Falling into place....

That's how it feels around here right now.
Maybe its the fact that spring is so close I can practically taste it,the weather last week was amazing,and the fact that when we get up in the morning it is actually daylight,makes me want to just dive out of bed in the mornings,which is a MUCH nicer way to start your day.
I started 'operation save the Godam lawn' a couple of weeks ago.It all started one day when I had a massive temper tantrum/slight nervous breakdown when I looked at the state of the lawn/mudpatch.
so once I'd picked myself up from that I decided to start treating the dogs as though we lived in a flat,and HAD to walk them 3 times a day,resulting in much less pee and traffic in the garden.
The lawn after just the first week,breathed a huge sigh of relief and dared to start actually growning GREEN grass through the remains of the pee murdered brown grass,but secondly,and actually far more beneficial to me is that the dogs went,'oh how boring,we get dragged round the block 3 times a day',as the walks do not result in a run off lead,like our normal walks,they've all stopped pulling and being crazy when we first go out.
Which in turn means that is easy,no it is a pleasure to take them out.One of us can take and enjoy all 5 dogs at once I love it.
Mindy was REALLY reactive to other dogs in the street when we got her,but now she doesn't make a fuss at all.Mookie and Shady are always perfectly behaved in the street,and B and Floozie will sometimes give a woof at a lone dog and owner in the street,but I've been playing the look at that game,and now they look at me once they've spotted a dog.
Funny isn't it,well not really.But Floozie grew up being dragged round agility shows with hundreds off dogs,none of which she will react to.But I didn't do much walking round the streets with her when she was a puppy,so the one dog and owner appearing is much more of a stimulus to her than hundreds of crazy barking agility dogs!
So now I get the dogs on the lead,ALL of them,and I go hunting for dogs in the street,and you can see the other owner maybe looking at me like I'm a crazy woman with loads of vicious looking dogs,and then I move aside to let them pass,ask for a down which the dogs all do,and the other persons expression changes,and often I get remarks about how good they are.:) Makes me very happy!
I will never allow the other dogs to approach mine whilst they are all on lead,although they are actually all sociable,friendly dogs.

So another result of that is that the dogs are so calm around the house too.I hardly even know they;re here.Although they have always had a good amount of exercise,it was mostly off lead,crazy,exciting stuff.They've never really 'practicised' being calm as a group before.

Also for about the past month,I've been leaving Mindy loose in the house for up to half the day.Say up to 4 or 5 hours.
I leave her out with Bug downstairs,and their is lots of evidence that they play lol.Rugs pushed about,water bowl spilled,and both of them absolutly knackered all evening :)
I do need to stop underestimating just how far a determined Lurcher can reach though!!Yesterday a toilet roll from the kitchen table,and the 'Hula flowers' I'd bought to tease the dogs with haha.





So she nearly killed the hula flowers but not before I had time to torture Floozie with them hahaha.

Mindy who came here with massive SA and was advised by the rescue would need to be homed with someone who was at home most of the day (who is that?!?!) is now a normal dog,who can be left uncrated :) woo hoo!
Floozie I've been doing the same thing with too,she had the most awful SA at just 12 weeks of age,God only knows what happened to her in thos few short weeks before she came here :( She used to actually vomit with the sheer panic and state she was in,even if only seperated from you by a baby gate,in a cage or behind the dog guard in the van.It was such an absolute opposite to her real nature,which is cocky,brave and head strong.
Well she's fixed now too :) and we won't even start on what Bug was like when we got him!! lol

Housefull of normal dogs?Yep,we made it :)