Well Done Henry!

I decided to enter Henry into a local dog show, I had absolutely no idea how we would do but as Henry is such a fun dog I thought it would at least be a good time out with him. And guess what happened?...........


He won Best Lurcher, and came second in Best Rescue and Most Appealing Eyes. I honestly can't believe it, and I certainly can't stop smiling for him. This makes it all worth while and I'm so pleased I have him.

To celebrate Henry did a super fast circuit of the garden with Molly.




On a different note, whilst eating my breakfast this morning, I look out of the window to see this:

Other Half invested in an inflatable hot tub and I think Badge was after a quick dip!

Puppy Dog Tails

Dogs. Don't they do the most disgusting things sometimes? I've just watched Badger eat a slug. It took me some time to realise that it was a slug and by the time I worked out what it was he shlurped it up and it was gone. Eughhhh!

Today Badger is beautiful, his coat is lovely and shiney and clean, in fact very clean. Probably the cleanest it's ever been. That's because he has had three baths since last Tuesday.

The first bath was just routine maintenance, Badger spends allot of time rolling around on the ground with Henry and then as much time as possible relaxing on the furniture. This means that half the ground ends up on the sofa so a bath was in order.

Badger likes a bath which is a good job really.

The second bath was on Saturday. We'd been out to the zoo in Edinburgh and left the dogs in the house, Badger in his cage where he always goes if we go out. Coming home is always interesting since we got Henry as we never know if he has left us a welcoming gift on the carpet so we always enter the house with our noses first.

When we got in, we detected the signs of a bad smell, but we couldn't find anything. Henry and Molly bounced around and shot outside into the garden. As we went into the living room the smell got worse and once I let Badger out of his cage it became apparent where it was coming from. It turned out he had had an upset tummy and had an almighty accident in his cage.

That was not good, as he'd tried to get rid of the poo by digging up the fleecey blankets which sort of spread it about even more. It also meant he got poo on his paws and as he spends quite allot of time scratching, he'd got it all over his coat.

I don't know if anyone reading this has been to Edinburgh Zoo but it's basically build on the side of a mountain. It's exhausting. Honestly, if it wasn't for the animals it would be a day spend climbing. So coming home to a dog cage full of poo wasn't ideal.

So poor Badge ended up in the bath again.

The third bath happened the very next morning. By this time we realised that the new food we were feeding the dogs wasn't really agreeing with them, except Badger was sleeping in a confined space so yet again we had a rather smelly mess to clear up and yet again an even smellier dog to bathe.

We've changed the food back and all three dogs systems seem to have recovered, so I can only describe this as a lesson learned in buying different dog food, shampoo, conditioner (yes honest, he's very hairy is Badger) and disinfectant.

Oh and my legs still ache...

Good Boy Badger!

I'm very pleased with Wee Pup Badger.

Last night I took him to Henry's dog training club for the second week in a row. Henry wasn't very pleased about this as he adores going to dog club, its like a dog social club and very friendly, all the dogs get to know each other and all the humans talk about nothing but dogs, that to me is great.

I decided to take Badger as he is getting increasingly wild. He's only 8 months but because we live on a farm in the middle of nowhere he rarely goes on a lead, has absolutely no traffic awareness cos he never sees any, he also never sees any other dogs apart from Henry and Molly and the farm dogs. He spends his days rolling around play fighting with Henry and ignoring me. I decided it was time to take him in hand and add a bit of training.

So last week we went along and it was a nightmare. As we walked into the hall Badger started growling. He didn't stop growling until we got into the car to come home. It was terrible, he was grumpy and determined not to do anything I asked, I think this was made worse by him being on a lead for the whole hour. Still, I didn't give in, I eventually got him to walk to heel, well just, and when it came to the fetch excercise he came into his own and loved it. By the end of the hour I felt we had made a eeney weeeney bit of progress which was confirmed by Badger as he howled in the car all the way home!

Badgers exploits in week one made me all the more determined to have a well trained dog so off we went again last night. To my amazement as soon as he got out of the car Badge dragged me to the door of the hall! He went in full of gusto with no growling and said an enthusiastic hello to a puppy labrador. He also tried to jump all over the labradors owners but we are moving one step at a time here.

In the class Badge struggled a bit with walking to heel due to wanting to desperately speak to the dog in front, but we actually managed to get him to sit at one end of the hall while I walked nearly to the other end and called him, and just to add some icing to that one, instead of running straight past me he actually sat in front of me when he came! Brilliant!

I can't say how pleased I am, I had begun to worry a bit with his growling and rebelling but I thnk with a bit of practice and persistance he will be ok.

The only problem is that I think he has adopted me as his owner, he lays on the floor by my feet while i'm on the computer and every evening he snuggles up with me on the sofa - Other Half isn't happy, but then he isn't the one taking Badge to dog club.

Oh and he howled in the car on the way home again last night, it's so funny!

Blogging is good for the soul

I've decided to have a post in order to entirely agree with MBNAD Woman. Blogging is great. Since I've been doing it I've found a network of other peoples blogs that I've realised make me feel happy, serene and like I've just spend time with a fabulously good friend.

Yet I have never met anyone else who blogs. Mad isn't it?

I love Mad Again. It's become a fascinating story like a wonderful novel that you can't put down but can't read more than a page every few days. MBNAD Womans other blog, Mossie, had me hooked about her tales of a gorgeous Collie-Wobble way before I unexpectedly ended up with a Collie-Wobble myself. She also seems to be a lovely person, just the sort to go on seriously long dogs walks with.

Thanks to MBNAD Woman I've added a new blog to my list of daily reads, Dagenham Dave. What can I say? I sat with tears pouring down my face when I read the first post of his blog. It took me straight back to being a child and all the mad practical jokes my brother and me used to play on my poor parents who always took it in good humour. I then went on to read about a Robin Reliant tipping over with it's two occupants still inside and had great difficulty in staying upright on my chair. I was also late for work that day from being glued to his blog, thank you so much for the best laugh I've had in ages!

Cupcakes at Home is wonderful. Tracy not only lives in the most beautiful house, it's also in one of the most beautiful parts of Scotland. Add to that her collection of absolutley delicious whippets and deerhound and you've got total canine heaven for me. Wee Pup Cricket is so lovely I could eat him! I'm also in love with Tracy's crafts, and of course envious that I never find the time to make things myself.

Back Porch Musings and Our Creative Life are two blogs from America. I stumbled accross them while looking for inspiration for my house and I'm constantly amazed by the wonderful decorative ideas these two really nice ladies have. Thanks to them I actually decorated my house for Halloween, something I've never done before but actually it was brilliant, it took away the drabness of mid Autumn and filled in the gap to Christmas. Thanks for the inspiration!

Catherine Holman paints the most wonderful folk art, I've tried this myself in more arty moments but I think I'll leave it to her, her paintings are gorgeous and so is her blog.

So that's my regular list of readings, in no particular order but one thing I can say is that reading them is a bit like going to a spa for an hour or so and coming out and feeling all happy and refreshed, thanks everyone.x

If you look very carefully you will see a lesser striped Henry Hound blending in with the trampoline, whilst basking in the sun
Please excuse the mess of the garden, it dosen't look like this in real life, only in photographs for the blog, anyway, here is another one of Henry surveying his estate with his land agent Other Half. As you can see, Other Half is listening intently to his masters instructions about building a luxury summer house for him to lounge in on cooler days, a heated pool and a dog treat dispenser...

It's been so long since I last wrote anything about Henry's antics, that's not to say that he hasn't been up to anything. On a daily basis he waits at the bottom of the garden for Mr Hare to come out of his den and stoat about in the field completely safe from Henry on the other side of his Henry-proofed-fence while Henry does his very loud howling bark at him. Mr Hare of course is completely oblivious to it all and just carries on eating grass and hopping about.

We've reached another milestone with Badger, he's not such a wee pup any more and I decided to allow him to sleep outside of his cage at night. So he slept in it with the door open instead. Oh well. He did attempt to sleep on the bed with me but having a collie bum planted in your face at 2am led to a very hasty expellation of a collie onto the rug on the floor.

Molly has been great, she's always great, very quiet and well behaved, I think she needs a bit of madness in her, although the other day she shot round the garden like a tornedo completely out of the blue and when we all looked at her she suddenly stopped so I think she does this quite allot only in secret!