weekend and snow

We had a wonderful weekend. Linda came down from Suffolk with her lots, so we met up at Pachesham's simulated show on Saturday. It was very good to see her again with her three shelties, especially Rocky which I saw him when he was just a tiny pup. He has now grown into a handsome young lad and did really well in the show ring. He won the Best Puppy at one of the shows recently.

this is handsome Rocky, his show name is SHELDRAY STARLIGHT EXPRESS

Linda was running Leo at the simulated show and thanks to Eleanor and Ian, I managed to squeeze Sing and Saturn in at the very last minute. I haven't done any agility for a good 10 weeks, I was abviously very rusty at it, plus it was -6c that morning, so every bit of my body was stiff.

We had 3 agility runs and 1 jumping. Sing was very good, he actually surprised me on his first run, it was quite a big course, all the jumps and contacts are nicely spread out, Sing was fast and spot on with his running Dog Walk and his weave was very speedy too. I was amazed. On his second run, he missed the Dog Walk, it was a sharp left turn after the DW. I planned to do a front cross after the DW but Sing missed the contact. According to Ian who watched us, he told me I bend down too much and pointed at the ground and Sing leap off. Now, that gives me something to work on. His third run was good too, didn't slow down at all and DW to tunnel was brilliant.

As for Saturn, he is still not quite fit to do the whole course. His speed hasn't come back yet. I put his target down at the bottom of DW and A Frame. He was creeping down the plank in the first two runs, especially with the A Frame. He didn't stop at the top anymore but he took ages to come down. Surprisingly, he was good at the third run, the target is still there, he was fast on the DW and he actually made his effort not to creep down on the A Frame. I have a lot of training to do with this boy.

Colin did take the videos but they are not watcheable!!! He probably lack of practise (or maybe drunk?), all you can see is the camera is moving but you can only spot me and the dogs on the camera very occassionally and sometimes the dogs' tail or something shot pass it. I was very disappointed of course, because I wanted to see where I went wrong and I like to improve my handling. Maybe I should send him for a video taking course?

After the show, we took Linda & gang to Oxshott Common. What can you say when you see 9 shelties running together? The 8 boys and 1 girl obviously enjoyed themselves very much. Sing was a little naughty, he wouldn't leave poor Flowie alone. Well, I can't blame him really, she is such a pretty girl, the only problem is WRONG colour!! She is a blue merle and Sing is a token Sable!!!

All very well behaved!

back row: The KNIGHTs Shelties

front row: The CHUBBs Shelties, left to right: Rocky, Leo and Flowie.

Yesterday, we have Starry and his mum Tilly come to stay with us for a few hours. We took Starry out with the boys. He used to be my dog, unfortunately he didn't fit in. He suffers from epilepsy since he was 15 weeks old. Everytime when he had the fits, Titan and Skye went for him and that made the whole thing worst. After talking to Jim & Joan, we decided the best is to let him go back to stay with them, they have much quieter life, the only down side is he needs to be castrated as he will be staying with his mum and sister.

I've got to see him very often as they only live down the road from us. He is definitely much happier with Jim and Joan. He still having fits very often and he has medications to control the epilepsy.

Starry, he is a spitting image of his mother Tilly. They won the brace at the ESSC show.

Starry was very happy and love to run around with the boys

The Family, left to right: Starry, Saturn, Sizzle, Skye, Titan, Sing, Seagull.

I really think we should rename Titan everytime I type their names together!!!

Colin and his three, he nickname them: WOE, PAIN and MISERY!! You better ask him why?

Is sheltie getting popular? We met this beautiful golden sable girl Ember. She is about 6 months old. We agree to meet up more aften in future to walk together! How wonderful!! That will be at least 10 shelties in Mitcham now!! WOW!

It has been very cold for the last couple of weeks, training outside is not possible (for me at the moment. I still haven't fully recover from my cold and my body is still setting to Malaysia temperature and I feel cold very easily). I am trying to catch up with more tricks to train the dogs and here come: CROSS YOUR PAW.

Colin took this picture of this two cute boys crossing their paws while I was busy teaching Sizzle in the same room! I am speechless when I downloaded this photo! They are just too sweet! They are truly my HEART and SOUL.

Here are the videos:

This is my first attempt at teaching them this trick, I am hoping to improve it with no more hand lure. Sing no doubt is the cleverest, he offered me the behaviour after a few hand lure. Also, he is always so keen and happy to learn a new trick (can you see his tail wagging all the time?). Who say you can't teach an old dog a new trick? Emm ... Sing is only coming up to 7 (on 16th of March), not that old, I presume?

We have some unexpected snow in London this morning, not much to say as it melted so quickly. I am glad Sizzle loves snow and he loves fetching the snow ball!

Sizzle's first snow