Pretty Princess Skyla...

If I were to have a small dog..I'd love it to be this little girl :) She belongs to someone who works at the kennels,and is a cross between a Pomeranian and a Chihuahua,though they must have both been oversized as Skyla is much bigger than either breed.

She is full of energy and attitude,a proper little bitch :) and is very pretty to go with it!

The three little staff dogs share a pen in the staff room....Taz has muscled right on in,and just loves his bitches!

Shady is keeping me company tonight as I'm not feeling great :( Had a sore throat all day,I guess its about time I caught someone's cold...I've missed most of them lately!I hope I feel better tommorow I want to go running in the morning,then Regiment after work.

Shady can hear somebody messing around outside the house here,he's got his serious face on lol.

Can't stop running????

Lol well that is a bit of an exageration,but Pete,me,Mookie,Shady and The Foof went canixing last night after work.
I feel so happy right now,Pete says the same :) The house is becoming a place we look forward to coming home to...for the first time ever really.Its clean empty of all the crap which was hanging around,and a relaxing place to be.
I didn't realise how much I missed the garden whilst I was living in the flat.Sure I had a little garden with the flat,but not one I could just leave the door open to,as next door's alley way passed through it.
Mookie in particular loves to be outside patrolling around.
We're also enjoying the dogs like in the way we did before we became 'over dogged' and it became like a job.5 dogs is not over dogged to many people,and really it wasn't as much the number of dogs,but the type we have too.
I always hold myself up to very high standards with the dogs.Because of the breed/way they look I feel they cannot ever put a foot wrong,they are actually all sociable and mix with hundreds off dogs without incident,but always in the back of my mind is that if someone else's dog came and started a fight and mine defended themselves that I and my dogs would end up with the blame :( So I stopped going to my local parks,stopped walking everybody at once (unless on lead round the streets so as not to meet off lead dogs) and everything just became a bit of a mission.
Last night after work Pete came with us canixing,and we didn't care what time we came home.We obviously were both depressed in our own way when we were together last time.We stopped doing things together which made us happy,and both started out individually down seperate roads.
When we were first together we always used to go here there and everywhere with our then dogs Minstrel and Boo.We used to go out walking down the river till 9 or 10 in the summer,we made the most out of every minute of daylight in the summer :) We also used to drive most weekends into London with the dogs...I know most people drive out of the city at the weekends lol,but we used to love going to Hampstead Heath,which is a huge park in a very affluent area of London,and can barely be beaten for dog watching! All sort of rare breeds and mixes to be seen exercising there!A huge park with the back drop of the city Canary Wharf etc in the background,we used to spend hours there! All day some days...in fact I'm going to find our next free weekend and we're gonna go again!
So Mindy the foster we had for 2 and a half years found a home,so we were back to 4 dogs,and now we've found a love for canixing,which we can do together and results in tired calm doggies everywhere I think we are truely back on track :) It just took us many years and the perspective you get from distance to figure it all out!

We ran just under 5k last night,the light beat us.Its not far,but as its a very hilly route (a half hour drive from home) and the dogs pull in harness nearly the whole time,they had a great work out....us too.

Starting out..Pete had Mookie.

What a great place to end the day at! Good for your soul :)

Handy trough for a water stop en route.

Posing at the end of the run,it was really pretty dark,but I edited the pic so I could see it!The hills in the background were part of the run.

No running today,well only as part of the Regiment session we'll be doing tonight.Rest day for the dogs,they'll just come to work with me and mess around in the garden all day whilst I'm working hard to earn money to keep them in the style they are accustomed too lol.
I've ordered 2 new canix harnesses for the girls so they aren't running in regular harnessess,and an extra running line too.Just waiting to hear back from the supplier for the size to buy Shady one...hope they are here by the weekend :)

Working weekends......

Socialising with some Hungarians before the run ;)

 Saturday was a busy day,I've come to a compromise with myself about weekends off,much as I enjoyed the 4 or 5 whole weekends off I got earlier this year,its also not practical in my job to work no weekends at all.
People who work Mon to Fri need their dogs groomed at the weekends,or late in the evening,and I think on the whole I'd rather do the odd dog at the weekend,than work late into the evening.
The compromise  is that I am going to do my stuff first in the morning,like Canix or Regi,and then I'll groom one or 2 dogs in the afternoon after I'm done having fun! lol.
Sometimes things don't go to plan though,and Saturday after Canix I had 6 dogs to groom.Luckily they are 6 lovely dogs,all of which I could happily take home,they are a credit to their owners.
New to the gang is Kai the little kelpie,I LOVED him,and definitly would like a Kelpie one day.
I was actually on a waiting list for a Kelpie puppy a few years ago,but then The Foof turned up,so I had to forego my wanted Kelpie puppy...never had any regrets about that though!

The only photo of all 6 of our dogs running together,blurry obvs because we were running so fast! ;)

Little bit of socialising.

After running came working :( Boo...luckily it was 6 of my favourite dogs :)

I could definitely make room for a little Kelpie like this wonderful boy :)

 Sunday was a day off though,I spent the whole day either messing about in the garden with the dogs,or cleaning the damn back bedroom out,it was disgusting!
Its been the dumping ground for all the tools,and decorating stuff from doing the front bedroom,and years worth of crap stored,well dumped in there.
I now have a nice dog room.I need to get some new beds for them for in there.
Its so nice to have somewhere to put the dogs when we/I want a bit of peace and quiet.A year in the flat alone taught me that was really missing from my life was peace and quiet,and I thrived on it once I had it,so the plan has always been since I moved back here to create a nice spot for the dogs to go to give me some dog free time occasionally!

I couldn't get the whole room in the shot,but its just empty,clean and calm :)

Piggy was riding shotgun yesterday.

'Give me all your treats!'

'No give me the treats!'

A Piggy and A Pointy!

Always got an eye on me this one.

More working,more walking...

 Same old stuff today,I took the girls to play down the river,found a tennis ball which Floozie was fetching the whole time,both on land and in the river.

Swimming Piggy :)

Piggy is regretting her swim once she started freezing!!

Pointy baby :)

I keep telling Piggy its weird when she stands with her feet on the loo seat and the edge of the bath whilst I'm bathing!!

Much ado about nothing....

Not a lot going on today,we did some playing,a little bit of training...a new trick,nothing strenuous.

Mookie was on cat patrol this morning after next doors kitten was meowing on the other side of the fence,she takes cat patrol very seriously,but unfortunately for her,I never let the dogs out,without doing a cat patrol myself!

Shady was happy,Bug was crazy,and Floozie alternated between the happy and crazy hehehe She was absolutely WIRED when I started doing clicker training with her.

Cheeky face!

Chief of cat patrol!

'Say what now!?' The Peanut is growing up :)

The Misfits :)

This is Mr B's serious face!

Today....more running.

First thing I did this morning was to take the 3 amigos out canix-ing :) It was my first go on my own,and on streets instead of in the countryside....I didn't like it very much :(

I am SO bad at setting the correct pace,and flat out ran the first bit,instead of jogging,so half way round I walked a tiny bit,around the distance it took to walk past a half dozen houses,which was a bit annoying,but I learnt my lesson and hopefully will be a bit less keen at the begining in future!

I only did a little over 2.5k as it was Mookie's first time running and pullling on the pavement since she was lame,and I really did not want to set her back by going to far.But she is good :) and so we will be joining up with our canix group on Saturday for a run.I'm going to ask if the harder group,who do around 8k run non stop,or there the odd stop for a breather,if there is,I think I'll try the harder run,I'm looking forward to increasing my distances,and the dogs will love it too :)

My van is still dead.Boo hiss! It needs to go,for good,I really want to drive the dogs to places to run,so I don't have to run them on the streets,and I can't keep bundling them all into my mum's tiny car which I am borrowing!

Coming in? :)

Pretty girls at work :)

It was really nice to discover the tiny stream by the Newfies has been dredged and tidied,and is now a tiny river lol.

This mornings running team...and I need an extra bungee line.

This is the girls ganging up on me to try and get my leftover dinner,bad bitches!

Synchronised nomming!

The running bug!

 I never thought I'd get bitten by the running bug,but yep,I have been now!Today Pete and I with Shady,Mook and The Foof met up with Anna and 3 of hers for another lovely run round Ivenhoe Beacon and the surrounding hills.
It was cold and windy up there,our previous hot weather has once again dissapeared,but we had a mix of sun and cloud,no rain,so it was still ok,and nicer for the dogs.
I didn't think Flooze would be that enthused about running on lead for that far,but Pete took Mookie and was in front of us,so that spurred her on,and she did get into it :) Mookie just LOVES it,she's always been our worst puller on lead,and she just loves to run,so this sport seems just tailor made for her.
We went a bit further than before which bought us up through the forest which was lovey,and at around 7k in total it was the furthest I've ever run in my life,and I could have happily gone further :)
Unfortunately my phone battery died,so we didn't get the feedback from the 'mapmywalk' but we were running for about 45 minutes.
It was so cool that Pete came,and most importantly enjoyed it,so good to finally have something we can do with the dogs together!
Running with the proper canix waist belt on does make running alot easier,but in general I do feel fitter than I have in a long,long time. :)
I'm hoping to be able to run with the harder group at canix soon,they do around 8 to 10k runs,and the pace is faster so I'll see how I go and give it a try probably sometime in April.

Anna,me and the dogs on one of the hills :)It is stunning out there,and I would love to move closer to that area.

I spent Sunday afternoon out in the garden,mowing the lawn and generally tidying up....and also annoying the dogs by making them pose in weird places ha...check out Mookie's angry face!

ALWAYS happy and ready to play!

Best boy :)

This is how Le Foofle Pig sleeps every night.She needs to be under her sleeping bag for a good nights sleep ;)

This is how she is 'born' into the world each morning :)