One last trip

... for the year.

Free weekend + cheap ryanair flights (12 pounds return!!) = short trip to the French Pyrenees. Simple maths.

So a friend from work & I flew out on saturday and on arriving in Pau picked up our rental car and drove the several hours to Andorra. Theres something satisfying in visiting a tiny country thats smaller than many cities just because you can. Theres something even more satisfying in arriving in said tiny country and finding that it is beautiful. Set high in the snow-peaked mountains, Andorra is little more than a ski resort, but we had a very relaxing day walking around and relaxing at the thermal spas.

Monday morning came and we headed back towards Pau for some scenic driving below the mountains. There was only one small moment of panic where I started to drive up towards a lookout only for the road to become covered in ice and we had to retreat.

All this only to return to a very cold snowy London. No question that winter is here... How is it the mountains had nicer weather?

A week for small successes

Just to bring this back to dog training, I just have to share how thrilled I am with my boy this week.

We started with agility training on tuesday. As some know Tooheys has been getting incredibly stressed by the amped-up agility environment which leads to his precious little head going into overload. We have been training in the same class for a little while now and he is fairly comfortable with the other dogs in the class - thankfully none of them are particularly gobby or manic - and we have been building up to doing more & more in class. Well after several weeks break from training, he came back this week completely relaxed from the outset and not bothered by the other dogs standing around the course. He had a very small blip on our last run where he went to run at the terrier standing directly next to the jump he was about to take (yes I mean right right next to, close enough to touch..) when he realised who it was and immediately recalled back to me. Woo Hoo! Breakthrough! Ok so I know Im excited by the small things..

Onto wednesday and Working Trial training. Up until this point Tooheys has struggled to understand he needs to use his hind legs to get over the scale when it gets too high to jump it cleanly. Well after the first attempt with a little support the penny suddenly dropped and before we knew it he was able to negotiate it set a fair bit higher. Breakthrough!

He also did a beautiful dumbell retrieve without any warmup - not too bad for a dog who a few months ago wouldnt hold the dreaded thing - and is coming along nicely with the sendaways. Now just to work out how to get him to scent properly.. the exercises that use his nose (tracking & search square) on the other hand are not coming along so nicely.

And to top things off today we had another wonderful agility clinic with Toni Dawkins. The class is filled with noisy, high drive dogs Tooheys doesnt know, but other than some stressing on his part mid class he was completely focussed and switched on to his work, and did some really nice stuff. Im still smiling, what a high to finish on. I think we may finally be making a Breakthough!

On to Turkey & the US

This is very quickly becoming un-dog related and turning into a travel blog (and there'll be more to add next week..), but hey, what good is going on foreign adventures if you cant use it to make everyone jealous ;-)

After a very hectic month working double shifts I got my first 'proper' time off work for a while to do some more travelling - yes I know I know, but all my recent trips have been weekenders, honest!

Top of my list of next destinations was Turkey, so I booked in on a week-long tour and off I headed. Unfortunately there was some alterations to our tour that we werent informed about before hand which added to the stress levels and put a slight dampner on things (theres alot to be said for communication people!!!) but Turkey itself was lovely and the tour was a great deal of fun. Between Gallipoli, all the ancient ruins, and the amazing land forms around Pamakale and the Cappadocia areas it was a truly impressive country. I didnt get to see much of Istanbul due to the changes (theres always next time..), but to make up for it I got to go hot air ballooning...utterly amazing!

On arriving back from Turkey I immediately headed across to the US for a very lazy week spent visiting H & J and baby Ben. Im so glad I got to catch up with them before they move back to Aus in january.

Dogs and public transport

Tooheys had reason to put the London public transport system to the test this weekend when we had to head across to Essex for the night before heading to pick up the new car.

What a strange experience for us both! And not one Im sure Tooheys wants to experience again any time soon, but Im so impressed by how well he took it in his stride.

To start we had the loong bus trip on a bus that was jam packed full with strange passengers and screaming babies and continous stopping and starting. Upon boarding he initially panicked but then settled himself under my seat and lay perfectly still for the next hour..it took 10 minutes for one person who sat down next to me to even realise he was there!

From the bus and onto the underground. He wasnt overly impressed by being carried through the turnstyles but otherwise was mostly unphased. Again he didnt like the grinding noises with the train stopping and starting but didnt put up too much fuss.

And finally onto the overland train.. which he seemed to think was luxury in comparison!

The final verdict? Well I dont think Tooheys will be championing the public transport system any time soon, but he does think the new dog mobile (aka car) is far superior to our old one which made it all worth the trip..as do I!

The countdown begins

Its official.

Miss Finn puppy has had her rabies blood test for her pet passport. So now the 6 month countdown until she can board that big shiny thing to come and explore these foreign lands begins. Its going to be a looooong 6 months!

And for those who want a sneak peak, here she is (thanks Mr photographer!)...

Month of the tourist

Im finally back on line after time off thanks to a broken cable and crazy work hours. Theres not much at all to report on the dog training front, but somewhere in amongst the craziness I've managed some time away (again..).

Due to some unfortunate circumstances my planned holiday to visit a friend in Greece at the end of july got cancelled. So at the last minute I decided to lash out on some eurostar tickets - oooh the luxury... - instead. So in the early hours of the morning I dragged myself out of bed

and boarded the train bound for Brussels.

I then got to spend a day wandering around the city, enjoying the sights and the food (definately the food..) in a deleriously sleep deprived state. It was lovely, honestly.

From there I boarded the train for Bruges, and subsequently spent the next 2 days wandering the romantic cobbled streets, travelling the canals, and watching the world go by. Glorious.

Monday comes and back to Brussels.. still somewhat delerious I may add thanks to a early morning fire drill in the hostel I was staying.. to see the rest of the city I managed to miss the few days before.

All in all a lovely weekend.

Fastforward a few weeks and my plane tickets to Greece were still sitting waiting to be used, so again after a very early morning (definately the worst thing about travelling!) a friend and I headed to Corfu for a week.

We arrived to the cold and rain, but it very quickly warmed up into a beautiful week of sun and adventure. Not one for lazy holidays spent purely sunbaking, although lovely in small measure, entertainment ranged from water sports, to biking, to hostel antics. It definately wins the award for the most amusing holiday Ive been on for a while.

Dogs in need 2010

Another year of Dogs in need has passed and juagain this year we had a lovely week camping.

I headed up to Suffolk on the monday to set up and collect my entry passes but then had to head back to work that night. Tuesday night after finishing work I immediately set off back to the showgrounds with the knowledge the gates would shut at midnight, only to hit the worst conditions I have ever had to drive in (short of a blizzard) - parts of the M25 verging on being flooded with poor lighting and torrential rain. Talk about scary! I eventually made it to the showgrounds at 12:01 thankfully just as the gates were being locked. That just set the stage for the rest of the week.

Anyway, onto the agility..
We missed tuesday because of work and wednesday we ended up only doing half a run. I missed our jumping run (for once not on purpose) and then headed into aglity only for Tooheys to act like he had never seen weaves before - to the point he actually rammed one of the poles and knocked it out of the base. I stopped our run at that point.

Thursday was rest day and an opportunity for a few of us to head off and do some training (thanks again Trudy!) aka remind him what weaves and contacts are. Thankfully it all seemed to come back to him and we got some nice work in with other dogs in very close proximity. At one point I handed Tooheys off to Lisa to handle purely out of curiosity to see what he would do - and trust the little bugger to show me up and work better for someone else than for me.

Back to the show..
Friday brought no clear rounds but some nice work none the less. Our jumping (1-7 ABC) course had 2 lots of 6 weaves. The first lot had a slightly tougher entry which Tooheys nailed beautifully and then we get to the second lot with a straight easy entry only to have him look at them blankly.
In his jumping run I didnt get into position and missed putting a front cross before the Aframe which caused me to pull him off the next jump, but it was otherwise a nice run and he had a perfect 2o2o dogwalk contact. For the first time in competition. Yay!

Saturday we were most of the way through a very nice agility run in G3 (and again perfect dogwalk!!) when Tooheys spotted one of our trainers in the adjacent G6 ring and decided it would be more fun to chase her ( yes and her dog) than it would be to do the seesaw. One way to totally embarass youself! And to add insult the judge then called me back into the ring as I was leaving - with me thinking uh oh - only to ask me if I wanted to finish our run... hmmm let me think...

We were very lucky we the weather, every day was forcassed to rain and turned out instead to be sunny. In between the agility we had a great time walking - Tooheys had a great time being out with his doggy friends even if it did mean tolerating (or not!) a pesky terrier puppy - socialising, and generally just chilling.

Destination: Berlin

2 weeks ago I had another long weekend break, this time to Berlin. Another lovely weekend spent wandering the streets of a foreign city and returning home more exhausted than I had left. To call Berlin a beautiful city would not be strictly true but it was a fascinating place full of history and culture. A definate thumbs up from me.

Agility training day

I have just gotten back from a fantastic training day with Toni Dawkins. We had a wonderful morning which I really got alot out of. After our last attempt at a training day ending with me in tears (dont ask!), I am sooo chuffed with how the monster dog did today. When we first arrived Tooheys was quite stressy but relaxed fairly quickly and was more focussed than he has been, fast and tried his little butt off for me. Although the same cant be said for me at times.

My highlight today was creating a very very tight line on a snake (serpentine/flick-flack/whatever) with no time wasted and no confusion on the dogs part. What I really need to practice now is cueing turns properly (I tend to over-drive the dog forward or turn too early) and standing up straight - yes, I have been working on that one for years and still not there yet! Meanwhile our broken weaves seem to have fixed themselves - they are almost fast and close to independent - but our dogwalk contacts have proven to be less proofed than I thought. More work needed there.

To anyone who gets the opportunity to get to a training session with Toni, and hasnt yet, I highly reccomend it. She is brilliant at evaluating handling to ensure the dog takes the fastest line and you get the most out of any dog. As well as being very encouraging to the handler. Looking forward to the next one now!

Otley

This weekend we travelled north for our first agility show in a while - Otley. We had an absolutely fab weekend and it was wonderful to catch up with friends we havent seen in a while. And just as wonderful to watch them do well!

As for our results? well I have a sneaking suspicion you need to run a full course to get any results...ho hum.. but Im quite happy regardless. We didnt run at all on saturday as we had early classes and Tooheys was incredibly stressed by the show environment when we got there. I just didnt think it was worthwhile pushing him.

But after getting to run with lots of friends dogs over the weekend he had relaxed enough by sunday afternoon to do our runs (or sections of our runs at least..). He was right on form with his jumping, exhileratingly so, but for a dog that has spent the past 6 months with rock-solid start line stays and dogwalk contacts in training, he miraculously seemed to lose both the minute he stepped back into the ring..aghh. Back to the drawing board, again.

Destination: Bratislava

What do you do with a free weekend? Find cheap flights and disappear for a few days is what. Which is how a friend from work and I came to find ourselves in Slovakia these past few days. We had a lovely time in Bratislava (the capital) and Trencin (a much smaller town) making the most of the very hot weather. What a shock on returning to London to go from 39 to 16 degrees!

For those who want a puppy fix

Since not much has been happening at this end the past few weeks, here some pics of Hollies grandpups back home to fill this space..

Corfe castle

What to do with a day off work? The answer is to head south and take the blue dog hiking. We ended up going for a 10 mile hike (yep I am that crazy!) around Corfe castle and along the Dorset coast line. It was a perfect day, until a torrential downpour about 2/3 of the way through leaving us soaked to the skin. I really must remember that british weather means bringing wet weather gear regardless of what its like at any point in time.

Otherwise it was a flawless day, except for one heart in mouth moment when the monster dog took off in persuit of a ground critter right along the edge of a cliff - with his lead trailing behind him - Scary stuff!

Meanwhile I went a little photo crazy...

A lovely day

I arrived at our agility lesson this morning to find the field rained out and training cancelled, so decided to head to Virginia waters in the Windsor Great Park for a walk instead. Virginia Waters is a beautiful park but somewhere I usually avoid like the plague as my previous experiences there are ones overun by - dare I say - unruly labradors with owners who think their overly friendly (read: rude!) puppy has the god given right to harass anyone and everyone they want. Not criticising labradors here, just those with inconsiderate owners. Anyway, I digress..

Now that I only have Tooheys to worry about Im making more of an effort to get him to places I used to avoid. And in contrast today was just lovely. Slightly overcast but not cold, and lots of (all bar one, but lets ignore that) considerate dog walkers. We even ran into another 2 cattle dogs, and some kelpies as well. And best of all Tooheys got to romp and swim and chase rabbits to his hearts content.

End result one tired soggy dog and a tired soggy owner. Now off to dry off..