Good to be back......

Foof and me did some agility today woo woop!

We had a contacts workshop.I thought I'd start her back with some workshops aimed at specific things, rather than just jump back into classes or one to ones,to try and give her a really good reminder of what I wanted from her.

I was expecting her to be pretty wild and off her head,as its been months and months since she's done anything,and aside from camp in May last year,well over a year since she's been in training with lots of wild bloody agility dogs lol.

She turned up,recognised where she was and let out a blood curdling scream hahaha crazy little creature! I was suprised to see though,that once I got her out she was straight down to business,and even remembered before I did,that her default amongst the chaos was to lie down,and offer head downs to get my attention,to remind her to reward her.
She even did 'a Mookie' a couple of times,and strained back wards to the end of her lead in a down or sit,to make me notice how good she was being,and that I really should reward her ha!

Contact wise,her behaviour was pretty much as I left off with her.She needed a reminding a couple of times to stop,and then she nailed it.Although she did take the seesaw instead of the dog walk by accident one time,and FLEW it lols.She is just a nutjob,still screams her head off whilst being restrained,which always makes everyone laugh :)

So I have plenty of homework to be getting on with,I have to take responsibility more for her training now,and not just rely on when I train with a trainer,I just can't afford to train like I used to sadly.
Its going to be great getting back into agility,it was lovely to see everyone,and I got lots of hugs...which I embraced (against my will!) lol. I wonder if ever I'll be a hug lover,and will look back at this blog and remember the days when I didn't like people touching me hehe.

Ella and Shadders came along for the ride,and Shady came out to see and smile at everyone. I love how dogs never forget a friend!

Shad,Ells and me have just been out for an hour road walk in the rain,with them on flexi's...loving the flexi walks at the moment.Its cold and dark out so there's not many people out on the streets,so we just mooch about,and they have a good sniff about.
I got a Trixie bike attachment last week,not sure if I've mentioned it on here?It is Mookie's idea of heaven...just running and running for miles,she really gets in the zone on it,Foof finds running for no particular reason a lil bit boring.She'd rather go balls to the walls for a reason..and then go back to sleep again,she sleeps as she lives,100% asleep if she's sleeping.

So hears to 2014...I wonder what it will bring?

Boxer in the house....

Hand us all the noms lady!

Todays walk was wet underfoot. I LOVE when the fields flood,Shady and Ella were diving back and forth through them.Piggy was a little less impressed lol.

Shady is loving the floods!

Girls scrapping whilst I work!

Piggy is SO rude...just jumps on my table which I am using with my laptop,so she can get a better look out of the window!! BRAT!!

Girls chilling whilst I work.

Rainy days...

Are when I should be inside training the dogs to do amazing tricks! What I have actually done (after walking and working out) is drag my mattress in from the bedroom,so I can watch the big tv in the lounge..but still be in bed! It is an arrangement that suits us all :)

We shut all the bald dogs out,so we could play with,annoy,and beat Shady up ;) He loves little more than a good ruck over a toy!

Much ado about nuthin....

The girls came with me on a 2 mile bike ride this morning.

'Off the bed Foofle Pig' I said....

Bwahahaha look at her stumpy little legs! Well they do say dogs look like their owners!

May the B be with us....

Mr B is Pete's dog through and though,and I have always kept a strong emotional distance
from him,which is sad really,and I've never done it with another dog before...and I will never do it again.
But...I'm sneakily stealing him hehehe,when we had Mindy and this lot I didn't take them many places all together,but would split them into 2 groups,with B and Mindy getting the least time out of me.
Well since Mindy has gone and Pete an I are back together,I'm dragging thay ooogly red
dog with me everywhere I go too :)
He's so funny,if a little annoying at times.He's so strong,full on and impulsive sometimes,but
when there's nothing much going on,he's just a great boy.
He's never been one for fetching,he likes to chase stuff,but no one ever taught him to bring things
back,so he doesn't.But since I take him to work,whilst I am grooming,he'll sidle up to me with a
 toy.and I'll act all astonished,like I am just blown away by the fact that he has bought a toy over to me,
and now he'll bring it over.I'll have a little tug with it,and let go,and he'll stand there wagging like mad,
and looking at me hoping I'll have another tug with him lol.

Today because he was cold and the sunny patch was on the grooming table...he got up on it...
whilst I was grooming someone!He is such a twit.

The workforce :)

The message to B is clear for all to see.

Ooo ooo ooo the black man mane is beginning to fill in :)

Naughty B,he jumped up onto the table whilst I was drying Tia,because that was where the only sunny patch of the room was!

No room at the inn for poor Piggy!

She squeezed in in the end.You can tell its cold,because Mookie let her snuggle against her...Mookie has personal space issues lol.

Working dogs...

Well just dog who come to work with me at the moment.I did a teeny tiny bit of training with them today,real basic stuff.

Teaching Shady and The Foof to roll over,Mookie to put her paw in her face,and Bug to stop being so impulsive and 'OH MY GOD LIFE IS SOO EXCITING ALL OF THE TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!'

Floozie got the roll over in a few minutes,she is hilarious,she was practically doing double rolls,and vaults when she worked out how to get the treat.Hahahha she just cracks me up!

Shady I went really slow with,not because I mother him and don't raise my criteria quickly enough...I would never do that ;) But he happily offered raising himself into a half a roll over after a few minutes,oh and I refreshed his memory about the 'put your head down' cue.

I love his little expression when he's trying to work something out,its so cute,its very like his 'hungry face' which is also very cute!

He does make me laugh if he gets too frustrated or I don't give him a break to think,he's like fine,'I'm gonna have to nip you mummy,its nothing personal tho' ;) Bad Pointy!

Mookie I just draped a litte streamer thingy off of the Christmas tree on her face and marked and rewarded her when she brushed it off with her paw,easy peasey,she is a very smart girl.

She was making me die too,doing multiple roll overs as she was pretty convinced that was what I must be after to start with.she was yipping and a yapping through her frustration...she has to get the last word in that one!

I just did some 'Its yer choice' with Bug...it hurt quite a lot lol.Being 'boxed' by him!But he got it,so funny to see him have to think,he doesn't have to do that much of that in his life,but he really loves learning :)

They got to meet and play with Layla the Beagle,who I could easily snatch..she is so headstrong and bad...she'd fit right in here!She quite fancies Shady,and follows him around whining when he ignores her.She had a game with bug and Foof,but Mookie was playing hard to get and didn't play lol.

Besties...more like Beasties!

Mookie playing hard to get..check out Layla's tail.

Mum is armed with a crutch because she is awaiting a knee replacement,it works well to keep Bug back...she kept saying 'No Buzz don't jump on me' lols who the fuck is Buzz?!

The impulse control work,plus the crutch made for a calm B....look how hot he is hahaha being calm is hard work for Bug!

Space is at a premium next to me,but Foof doesn't take no for an answer!

Individuals.....

Today was a fun day.First off I took the dogs out for a half hour road walk.Foof needs a bit of work at not wanting to react when she sees dogs out in the street.Because we haven't been in any classes (where she gets rewarded alot for watching other dogs run and generally be mental) and been walking alot in my estate which has a lot of very noisy dogs,she def needs a reminder of how I'd like her to behave when another dog starts kicking off.

So we did our road walk...where we saw no other dogs ha,typical! then I groomed 2 Tervs.

Next I took Foof down the woods for a 20 min rampage.Something I really love about her is how playing with me is just as good to her as anything else in her life.For instance Mookie in those woods will be on red alert for squirrels ALL of the time.Her critical distance for being off lead and happily responsive to me is around,erm,probably about half an inch ;) bwahahaha.I can stop her from being out of control,but no one is having fun as I do,Mookie would far rather hunt than play with me,or have treats.So I tend not to walk Mookie down there much.

So we went into the woods,and immediatly could see around 6 squirrels,Foof danced around the bottom of the trees they were up,but as soon as I picked up a stick and called her,she was excited to come back and play hunt the stick after I'd thrown it,she loves searching,and with the woods being an old Roman dyke and about 50 feet deep,had a nice work out as I'd throw the stick down the banks over and over.

I took her back and took Mookie out on her own,to a local field which has only one entrance,and there is hardly ever anyone in there.I got her out of the van and walked down the alley into the field only to see there were 2 people and 5 dogs in there already,which was pretty annoying.

I recognised the people and dogs,having seen them around that area walking quite a few times,there were 2 beautiful Huskies,2 shepherds and a little fat Staffie.

I was going to turn round and leave,but I felt a bit stubborn,and often with that field whoever was in there first (myself included) will leave when someone new comes in.I decided to keep Mookie on the lead and do a lap of the field to see what they did.

Within the first minute all but the Staffie ran over,they were quite 'puffy' in posture,breathing and attitude,and it really spells out how good Mookie is with other dogs that she could handle those 4 bigger dogs all crowding round her,she had her hair up,and was quite clearly telling them not to push their luck,which I helped her with.

The owners called the dogs back,with varying degrees of success,but the black and white Husky bitch really wanted to stay with us and play with Mookie,who was making it clear she would quite like a run with the bitch too.

So I let Mookie off and she led the 4 of them on a merry dance till one by one they got bored and gave up.I wish I would have got some photos of all of them,but I needed to concentrate on what they were doing.

Mookie of course thought it was hilarious having them all chase her :) Only running dogs,Lurchers and the like can catch Mookie and she just loves to be chased!!It was so nice watching her with all the other dogs.I would never have let them mix had I had all of mine with me,so I'm going to really make more of an effort to take them out individually most days.I was so impressed with Mooks,she really is just so cool :)

I went back to work,grooming a lovely new customer called Tippy,who's a Labradoodle,she was 9 year sold but looked and acted more like 9 months,what a fun little girl she was,and she loved my lot too.

Then after work I took Shadders out for a quick mile long jog.He really is perfect to run with.Mookie loves to go jogging but she really would rather go faster and pulls quite a lot which hurts my knee,Flooz will run with you on lead,but after about half a mile she is so clearly bored to tears of it,but Shady is just right,his trot is the perfect pace for me to run at,and he just trots along looking at me half the time and smiling,he does occasionally give my leg a little nip...just to keep me moving along ;) hahhaha naughty Pointy!

Once we got home having dropped Rosie and Dylan back,we went for another mile on lead,and we saw 3 dogs which foof pointed out to me then danced about waiting for the treats which is the deal we have when she doesn't react to other dogs :) Such a great day.

I'm not sure why the Universe keeps throwing Huskies at me? I want one bad enough as it is!!

A couple of weeks ago we found this little girl straying on my street,sadly we also quickly found her owner and gave her back lol.

Mookie barely even trying but keeping easily out of reach of one of the Huskies.

2 of my favourite customers,Mac and Ruby.Mac can be a little aggressive with people ,but we are firm friends now.Though that is a little hard for his mum to realise lol.Ruby is just the sweetest girl :)