...See what happens when I go away!

Ian buys a sit on mower!

from EBay, thankfully we didn't have to go to far away to pick it up either only Devon!

It needed a bit of welding and a hammer in places and maybe a lick of paint later on, hopefully this should "Cut" down on my weekly mowing time of 3 hours to not long at all! We will see, but as yet Ian hasn't let me even sit on it! .......Boys and their toys!

I can't believe it's September already....where did that Summer go! ...it just mingled in with winter! It's was dark at 8.15 last night .......yes I know it was raining (fancy that!) but it was still dark.

Hopefully I will still be able to get my 7 o'clock lesson people in for another week or so.

Agility wise.

Buzz got a clear round with Aly at the weekend, wasn't smooth but hey they loved it and Aly said Buzz winked at her on the start line, before he broke his wait and was off up the course! Bless Him, I'm more relaxed watching them both now and am laughing along with them both.

Red, I'm still struggling to get our "spot on foot perfect agility partnership" back, I seem to spend the round worrying if she's okay and hoping she isn't going to hit a jump badly....It has made me think long and hard and I think I will be retiring her at the end of September to any size and veterans, I know she still can do the height and when I've seen video clips of her, she still looks good etc. I just don't want her to hurt herself, she has always been a dog that if she get her pacing wrong she will still take it, rather than put a pace in, what ever piece of equipment it is, we have had some really scary moments with tyres and spreads and even doing a loop in the tunnel and coming out with grazed eye brows where she's slid over in it and well the A frame, she has even miss judged that and hit it hard with her chin and cut her tongue!

Then at least I can still work her at home in a safer slower environment and go on long walks with her still fit and on four legs.........We will see.

Harry, well he just gets faster and stronger ever time I run him! He won a jumping class at the weekend 5-7, the medium dogs ran over the same course (higher jump heights of course) and he beat the winning collie's time!.....So I was told by two seconds, I did see her round and she did have a wider turn in one place than Harry, but we both had a long spread out run to the finish.

His agility run was still fast although I struggled to get him through a gap, so we had an "E"

I am now able to get him to play with me most of the time, before we go onto the start line and he get his treats when he has finished (outside of the ring off course!)

This time last year at the same show (a game fair, with lots of GP around, with straw seats and dogs in the ring etc.) he had left the ring to chat up the girls, so for him to stay in the ring with me was fantastic.

Mindy is ready for the ring experience now, I've entered her first KC show and a couple of other fun things, so now we wait and see when she will come into season! .....and whether she will compete this year at a KC show, otherwise it will be 2010 sometime.

Her only worrying issue, which we have been and will be continuing to work on is her "Chase" instinct! yes anything from butterfly's, flys, birds, sheep and cows (if she could) dog's doing agility! poo bags flying across in front of her etc.

So at the moment her exercising is on the long line or extendable until her recall is 100% in those environments....could take a long time, but I think people won't appreciate a small blonde thing hurtling towards them at warp speed whilst they are doing a winning round!

I think Dawn likes her ! We've just had our second lesson with Dawn, I took both the "smalls" and picked Mum up on the way (she's my video mam) cant show you any of the videos as Mum has to learn how to down load them yet! So you may get to see them one day!

we Learnt a lot and came away with lots to work on over the winter months.