Does this remind you of anyone Mum?

Our very own elephant

I've been teaching Tig and Emmy the circus elephant trick so I've been spending a lot of time playing with the washing up bowl. This has given it a good appeal to Dylan who now calls it a 'click box', he calls the clicker 'click.....ER'.
So here's Dylan being a circus elephant



He loves his 'click box' he uses it to get on the bed, stands on it to look out the window and to wash his hands or get his tooth brush. When i tried to take some picture he just kept turning his back on me and because he is getting abit of a sense of humour now he was giggling his little head off!

Dylan

Whilst downloading some dog pictures on to photobucket i came accross these. Both photo's were taken at about 6 weeks old. I always regret the fact that the quality is not better on the coloured shot because it captured him perfectly. He had such dark hair and eyes when he was born. The black and white shot i took whilst holding the camera out to the side and i've always loved it.

Our trip up north

We took a long trip up to Newton Heaths 600 miles in total and sadly for me that equates to 120 miles per elimination and a 6th in agility with Tig, where i could and should have done better. I was cross with myself but it was a good experience, i found my dogs a bit clingy in all the noise and i couldn't get away with using verbals and trying to get in the next position too early. We are back again for the Wyre show so i'm pleased to get another go and i hope i can do better for them.

Leslie on the other hand had a great day, Fizzy LOVES the noise and hype, she won her Gr4 jumping and even Billy coped with the extra hype and won the jumping TFO. Sadly i don't have that filmed because it was a very exciting, seat of his pants style run!

Here's Fizz's jumping round with a christmas twist.

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Brrrr its cold out there!

I cannot believe that on Monday i had such a lovely sunny morning with Bernadette, OK it was a little bit cold but nothing like it is here today. Jack Frost has arrived! After Bernadette's very helpful training on Monday i took the dogs over the fields behind the factory. I was so lovely and i thought to myself its November and the dogs are clean! I wish I'd had the camera. I took it out on Tuesday instead, Tuesday was not such a sunny day and the dogs were NOT clean but we had great fun with the camera anyway.

This is Emmy, after they'd been through the long wet grass to try and get some of the mud off.

I've been thinking for a while that poor Fizz doesn't get much of a mention on the blog and so i made the effort to point the camera in her direction. She's such a funny looking think sometimes she looks really odd. But i did get some great pictures of her, i just had to be patient. I tried to get lots of head shots so you can't see her coat because she does have a lovely face but i did manage to get this one of the ugly sisters! Sorry Laura and Lesley!

But if they are the ugly sisters then Dot must be Cinderella!

We don't meet anyone out the back so i can really let to dogs run and run (this is why i can't take them all out in an exercise area together). Here is them doing their out run but at least i know they will come back, although i think Fizzy had other ideas!



Finally Tig and Fizz lay down for a chat actually it looks like she's given him a cold shoulder but thats women for you, he'll get used to it!

HE HE HE

Thought these might make you smile...



He calls them his 'glass' and he loves wearing them!!!!

Autumn Jobs

Why is it that once the shows are over you never have all the time that you think you were going have! Partly i guess its down to lazy weekend mornings but mostly i think we just have so many jobs to catch up on, ones that we put off all summer. Last week with the help of Little Red Tractor (Dylan's favourite) Leslie has been catching up on 3 years hedge trimming!






Its a huge job and not really a one man job either but he's getting there, The one behind the dogs is not done yet although he did cut a path so people could get through to the agility field easier.

The other job we did last weekend was take the Dog Walk in strip it back and completly repaint and resand it. Sadly no photo's but it looks great and we had a good time doing it, Dylan especially because he got to play on Little Red Tractor all day. The A-frame is next on our list and of course the van cages that Leslie is trying to get done before Newton Heath next Saturday.

Halloween and bonfires

First i have to confess I'm a big kid and i LOVE Halloween, so Dylan and the minded children spent a week getting the pumpkins carved. I always get really excited and buy way TOO MANY pumpkins and then end up doing them for hours. So this year i was well behaved, i took 4 children to Slindon and we took Emmy, Fizz and Dot for a walk in the woods. After our walk we went to visit the pumpkin man. He wasn't there when we went because he's quite old now but his display was still good, this year he did a dinosaur and a pterodactyl, sadly i didn't have my camera. Here's a picture from a couple of years ago when he used 22 different types of pumpkins in his display.

I was good and we only bought 4 Pumpkins, i wanted to buy some green ones because they looked scary but the children were adamant they had to be the traditional orange ones. I let Dylan carve his pumpkin one evening when the minded children had gone because they like take over and do things for him. So instead he had the help of the dogs, especially Emmy who thought the pumpkin was YUMMY!





Don't worry he didn't actually eat any!!!

Here's a couple of the finished ones




Anyway after the minded children had been round trick or treating i took the sweets out to my group and i have to say they are all big kids too and everyone had a ball but there wasn't much training going on!!!

We were then on to the firework season, I'm really glad none of my dogs are bothered but i feel for those who have dogs that are affected by fireworks because they go on for so long not just celebrating the 5th of November.
Osborne refrigerators has a yearly firework party these days and most of the staff come and bring friends, we have sausage in a bun and a huge fire. Leslie spends ages getting the fire built and sorting out the fireworks because he likes everything to go smoothly, he hates gaps in the display. This year was no different and he did a good job and everyone enjoyed themselves we even had some unexpected visitors.

Yes someone called the firebrigade! We;re not sure who it was but they were quite happy with everything and they didn't even want a sausage in a bun! Here's Leslie's fire, we are a long way away from it and it burns down quickly.


I always have reservations about this party as i know that dog people should be against fireworks but the kids and BIG kids have a good time and it's nice to see people from the factory and chat to friends. Dylan really enjoyed himself and like last year he went to sleep half way through!

A shameless Plea!

The minded children and I have registered with Tesco's to collect their sports for schools vouchers and they are doing a great job, but obviously we are competing against the playschools and schools for them so if anyone has any spare that we can make use of PLEASE let me know and i will send you an SAE!!!! You need 1000's to get the big stuff but a few hundred would get us some new footballs and a new net for our goal posts.

Supadog Finals

Back in March this year before i realised what a year Tig was going to have he came 2nd in the Supadog heat and qualified for the final. Eventually the 14th October came round and Tig was going fantastic, I have to say i hadn't done anything with him and we spent the week before in Scotland but it worked to his advantage i think because he was seriously flying.

Sadly for Tig i let him down in the final and caused him to run by Jump 16 (GRRR!) but as you will see by Lisa's wonderful filming he was going great and i couldn't have asked for any more from him.



So we ended up winning both the warm up jumping and agility classes, I should know that is unlucky! As usual the wonderful Linda Croxford and her team provided GREAT crystal and rosettes AND more food for Charlie, which is great as she had just come to the end of the 3 bags Tig won in June!