Puppy - Dizzy Dora

Well, we're getting a puppy! She is called Dora and is in a lovely foster home at the moment where she was born. Her mum is a small black and white terrier who was a stray in Ireland and dad is unknown. She is from Many Tears Rescue based in Wales.

We are picking her up on Friday and I'm spending money on bits and pieces like there is no tomorrow!

She is coming to a busy house so we will be doing lots to socialise her in the first couple of months. As I have always rehomed older dogs this is our first puppy so we will learn lots.  

5 Weeks

7 Weeks

Training Duration Article by Lucy

Article on Duration of behaviours from Lucy's Blog - Simple yet effective

One girl and her dog (and other random trivia): First post and it's about pigeons?! Sorta: "So I set up this blog a while back but never really got round to posting much on it. Now that I've got a bit of extra free time I thought I'..."

Collie Focus Day - Learning About Dogs

Well, a couple of weeks ago Lucy, Lisa and I went on the Focus and Rehabilitation day at Learning About Dogs. It was great and we got chance to do some practice with 'Sheep Balls' and Dash worked on a Treiball as the larger versions are called.

This training enables a dog to focus and work on their natural behaviours, essentially allowing a herding dog to herd. if these behaviours are practiced it is Kay's belief that a dogs stress levels are lowered and they are more able to cope with modern day living (cars / bikes etc). So far I have very much found this to be 100% correct.

Once focus is built within the game a cue can be added and used to counter condition in environments where you need your dog to remain focussed on something.

We will do some teaching sessions on this in the Summer for our dogs in a class tailored to this exercise.

Sheep Ball Video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_G4u3ApWTzg
Treiball Practice Video - http://cleverdogs.de/videos/

We also about tug games- We tug to play but to play safely there has to be rules. Play is a powerful teaching tool so we should be careful what we teach with it!

Kay Stocks some brilliant Tug Toys from Tug-e-nuff - http://www.tug-e-nuff.co.uk/

Can't reccommend any of the Learning About Dogs Courses highly enough!

If agility dog's could speak......

This is why we need to always be consistant with our training and competing........

Funny video but also a bit sad as the inconsistancies are always there for some poor dogs.

Christmas Pre-Agility Video!

Well, this is a short clip from the Xmas person weaving challenge which Lucy recorded in class. Not too embarassing!!

I keep forgetting to say thank you all again for my lovely Christmas Present, you can all borrow the DVD once I have watched it several more times! Thank you

Merry Christmas and Thanks

Dear All Fun Dog Folk,

Just wanted to say thank you so much for my Christmas Pressie - really kind of you to all get something so thoughtful for me.

On Our Clicker Night on Weds we raised £50 for Many Tears Rescue - Thank You for coming


Hope everyone has a lovely Christmas and New Year and hope to see you all in Jan

Emma xx

Patience Paddy 2002 - 2010

Patience Paddy


We sadly had to have Paddy, Richard's Collie x put to sleep on Weds 2nd Dec. He suddenly become very lethargic and bloated, an x-ray and ultrasound showed a very weak heart, free fluid and multiple tumours in his abdomen. He only became unwell on Tues 1st where he did not run as much as usual on his daily walk, on Weds he did not run at all and only just managed his walk. This was not usual Paddy behaviour. We did not want to put him through any degrading treatments which he would not understand or recover from so all we could humanely do was end his suffering. Both Richard and I are devastated by the loss of Paddy and Jack keeps looking for him to come home. He will be sadly missed.

We adopted Paddy from Many Tears Rescue in 2004 when he was approximatley 2 years old. Richard and Paddy had an understanding between them which allowed them to work as an amazing team in the early days of obedience training and later in agility. Paddy reached the dizzy heights of Grade 6 where he competed this year at the shows we attended. The last competition course Paddy ran was under Marie Hembrow at Gillingham. 

He was such a brave boy to hide his illness from us to the very end and we will be forever grateful to him for that. 

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