Bits'n'Pieces

Abbey

Abbey went back to the vet today and had another ECG and Jim also re-tested her blood pressure and did a chest x-ray. Her diastolic pressure is high and she has a little fluid around one side of her heart. The ECG readings are not normal and show that she has sustained some damage from Friday's heart attack. She is on medication to try to disperse this fluid and is now permanently on Vetmedin. She is very sleepy from being sedated for her x-ray but otherwise seems fine. I stayed with her while her tests were being done, just had to step out of the x-ray room when Jim did those otherwise I was with her all the time so I was there when she woke up. She hates going to the vet so it's nice that Jim lets us stay with our dogs wherever possible. Now we just have to hope that things stay stable.

Kizzy

Kizzy had a wonderful time at Mid Downs show on Saturday. She met lots of new people and dogs and was very tired by the end of the day. We really enjoyed the day it was great seeing people again. Kiz was totally unfazed by all the noise inside the building. She met up with her friend Kodak (Mandy's puppy) and they had a good play. At one point Mandy looked like a maypole as the two pups tied her in knots with their leads! Andy took over and he didn't fare much better. She had a good cuddle on Andy's lap when we got home!

Bernadette measured Kizzy while we were at the show and she is now 12.25 inches and so it looks very likely that she will be medium dog in agility terms. There was always a good chance that she would as she was the biggest of her litter. We don't mind whether she ends up small or medium, she's gorgeous and that's all that matters.

Her sits and downs are progressing well both in execution and duration. She has also started learning the startline position. This is in the form of a sit with her toy placed behind her bottom. She has to sit and accept tension on the lead and then is told "OK find it" to release backwards onto her toy. She likes this game which is good! The biggest breakthrough is her recall which is now pretty darn good. In tandem with this we've had a huge breakthrough with the 'backing off syndrome' for want of a better phrase. She rarely does this now and instead waits patiently to be patted or have some tension on her collar. We don't always treat this behaviour but sometimes reward instead with a toy which she's just as happy to accept. Progress we like!

Naughty Niamh

The Naughty Niamh was a good girl at Mid Downs. We had a run off in our jumping class (grade 3-5) for 1st place. Sadly Niamh's handler let her down and we took 2nd prize. I am very happy with that as I want to stay at level 5 in order to be eligible for the KC Novice Olympia Stakes. I know you need two wins in jumping but I would prefer to win on agility, I'm a bit old fashioned like that. Part of me would love to win a class with Niamh but not just yet. We had a rather irratic season for one reason or another last year (mainly down to weaving issues) and so I really want to enjoy her at novice level this season. She also got clear in her other two classes with a 15th in Grade 4-5 agility, we didn't manage a place in the grade 5,6,7 agility. I think she'll be OK in grade 6 at some point but not just yet - she's too much of a clown as you can see from this picture.

That's about all for now. Thanks to those who asked about my Mum.