Tias neck!

For those that want the evidence that Tia can go to normal dog to dog with big hole in neck in 2 days... here it is... apologies if eating breakfast!

I nearly fainted (again) when I saw her yesterday, it made me feel all queasy, poor Tia.

I'm not quite sure how to walk her at the moment as I cant put her collar or slip lead on, and her harness sometimes catches it (which then makes me feel faint again). I'm off to Pets at Home in a minute to see if they have anything worth buying (which they probably won't, but Tia will enjoy romping round off lead, teehee).

Lowri (the specialist) wants to see Tia on Monday and she'll probably do some accupuncture round her neck to ease any soreness thats built up. Oh and last quite major problem is Tia's now trying to scratch her neck with her back foot and has made it look a bit red. But of course she can't where a big collar thing as it'll rest on the wound, at this rate I'll be bandaging her feet up!

No fun for Tia

Well, went back to the specialists yesterday morning, they are really pleased with her progress and said we can do a bit more jumping with her... then the bad news.
On Sunday at Thames, I found a big scab/lump on Tia's neck (the top side, not underneath). It was just a bit smaller than a 10p piece, perfectly round, several people thought it was ringworm (which is a fungal infection, NOT worms, which I nearly fainted at, at the thought of little wormies in my Tia baby!). It was fairly hard, and so dad took her to the vets yesterday, when they lifted the scab off it was really gooey, and they weren't sure whether it was a melanoma, or an infected tick bite (although the dogs very rarely get ticks, I haven't seen one on either of them this year). The vet was quite concerned about it and so Tia went in to have it removed earlier today, and they have done a biopsy on it. I should be able to pick Tia up later tonight but won't have any definite answers until the biopsy results come back.

A good few months ago, infact perhaps over a year ago, there was talk on the agility forum about whether dogs need their dew claws. Ricky'd had his removed, infact when we first got him I just assumed he didn't come with them, as I had no idea dogs had these weird thumb things. However several people have said about dogs having no dew claws are more likely to get wrist injuries, which is exactly what Ricky has got. I found Chris Zink's article earlier, thought it made really interesting reading, here is the link for it http://www.jandemellobordercollie.com/DewClaws.htm
BTW how lush are Jan's BC's! Especially Voucher, Hob Nob I O Ewe, he is GORGEOUS!

Dordale

Sarah and Lucy's first show runs, and dad and Bex, I only got the 1-7 jumping and 1-4 agility on tape, please excuse commentary on 1-4 agility, grrr dad was being annoying!!!

Thames

I am posting this in the hope that Sarah (think thats your name?!?!?! sorry, hopeless memory) reads the blog, I spoke to you at Thames today, and you gave me your tel number and email, but I've lost it! Could you email me please, the addy is harding _ charlotte @ hotmail.com (remove spaces) thx!

Thames saturday: Dad won 1-2 jumping with Bex, and 4th in 1-5 agility, the dopey spaniel stopped on her aframe contact and wouldn't release, and was sniffing for her treat, grrrrr stupid sniffy spaniel!!! And dad, also being stupid, for some reason known only to him, entered just the Saturday, and didn't put Sunday's classes on the entry form! Muppet! Anyway, he scrimed for Graham in the champ small and medium today so felt very proud, bless him.

I went to Thames today just for one veteran jumping run with Ricky, which he won, yay!! He won by 0.9 secs, he ran SO much better than he did back in April, where he'd been a tad stuttery on medium height, but he was lovely today, however I thought he'd had a pole, as I pushed him as hard as I could and just pegged it, and he rattled all the poles on the corners, but this time luck went our way and they stayed up! I didn't realise we were clear, went back to the van chucking his toy, and dad came marching back very annoyed as I'd pushed him out of the trophies with Sarah's oldie Maddy, ooops! Bless. I then spent the rest of the day rather bored analysing how I'd have handled Tia in the Chum qualifier (lush course) and the grade 7 jumping. Oh and I did a tad of ring partying too, but my hayfever is really bad today, everyone kept asking if I'd been crying, but no, my eyes were red and sore from being itchy from hayfever grr, so I didn't want to help much as I kept sniffing and needing more tissues, gross! (Sorry Lee for the detail, if you ever by any chance read this lol!)

Dad's doing one day of Golden Valley next week, I have nothing. Although I have an obedience show on Wednesday, again rather random but heyho. Then I've got Axe Vale obedience the following week and then Lansdown agility where hopefully Tia will do anysize, ahhh, the excitement!

Tia et agility

I am rather pleased to report Tia has just done her first agility training sesh! Ok it was rather short, I think 5 minutes would have been pushing it. But wowww she has missed her agility, think she put her devil horns on today she was so keen to get going. I couldn't make her do a proper wait so in the end set her about 10ft back from the jump and just let her shuffle forwards, I don't want to knock her enthusiasm as we don't get it very often! She did the jumps on 6", and my god she absolutley flew, squeaking all the way as she went in to the tunnel! Only did it twice, but bless her she was so happy. We also did the seesaw as Lowri said it will help her balance and back leg muscles. Tia did this really fast, without dithering on the midpoint, much to my suprise.
So that just about concludes the training sesh, lol!!

Also, Laura came round again with Be, she's so scrummy! And her GSD, Elmo, was fab, he's driving so much more now, really enjoying his agility. And Laura did some heelwork with him too, and OMG, he's stunning, Laura only said she dabbled in it so didn't think it'd be brill, but it's good enough to win a novice, if she sorts her left turns out! Hopefully her first show will be Burnham on Sea in July. I can't wait!

Ruby

Some people have asked me for a vid of Ruby (who I want my pup from) so here is a very short clip of her! Hopefully I'll get some more at Thames.

Maybe... "Be"

A few months ago my friend Laura was looking for a pup, I've trained Laura for a couple of years, she has 2 GSDs, and won out of grade 1 and had a win in grade 2. Her youngest GSD had some leg problems and she wasn't sure how much he'd be able to do agility so she decided to bring forward the time to get a pup. So she asked me to help. Woopee, I love puppy hunting!!

I really like the pups that Jaff has produced, so I emailed John and Kate and they said that Mary Edgar, who breeds the Kipcroft line, was going to repeat the mating in the next few weeks. The first Kipcroft litter are 3 years old now, there was 3 in the litter, Meg, Lex and Tig, Tig is already grade 7! All 3 pups are fabby. I emailed Mary to see how big the waiting list was, and she said that there was a chance, if people picked the right way, and there were the right number of girls and boys, that Laura would be able to have one.

One small problem... Mary was in Scotland!!! I wasn't sure whether Laura would be prepared to drive all the way up there, after all it is a long way to go! Anyway so Laura and I saw week by week pics of the pups growing up, there were 2 boys and 2 girls. Laura definitely wanted a girl. Out of the girls there was a red and white and a black and white. Laura didn't want a really headstrong bitch, and the red was more headstrong. I personally prefered the black and whites markings, as she was marked like Ricky. Then by coincidence I got chatting to the person who was first in line for a bitch, Sarah. She had her eye on the red. John Wykes, Jaff's owner, was having one of the boys, but wasn't picking until 6 weeks, so no-one else knew before then. I thought this was a good way actually, as some breeders like you to pick at 3 or 4 weeks.

Then Laura got the news to say John had picked the red tri boy, and Lisa had picked the black and white boy. Laura booked a flight to Scotland, on the same day as Sarah, knowing there was a chance Sarah would have the black and white... but Sarah stayed with the red!! So a couple of days later 'Be' was home, and Laura's going to call her Kipcroft Maybe, as it was maybe, maybe not that she'd get her. Laura brought Be round yesterday and she had great fun playing with Bex, Bex thought it was fab that she had a new playmate (altho Be was rather bemused by it all!).

This is Be, Lauras pup (I am trying to upload a vid but at the mo it wont work!)

And Flame, the pup that Sarah picked

The whole litter were totally stunning, I wouldnt have liked to have had to pick one, they were all lovely!