sure its something I am doing or not doing.
Well I came to the conclusion that a) I am being too serious and b) maybe just expecting too much from myself & Fozzie. c) not giving him enough *me* time.

So firstly all walks with the other dogs have been stopped. It has meant me getting up even earlier to fit this in, but I feel he has bonded too strongly with Chip & more so Woody and I'm just not so interesting. I'm not stopping him having contact in the house,but its also limited.
Whilst I am out on my own with him, I am using this time to just play with him as much as possible. Its also giving him independent confidence..its amazing how much confidence puppies draw from their pack members.

Yesterday I made him work for his lunch,I used to do this but stopped it once I changed his food,so its meant using kibble again because the thought of raw beef/tripe or chicken in my hand didn't really appeal :-))

I found if I did everything at 100 miles per hr, quick command,quick click and very quick reward he was fantastic. He became very switched on, precision wasn't great but attitude was. So that has told me training must have been getting a bit slow & stale for him.

I was told today ( and as I said we do tend to forget) that I had to leave Disney alone for about 2 months when he was training as a pup,because he also went through this sort of period..I had forgotten.

So I am sorry to have bored all you guys but as I said I want this for my own records really.

I have my monthly training on Thursday with Fozzie. I will hopefully get it filmed and all being well I shall put it on here..lets see if things have improved !!!

MID DOWNS SHOW

Saturday 14th march was Mid Downs and the first show of 2009 for me.
I have been working hard on Chips start line waits through the winter and was determined to get them in the ring. I had decided that if he didn't wait in the ring I would remove him immediately. I was over joyed that this wasn't necessary. I didn't push for a long distance wait at this show. I just did a one jump wait,held him for the count of 5,praised him and then released him. Over the next few shows I hope to extend the distance..fingers crossed.
My Mr reliable Woody got 2 places in the Agility..He's not comfortable at Mid Downs. he doesn't like the surface so never performs brilliantly, but he got an 11th and 14th,not brill for Woody but OK.
Disney was fab. He came 3rd in the Grade 5-7 Jumping. It was a lovely round(unfortunately not videoed) and only 1.3 seconds behind the winner , Natasha & Dizzy who is an ultra fast collie,so all in all not bad for a nearly 11 yr old hairy crossbreed !!
He wasn't quite so good in his Agility,he missed his A frame contact by quite a bit !!!!!
Homework needed....

Fozzie did lots of socialisation and playing with loads of other puppies there..it must be a bumper time for puppies !! he had a wonderful time, however he is already quite obsessed with the agility, and started to lunge and bark at the dogs going round. I really don't too much of this behaviour,it's nice he's interested but I don't want another barker at the ringside if I can help it. Hopefully at the next show he'll be over teething and I can encourage tuggy play ringside to distract him.

Crufts & Fozzie update

2009-03-12T16:45:00.000-07:00

Well this is the first opportunity I have had to write about Crufts as I have only just got over the tiredness. I was up between 4-00am and 4-30am each day and didn't get home till roughly 8pm on all but the Friday evening.We actually travelled up to Birmingham everyday.

The Thursday was for the YKC event. My 10 yr old niece Beth was in this event with Disney. She actually trains Woody every week,but at the KC festival last year ,I entered Disney for her to run as well, so it would give her more runs as they were travelling up for the whole weekend. Unfortunately Mr reliable Woody had a bad day,they were firing guns in the distance somewhere, so he was a little spooked, but Disney managed to come second in the qualifier and gave him & Beth a ticket straight to Crufts! Disney is not an easy dog to work and is a real mummy's boy. He will work for anyone ,however if things go wrong he will stop & look for me and run out of the ring.Toni Dawkins has tried to work him several times and each time he has run out of the ring to look for me. So I was extremely nervous at Crufts that he may do the same. Beth handled him beautifully,but it was quite a trappy little course with the jumps set very close and unfortunately he was eliminated.

Friday was the team day. Disney was once again a real star. He picked up 5 faults on the dogwalk but worked so well.Unfortunately 2 of the team members got eliminated so we didn't get though to the Final.

Saturday I was back up watching my obedience trainer in the Championship Obedience. Janet & Dallas were superb. Dallas is only 3 years old and put in a fantastic heelwork round, but was a little too keen on his send away and retrieve. However he finished a very credible 7th.

I spent an absurd amount of money at Crufts. All my dogs got new expensive collars, and Fozzie even got a lovely bling collar !!!!
Not sure where all the rest of my money went but I came back with shampoo,treats,leads,shoes for me,toys for the dogs plus some other bits & bobs.

FOZZIE UPDATE

Well my little lad is 5 months old today. I really don't know what is happening with his coat. Its going dark..I think I shall have to take him back cause I wanted a paler dog ;-)) ( just joking of course)

He is teething so badly. He has stopped wanting to play ragger,won't hold anything and actually seems to be quite depressed, I think he is in quite a lot of pain.
He sort of has a sad look in his eyes, and he's stopped being naughty. I can't wait for all the teeth to come through and have my naughty,mischievous boy back.
He's about 16" at the shoulder now,so I would think will definitely be Large. I would have quite liked for him to be a medium,so unless he stops growing now I don't think that's going to happen,however I have kept records of all my dogs weights and heights as they have grown and Disney was 16" at the same age and he did stop growing !! But Disney was a much lighter framed dog and Fozzie already weighs the same as Disney does now. He is however shorter in the leg than his half brother Chip, but longer in the back so I haven't a clue really where he will end up height wise.
The pictures were taken yesterday and today. The one of him sitting looking away from camera is just to show his coat colour.

Trip to Beach

2009-03-02T08:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a beautiful day so we decided to take the boys for a lovely walk on the beach. We went to West Witterings in Sussex, but when we got there the beach car park and road was shut. We drove to East Witterings and walked along the beach to the West beach. The first part of the beach is very pebbly and the tide was in,but as we walked further west the tide went out and we then had glorious sand.

Fozzie was really enjoying himself,jumping the water breaks (agility lad in the making ) and running around & herding (lol) the big boys , until he jumped over a wooden water break following Chip, and there must have been a deep pool the other side and he went under!!!. .After that he was very reluctant to go near the water again. Luckily they have their swim in the pool on Wednesday so hopefully it will get him over his mishap.
Here is a little video of our trip(including Fozzies little *trip* as well !

Wonderful Weather & Fozzie update

2009-02-27T13:41:00.000-08:00

Well I have been told off today that I haven't updated my blog for 2 weeks.So I thought I had better do so. Today was fantastic, temperatures up to 15 degrees,so my childminding friend and I did a lovely walk around Virginia Waters. She had 3 children and I had one,she had one dog and I had 4 so it sort of balanced out..

We decided ,as the weather was so great ,to do the long walk right round the lake, 6 miles I think it is. I had taken Fozzie as I have a lower section on my pushchair that he can sit in when he gets tired...ha ha.
We then decided to go to the garden centre(actually at Virginia Water) and have lunch.That added another 2 miles!! We sat outside as it was so warm. We chilled out for about an hr there and then let the kids play in the playground area for a while.
We couldn't believe it when we checked our watches when we got back to the car/van..we had been there for 5 hours !!!!!!!!
The dogs had all had a great time & little Fozzie..well he didn't rest as much as I had hoped,but he did get some .!!
Here are some pics taken with my mobile phone.

FOZZIE UPDATE

Well Fozzie had his first proper Competition Obedience lesson last week. I have got some video ,but to be honest its probably not the most exciting video to watch as he did lots of small static exercises. If I can edit it down I may put it on here at a later date.
He was a brilliant boy especially as he was quite tired. We had been down to visit my best friend down in Devon for the 3 days previous and he had been a very busy boy,not to mention also doing some lovely walks. Jane has 9 dogs,including a 9 mth old puppy herself ,so Fozzie was pretty much on the go the whole time we were there.

In the last 3 weeks he has started to panic bark ,particularly if he hears a dog or strange noise in the distance. I do try to ignore it as much as I can and I have been told that this is sometimes a stage they can go through at his age. I really hope he'll grow out of it.He is so confident that it surprised me.
He is at long last almost house trained. His bladder control is much better and he will always *go* when we put him out, he hasn't had an accident indoors now for 5 days !!!!!!!!!! The last time he pooed indoors was the night after we came home from Devon. I found out later that he had consumed a whole bucket of Chicken food..gulp (Jane has chickens in her garden also !!)

As far as his proper diet is concerned ( lol) he is now 95% raw fed and doing exceptionally well. In fact so well that I may have to cut his rations now as he has started to get a bit porky.

I haven't taught him any new tricks in the last 2-3 weeks. He started to offer lots of behaviours at obedience training and my trainer thought he seemed slightly confused,I guess there is only so much a puppy can take in.
So its just been play,play,play and little bits of his Obedience work for the last few weeks.

And lastly his coat is growing...phew. I was beginning to think he wasn't going to be hairy,but its changed a lot over the last week.

Swimming

2009-02-11T11:48:00.000-08:00

I took my boys for one of their fun swimming sessions yesterday. Fozzie wants to be a big boy now, or so he thinks ( well he is nearly 4 months old.. .lol lol) and to join in all the fun from the start.You should have heard him barking excitedly and creating trying to get into the water before I was even ready. We wanted to put him in a life jacket to start off ,it was real struggle getting it on because he just wanted to get in the water. I want him to be confident in the water and with the big boys charging all over the place & jumping in, I didn't want him to be scared .. Well I shouldn't have worried at all.As is usual with Fozzie ,he was totally 100% confident..nothing seems to faze this little chap.He was extremely strong & quick in the water for for one so young.
We decided to take the life jacket off him right at the end , just for a few minutes to see how he coped and as you will see..NO problem.
Sorry the video is a little blurred in places..the lens kept steaming up !!

Swimming Feb 2009 from Rosie Ison on Vimeo.

Co-ordination & Balance

2009-02-08T14:04:00.000-08:00

Firstly just wanted to say that Disney has sort of accepted Fozzie into the gang. Disney's still not 100% sure of Fozzie,but at least they can all be in the same room and walk around with each other. Disney never really accepted Chip, so I am really pleased that it hasn't taken too long for him to tolerate Fozzie.

Fozzie went on a co-ordination & balance course yesterday.http://agilitydogsfitness.blogspot.com/ It was held literally 5 minutes from my house ,how great was that !
Fozzie is one of the youngest pupils Hannah has had on a course,he was 5 days off being 4 months. I knew he'd be confident because of all the things he has done so far in his short life,but I think Hannah was quite amazed at just how confident he was & what good co-ordination he had. He's a great little dog. I was expecting him to be tired when we got home,in fact I was really hoping he would be, because I was going out to a party and leaving him with hubby to look after. I left him securely tucked up in his crate with a nice full tummy and with his mates in the same room. When I got home about 3 hrs later it was clear he hadn't been tired at all,he had protested the moment I went out that I had confined him to quarters, and had spent the entire evening charging around ,annoying Woody & Chip and causing mayhem. Hubby had bought a DVD to watch,However I get the impression he hadn't watched much of it..lol
Here is the video of his Balance & Co-ordination class.

SNOW

2009-02-03T06:20:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we had snow,the most snow we have had in about 20 years in this part of the country. It was truly a winter wonderland & the dogs had so much fun. The bad part about it was the snow balls that attached themselves to Disney & Woody's legs,at one point they could hardly walk. Each time we have bought them back in we have had to place them in a warm bath up to their stomachs to get all the snow balls off. Fortunately Chip & Woody didn't get any . How I envied everyone with short coated dogs on this occasion !
I love this picture of the boys all together taken today in the sun. I have also added a little video I took yesterday at about 7-30 am showing how much fun they had, poor little Fozzie he tried so hard to keep up with the big guys.
I have just come to the conclusion after looking at everyones blogs, that I must be a terrible owner !! I never put coats on my dogs,whereas other bloggers are buying such beautiful ones to put on their dogs...Oh I am bad !!
The Boys having fun in the snow Feb 2009 from Rosie Ison on Vimeo.