this and that

I haven't update my blog for nearly a week, we've been very busy and there were too much going on here ...

First of all, my mum arrived from Malaysia last Tuesday morning. We are very busy helping her to settle down. She isn't as fit and agile she used to be, she is actually very wobbly while walking, with 7 shelties living here, I am so scare that any one of them could easily knock her over. My dogs are very friendly, well a couple of them are over friendly, so they are constanatly following her whenever she goes! I don't think that will help my mum making her way around the house, especially up and down the staircase. My dogs used to sleep in our bedroom with us at night but now, I have to keep Seagull, Titan, Samber and Gem in the cages downstair. Sing, Saturn and Sizzle are still sleeping with us. I am not being bias but these three are real mummy's boys, they ONLY follow ME, so they are safe to leave running free in the house with my mum.

Having my mum is making me very stress, like all mums, she is constantly TIDYING the house! She wakes up very early in the morning, then she starts cleaning the house. She wants to make the house FUR-FREE!!! Well, she is better with the dogs than I expected. As long as the dogs don't lick her or jump up on her, she is happy.

these two girls are terrible for taking group photo, they can't sit still for half a second!!!

this is why I like my BOYS, they are so well behaved

We didn't do much training last week, I only went to Pachesham on Thursday to train Sing & Saturn. I had a show (Tunbridge Wells) on Sunday, Saturn was running for the ESSC (English Sheltland Sheepdog Club) Medium Team, so I would like to get him to do more contacts before the show. As usual, he was good at training, so cannot find any problem to correct him but I still worried he will run pass the A Frame and See-Saw at show like he did for the last two shows.

To be honest, I was rather nervous on Sunday when running in the Team. I should have put Sing in but I thought I would like to give Saturn a chance. Our first run was the Combined 4-5 Jumping, Sing was to run first, he is not a fast jumper so he did a nice clear round. As there were three other Medium classes going on at the same time, so there wasn't a queue, I have to run Saturn soon after I ran Sing. The Jumping course was a big spread out course! Luckily I am able to control Saturn in a distance, so I ran far away from him, create my own path in the middle of the course and that actually work out well. Saturn got 3rd in this class. I am really please with him. I know he probably can run at least half a second faster but that is fine by me.

Saturn with his lovely 3rd place rosette and trophy

Saturn's Jumping run:

Our second run was the Crufts Team, this is a 4 dogs relay (with baton change over) agility run. I chose to run first, then follow by Jenny & Jasper, Amy & Taz and Karen & Ace. It was a nice course, I know I can get around the course no problem with Sing but I was very worried with Saturn. The beginning and changeover of the course is very nice but because I was so worried that Saturn will miss the Dog Walk, I put myself in the position too early that cost Saturn missing a jump and straight into the tunnel, that gave us elimination and costing the Team to disqualify eventhough Jasper, Taz & Ace ran beautifully. Sorry Team, I will try harder next time.

Our last run was the Olympia qualifier combined 1-7 Agility. Again, I like the course, it was not straight forward, needed a bit of handling. First up was Sing, he surprised me with up a gear, he was powering down three jumps up to the Dog Walk, unfortunately he got blown off when he started to ran on the down plank! See picture below, he looked like he only have one back leg on the plank and the other was sliding off.

Nothing frightened this little dog, he carried on after he got blown off from the Dog Walk, of course he didn't maintain a clear round but I know he will go clear on this one.

Saturn was actually very good, he work very hard and went well, he didn't missed the Dog Walk or A Frame but he jump off too soon on the See-Saw, so we got 5 faults on that. I was actually very happy he didn't ran pass any contacts! WooHoo!!

Now, little update on my little sunshine. Sizzle has definitely fully recover from his sudden illness. I started taking him out walking last Thursday, he was fine. He was catching ball in the air and chasing birds. I didn't let him swim in the pond eventhough he was crying, dying to go in to fetch the ball. We didn't do anything training until today.

Saturn and Sizzle practising their "target"

he looks rather cheeky in the picture

Sizzle is a funny little boy, he is not food orientated, sometimes it makes training a little harder. He does not like cheese, not terribly keen on chicken (definitely not chicken & rice!), maybe a little bit of liver but his favourite is roast beef and a bit of ham. He is definitely a toy orientated dog. He is not keen on a squeaky toy but he loves a toy that makes noises. I first discovered that when we went to Bernadette, she has a red nose toy that laugh madly, Sizzle was crazy about it. I then went to get one from Sainsbury. Colin hated it so much, he thought that toy was extra annoying, he wish I didn't buy the toy but Sizzle and Sing were mad about it, Sing was trying to kill it but Sizzle just loved it. I took it to Pachesham for training, I think all the others hate me, to be honest, it was very annoying! Unfortunately we played too much with it and it went dead at last!

As it went dead after the red nose day, Sainsbury ran out of it so I can't get another one! I then started to keep my eyes open for some "talking" toys. I have bought a couple for him and they are not very exciting (to be precise ... ANNOYING!). I found a bird toy when we went to Wallingford three weeks ago, Sizzle loves it. It wasn't too annoying but exciting enough to get him WANTED it. We were playing a couple of days ago and for some reason when I throw the toy, it hit the wall and went dead! Sizzle looked sad when the bird stop making the noise, he kept using his nose to pock it but it just wouldn't make any noise anymore.

Yesterday at Tunbridge Wells, I went around the dog toys stores and bought him SIX talking toys, he was so happy, nearly drowning himself in his collection of talking toys! At the moment, he is crazy about the duck and the monkey! BTW, I've just discovered the bird is back to life and start making noise again!

Sizzle and his collection of talking toys!

Sizzle is not a lucky boy, we went training today, it was very windy. We were doing a jump onto the A Frame and somehow he fell flat on the up plank. I guess the strong wind must have coming from behind him and somehow "push" him while he was running up the plank. He was very "flat" (like a spider stick on the A Frame) but he did crawl up and finish off the A Frame on the other side. He had a little bruise on his chin and lower lip. I gave him some arnica and he needs more rest, so no training for at least three days.

having a rest