It’s mad here at the moment! Fancy’s puppies are a week old today 🙂 Absolutely gorgeous and although a couple of them have had 1 day where they’ve lost weight on the whole they’re all gaining nicely – and haven’t had to be supplemented once, which is quite a feat with a litter of 5! Needless to say Fancy is a fantastic mother.

I spent the morning at Ts yesterday whilst she went to an appointment and when she got back the older two litters had their first taste of meat! I got to do a couple of the puppies and Sally’s little girl dived straight into the plate (no opening the mouth and putting a bit in to give them the taste for it needed!) and then was so excited she was shaking as she was eating 😆 And the slurping! It was so funny as she got further on, she was determined that she was going to eat the whole plateful (wasn’t meant to!) but you could see her slowing down as she got fuller and fuller and by the end she was picking up a mouthful and just holding it in her mouth before eventually managing to swallow! Pig 😆

Solei had his first obedience class on Monday evening. It had been pouring with rain most of the day and so the ground was soaking. The venue has a hall and a fenced outdoor (now unused) court, initially we were going to be inside but the previous class hadn’t quite finished so we started off outside. The first task was to get our dogs to sit next to us….would Solei sit? There was Absolutely. No. Way. he was going to put his bum on the *gasp* wet ground! 😆 Each of us was then doing some individual work so whilst we were waiting I kept trying to persuade Solei that actually no-one was going to die if his bottom dared touch water 😆 Eventually abandoned sit and I asked him to lie down – he went down into a bow! A few hundred commands later he did actually lie down and then we started to master the sit…just in time to move indoors!

Thankfully, once indoors he redeemed himself! The first thing we did were individual recalls and as I happened to be on the end Solei was the first to go. I put him in a sit stay, walked right to the other end of the hall and called him, then did the same thing back the other way…and he did the whole thing perfectly 🙂 He didn’t break his stays once, came as soon as I called him and actually was the only dog who did do it perfectly. When we all did a group down stay he did that ok as well, and we also did some walking about the hall and asking them to sit or lie down – expecting an instant response – which he did – thereby proving he does in fact know how to sit and on the first time of asking 😆 All in all he was great for a first session 🙂

Tuesday was then ringcraft! I’m now going to Bath on my own as well, which is a big responsibility. There are 5 dogs going – Solei, Jason, Sarah, Tosca and Tyler. Although Solei is a pain to show I’m obviously familiar with him(!) so he’s ok. Jason is lovely to show (touch wood, hope I haven’t jinxed that now!) and as you know I had Sarah living with me & showed her for months when she was a puppy (she was 2 in March! Where does the time go..). Then there’s Tosca…I showed her once in a puppy group and she was brilliant, but when I showed her in a breed class she dropped her tail a bit – but I think that was because I took S telling me to walk her legs off a bit too literally and I think she was probably rather tired! So I’m not that confident with her but I know her well and hopefully we’ll be ok. The only one I really wasn’t confident about at all was Tyler. He’s only been here a couple of months and I don’t even know him *that* well, never mind having shown him before! I haven’t even taken him properly at ringcraft. I almost showed him once when we had two dogs entered in the same class, but it turned out S had entered the wrong puppy 😆 and so only Tyler was entered and S showed him.

So I asked T if I could take Tyler to ringcraft, which I did. He was pretty good on the floor from the get go, very silly on the table to start with but by the end of the evening he was going beautifully 🙂 So I feel more confident now and fingers crossed the tail will stay up, he’ll show well and I won’t let anyone down! Being in a class of Papillons, rather than lots of different breeds, should help as well.

Bath is now tomorrow and I’m terrified 😆 Solei hasn’t been showing very well either and I so want him to do well as it’s his last show. Fingers crossed it’ll be alright on the day!