catch up again !!!

Yazoo's six month birthday has come and gone and I cant believe how quickly the time has flown by, she is turning into a real little sweet heart, she is naughty but nice, just how I like my pups to be.

I have just finished a really lovely little pre agility foundation course with Kathrin Tasker, the emphasis was on teaching your pup to work with you, with tricks and general pre agility exercises, including balance and co ordination and getting you pup to work with you in a class with other pups too, I really enjoyed it and was extremely impressed with my little girl she is far more focused on me than I thought that she would be and she even managed to stay looking at me while her sister was working which I was very pleased about. She is good by the rings and shows little interest at the other dogs working, she at the moment has an on and off switch which is nice, I have found one thing though that she likes to chase and its magpies !! oh and she is pretty obsessed with rosettes too, so if you see her at prize giving hang on to them lol

The other thing that I joined in a few weeks ago was an agility boot camp run by Leah and Nancy, it was a three day boot camp but I couldn't’t do all of it due to a work commitment, but I went on the Saturday and joined in with their puppy foundation class which was brilliant, we did lots of different balance and shadowing work, and again, Yaz was completely focused on me not the other dogs, then I joined in the contact work shop with Todd, which I got a lot out of, I am pleased with Todd’s contacts, and he has fast stop 2 o 2 off contacts, but I am really bad at pushing the boundaries, and Nancy and Leah got me to push them and proof them, which I think has really helped in the last couple of weeks competition as Todd has been going really well. I will definitely do the whole of the boot camp next year if they do it !!
Paula took these pictures of Todd they are brilliant they depict him to a T!!

I have had a really good few shows and Todd has won 2 x agility classes and 1 x jumping class towards advanced, I am really proud of him, he gives his all in every run he does and its only me that lets him down sometimes. Jess not to be left out also got a 2nd place in a grade 6 7 jumping class this weekend at Axtane, which turned out to be a great weekend lots of friends doing really well. I got a sneak preview of Nancy’s Zeki doing some little bits and wow she is really lovely her A frame is brilliant.

Hannah did really well with Zazzy at Golden Valley and qualified for the Alpha Agility Challenge final so go Zazzy go !! it is so nice to see Zazzy so happy again, oh the trials and tribulations of being a girl, :-( !!!! also Jess and Becky (Banks :-)) came 3rd in the ped. pairs at Hinckly which we were pretty chuffed with just one outside of qualifying but the glass tumblers were handy lol lol lol

I spent the whole morning bathing all my dogs except 2 as they all went into a black muddy ditch and were black and stinky, Todd was not impressed with this new activity and I think I ended up with more water and mud on me in the end as he just kept shaking !!

I'm really looking forward to Lune and Barrow and am busy trying to get myself organised for the week, also am looking forward to having a celebration with my extremely clever son on Wednesday night as he has just got his results and has a 2 1 degree in English, so well done Dan, am proud of you ;-) beyond belief x
and lastly but no way least well done to Sue and Lorna with their scrummy poodles this weekend both getting 2 x 2nd places x

I have joined the bad blogger club !!

I have lots to catch up on but here are a couple of short videos, the first is very funny !! and a few pictures, my shelties are becoming such good friends which is great and Yazzoo is turning into such a beautiful young lady :-) ( IMO anyway !!!)

Well done Nancy and Niamh and Leah and Herbie

Well Done to Nancy and Naughty Niamh for winning graded 6 and to Leah and herbie for winning the graded 7 in the 6/7 today at WSBDS, what a couple of stars :-) xx

Perfect morning

What a glorious morning, I have just come back from a long leisurely walk through the bluebells here are some pictures of my walk ! and a couple of some of my favourite flowers in my garden at the moment.

Catch up again !! OK Hannah this is for you are you keep reminding me that I have not done it for AGES!!!!!!!

I have been a extremely bad blogger recently, lots going on here, least of all one very happy eager pup, so most of my spare time is being spent doing little bits of trick training and socialisation with Yazoo at the moment, but I have had a fantastic few weeks, I will start with the first couple of UKA shows Scrambles and Waverunners. I love these shows the atmosphere is brilliant I really like the fact that I am able to choose whether to train or run my dogs, in each class, because they are smaller I find it easier to be able to watch my friends do their runs too. Todd won both his novice agility classes and qualified for the Royal Canin final and has now moved up to Senior level, and Jess runs at Champ level and had a 2nd in the Canin agility and won a steeplechase, Corrie had a great time running with Bern and got a nice place too. Here are some ringside pictures of Yazz and Itzy playing.

Next came the ESS show at Blewbery which happened to coincide with my birthday, again Todd ran really well, and won grade 3 – 5 agility, with beautiful contacts, he is now meeting my criteria in the ring as well as in training. He won a lovely cup for coming 1st which has got significant sentimental value, so thank you Todd :-)
Bernadette and Dennis had a birthday cake done for me and here it is, not only was it fantastic to look at it was very tasty too! I had some lovely presents too, including a pink glass sheltie ! an extremely useful new cage bag for my van ( and anyone that knows me knows that I have the odd toy or two to house lol lol ) a new fleece and Tshirt with a sheltie on some lovely flowers and some Bailys yum yum yum

my lovely cake.

I had a couple of weeks off for Easter, and had a fun and busy time.I had some great walks with friends and good training, Yazz started a puppy foundation class which I really think she is going to enjoy, I enjoyed my judging at the Easter show, there are lots of really nice smalls and mediums babies just starting competition at the moment. Todd did me proud by winning into grade 6 on the Saturday too.

I also got a new caravan thanks to Andy's keen eyes, he found it for me and its FANTASTIC, so this weekend was its first airing at Wallingford show, this was also Yazz's first camping show and she loved it, the weather started off a bit pants but just got better and better, I had a great weekend lovely company and some really good bits of agility, with both Jess and Todd. Here are some pictures of the weekend, my caravan, only when I downloaded the picture did I realise that there was a beer bottle in it oh dear !! there is a picture of a very very healthy lunch can't quite remember who's it was :-) and another one of someone just loving watching others work !!!

Another good weekend

Princess Yazz :-)

I had another really good weekend, on Saturday I went on a Nicky Garret training day with Todd, which was brilliant, I came away with more than one thing too Nick !! I love Nicky's way of handling to me it makes total sense, the weather was brilliant and Todd worked really well, I wish I had videoed some of it, I must remember to take my tripod and video next time I go on a training day. On Sunday I took Yazz on Hannah's Co-ordination and balance afternoon, she really enjoyed it and so did I, she took all of the things in her stride and I came away feeling very proud of her, she also managed to concentrate even with both her sisters there, whom she adores ( not sure that the feeling is mutual thought I think there is an old saying that goes..... 3's a crowd lol lol ) and Sharon's lovely puppy diesel too who she really fell in love with at Mid downs show. Before we went to the class we took a walk on Chertsey meads with Bernadette and Dennis here are some pictures of Yazz with her sisters, on her own and also of Todd and Corrie dripping wet just come out of the river, thanks again Dennis for the pictures.

Lovely weekend

I have had a lovely weekend, it was lovely to see every one at mid downs on Saturday, special well dones go to Andy and Kizzy and Bernadette and Zen and Leah and Hex, not a bad start to the year :-)

I was also extremely pleased with Todd his contacts were just as I hoped they would be, and I was disciplined with myself and made sure that he was in the correct position before I released him, which is why I have had to spend the whole of the winter proofing and re training his contacts in the first place !! a small handler glitch pointed him straight to the dog walk instead of the weave entrance in the Burgess qualifier, but the rest of the round was good. My jumping was a total disaster as I brought myself a few new pairs of tracky bottoms and the pair I chose to wear to the show started to fall as I was running so I decided better to stop than embarrass myself any further !

I wont comment about Jess as I ran her like a complete half witt !

Yazz had a ball at the show she met lots and lots of pups and there was a bit of a sheltie convention at the end, I think in total there was about 7 shelties, and surprisingly there was not too much noise from any of them, not even mine !!!!!!!

I was meant to go to the Chippenham show on Sunday, but decided to stay at home with Meg and have some girly time, she has been working so hard lately and wanted to do a photo shoot for her art with Todd as the white rabbit from the Mad hatters tea party, it was great fun, and Todd was a saint he just sat in his outfit for about 1/2 hour, I think he secretly loves being dressed up, specially when there was 1/2 a cup of tea as a reward !! here are a couple of pictures of them having fun and one that Meg has edited for her art.

I even managed to get my grass cut, I think that must be one of my most favourite things in the world is looking and smelling a freshly cut lawn, shame mine has a few craters in it now !

The last picture is of Todd and his most favourite ball of all time, its a shame its pink lol lol and Yazz trying to kill the camera :-)