Garden

The garden is looking lovely at the moment. Even better after the 24 hours of steady rain we had overnight Sunday and all day yesterday. I noticed how much nicer my walk was today just with that bit of rain, the ground had a little bit of give in it rather than feeling quite so rock hard.

Tidey at eight weeks

Tidey

Tidey has come back from her first weekend away in the caravan with new-found confidence. She didn't really lack confidence in the first place but we can see a huge difference in her since we returned home. I think the experience of going out and about is so good for puppies in so many ways.

She was eight weeks old yesterday and had her second trip to the vets for her first jab. Andy took her for me and said that she didn't flinch, mainly because she was too busy eating biscuits that the vet had given her.

She has put on a whole pound in her first week with us, I am not surprised as she has a very very healthy appetite. Her food disappears almost as quickly as the shelties and that is saying something in our household!

I have started working with the clicker more this week, I did little bits last week but mainly it was all about settling in and finding her feet. Now I am starting to shape one or two behaviours and so far things look really promising. She is very keen to learn and luckily for me she loves to play with any kind of toy.

She really is a sweetie and I totally adore her. Both Zeki and Niamh are showing some signs of jealousy but not in a horrible way. I am taking the time to make sure they aren't left out and doing play/training sessions with them once Tidey goes back to sleep. I am also making sure to give extra time to Poppy as she still wants to be kept in the loop when she isn't asleep (luckily for me, that's quite a lot of the time these days. Bless her little heart.)

I have decided to drop the hyphen from Tidey's name but keep the spelling so that it links to the Tide (as in the ocean, moon tide etc.) My dear friends made this decision for me at the weekend when they kept referring to her as Tide Y, i.e. saying the word Tide and 'Y' separately. Grrrgghhhhh!

I hope to get some pictures of her in the garden later. In once sense I can't believe she's been here for a week already and in another it seems as if she's always been here as she has settled in so easily and happily.

I love puppies!

Dartford & Keston Prizes

Kizzy and Zeki displaying their prizes from the weekend at Dartford & Keston shows. Spot the difference in their poses ;o)

Naughty Niamh at Keston

I love these pictures that Alex took of Niamh this weekend. They show her different faces so well. In the first shot she is watching the agility.

In the series of photos that follow she has seen people who she loves and is trying to get to them. In this instance it was Emily, Marian, Jean, Alex and Grace. She is such a funny girl. She really isn't keen on strangers but once she has befriended someone then they are a friend for life and she will spot people she knows amongst a crowd; these are the faces she displays as she tries to engage with them. In the last picture she is reversing ready to launch at her specified target!

Agility watching - above

People watching - below

Dartford & Keston Shows

It was hard work getting ready for this show due to puppy paraphernalia and loading our stuff into the new caravan.

The venue is not far away at all but our journey took twice as long as it should due to the wretched tolls at the Darford Crossing which are always busy from lunch time onwards on Fridays. Why they can't lift the barriers when the queue backs up so far I don't understand. Originally the tolls were going to be dropped once the bridge was paid for but obviously that didn't happen!

We got set up and Tidey began a new adventure which she took in her stride. I can't begin to say how good this little puppy is. She just accepts whatever comes her way and gets on with enjoying herself. She woke up a little earlier than at home but that's quite understandable bearing in mind that she is sharing a small space with two humans and six dogs. She woke up at about 6.10 am each morning. She continues to be really good about toileting and gets on with her business just outside the wind breaks on the extender lead. She is so easy. We set up her play pen inside the wind breaks and she was very content in that space as we had our deck chairs beside her and the other dogs were close by on their pins. It got a bit chilly at times so we covered her little bed with a blanket so she was very cosy.

At night time she slept in a soft crate on the bunk above my bed. Niamh slept beneath my bed, Poppy in a bed in the door well and Zeki slept in bed with me! Kizzy slept on the end of Andy's bed and Becky and Murphy on quilts on the floor beside him. We were all very cosy and slept well.

Above and below - Tidey in the new caravan

There is a puppy in there somewhere!

Naughty Niamh in her new caravan bed

Tidey had a wonderful weekend meeting lots of new people and receiving some nice new toys! She loves toys and gets very excited each time she comes across a new one.

Agility-wise it was a very mixed bag for me. On Saturday I was disappointed that I pulled off a jump too quickly and caused Niamh to drop a pole in the KCQ but delighted that Zeki won her agility class and came 3rd in her jumping. Kizzy ran well especially considering her first run was at 5.40 pm and both she and Andy had switched off somewhat! It was a shame that she cut behind Andy in her agility run and shot up a tunnel as the rest of the round was lovely. Bad little Kizzle. She redeemed herself on Sunday by getting 2nd in her agility class.

Sunday for me was hopeless with Niamh, completely lost our mo-jo. The only round I was happy with was her jumping class which she ran brilliantly but unfortunately we were E'd as she picked up the second weave pole. I ignored that and carried on as I wanted a positive run to end our rather disappointing weekend. Zeki was brilliant but I let her down in all three of her classes. She was running so well in all of them but a single stupid mistake in each of them meant we had no results to show for Sunday. Below are some videos of our good and bad runs from the weekend:

Overall we really enjoyed the weekend but I must work to get back in tune with Niamh. I can't bear it when we aren't running well together. I think Niamh is suffering a bit from puppy-itis and I am very tuned to Zeki at the moment. This is good for the forthcoming EO's but I am determined not to waste my beautiful Niamh so I need to get my act together quick!

On a serious note, an agility person suffered a heart attack at the show yesterday. It was very upsetting. Several agility people came to his aid and a small team formed to perform CPR until the emergency crew arrived. He was very poorly and at times it seemed he wouldn't survive but thanks to the efforts of those people he was taken to hospital by the ambulance and I understand he is making progress in the right direction. Brings my poor agility performance into perspective for sure.

Tide-y enjoying the garden

Not to be left out, Zeki puts in an appearance. I found her fast asleep in the middle of this little bed yesterday afternoon. I rushed in to get the camera but unfortunately she had woken up by the time I got back!

New arrival - Tide-y

I got up really early on Monday morning and headed off to Plymouth. It took me just about 3.5 hours as traffic was really light as it was bank holiday morning. It wasn't a particularly pleasant journey as it was raining quite a lot and really foggy for much of the journey. I took Niamh and Zeki with me so that they could have a good sense of the puppy on the long journey home and it wouldn't be such a shock to them. I listened to the radio on the way down and am glad I did as Miranda Hart and a guy who I can't recall were sitting in for Chris Evans. I so love Miranda. She started off a bit nervous but soon got into the swing of things and was making me laugh so much. It really helped to pass the journey and I was really disappointed when the show finished at 9.30 am.

I arrived at Becky's house at about 10.20 am after giving the girls a quick run in the local park ... in the rain. I was very excited by this time and when I went into the sitting room I was greeted with this lovely sight. What a beautiful litter, sadly I couldn't get everyone to face forward quite at the same time. Tide-y is the third red and white from the left. The fourth red and white you can just see behind the little black and white boy with the white paint-pot nose. They are all seriously cute and beautifully marked puppies. Obviously one of them stands out more than the others ..... to my eyes of course!

I stayed for about an hour and we had Tide-y out playing, even when she tried to go to sleep we kept her playing trying our best to tire her out for the long journey home. Once we had completed the paperwork we set off. I must say at this point that I think Becky and her Mum have done a fantastic job with these puppies, they are well socialised and it is clear that a huge amount of time has gone into their upbringing thus far. Tide-y knew her name really well by the time I collected her and so that at least would be one familiar thing for her in her new life.

Whatever we did worked as she slept from Plymouth to Edenbridge. This time the journey took best part of four hours as the homeward bound holiday traffic was starting to build. Luckily I missed the worst of it but it was still tedious especially along the A303 prior to Stone Henge. This time French and Saunders took over on Radio 2 and they were hilarious and helped to pass the journey for me. I was lucky it was a bank holiday and there were such excellent guest presenters!

We got home around 3.30 pm and Tide-y woke up as I let Niamh and Zeki out of the car. She came indoors and had a lovely greeting with Andy and the other dogs. We have to keep Niamh away from her at the moment until she is a little more accepting of the new arrival. She isn't very tolerant and is quite jealous. It's really strange how she immediately accepted Zeki, she seems to love shelties but nothing else!

So far she has been out in the car each day and touch wood she seems to be the sort of puppy who just falls asleep as soon as you put her in her little pod. She learned to toilet on our gravel dog patch on day 1 and on an extender lead. I always accustom new puppies to this regime as it helps when we're at dog shows. So at the moment she goes onto the extender for toileting and is, I am pleased to report, very good at this task!

I have done a little clicker work with her, just building on what Becky had already done for me, i.e. just click and treating to build up the clicker/treat association. We have lots of little play sessions during the day and I've been doing lots of games with a toy in each hand where she tugs on one toy then I let that go dead and she runs across to the other toy. Johanna taught us this game when we were in Denmark as a precursor to the dog understanding an active hand/arm as opposed to a neutral one. I'm really pleased that she is doing this so naturally. We also have a little grooming session each day and she has had her first visit to our lovely vets. She enjoyed that as her examination was accompanied by puppy biscuits at each stage. She is booked in for her first jab on Monday when she will be eight weeks of age.

She has been into the garden lots of times and for little walks into the agility area with a different dog. She is on her extender lead and just follows the big dog. She has been with Poppy, Niamh and Zeki. This is the way that I'll try to get Niamh used to her, where there's lots of space and Tide-y isn't right in her face. I have also taken her down there by herself and she was a little more cautious as it's a big space but by the second trip she was trotting off ahead of me with her little extender maxed out!

I haven't got any pictures of her outside yet but hope to get some this evening or tomorrow. Meantime here are some of her on her first day home and with her very fist visitor, Elspeth.