Miss Mindy

will be two tomorrow, so now she's allowed a grown up name, rather than her "silly" name, for some reason, Muppet kept coming out and she's no Muppet I can assure you........and then it came to me via the dreaded Face book lot!

Thank you Sorcha you used it one time and I thought yes that sounds nice and I can remember it, so now she's known as "Miss Mindy"

Bless her.....





From this wee girlie (how could she be smaller than Harry!)









...She loves watching anything "Dog" related on the TV!










...and the occasional cuddle!


Happy Birthday "Miss Mindy"

Video Post's say so much more!...

Here's a few video's from over the weekend, the good, the bad handler and the really distracted!

Just shows how much work I have to do, that why I like videos, although when Ian wasn't there Mindy was a lot more focused, but she has to get used to that and I have to show her it's much more fun being with ME....Honest Mind'ars
I'm still struggling with setting her up, I have to have her with a halti on as she rather "excitable" in the queue and she seems to not focus when I first take it off, so this weeks homework is to go out down in the garden and do start lines, play and take off her halti, quick exercise, play and put halti back on, so this morning we did it three times, I used her lead as a tug toy............
But we did get it right twice over the wekend and Mindy won 1-3 agility and 2nd in 3-4 jumping (when Ian wasn't there!)

Red had a great time she coped really well, she had Anysize and two veteran classes and came home with 2 x 1sts and 2nd, here's one run that she came 2nd in with the spin after the tunnel, I was rather worried with the start as she had to turn really sharp into the tunnel and I had seen a lovely old lady hit the side so hard she fell over in the tunnel.......

Harry - I tried to be clever and do some different handling in places, so found out lots of what I need to work on, so we had 3 E's and then I played it safe in his last jumping class which we won....

Buzz - Well Buzz needs no introductions, he had a cracking E, and a 5 fs

I worked him down in the garden this week and he was amazing and we won the "Pit" Dog Agility championships! Bless him.

Here's his 5f run with Nick.

Having a go.......

Well we've made a start.

Neither of us have a clue but we read the back of the packets and so we now have 4 lines of spring onions, lettuce, spinach and carrots, I thought I was being clever in putting them in my stride regulators/jump bumps/guttering, but then I could have done with them in a lesson I had last week! Silly me, so have Ian on the look out for some more!

We've also put in pots, sweet corn and runner beans and eventually we will get some tomatoes, hopefully the Beans and Corn will go in that patch in front of the green house, in between that and the first raised bed that you can see in the photo, we just have to get into a routine of watering them now!

....the lettuce and spinach have bounced up and I can just see little bits of colour coming up on the onions but nothing can been seen of the carrots, we decided not to use the whole packet and have divided them into 3 lots, so we don't have loads of everything at once, sounds a good idea, just have to see if we can remember!

Birthday Wishes...

Happy Birthday Buzzy Boy,

8 years young today!

We got up early and took them all to the beach 5.45am we where walking on the beach!

Why so early.....Well Ian wanted to be back in time to watch the Grand prix at 7 am........

They loved it but it was rather cold, I was pleased I hadn't booked any camping shows for this weekend!

I hadn't realised how cold, until we got back to the car to find frost on the "dog poo bins" in the car park and the 2 overnight campers (who weren't meant to camp in the car park had frost on their windows too, I'm sure they where awake by the time we had returned as another 2 dog walking cars with slightly more noisy dogs than ours arrived!) We got home by 7 and Ian thankfully with his head set on listening to the "getting ready" bit of the GP, helped wash the dogs off, whilst I blasted them!, we all then had nice warm porridge and honey for our breakfast! ALL!!!

Dog Tired!

This is Harry after going to Wye Valley on Saturday and doing a training session with Dawn on the Sunday!

....at least I hadn't ironed anything! Ha ha

Our runs on Saturday where dreadful, my handling sent him through tunnels and pulled him off jumps, what a difference a week makes having had 2 x first and 2nd at K9 Kernow, in the mud and rain, to glorious sunshine and just a clear with a spin the wrong way and two E's.......

...any way, this was Mindy's first outdoor show, with loads of distractions, she was a good girl and stayed almost focused and each run she did she improved on (except the teams!)

She gets upset with dogs playing with their toys and then struggles to play with her own, unless no one is playing with theirs then she can tug hard!.....Yes I need to practice more.

If Ian had been with me I would have taken her out the queue, but I had loaded Lara's van with so much stuff, let alone adding another crate!

It was great that both dogs coped with travelling in a strange van with dogs that they didn't really know, although may be that's why Harry wasn't firing on all four cylinders, I hadn't thought of that one, as although Harry looks like a confident dog he is actually a little shy in new situations, he always seems better the second day at a weekend show, unless of course he knows the ground......

Anyway back to Mindy, she was a bit clingy and not running at her usual speed which we had seen in training, circular jumping was clear, I hate these courses same as Helter skelter, I never know why I enter them, I always get lost and feel really slow, she was half second behind Harry who wasn't fast and then turned the wrong way........

2nd run was agility, she was distracted by a black terrier trying to kill it's toy at the side of the ring, so we didn't do a start line wait and off we went, she bubbled in the weaves, I think they where third obstacle and she was still thinking about the toy tugging dog, but I took her back and then she perked up and off we went, beautiful running "A" frame, stopped dog walk contact, the seesaw she ran to the top and waited for it to move, she then got bored and launched off the top, so we re-did it and finished the last three jumps nicely.

3rd run was jumping, nice flowy course just right to get her confidence up except I had to do two cross behinds and knew she needed to be driving forward for them to work, but she did them, still not training speed, but much better and she was able to focus more, she was clear and came 2nd, winning a plate.

Her fourth run was teams, haha, where to put her in the team, knowing she would be hard to catch as she would want to chase the dog in front as it was a baton change....I think it was all a little too much for her (and me), but once I got her facing the right way and under control she was off and having fun....

Then I just have to remind myself she has had 4 weeks of training, due to her accident and we went to this show, with only getting her to jump a circle of jumps on the Thursday previous!

...Here's a strange thing, I remembered when being driven home, Red's first ever KC trophy was a second at supadogs in a jumping class and she won a plate!

...and then this evening we went

To the beach.

As you can see Mindy looks great, hooray and I ran her over small small height jumps (8) yesterday and she looked great, so may be tomorrow I will raise the jumps and do one set of weaves and if she stays sound then she can come with Harry and I to the show on Saturday!

I did splash out and buy a "Back on Track" mesh coat to fit them both and she has been wearing this for 4/5 days, it's been a struggle as she hates wearing coats and is a right madam wearing anything! but we can keep it on for 4-5 hours each day, I cant see her wearing it over night though.......

As to whether it works or not, well I know I felt weired when she sat on my lap with it on, but I do react to the Bio flow bracelets like that too!

I did get Harry to wear it too, he only managed an hour the first time and got quite distressed by wearing it, I thought he wouldn't mind, as he loves being "Snug as a bug" I know some people cant wear the Bio flow for long periods of time, so I increased from 1 hour up 4 over 4/5 days and that's the stage we are at for him.

Mindy looks a bit odd in this photo as she is actually lying down on the sofa and I'm taking the photo from the top of the sofa looking down at her! oh and the coat is rather large for her....

In case any of you do invest in one, go smaller than your normal size coat as they are rather generous!...I bought it from Ann at CSJ, follow the link on my links bit that says CSJ....Toni and Beep Bother

Holidays!

Caerhays Castle and Gardens

Gorran

St Austell

Cornwall

April 2010

http://www.caerhays.co.uk/

Well Known for its Magnolia and Camellia's

Shame it's surrounded by cars!

This is when you wish you knew how to take photo's and had a better camera, it was a beautiful afternoons walk, even though they where starting to turn, we should have gone a week earlier......

Look at that blue Cornish Sky