Today was the first day of it being cold enough for the dogs to wear their coats.
I'd like to say that my dogs have such a large selection of coats because I have had four dogs so far, but the truth is that Fergus and Bonnie the first two dogs were terribly spoilt by me, resulting in an entire canine wardrobe of coats, collars and leads. Not to mention dog toys and various other accessories.
At the last count we had seven coats, ten leads and 6 collars. All the collars came from Harrods because I used to think it was rather nice to have my dogs in posh collars with gold embossed Harrods logos inside. Now I'm too far away from Harrods to indulge. Probably a good thing for the bank balance nowdays.
When Henry came he had his own collar and coat which was really lovely of the rescue people to give him. They tried to give us a lead to but we showed them just a couple of our collection in the boot of the car and agreed we didn't need one.
So today was cold and windy and I was wearing a coat so the dogs would too and I chose their big red fleece lined coats with the lift up hoods that roll down as cosy collars. They are the only dogs in a 20 mile radius (maybe more) that wear coats round here and the farmers must think I am mad but my dogs must be warm, and someone in these parts must provide the entertainment!
After our walk (where Molly caught a mouse and ate it) we came back and I spent some time in the garden with the dogs doing the duties with the shovel.
Today whilst weilding my shovel I found a large part of the mop in one of the poos. It can only be Henry who ate it, but why?? This has to go down with the poop scooping after Henry ate the candles, that was like poop scooping poo shaped candles, no poo just wax!
Probably the best of the lot belongs to Fergus who stole approximately 30 mini chocolate bars one Christmas and scoffed them down as quickly as he could before he got caught out. After blaming other people for being greedy and eating most of the chocolates I realised who the culprit was the next morning and for a few days after as Ferg hadn't bothered to chew or take the chocolate out of the wrapper so we had lots of intact albeit melted and squishy chocolate bars still in their wrappers all over the garden!
Monday, 27 October 2008
The wind gets up their tails
The weather over the last few days here has been awful. More rain than you need to fill a bucket and seriously strong winds that blow you over.
The rivers around us all filled up and overflowed and the tiles on the roof of the house rattled constantly for three days, it wasn't very nice.
Also what wasn't very nice was having to send the dogs outside to go to the loo. There was a very good chance that Henry would see this as an opportunity to revert to pre-toilet trained days but amazingly he didn't and on Saturday joined Molly in refusing to go outside until lunch time. Both dogs curled up on the sofa and refused to move. I knew how they felt, I decided to join them and went completely deaf at Other Halfs suggestion that we go out somewhere instead of staying indoors all day.
The worst thing about the wind (apart from it completely ruining your hair) is that when it really blows Henry gets scared of it and runs indoors whether he's finished or not. He originally came from slightly warmer climes in England so the weather here was a bit of a shock to him to say the least.
The farm dogs on the other hand seem impervious to all the wind and rain and come to visit every day and have now started to bark at Henry and Molly through the front window while Henry and Molly bark back from inside. I'm not sure what's being said, it could be 'hahaha we can run around anywhere we want cos we are outside' or it could equally be ' hahaha we are inside in the warm with central heating and sofas for beds'.
The only activity on Saturday was a rather fierce game between Other Half and Henry which involved lots of barking, jumping, bouncing (all on Henry's side) and outwitting on Other Half's side. The trouble when Henry plays is that he gets so carried away that he sometimes bites your arm or hand instead of the toy that he's trying to get so I think Other Half came off worse, but Henry had a good time.
In the evening just for entertainment value I remembered the two dog balls from my last two dogs that you put treats into and the dogs are meant to roll them around to get the treats out. It makes one Schamko last about 20 minutes which is incredibly good value so I decided to try them out on Hen and Molls.
Amazingly Molly remembered what to do, even though I had only shown her once about a year ago. So she was off and away rolling her ball around the living room like a premier footballer.
Henry on the other hand had seen nothing of the sort before and took a little more instruction but it was far to hard to get him to concentrate on learning rather than trying to beat the ball up to get it to yeild the treats.
This was quite funny to watch and got even funnier when Other Half remembered that Henry's ball had a movment sensor in it where you could record a message and every now and then it would play it when the dog moved the ball.
Other Half being slightly mean decided to record his best telling off noise, the one he uses to instantly get the dogs out of the kitchen, then then set the ball and gave it back to Henry.
As soon as Henry moved the ball it made the noise. Henry stopped dead and stared at the ball. Then he prodded it with his paw and it did it again. Then he jumped at it and it shot accross the living room followed quickly by Henry who had started barking at the ball.
A dog/ball scuffle broke out and suddenly Henry was running off with something in his mouth that was telling him to get out very loudly.
Henry had somehow expertly managed to remove the noise part of the ball and was determined to chew it up to shut it up - brilliant dog, how brainy is that?
We fell about laughing and just managed to stop the noise thing from disappearing down Henry's throat.
I think we'll only get the treat balls out now and then, I don't think my nerves could stand it every day!
The rivers around us all filled up and overflowed and the tiles on the roof of the house rattled constantly for three days, it wasn't very nice.
Also what wasn't very nice was having to send the dogs outside to go to the loo. There was a very good chance that Henry would see this as an opportunity to revert to pre-toilet trained days but amazingly he didn't and on Saturday joined Molly in refusing to go outside until lunch time. Both dogs curled up on the sofa and refused to move. I knew how they felt, I decided to join them and went completely deaf at Other Halfs suggestion that we go out somewhere instead of staying indoors all day.
The worst thing about the wind (apart from it completely ruining your hair) is that when it really blows Henry gets scared of it and runs indoors whether he's finished or not. He originally came from slightly warmer climes in England so the weather here was a bit of a shock to him to say the least.
The farm dogs on the other hand seem impervious to all the wind and rain and come to visit every day and have now started to bark at Henry and Molly through the front window while Henry and Molly bark back from inside. I'm not sure what's being said, it could be 'hahaha we can run around anywhere we want cos we are outside' or it could equally be ' hahaha we are inside in the warm with central heating and sofas for beds'.
The only activity on Saturday was a rather fierce game between Other Half and Henry which involved lots of barking, jumping, bouncing (all on Henry's side) and outwitting on Other Half's side. The trouble when Henry plays is that he gets so carried away that he sometimes bites your arm or hand instead of the toy that he's trying to get so I think Other Half came off worse, but Henry had a good time.
In the evening just for entertainment value I remembered the two dog balls from my last two dogs that you put treats into and the dogs are meant to roll them around to get the treats out. It makes one Schamko last about 20 minutes which is incredibly good value so I decided to try them out on Hen and Molls.
Amazingly Molly remembered what to do, even though I had only shown her once about a year ago. So she was off and away rolling her ball around the living room like a premier footballer.
Henry on the other hand had seen nothing of the sort before and took a little more instruction but it was far to hard to get him to concentrate on learning rather than trying to beat the ball up to get it to yeild the treats.
This was quite funny to watch and got even funnier when Other Half remembered that Henry's ball had a movment sensor in it where you could record a message and every now and then it would play it when the dog moved the ball.
Other Half being slightly mean decided to record his best telling off noise, the one he uses to instantly get the dogs out of the kitchen, then then set the ball and gave it back to Henry.
As soon as Henry moved the ball it made the noise. Henry stopped dead and stared at the ball. Then he prodded it with his paw and it did it again. Then he jumped at it and it shot accross the living room followed quickly by Henry who had started barking at the ball.
A dog/ball scuffle broke out and suddenly Henry was running off with something in his mouth that was telling him to get out very loudly.
Henry had somehow expertly managed to remove the noise part of the ball and was determined to chew it up to shut it up - brilliant dog, how brainy is that?
We fell about laughing and just managed to stop the noise thing from disappearing down Henry's throat.
I think we'll only get the treat balls out now and then, I don't think my nerves could stand it every day!
Tuesday, 21 October 2008
More relaxing
At the weekend I went to the Sea Life Center in Edinburgh and learned that sharks have no bones but cartilage instead to make them more bendy.
I'm wondering if Henry could be related to the shark family?
I also learned that sharks have five gills, I'll take a look underthe furry stripes later...
Friday, 17 October 2008
Relaxing
Henry takes relaxing very seriously. Here is a picture of him lazing on the sofa while I write this. I'm not sure that dogs should actually be able to bend like this but he is still alive so I guess it's ok.
Yorkshire Puddings
There is a sense of humour difference in our house today.
Yesterday we visited Other Half's Mum and Dad for dinner, we took the dogs with us and when we arrived Other Half went out to chat with his Dad while he finished cleaning his car and I had a cup of tea with his Mum and the dogs in the living room.
Other Half's son was there too so there were people spread out all over the house and driveway. Henry and Molly aren't the best at coming back if they get off the lead and because everyone was all over the place the dogs were continually pacing about trying to round everyone up which was causing me quite a bit of stress as those outside kept coming in and out and leaving doors ajar which could mean an escape attempt.
After about half an hour I decided to give Henry and Molly their dinner in an attempt to get them settled and stop driving me mad with the pacing. I fed them in the kitchen and had to supervise as there were various stages of a roast dinner about the worktops and of course that is much tastier than dog food.
For some reason Molly decided to raid Henry's bowl of food, Henry then moved round and I tried to get Molly back to her bowl, somewhere in the middle of this incedent Henry managed to produce a yorkshire pudding. It honestly just appeared in his mouth - ok there were a whole load of them sitting on the worktop just out of the oven but I really didn't see him jump up and take one.
I had a momentary panic, and decided to confess my dogs sins straight away as otherwise Other Half's Mum would think I was the yorkshire pudding rustler. I called her in and hoped I wouldn't get too told off for badly training my dogs and she immediately started to laugh saying that not just one yorkshire pud had gone but six! It was really funny because at no time had Henry been out of our sight, so how on earth he had managed to steal six yorkshire puddings and still continue to pace around the house we will never know but I am impressed with his tactics as I'd have thought that faced with a tray of warm yorkshire puddings straight out of the oven and for the taking he would have scoffed the lot at once but he must have been pacing about the living room, going past the kitching door and thinking 'I'll just slip in there and grab another one of those puds and they'll never notice'.
Stealth and skill, what a dog!
Other Half didn't see the funny side, but then again he is fairly new to life with a young Saluki Greyhound and there will be much more to come. Lucky he dosen't know that....
Yesterday we visited Other Half's Mum and Dad for dinner, we took the dogs with us and when we arrived Other Half went out to chat with his Dad while he finished cleaning his car and I had a cup of tea with his Mum and the dogs in the living room.
Other Half's son was there too so there were people spread out all over the house and driveway. Henry and Molly aren't the best at coming back if they get off the lead and because everyone was all over the place the dogs were continually pacing about trying to round everyone up which was causing me quite a bit of stress as those outside kept coming in and out and leaving doors ajar which could mean an escape attempt.
After about half an hour I decided to give Henry and Molly their dinner in an attempt to get them settled and stop driving me mad with the pacing. I fed them in the kitchen and had to supervise as there were various stages of a roast dinner about the worktops and of course that is much tastier than dog food.
For some reason Molly decided to raid Henry's bowl of food, Henry then moved round and I tried to get Molly back to her bowl, somewhere in the middle of this incedent Henry managed to produce a yorkshire pudding. It honestly just appeared in his mouth - ok there were a whole load of them sitting on the worktop just out of the oven but I really didn't see him jump up and take one.
I had a momentary panic, and decided to confess my dogs sins straight away as otherwise Other Half's Mum would think I was the yorkshire pudding rustler. I called her in and hoped I wouldn't get too told off for badly training my dogs and she immediately started to laugh saying that not just one yorkshire pud had gone but six! It was really funny because at no time had Henry been out of our sight, so how on earth he had managed to steal six yorkshire puddings and still continue to pace around the house we will never know but I am impressed with his tactics as I'd have thought that faced with a tray of warm yorkshire puddings straight out of the oven and for the taking he would have scoffed the lot at once but he must have been pacing about the living room, going past the kitching door and thinking 'I'll just slip in there and grab another one of those puds and they'll never notice'.
Stealth and skill, what a dog!
Other Half didn't see the funny side, but then again he is fairly new to life with a young Saluki Greyhound and there will be much more to come. Lucky he dosen't know that....
Tuesday, 14 October 2008
Satelite Stress
Back in April (in the middle of house-training-hell) I came downstairs to find no accidents whatsoever. But Henry was acting very guilty, looking all too cute and wagging his tail in that special way which means he has done something he shoudn't.
As I couldn't find anything I let him out and carried on with breakfast as usual and it was only when I was tidying up for the day that I saw it. A puddle on the shelf under the tv. I really didn't beleive my eyes, how can a puddle appear on a shelf? Unless it had been but there by someone with stripey fur.
On further investigation I realised that it was exactly what I thought it was, wee. Wee on the shelf, dripped off the shelf and most of all all over the satelite box. Oh dear. I didn't really know where to start apart from disconnecting the power to make it all safe.
After thinking about it for a short time I decided to go for it, clearing up wee isn't the nicest of jobs but when it's cold and on your tv shelf it's even worse so armed with a bucket of hot soapy water and a cloth I disconnected the wires going into the back of the box and carefully lifted it, trying not to disturb the puddle. For some reason it must have had some electricity still in it as the box made my fingers tingle when I touched it.
Then I carefully wiped the box down, followed by the cables and shelf and also checking for drips onto the carpet, it was like a scene from CSI.
I decided to take a look at the inside of the box, if it was just a resistor it should be fixable but once I opened it up I discovered that several parts had really corroded - never underestimate the power of wee, it's very corrosive especially on the inside of a satelite box.
The box was unfixable (I wouldn't have had the cheek to give it to a repair man) and this was a big problem as we live in the middle of the hills in the middle of nowhere and we don't get a tv signal at all so satelite it the only way we can watch tv. I decided that tv wasn't a high priority in the entertainment stakes, after all I know of several (probably slightly mad) people who claim not to watch tv and I'm sure if they could live without it then so could I. Other Half was away with his work at the time and I had a mental list of things to do in the evenings instead of watching tv.
On the first evening without tv I go on rather well. I had my little multi frequency radio which manages to pick up Radio 4 despite the hills and I got on with painting the kitchen. The evening flew by and it was great to have go on with some well over due diy. On the second evening I did some work and some clearing out of junk. Great again, getting those jobs done that had needed doing for months. Evening three was good too, I went into the garden and did some weeding, and a bit of cleaning inside.
By evening four I was exhausted.
Either people who choose not to watch tv have high energy levels or are happy to sit and read a book without moving very much. I have neither, I can't sit still for long without a job popping up in my head and I feel guilty reading a book when there is stuff to do.
I then had a brainwave. iPlayer on the BBC. Great, brilliant, lifesaver and energy re-booster. It seemed like the answer to everything, I could watch tv and even better only watch the programmes I like. Heaven.
Except that just like the tv signal being blocked by the hills, the same hills prevent us from having a super fast broadband connection. So watching a 30 minute programme took nearly two hours with lots of stops and pauses and often dying in the middle. It was somewhat frustrating but better than exhaustion.
I endured it for nearly two months until Other Half decided he could no longer stand weekends without tv and I gave in and bought a new satelite box.
The new box was proudly installed on the shelf under the tv. Henry didn't even seem to notice. For about four weeks.
Then one morning the puddle was back. Nooooo! The box was once again dead.
I decided that if I could live before with just iPlayer for entertainment then I could do it again. This decision was mostly influenced by lack of money and having none spare to buy yet another satelite box so in reality I had no choice.
I managed another three weeks of iPlayer before spotting a fabulous portable satelite system on Ebay. It was cheap. Very cheap. But worth a shot so I bid and won and waited for it to arrive.
Once it came I opened the box and realised that I knew absolutely nothing about satelite communications and this needed some knowledge albeit basic. I waited for Other Half to come home and we had a Saturday of dishes on poles, attached to fences, wind blowing the poles down, finding a signal but only getting Brazilian tv then loosing all signals while trying to find Sky. After several hours I remembered that Henry had only peed on the receiver box, not the dish and why didn't we connect the portable receiver to the original dish? I took cover and Other Half plugged the box in.
We had tv! Yey! 700+ channels of absolute tosh. More rubbish than we could cope with and to find the more intelligent channels was like finding the old needle in a haystack. We ended up with London local news, Yorkshire ITV, Wales BBC2 and a handful of other strange chanels but at least we had tv.
Throughout all this Henry acted no different. He was oblivious to the trouble he had caused and just seemed to watch the comings and goings of various satelite boxes with total disinterest.
After we could endure the news from Hull, Kendal, Looe and Maidstone no longer we eventually bought a third Sky box. This time I dug out and old chest that was hiding away in the workshop, rubbed it down, cleaned it up and put the tv on top. The satelite box is now way out of reach of a dogs back leg high up on a shelf above the tv. It actually looks better than it did before but we won't tell Henry that in case he tries to continue with his interior decoration career.
As I couldn't find anything I let him out and carried on with breakfast as usual and it was only when I was tidying up for the day that I saw it. A puddle on the shelf under the tv. I really didn't beleive my eyes, how can a puddle appear on a shelf? Unless it had been but there by someone with stripey fur.
On further investigation I realised that it was exactly what I thought it was, wee. Wee on the shelf, dripped off the shelf and most of all all over the satelite box. Oh dear. I didn't really know where to start apart from disconnecting the power to make it all safe.
After thinking about it for a short time I decided to go for it, clearing up wee isn't the nicest of jobs but when it's cold and on your tv shelf it's even worse so armed with a bucket of hot soapy water and a cloth I disconnected the wires going into the back of the box and carefully lifted it, trying not to disturb the puddle. For some reason it must have had some electricity still in it as the box made my fingers tingle when I touched it.
Then I carefully wiped the box down, followed by the cables and shelf and also checking for drips onto the carpet, it was like a scene from CSI.
I decided to take a look at the inside of the box, if it was just a resistor it should be fixable but once I opened it up I discovered that several parts had really corroded - never underestimate the power of wee, it's very corrosive especially on the inside of a satelite box.
The box was unfixable (I wouldn't have had the cheek to give it to a repair man) and this was a big problem as we live in the middle of the hills in the middle of nowhere and we don't get a tv signal at all so satelite it the only way we can watch tv. I decided that tv wasn't a high priority in the entertainment stakes, after all I know of several (probably slightly mad) people who claim not to watch tv and I'm sure if they could live without it then so could I. Other Half was away with his work at the time and I had a mental list of things to do in the evenings instead of watching tv.
On the first evening without tv I go on rather well. I had my little multi frequency radio which manages to pick up Radio 4 despite the hills and I got on with painting the kitchen. The evening flew by and it was great to have go on with some well over due diy. On the second evening I did some work and some clearing out of junk. Great again, getting those jobs done that had needed doing for months. Evening three was good too, I went into the garden and did some weeding, and a bit of cleaning inside.
By evening four I was exhausted.
Either people who choose not to watch tv have high energy levels or are happy to sit and read a book without moving very much. I have neither, I can't sit still for long without a job popping up in my head and I feel guilty reading a book when there is stuff to do.
I then had a brainwave. iPlayer on the BBC. Great, brilliant, lifesaver and energy re-booster. It seemed like the answer to everything, I could watch tv and even better only watch the programmes I like. Heaven.
Except that just like the tv signal being blocked by the hills, the same hills prevent us from having a super fast broadband connection. So watching a 30 minute programme took nearly two hours with lots of stops and pauses and often dying in the middle. It was somewhat frustrating but better than exhaustion.
I endured it for nearly two months until Other Half decided he could no longer stand weekends without tv and I gave in and bought a new satelite box.
The new box was proudly installed on the shelf under the tv. Henry didn't even seem to notice. For about four weeks.
Then one morning the puddle was back. Nooooo! The box was once again dead.
I decided that if I could live before with just iPlayer for entertainment then I could do it again. This decision was mostly influenced by lack of money and having none spare to buy yet another satelite box so in reality I had no choice.
I managed another three weeks of iPlayer before spotting a fabulous portable satelite system on Ebay. It was cheap. Very cheap. But worth a shot so I bid and won and waited for it to arrive.
Once it came I opened the box and realised that I knew absolutely nothing about satelite communications and this needed some knowledge albeit basic. I waited for Other Half to come home and we had a Saturday of dishes on poles, attached to fences, wind blowing the poles down, finding a signal but only getting Brazilian tv then loosing all signals while trying to find Sky. After several hours I remembered that Henry had only peed on the receiver box, not the dish and why didn't we connect the portable receiver to the original dish? I took cover and Other Half plugged the box in.
We had tv! Yey! 700+ channels of absolute tosh. More rubbish than we could cope with and to find the more intelligent channels was like finding the old needle in a haystack. We ended up with London local news, Yorkshire ITV, Wales BBC2 and a handful of other strange chanels but at least we had tv.
Throughout all this Henry acted no different. He was oblivious to the trouble he had caused and just seemed to watch the comings and goings of various satelite boxes with total disinterest.
After we could endure the news from Hull, Kendal, Looe and Maidstone no longer we eventually bought a third Sky box. This time I dug out and old chest that was hiding away in the workshop, rubbed it down, cleaned it up and put the tv on top. The satelite box is now way out of reach of a dogs back leg high up on a shelf above the tv. It actually looks better than it did before but we won't tell Henry that in case he tries to continue with his interior decoration career.
Monday, 13 October 2008
Serious Barking and Sleeping
Over the last couple of days Henry has done some serious barking.
It started on Saturday which was very rainy. For some reason he just took to barking at absolutely everything, me, Other Half, Molly (especailly Molly), the cats on the farm, the hares in the field and the dogs on the farm.
The dogs on the farm decided to come up to the front of the house and stand on the track and bark back which was quite funny to start with but then Molly joined in and we had two dogs standing on their back legs at the window barking at two more dogs through the window who were barking back. This could only go on for so long before one of the occupants of the house had a nervous breakdown.
Then the rain wouldn't stop so we were all stuck in the house together, especially as the river burst it's banks and ran over the end of the track so unless we were up for a quick (and it would have been very quick as the water was rushing by) swim there was nowhere to go anyway. Of course the dogs didn't realise this and were trying every trick in the book to get out which for Henry involved even more barking.
Eventually as the day went on the rain slowed and I decided to take the dogs to dog training club as they had the hall for Saturday evening instead of Thursday due to a mix up.
I did mean to go to the first class of the evening but due to everyone barking and jumping up and confusing everything I ended up being half an hour late so I decided to creep into the hall and watch the first hour and then join the second class. As I opened the door a perfect class was going on, no barking (bliss) and every dog was behaving perfectly, and of course because it was so quiet everyone looked as I went in.
Having been noticed I was given the job of going up to each dog to say hello and give them a treat, now I'm a real dog person and I felt all puffed up at being asked to do such an important job so off I went around the hall being all important.
Being a real dog person I didn't worry at all about the dogs, after all they were in dog training club and everyone knows everyone and all the dogs are getting socialised so I wasn't expecting to be snapped at by the first very cute fluffy white dog who was also incedentally rather small so I immediately over-reacted and jumped back half a hall length! This attempt over I moved on to the next dog, a very very lovely lurcher who I'd never seen before, she looked at me with adoring eyes, refused my treat and growled! This really wasn't good so I quickly moved round the rest of the dogs before being told to bring Molly and Henry in to join the class.
As I said, the class was lovely and controlled and quiet, until the three of us crashed through the door. Henry started barking straight away and Molly was very insistant at going up to the lovely lady who runs the classes as she knew she had a pocket full of treats. The peace was shattered for the rest of the evening.
After the first class ended the dogs for the second class started arriving. We normally go to the second class so all the dogs know each other and for 20 minutes or so the hall was full of dogs all going around saying hello to each other and bounding to the door to greet the latest arrival. As one owner said, we could remember when we had a full social lives of our own and Saturday night was the night to get dressed up and go out partying but now it's our dogs who have all the fun! Henry of course was the noisiest, barking and howling at everyone, running around the other dogs and sidling up to the owners as he knows they all have treats in their pockets.
Once everyone had settled down we had a great lesson, both Henry and Molly walked perfectly to heel, sat, stayed, stayed while I walked accross the room, did a recall and then a silent recall and looked completely well trained. Why is it that this happens in the hall with all the other dogs and then on walks at home they are like a couple of hooligans? I'm yet to get Henry to walk to heel on a walk.
Then we all went home after extracting Other Half from the pub and for once in the weekend both dogs laid on their beds and snored away, there is nothing better in life than to look upon dogs who are fast asleep and worn out, it's a sort of blissful thing that should be bottled.
It started on Saturday which was very rainy. For some reason he just took to barking at absolutely everything, me, Other Half, Molly (especailly Molly), the cats on the farm, the hares in the field and the dogs on the farm.
The dogs on the farm decided to come up to the front of the house and stand on the track and bark back which was quite funny to start with but then Molly joined in and we had two dogs standing on their back legs at the window barking at two more dogs through the window who were barking back. This could only go on for so long before one of the occupants of the house had a nervous breakdown.
Then the rain wouldn't stop so we were all stuck in the house together, especially as the river burst it's banks and ran over the end of the track so unless we were up for a quick (and it would have been very quick as the water was rushing by) swim there was nowhere to go anyway. Of course the dogs didn't realise this and were trying every trick in the book to get out which for Henry involved even more barking.
Eventually as the day went on the rain slowed and I decided to take the dogs to dog training club as they had the hall for Saturday evening instead of Thursday due to a mix up.
I did mean to go to the first class of the evening but due to everyone barking and jumping up and confusing everything I ended up being half an hour late so I decided to creep into the hall and watch the first hour and then join the second class. As I opened the door a perfect class was going on, no barking (bliss) and every dog was behaving perfectly, and of course because it was so quiet everyone looked as I went in.
Having been noticed I was given the job of going up to each dog to say hello and give them a treat, now I'm a real dog person and I felt all puffed up at being asked to do such an important job so off I went around the hall being all important.
Being a real dog person I didn't worry at all about the dogs, after all they were in dog training club and everyone knows everyone and all the dogs are getting socialised so I wasn't expecting to be snapped at by the first very cute fluffy white dog who was also incedentally rather small so I immediately over-reacted and jumped back half a hall length! This attempt over I moved on to the next dog, a very very lovely lurcher who I'd never seen before, she looked at me with adoring eyes, refused my treat and growled! This really wasn't good so I quickly moved round the rest of the dogs before being told to bring Molly and Henry in to join the class.
As I said, the class was lovely and controlled and quiet, until the three of us crashed through the door. Henry started barking straight away and Molly was very insistant at going up to the lovely lady who runs the classes as she knew she had a pocket full of treats. The peace was shattered for the rest of the evening.
After the first class ended the dogs for the second class started arriving. We normally go to the second class so all the dogs know each other and for 20 minutes or so the hall was full of dogs all going around saying hello to each other and bounding to the door to greet the latest arrival. As one owner said, we could remember when we had a full social lives of our own and Saturday night was the night to get dressed up and go out partying but now it's our dogs who have all the fun! Henry of course was the noisiest, barking and howling at everyone, running around the other dogs and sidling up to the owners as he knows they all have treats in their pockets.
Once everyone had settled down we had a great lesson, both Henry and Molly walked perfectly to heel, sat, stayed, stayed while I walked accross the room, did a recall and then a silent recall and looked completely well trained. Why is it that this happens in the hall with all the other dogs and then on walks at home they are like a couple of hooligans? I'm yet to get Henry to walk to heel on a walk.
Then we all went home after extracting Other Half from the pub and for once in the weekend both dogs laid on their beds and snored away, there is nothing better in life than to look upon dogs who are fast asleep and worn out, it's a sort of blissful thing that should be bottled.
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