Ok, maybe not quite new year as I’ve been brooding on Darwin for weeks, since 2010….I’d been thinking about it when I wrote my last post, but was in denial! He has always had some “issues”….mainly I think due to lack of certain kinds of socialization as a baby…and he’s quite a difficult dog. These days him and Elton aren’t really working either. I’d kinda decided he was going to have to go back, but if he was mine he wouldn’t, I’d have to try and work through it all….it’s because he’s not, which makes me feel guilty. I feel guilty about “giving up” on him and after nearly two years I do feel I have a certain amount of responsibility….but I don’t feel it’s fair to my own dogs who I obviously have the ultimate responsibility….and the main thing that’s pushing it over the edge is Elton.

So all that said, I made the decision a couple weeks ago, and told T the weekend before the one just gone. I think we’ll all be happier. However, I asked if I could swap for Sarah – T said she was ok with it but she had actually spoken to S the day before about me having Sarah (psychic link win!) and S wasn’t keen. But she’d talk to her again. Anyway, upshot was they said I could show her but they wanted to keep her with them (semi-long story involving her being leased to someone, coming back to be mated and it not working).

A few days later I had a phone call from T and she offered me a nearly 9 month old puppy as a “replacement”. I said to her I’d need to think about it (wanted to make sure I was having her for the right reasons, if you know what I mean) but after sleeping on it still felt the same, so rang her back the next day and said yes, I’d like her. Spooky thing? She’s half sister to Sarah (same father) and half sister to Darwin (same mother).

So that’s been really hard. We haven’t done anything at the moment because I didn’t want her whilst I still had Darwin (thought that would cause too many headaches given the headaches Darwin causes on his own anyway!) and I have Darwin entered in a show this coming weekend, so didn’t think it was fair on him for him to go and then see me a week or so later to take him to a show. So this is Darwin’s last week with me 🙁 Plan is for him to go on Monday…urgh, I’m gonna be in pieces 😆 In some ways it’s harder that he’s only going back to them rather than being sold, even though I can still see him (and no doubt borrow him for shows if I wanted!)

Then there’s Solei. As I’ve been having problems with him for ages…on and off, mental, physical or a combination who knows…well I’ve been wanting to get him to a chiro for a while, and I finally managed it on the 19th. She found a few things out, one of them quite badly.

He does seem a little better, he’d got worse again and was doing a lot of bowing which has all but stopped. However, he still doesn’t seem quite “right” and mentally he’s still screwy – I’m not sure if that’s due to him being in pain for so long or not, and whether it’ll get better or not. I’m sure he’s still not right, so will be making another appointment for him soon (hasn’t yet been 2 weeks since he went so I want to make sure everything has settled down as much as it’s going to)

I’d been having trouble keeping him quiet and a couple of days after the treatment he was really bad – diarrhoea, so miserable, almost constantly in his bow position and I was panicking thinking he’d either done something really bad or put everything back out again.

He improved and when I spoke to chiro she said it was a reaction to the treatment, usually happens withing 24 hours or so, but of course he has to wait 48+!

I miss the Solei I had briefly for those couple of weeks early last summer 🙁

Even Elton isn’t without his problems! He’s been playing me up something awful in the show ring. Fine on the stand, when it comes to moving….ack! He was pulling to get his head down on the ground, fighting me and just generally being a little sod. He threw away any chance of doing well at multiple shows.

We’ve now come to a vague compromise 😉 A bit of bribary and although he’s not going as well as I would hope, he is now much better than he was a couple of weeks ago. He even won his class on the 22nd.