I’m on a roll at the moment….three posts in as many days! A lot of stuff happening over the last couple of months, and it’s rather theraputic. Plus this way I might actually end up with posts people will read because they’re not awfully long 😉

The chapter of grandad and his house is drawing to a close, which is bitter sweet. It’s so nice to almost have it done and dusted, it’s been such a stressful and emotional time (though actually hasn’t taken very long given what had to be done – he died at the end of April), but at the same time it’s a link….and once the house is gone, that’s it. I’m quite good at subscribing to the burying head in sand method! So yes, the house is now cleared (we have boxes everywhere in our house!) and contracts have been exchanged. Completion is tomorrow.

I spoke with the puppies breeder last Friday. We still haven’t made a final decision, suffice to say it looks more hopeful than it has done thus far! We’re down to two now – one of the four has a kinked tail so is no good for show, and one has been chosen. I do still technically have pick of the litter though  – at this point the puppy that has been spoken for isn’t the one the breeder would have picked anyway, and as I can’t get to see them I’m relying on her judgement…so what she’d have picked is probably what I’ll end up with. The one I’ve always liked the best in terms of body markings is one of the two still in the running. They were 5 weeks old yesterday, so I’ll be speaking to her again soon and if all goes to plan by the end of the month I could have a new puppy here – eep! Scary stuff.

Tonight was Solei’s first agility class 🙂 I’d been so looking forward to it, but also with some apprehension – mainly as to what Solei would think! I knew I’d missed it, I didn’t realise how much until I got back to it…I had the most fantastic evening! We started off by showing the dogs the tunnel, and as the instructor knew Solei had done some agility before she let him do it “properly” twice, rather than her holding the dog at one end and the owner calling the dog at the other, like the others were doing. He loves the tunnel, so that was good 😉 Then we split into pairs, to do some jumps – well, between two jump wings with the bar on the floor! There were an uneven number of us so Solei and I got our own jump to do as we pleased 🙂 We did some practice going through the wings, and then she put the bar up on the feet of the wings (so very close to the ground) and he was jumping that like a pro! I was pleased with him because the last agility we did he’d started trying to go under/round, and although he didn’t really have space to go under he didn’t even try. Then she put two jumps together and we had a couple of goes at that – Solei thought about going round rather than over, but after I showed him he did jump them.

After that we moved on to the dog walk, which was just one of the “down” parts, and all we did was have the dog jump on just above the contact and then stop with back feet on the contact and front feet on the ground. This is the part his previous training deserted him, he used to have very nice contacts but he seems to have forgotten the “two on two off” principle!

Then came the tire – the first time I had Solei off lead and he decided to squeeze through the gap between the tire and the stand! So she put him on lead and showed him, and then you could see him going “oooh…yeah, i remember now!” and he did it very well. Finally we did a couple of recalls through channel weaves – basically two straight lines of weave poles with guide wires on and a gap down the middle – so it is literally a channel.

Bar contacts Solei remembered everything and above all he really seemed to enjoy it – which meant I enjoyed it! The only dodgy part was when I took him off lead for the dog walk cos I was getting confused with my lead and hand and at one point he ran off….but I was so impressed because he actually came back as soon as I called him without racing around in circles like he usually does 😛 he was really focused on me most of the time actually, it was so nice to have a dog looking at me like that for once! Nice to have some Solei and I time as well. I can’t remember the last time we went anywhere without Elton!

So I hope now he goes from strength to strength and continues to really enjoy himself 🙂 Chiropractor tomorrow which is a bit nervewracking…we’ll see what she says.

Oh and Fern appears to be coming into season 🙄