Not Zeki Training

Thought I'd do a quick post about something other than Zeki's training!

We're pretty busy with Andy's work. I guess we have to make the most of it and take on as much as possible while it's available. Andy is actually really busy at the moment so that has a knock on effect for me in the hours I have to put in. Very inconvenient but I suppose I really can't complain!

We recently managed to get hold of a decent leaf collector off eBay. I suggested to Andy that now would be a good time to look as most people have finished collecting leaves and there might be some bargains.

He found a good machine on eBay being sold by a guy who was running a little business out of his garage; basically he was buying up liquidated stock from small garden companies and selling on. Andy and Michael went off in Michael's van to collect it and came back with a Makita petrol strimmer, a Makita petrol hedge cutter plus the guy had thrown in a 26" cut 4-stroke lawn mower for nothing. He said it wasn't working well and we could have it in case we fancied fixing it. Well it turned out that all that was wrong was that someone had put 2-stroke petrol in the machine so once Michael drained it out and refuelled with unleaded it runs perfectly. Result. We decided we would go halves on all this equipment and just share it for both gardens. We're going to put some new fencing up soon and the idea is that we'll install a gate so that Michael can come across whenever he needs to use the various bits and pieces.

Of course Andy has already been playing with the new leaf collector. We (royal we) had done most of the leaf collecting by hand but there were still quite a few round the edge and under the hedges. Come the Autumn this machine will be a god-send as we get so many leaves it's unbelieveable (and hard work!)

The wonder machine!

We had a good night at training last night although I couldn't run Naughty Niamh as she has cut one of her front pads. It doesn't look much but she is acting as if her leg has been chopped off - typical panic pants Niamh. That said it is in a place where quite a bit of pressure is applied by the foot so I should be more understanding. Hopefully it will heal soon but in the meantime I'm probably going to get some skin glue and see if I can use that to speed things up and make it more comfortable for her.

I plan to do a little Niamh update soon in terms of her training and what we've been up to over the winter. It's all Zeki, Zeki at the moment but I have also been doing lots with my beautiful Niamh too. She continues to get better and better and I can't describe how much I love training with this gorgeous girl.

Today is a day off from all things doggie related. I'm off shortly up to Sarah's (our riding school landlady) and we're going up to London for lunch at One Aldwich followed by the theatre - we're going to see the new musical version of Oliver. I'm really looking forward to it and ought to go and get ready now!