Dixie Licks .....paws under the table

Well, the Dixie has settled in fabulously well. She has now had her injections, so feel that we can breathe a bit easier. She has already been to a party with her mate JD and had a great time, she really enjoyed the fuss and playing with JD and then settled into a nice sleep in Marc's arm. We have friends for the weekend and again she took it in her stride and wags her tail in a well cute way when saying hello, just like in a cartoon. There should have been a pretty slide show to review the 4 weeks she has been with us. But for a very pretty border collie we have not got many at all that are any good!

I think it is fair to say, she has her 'paws well and truly under the table' so to speak. She seems to understand that Raz might not always see her, Zev is being a fabulous role model with playing nice and having good manners. I am blessed with Zev that he has taken on that role in the pack, as that previously was Storm's role and it is a really important role when living with multiple dogs. I digress; Dixie can work things out real damm quick, and can shot through doors quick too. She has learnt sit for her dinner and that being called in from the garden is treat time. She is playing puppy tug games with Marc whilst the others run around, which is great as like with all our puppies we don't believe in shutting them away from the others. We are lucky that we are able to do this and it is what suits us. I was advised to keep Storm separate and it was the worst advice I got. I found it stressful and unnatural and I am sure Storm did too. We have evolved a way of just having our puppies with the adults and they learnt we are the key. I just wish I would apologise to Storm for all the times that I took the advice that I now realized was so wrong for us. Hindsight great for learning; but has a toxic side effect of guilt tripping. Dixie is only in her den when we are out and they are not supervised, that way focusing on us is normal and distractions are normal too.  Hopefully not famous last words, but heck it has worked with all our others ;-)

Dixie...Welcome little girl to the Wynne's Household and our thanks to Lesley Olden, breeder of the Nedlos for entrusting us with another :-)

Shelties in the Limelight at Newton Heath

What a day, Friday the snow was so thick in the morning, we thought ‘oh no show’. Friday Night it cleared so on to Newton Heath we go. As you see from the photo no snow. It was a lovely sunny crisp day. And there was some great results Zev won his Medium Grade 4 Agility to go grade 5 and then we did a lovely jumpers round and won that too. What was extra special was Sizzle who is Zev’s buddy did exactly the same in Small Grade 4. These shelties were rocking, with two excited and extremely chuffed handlers. As you can see from the photos they are two stunning tri shelties and Zev’s birthday is the 8th March and Sizzles is the 27th March, so it will be great to watch their progression over the coming years.

My Babyoli was super, unfortunately her pilot had a tiny blip and at that speed it had an impact;  but what the heck the great stuff was she was a happy doggy, and was motoring and did some fab stuff with me and it was just joyful to be running with her. Which is really exciting for the coming season and I think she is ready to start learning more technical stuff for grade 6. The courses set by the judges were excellent. And it would have been great to do them again. No vids as the camera/video thing was playing up! How disappointing is that!

A special mention must go to our Raz, who with Marc came third in the Gr7 agility, not bad for our one eyed boy. He continues to amaze us with how he gets round. But Marc is getting used to analysing it from Raz’s vision perspective and as long as Raz is safe and happy we will let him do it. The sight issue has affected him far more in daily life, and we are so glad we have moved before he loses his remaining vision.

Then the weather today is back to, well the photo says it all. Surreal that it cleared for one day for us to go to the show.

Valentine..be mine xxx

Thought processes - telepathic or coincidence? We still buy and give valentine cards to each other. This year we both hit the same theme - bugs albeit cute ones!

10 years young....

Some say relationships diminish when you retire a dog. Well, Nuts has been retired for nearly 3 years, and we are no less close. How can a relationship be just defined by 25 seconds in the ring? It can’t for me. Sure he has opted for a stuffed bone on training night, snuck at home. He joins in other activities by being there with his toy, it’s hard to quantify a bond, but he just is and we just are. So Nuts is my Bolt, I can’t believe he is now ten. A whole decade of time, and I worry that even if we could share a human life time of decades, it would never be enough.

On the Disney theme, Zev is like Pongo terribly earnest, loyal, cute to a fault, really excitable and pushy too - the handsomest sidekick in the world.
Well what about Rivioli, well nothing I think has captured her essence really. She acts all confident and full of it, but its all bravado, she needs that ego stroked 100%. It is like running a steam train; you never stop shovelling the coal. But I am extremely happy to keep on shovelling, because she is my one and only.

So my Nuts, Happy Birthday…and thank you...

A Whirl of a Weekend - doing agility!

Well it was a whirl of a weekend. We had just moved and really could have done with being at home. But no we could not, Zev had a OBay training session with Lesley Olden, and I just could not miss it. It is is lovely to train with the other OBays as on one hand its nice, relaxed and supportive; and on the other everyone determined to train well, work hard in a really positive way. Mass tugging, happy shelties, happy owners :-) Great and to be honest I worked so hard I was in a total dizzy whirl in my head, good thing the session was finished off with a human reward of a pub lunch....

Lesley set some great segments for us to analysis and work out different ways of handling for maximum speed. Some of it was a little advanced for Zev and Me. As I said I need to work out some stuff to train my handling and Zev's responses let alone think of handling it competitively. But I was thrilled with my little big man. Interestingly with Zev our times on segments for different ways of handling and routes for Zev did not alter the times that much and more often not at all. No video as Marc was busy bonding with Dixie and looking after the other puppies and our guys, so that Lesley could deliver the training session.


The videos are from the next day which was a TinR event also at Lesley's in her lovely 'shed'. With TinR I try to tackle it as if competing and then suddenly launch the reward. However for blog purposes I have just showed the runs where we did the entire course. Chuffed with it all but hi-lights are Big taking his first TinR event all in his stride, Rivi for the commitment she is starting to demonstrate and Zev for starting to swiftly stride out and work on ahead. Bring the agility season on :-)

And the final whirl of the weekend, little Dixie joined us in our journey :-)

We have moved - oh yes :-)

It has been a crazy 3 weeks. The move nearly did not happen!!!!!!!! F—kety f—k as the solicitor made a mistake with the sums. SO so lucky Marc stood his ground and pushed that our figures were right and the bank verified our figures. Moving in England is so stressful as it is so hard to control the process.

I said to Marc this is such a ‘Bridget Jones’ moment, he replied that is twee. So I said what the heck I’ll be the queen of twee ;-) Like most social creatures we have unique points and other points that interconnect us. The popularity of ‘Bridget Jones’ clearly demonstrates interconnectedness. Probably on blogs world wide - these 'Bridget Jones' moments.......


My Bridget Jones check list that sprung to mind is:-
1. Great husband
2. New home – for the first time not a stop gap
3. 6 great dogs. Opps make that 7
4. Diet progressing well – new office does not have pesky vending machines that lure you off the chosen path of good intentions.
5. Life is good
6. Agility training is coming back
7. Career restart going very well
8. Back to power walking in the morning with my guys
9. Internet finally back in use
10. Guys settling in well and being super with Dixie

Still to happen:-
• Finish unpacking
• Get to gym regularly
• Clear back log of emails