Christmas Day!

Christmas Day starts as it always starts with the present opening - yippee! This involves a pile of presents for everyone in our house - Malcolm, Emma and the dogs. It always makes us laugh when Barney runs straight over to their pile of presents and immediately starts sniffing away. He loves Christmas! As you can see from the photo below they both got the idea of opening their presents!

And to honour the occasion Pebbles always wears her Christmas outfit - so cute!

And then took some time to enjoy one of her treats!

Santa was good to both of us with lots of undies and socks to go round! Malcolm was also really happy with some great walking boots and a great new, no effort involved, coffee machine. I was lucky to get lots too - a CD, a ring, pyjamas and best of all a voucher for the sales! Yippee, shops here I come!

After a good long walk it is time for us to leave for my brothers for Christmas lunch. It is always great to have all the family together to celebrate Christmas and Graham (my brother) and Hazel (his partner) always do an amazing job with the food and entertainment (mostly provided by my 2 nieces!!!).

This years award for the most apt Christmas present goes to my Mum for giving my Dad this hat!

This year was also very special because the last few years have seen the 'Grannies' having a few serious health problems that they have battled hard to overcome. It was great to see them both looking so well.

This Christmas was Mac's first Christmas and he was very well behaved after the initial mad moment when everyone arrived. He soon settled down to enjoy his very, very large chew bone. This kept him amused for ages!


Like mother, like daughter!

Malcolm modelling the Santa hat!


After lunch we headed home where Malcolm slept off the Christmas lunch and we watched some rubbish Christmas TV. Another great Christmas.........until next year!

Glow in the Dark!

I hate this time of year with the short days and having to rush home from work to walk the dogs before it gets dark. Most days I can get home in time to walk them by 3.30pm when it is still light but occasionally we have to venture out in the dark. Not too bad because I go to the golf course and they get to run about on the course and we rarely meet anyone so they have a ball.

Last Friday, however, I ended up walking them in the dark. Given the colour of Barney and Pebbles (black!) it is very hard to see them in the dark! Therefore, I have had to invest in glowing collars and little lights that hang from their collars, so that I can see them! They are prone to running into the woods, always coming back, but it gives me peace of mind knowing where they are as I see the little lights bob back and forwards in the distance. I thought I would take a picture on this walk to show you what I mean!!!!

Barney and Pebbles in the Dark!

Of course, it is not only the 2 dogs that are lit up like Christmas trees! I wear my head torch so I can see where I am going!

Me in the Dark!

While on this walk I was going to let Barney and Pebbles play their weekly fetch game with the ball but alas I could not see the ball. For Pebbles who brings the ball back faithfully this would not be a problem. Barney, however, likes you to chase him when he has the ball or he might decide to randomly drop the ball whenever he gets a good sniff, maybe in the trees, or last week it was dropped in the small stream! Not so easy to know where the ball is!!! Therefore, I decided to buy some glow in the dark balls!!

Now these are hilarious and I hope to get some pictures of them in action next week. There is one red ball and one blue ball. They are brilliant! It is so funny to see the balls hover around in the dark and together with the blue and red lights on the dogs collars we must look like a mini light show!! It made me laugh that is for sure!

Woodside Show

Today I was at Woodside winter agility show with Barney and Pebbles. It was great because the venue was in Broxburn which was only a 30 minute drive from home so it was not too early a start - only 6.45am!!

First up was Barney in Combined 5-7 Agility. He did his usual jump off the bottom of the dog walk and then was eliminated at the last jump when he went straight on instead of going right over the last jump. Otherwise I was really please with his run and he was running quickly and flowing well. Then it was Pebbles over the same course for smalls. She did a lovely round and was working away from me well but knocked the pole down on the second to last jump! Looking at the times she would have finished 5th if she had not got 5 faults! I am happy with that though since time wise she is back in the mix, at the last show she was a few seconds off the pace so progress there.

Then it was a jumping course for Barney Combined 5-7. It was a really tough course with lots of twists and traps. Barney did really well and only made one small mistake pausing at one jump to give him 5 faults. Pebbles did the same course. I knew that the best and quickest way to do it was for me to do a cross behind and for her to turn right - a move she is not good at but needs to learn. So I did not take the easy option and try and cross in front but made her do it. As predicted she protested and stopped and barked at me! I made her go over the jump and I crossed behind but this got us 5 faults. Not that it mattered since she got eliminated later on! On exiting the tunnel I pushed her out then raised my hand too early and this sent her back through the tunnel!!

Then it was onto Barney's last run - Combined 4-7 Jumping. Again it was a really tough course but he managed to go clear - clever Barney :-) And he finished 5th. It was a good round and he did really well to avoid the traps. He was working well and really listening. He is still a bit off the pace of the higher grade 7 dogs but it was not his kind of course.

Finally Pebbles did a Combined 4-7 Agility and it was the craziest course I have ever seen. Put it this way 30 or so dogs all Grade 5 and above and only 3 dogs went clear!! Pebbles protested at the wall (4th jump) by running past it and it went downhill from there! I think she was eliminated about 3 times! Not my type of course at all - lots of changes of direction and no flow at all.

So all in all not a very successful day results wise but I was happy with the way they were working. I don't think they really like indoor shows - no caravan, stuck in car between runs and they don't work well on the indoor surface. They seem much happier outdoors on grass when they are in the caravan.

That's all the shows now until February which I am quite glad about - it will be a nice break and give us a chance to get some training in.