Poor Poppy and other things

This weekend was busy. I had my beginner group on Saturday morning and as usual I ran over so didn't get finished until well after 12.00 pm instead of 11.30 am. I really enjoy teaching this group as they are all keen to learn and really want to get on. Only one of them has done a bit of agility and that was quite a while ago, that's Tanya with her gorgeous beardie 'Bella'. She is such a lovely enthusiastic dog who just wants to play all the time. The other three are collies, two of them rescues. There's Julie and Kim who is a black and white missile. If I took him along to an agilility show I think there would be a bidding war for him. He learns everything so quickly and works at breakneck speed. Then there's Nicole and Storm, he's a blue merle tri and is a really nice boy. He's a thinker and takes his time to learn things but once he's got the idea he's off. Lastly, there's Cassie who is a tri-coloured collie with her handler Lindy. Cass is a little bit nervous of strangers but the agility is really helping and she is enjoying herself. As well as basic agility we've started to do some clicker training and all the dogs have taken to it which is really pleasing. I will make sure to take a photo of them all this coming Saturday so that I can post them on the blog!

After the training I took all of mine on a really long walk to get out of Andy and Al's way. They were busy finishing off the front fence and gate fixings etc. Anyway, we walked for miles and watched the little blue aeroplane take off along the runway where we walk. I always put the dogs in a down to watch this and have to wave to the pilot. I am quite sad like that! We were out for about 2.5 hours and the dogs were pretty tired when we got home.

On Sunday Andy and Al did loads more here. They put the huge capping stones onto the brick pillars, I really don't know how they managed to lift them up there as they weigh about 60 kgs each. I certainly knew that they were in my little van when I brought them home on Friday! Al also put the new lights on the front of the house and loads of other stuff. Andy finished grouting the kitchen floor tiles, just the utility to do now.

The new pillars with their capping stones from outside and inside. We have ordered a house name sign in slate. At the moment we have a tasteful temporary sign made on the PC!

I went off to a training day with Lee Windeatt and Toni Dawkins. It was very enjoyable although quite cold at times. Lee offloads all his ideas to you (as does Toni) which I always find very generous in a trainer (some do not!!). We didn't get time to try all of Lee's ideas so I'm not sure I will remember all of it but I certainly came away with a couple of exercises that I'm going to set up and practise, one being the dreaded push throughs. I'm not sure I'll ever manage to achieve those!

Naughty Niamh was good girl and I was pleased with the way she worked throughout the day. Her contacts were excellent as were her weave entries. Some of the jumping stuff didn't go well but that's because I was trying so hard to try the different methods that Lee showed us and Niamh got a bit confused.

Lee showed us his method for a fast snake sequence and it certainly worked. In fact too well for Poppy as she did the jumps in a dead straight line and knocked the last wing out with her head and as the wing fell she got completely tangled in it and took a bad fall landing on her back. I was very upset. It was completely my fault as I just didn't give her enough space. Poor Lee was upset but it wasn't his fault, totally mine. She hurt her right back leg badly and I had awful visions of it being the same as her major injury four years ago. She wouldn't weight bear on that leg and after rest it was just hanging. We stuffed arnica into her and by the time I got home it was vastly improved which was a huge relief. At nearly eleven years of age I would hate for her to finish her agility in this way. More importantly I would hate to be the cause of spoiling her retirement just for agility, that would be too awful to contemplate. I have been in touch with Sara Barnes (the wonderful physio who facilitated Poppy's return to full fitness after her major injury) and we're going to see her hopefully this week as soon as she can squeeze us in. I am hoping it is just a bad knock.

We were cheered up on Monday morning when Poppy's beautiful new bling collar arrived! Here she is showing it off.

Poppy showing off her new bling collar!

I will report how Poppy gets on at the physio in due course. It will be the first time Poppy has seen Sara for a long time, I can't wait to see how she reacts as she really adored her. We used to go to Sara twice a week for treatment for nearly six months so they became quite close!