As always I got it wrong!

We started weaning the puppies on Saturday morning. Lovely and messy! Puppies climbing in the food dish and spreading scrambled egg everywhere. What did end up in their mouths they enjoyed, though! Definitely ready for it. The little girl wasn’t quite as keen as the rest of them, but she was still enjoying it…just in a slower and more reserved way!

Solei was bathed on Saturday morning too, because he was looking a bit the worse for wear and I thought it was worth doing as he was showing Saturday & Sunday and hopefully Saturday and Sunday next week too, so he’d look good for the first weekend and it should see him over to the next weekend as well, with just minor titivating.

So Saturday afternoon rolled round….and with it pouring rain! You can imagine my reaction with a freshly bathed Solei 😆 At least I hadn’t bothered to do anything major to the puppies, just washed their ears because they’d gone crinkly where they’ve been playing and then groomed them through. Luckily it was showers so on and off with varying degrees of heaviness and it wasn’t too bad for the pedigree classes. I didn’t show Jeanie because there wasn’t really a class for her (bar puppy and I can’t really show two at once!). Darwin got a 3rd in a good size Puppy class, Solei absolutely showed his socks off….he went so well, like he hasn’t gone for the last couple of weeks. And got completely and utterly thrown out! I don’t think he should win all the time, but he really didn’t deserve that – he looked so good. Of course then I was upset that I hadn’t entered him in Southern Counties, because he would’ve shown so well! He got a 4th in Best Mover which was rather meh too but still 😆

He wasn’t soaking but when we got home I dried him off under the dryer so he still looked as good as he had done before he went out in the rain!

Sunday dawned surprisingly dry…forecast wasn’t good but being intrepid off we went again! Amazingly it paid off because bar a couple of tiny showers the weather was lovely and actually quite hot! In the pedigree classes Darwin got a 6th in a large puppy class, Jeanie a 4th in Junior (bless her) and Solei a 5th in Non Sporting! Darwin has just reached the age where he’s started snorting on the move which isn’t very helpful but still. He’s a nightmare for picking up things off the floor in these fields as well, but on the whole he didn’t go badly – well, he can’t have done because it was a nice & big class! Jeanie was wonderful…god she’s cute 😆 Lost the tail a couple of times but on the whole she was standing wagging, so she gets away with the fact she never really carries it over her back! Of course I got it wrong because the judge said she preferred Jeanie to Darwin but with companion show rules even though she was an unbeaten puppy Jeanie couldn’t challenge for Best Puppy, so I should have entered them the other way round – Darwin wouldn’t have looked so out of place in a Junior class either. But never mind, at least they both placed! I never get it right as far as those two are concerned – if I enter Jeanie they won’t like small & cute, if I enter Darwin they will like small & cute!

Solei was an abomination! I’m sure there had been a bitch in season (or coming in, going out or possibly a UTI I suppose) there somewhere because he’s not usually too bad with smells but I couldn’t get his attention to the point on one occasion I held a piece of liver under his nose and he refused it – first time in his life! There’s only one thing that makes him do that – bitches 😛 Eventually I got his attention and he didn’t show too badly – he was a bit rocking horse on the table but not too bad, tried to get his head down a few times during his triangle but listened to my corrections and moved well enough! Then he was standing ok at the end but because it was a fairly large class (15+) she was shortlisting 8 and then moving them again and although he actually moved very well that time I could NOT get him to behave and stand properly at the end….so a 5th was actually very respectable 😆 Wonder what he would’ve done if he’d behaved himself! It’s always more difficult with smaller dogs & smells anyway, because they’re nearer to the ground.

Jeanie got a 4th in the Novelty Puppy class and Jeanie and Darwin got a 5th in the Brace, which was a pleasant surprise because it was a good size class and a brace of Papillons won it, so I didn’t think she’d place another brace of Paps as she had a few other breeds to choose from! I’d entered Solei in the obedience for a bit of fun – his heelwork is practically non-existant but it was only heel on lead, recall on lead, sit stay and down stay, so I thought we could just fluff the heelwork (he’s not bad to the point of pulling me round the ring like a train…usually) and the rest would be good practice. Only they didn’t announce the stays on the tannoy and we missed them. By 30 seconds – literally. The sit stay is before the down stay and I looked over and saw they were doing the stays just before they went back to their dogs from doing the sit, which was only 30 seconds long. I was so annoyed, I don’t know if someone else complained because there were two classes and for the next class they announced what time the stays would be around half an hour because, then when they were starting announced they were about to start. So I didn’t bother doing the rest either because it was only heelwork + recall and as I say it’s pointless doing heelwork at the moment! Stays were the main thing I wanted him to practice. Never mind, another time! Probably wasn’t the best show to try it at anyway, given the smell situation.

Took him to obedience on Monday and he was very good 🙂 I’m carrying a stick round absolutely everywhere I go at the moment (as long as Solei is with/around me) to try and convince him that it’s not scary, so then I can use it to give him a point to follow for heelwork. (Typed hellwork then…that’s actually probably more accurate!) He’s still wary of it…I carry it round with me all the time at home as well and wave it in his direction :p

Agility was cancelled today so he’s been driving me mad bouncing off the walls! Fridays are wonderful, he’s absolutely shattered after he’s used his brain and done so much running about so I get peace for the rest of the day and often Saturday too 😆