working wednesday #7

Life has been crazy over here, lots going on, lots happening and lots of stressed as well ... but teaching the dogs something new always make me smile. I am not really ready to work on this trick but it just happened. Last night, Sonic and I had a little refresh on back legs lifting and I change my position and he offered me his front paw along with lifting his back leg. I thought "jackpot". He is so clever and I better start working on this and hopefully it will look better soon:

this is Sonic lifting his right back leg as well as giving me his left front paw:

App, nearly 6 weeks!

App will be SIX weeks tomorrow! Time gone too quickly! He has visitors this week, his new mummy and family came to visit from The Netherlands. He bonded straightaway with his new brother Jazz and mummy Mariska the minute they stepped into the house. I was so glad he handled himself so well in front of so many strangers and dogs. He prove to be a very confident little chap meeting new people and other dogs, it is like he knew them all these times. 

He also get to go out in the garden quite a bit this week as the weather warm up ...

He also get to go out to watch the world goes by ... and hopefully we will get him out for a coffee date sometimes next week. 

 puppy life is very tiring ... zzzzz

 

Fitness Friday

For more rear legs awareness and balancing skill, I have Sonic gets his four feet inside a smaller container today. We have done this on and off but with much bigger box where he is quite comfortable with but today, I decided I want to be a "mean" mummy, so I found a smaller container big enough to just have his four feet in. He is doing good but he needs to learn to be more balance so he is not come off easily :)

working wednesday #6

I was a bit worried to teach my dogs "hand stand", my worried is when the dogs completely stand on 2 front feet and put all the pressure to the front but after talking to some friends, I will teach them a quick "hand stand", basically just have two back feet off the ground for second and that's it! Our "hand stand" is still working in progress, this video was taken last week and we have not done anything this week. I've got Sonic to back up to the height of our settee. Hopefully, we can transfer that to a quick hand stand. 

Happy Valentine's

 

♥♥♥Saturn wishes all the love birds a Happy Valentine♥♥♥

 

Thoughts ...

There are a few things worrying me recently. One of our golden oldie Seagull is slowing down a lot just recently. He isn't the best dog to take out walking with, he is always very slow, has his own mind, own pace, don't like snow/rain, don't like hot weather ... but just lately, he isn't keen to go out (having to drag him out is not very nice!) and most of the time he looks "blank". Even my dopey Colin noticed that! He must be so obvious that Colin has mentioned that to me on the weekend! Seagull is not the oldest, he only just turned 9 on December 30th. But he is eating well and drinking well.

this photo was taken on his 9th birthday

Well, Sing is my other worried. I took him to my Chiro last Monday, so Susan can put her hand on him. Sing has not has any treatment for nearly 2 years. I thought since I am going to Susan, I must well bring him along. This is the first time Susan saw him. She have him walking up and down to look at his movement and to my shock, she told me his good front paw is also looking a bit limpy! Oh dear! He's been on previcox for a while now and I thought he is doing really well. The last time we have him check-up at the vet just before Christmas and the vet was really impressed with his improvement and I was really happy. I have also cut down his play which made him very unhappy but I have discussed with the vet and my Chiro, what should I do for the best. They both agreed that I know my dogs the best, so I am allow to play ball sensible. It is no point to stop all together and the dog is not happy. I know I am a bad mummy, I like to throw ball in the air for him to catch but I tried to stop my bad habit but every now and then I forgot (especially when I get excited!). I have friend who really care about me and my dogs (you know who are you), she always remind me not to do that. It is impossible to stop Sing playing ball, he just loved it, I remembered everytime he came off anaesthetic, the first thing he did was to bring me a ball. It really breaks my heart to see he is not as fit as he was before. 

how can you not play ball with those begging eyes?

Lastly, I think Sonic and I better stick to Agility training :) I was brave to try to show him at our local Branch meeting yesterday. I thought he looks nice and would be a good experienced to let people touch him. He was very well behaved. He settled-in while all things going on. I didn't bring a crate so he was on the stupid show lead all the time, I was really amazed how well he coped with everything going on around him. I handled him in 2 classes, the puppy 9-12 months and Special Beginners. I am absolute idiot handler, I tried to do 100 things at a time and I didn't get 1 thing right! I was all stressed out and didn't enjoy it at all. I worried too much as I have not done any ring craft with him and expect him to do everything. The worst thing is to get him on the table to let the judge examine him. I know this will be nightmare as he already not liking people touching him. The stepped in judge was Dave Lambert, Sizzle's breeder :) Dave is so gentle and soft spoken but Sonic just don't like to be poke around! Dave was so worried that he will back off the table so I have to try to catch him. Then, when we all have to stand nicely to let the judge to have a good look around, all Sonic wanted to do is sit down. He thinks when mummy has food in her hand means SIT. Bless poor little boy! When I put the food closer to his face, he leans against me to give me his "kick" trick! Oh! He made me laugh so much! Although he is so handsome (I am biased of course), he will stick to Agility! We will be both happier running in the field. One good thing, he has not tug on the lead but he tried to chew it off. LOL

Oh! One thing I forgot to mention ... when I try to brush him up to make him look fluffy, I have some very kind and nice person came up to me to say if I am thinking to show a dog properly, this is the brush I need ... Mason Pearson. I looked so embarrassed with my lousy brush in front of all these show people! Do I make another come back? Sonic has qualified for the "Sheltie of the Year" Finals because he got 2 x 2nds. Mmmm ... maybe when winter is so cold and no agility, I will? We will see.

I know he has brain and beauty :)

Have a good time!

The shelties and I were having a good time in the snow lately. We had some snow last weekend and we were very lucky to have more snow on Thursday night/Friday morning. Although the snow was not as deep as last weekend but it was fresh on Friday morning when we got to Common, everywhere looked so beautiful with snow still hanging on the tree and the best of all, we have some fresh snow to play with. Only one problem though, whenever the shelties go out in the fresh snow, they all have trouble with snowballs hanging on their fur and I've got a huge one hanging on my shoelace!

This is a good soft frisbee for the shelties. I've got that as a freebie years ago from a dog show. I can't quite remembered where was it from but I am sure it's kinda dog charity. The Shelties love the frisbee and you can see a picture of a happy dog saying "Have a good time". Sadly, the shelties over play with the frisbee while we were in Scotland last August. I cannot find another one as good as this :(

here are some photos of the boys having frisbee fun in the snow, I must have taken nearly a thousands of photos, so I am picking the random ones ...

Lastly, we have some group photos of the boys ... these boys are so easy to take photos with, like an angel :)

 and here is the video taken by Colin today of Sing fetching his frisbee: 

Fitness Friday

Today is an exciting day. There are too many things I want to talk about ... more snow and App turns 4 weeks old; but I will stick to my Fitness Friday for now :)

Well, this is week I have Saturn balancing his skill on the core as well as the front end. I have been teaching the dogs "hug" for a couple of years now, they are pretty good in hugging the duck in a sit position. I've recently watched this video on Silvia Trkman's website, this is one of her student performing "catches". That's very impressive and it inspired me that I want to go further with my "hugging" trick. I thought getting the dogs to sit up and catch/hug a toy is a good fitness as well :) They have to balance themselves while sitting up and also to put pressure on the front legs to catch/hug a toy. Saturn is always a happy boy, always wagging his tail, even doing a trick :)

APP, nearly 4 weeks

App is here a week now, I can see changes in him everyday. He continues to put on weight and is a very strong little boy. I fear that mama Skye hasn't got enough milk to feed him so I started to wean him off early. Even with no teeth, he is eating well, I had given him mince beef, scrambled eggs, puppy kibbles soak in hot water and he ate it all. Truly a sheltie, no problem eating!

He beginning to venture more into his new surrounding and also becomes very playful in the last couple of days. I feel very sad and sorry for him that he has no siblings to play with or even learning the manners from. Big brother Sonic is very keen to make friends with him and he has met Vindi, the cat for the first time today :) Vindi is very interested in him but I am not sure he likes her smell :) yet.

this is one super gorgeous photo taken by Rosie last Sunday:

These are App desperate for a playmate :(

 

working wednesday #5

Many of you haven't seen me posting much of our girls working, so here we are with Scara today stimulating her mind with one of our Nina Ottosson interactive toy ... Tornado.

Sorry, it is quite a long boring video as she took a while to eat all the treats hiding in it. You don't have to watch the full length. Don't worry about the song choice, she is not pregnant and is not going to have her baby. It is just that I like this song very much :)

SNOW at last!

I was a very happy mummy on the weekend. Weather forecast for snow on Saturday. We had so many false alarm before and I did prepared myself for the disappointment again until Colin suddenly shouted: Look! What's that in the garden! Normally, if I were the one who shouted this, all the shelties would DASH through the dog flap into the garden thinking there is a fox or squirrel to be chased off but when Colin said that, they all looked into my eyes and I were the one that rush off to the garden this time :) poor shelties looked very confused on Saturday evening!

WooHoo! We have SNOW at last! I never thought we will have snow to play with this winter as it has been very mild. I was moaning that Sonic and Scara haven't seen the snow and here it comes! The best thing is, the snow came on Saturday and Colin don't have to go to work and we all can go out to the Common and let the shelties go wild in the snow. On top of that, I was off my camerawoman duty because we have our special little friend Rosie came to stay! She is such a talented little young lady. She created some beautiful banners for The KNIGHTs Shelties and now she has another passion ... photography! She took some amazing photos of our sheltie boys and girls and pup too :)

Sonic's first snow reaction ... I was letting him out to the garden for his toilet before bedtime, as usual, he dash out of the back door, but soon realised he was in a different garden. By then, we had about an inch of snow. He wasn't sure about the white stuff, especially there were more coming down from the sky. It didn't take him long as daddy Sing and uncle Sizzle and uncle Saturn were in the garden with him. The four boys were running around happily chasing each other! It was such a scene. I wish it was daylight so I can video how happy they were. After the four boys were in, I let Scara out. She was such a funny girl, she hoop/bounce like a bunny, instead of doing her toilet, she started eating snow! So, I let Sizpie, mama Skye and Seagull out to teach her snow can be fun. Sizpie was really happy, she was running around and soon Scara chased around her; mama Skye was far more interesting in eating snow as well where Seagull is the only one that refused to go out! When I made him to go out, he tip-toeing like the snow hurts him. Such funny character!

Colin knew how much I love snow, he actually suggested we go out in the Common at night, it was still snowing heavily at 10pm but I am a coward, I am scare to go out that time of the day, no matter how much I love snow. I like to stay safe. I determined I will go out early in the morning. Shamed that some snow has melted in the garden when I woke up at 7am on Sunday morning :(

We all got to the Common around 8am, there was hardly anyone there! Where are all those people? I thought children will be out playing sledging on the hill, making snowman? It was so quiet and we have the entire Common to ourselves! It was quite cloudy and gloomy, not good lighting for pictures but the amazing Rosie did a great job taking some wonderful photos of our shelties! Between Rosie and I, we must have taken over a thousand snow photographs! You can see some of Rosie's photos here.

here are some of Rosie's too, but this lots are not on her website :)

And this is just typical Saturn when we have snow. He loves to catch the snowball. He is such a cutie pie!

I didn't want to crop this photo, I thought the background look like winter wonderland

 daddy Sing

 there is very rare moment that Scara will stand still for a photo :)

and here are my photos :)

I think I better stop posting photos! I still have some good ones but I guess you are fed-up with our snow photos :)