... And the dogs

Meanwhile the dogs are still doing well.

Tooheys is starting to age a fair bit, but continues to be fit & healthy. As of the start of the year I have retired him 'officially' from agility as he now struggles with full height jumps, but he still gets to do some training over lower jumps. Now that he doesnt get to work as often some of his ratty behaviours that he hasnt done in years, like nipping me as he runs (grrrrr), have returned, but as long as he's enjoying himself the who cares!

Finn is a law unto herself, but I continue to be impressed with how quickly she picks up on anything we train. At the moment I am working through Sylvia Trkmans 'puppy'/tricks class with her - every fortnight we get new tricks to teach, and every fortnight I think this will be really difficult - but then Finn just 'gets it' and is doing tricks I never thought I'd be able to teach.
Her agility training is progressing well, she has sooo much drive and is happy to work at a distance (and fast!) but still very responsive to handling. So now I just have to learn to handle her properly!! We still have our weaves and contacts to polish before I consider competing with her, but her jumping isnt far off being ready. But she is so easily overarroused around other dogs running that I do really worry about how she will cope with doing agility in the show environment. I really must get her to some smaller shows where there are less distractions to give her ring experience. That said, we had a cattle dog agility day a few weekends ago, and despite having 20+ ACDS, rotties & malamutes standing right by the equipment she never even thought about leaving work or lost focus. She even won the most promising agility dog on the day - so proud of my little girl!

And her herding training - well she really knows how to push my buttons, and continues to be a pushy little sod at times, but again things are starting to come together nicely and she is definately starting to settle. She has by far the most natural talent & instincts of the ACDs I've trained, we just need to harness it!

Catching up.. on travel

It wasnt my intention to let myself slip so far behind with this blog, but I guess life has gotten a little in the way, and it is what it is. So to catch up quickly so I can set myself back on track..

On the travel front I have has some truly once in a lifetime experiences this past 6 months. Back in October I headed to southern Africa for a month. Wow and wow is all I can say. After spending a few days in Cape Town I joined an overland tour that headed up the west coat of South Africa, then across through Namibia and Botswana before finishing in Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean/Zambian border. We had a great bunch of people which made the tour - can you imagine what it would be like being stuck on a truck for 3 weeks with people you didnt like... eek! We saw amazing scenery (canyons, dunes, national parks), lots of animals (after awhile the response was 'oh just another elephant, moooore zebras, where's something more exciting?!), and had some great adventures (most notably jumping into the 'devils pool' at the top of vic falls and lean over the edge of the falls..). Even leaving Africa was an adventure. The day after the tour finished a few of us were to fly from Livingstone to Cape Town before I left from Cape Town the next day. But we turned up at the airport only to find out our airline had lost its charter that morning and there would be no flights, and we wouldnt be able to get a flight with another airline for a few days. So in a massive panic (bearing in mind I had to get to Cape Town by the next night) we ran into a lovely man  who gave us a lift to Lusaka  (a 5hr drive away and where we could get a flight from), gave us a bed for the night, and drove us to the airport in the morning. The generosity of people never ceases to amaze me.

Not to be outdone, January saw me heading to Iceland for a week. Another truly unforgettable experience. While alot of the land was covered in snow at that time of year, enough of the country was still accessable and it actually wasnt tooo cold. Or at least no worse than Britain was at that time. So while there I got to do a few tours, went dogsledding, horseriding on the Icelandic horses, and Glacier hiking/Ice climbing. I was even lucky enough to get a good show of the Northern Lights while there! All again with a great group of people around.

January also saw a weekend in Malta. Last minute cheap flights and very cheap accomodation is always going to equal a good weekend, and I wasnt disappointed.

Then finally in march Mum & Dad visited for a few weeks. It was wonderful to have them here, and to avoid the cold british weather we spent a chunk of the time touring Portugal.