Meeting the Nuts

Ann & Mark and Paul & Pen came round on Sunday night to meet Reno. I'd planned it to be the start of his socialisation but, in fact, it worked out to be more important for Kiros to see them all. He was so excited and they reminded him that he IS the most important Doggie in the world!

Kiros has started to relax a bit more with Reno and we almost had a game yesterday.

I took Reno out and about a bit yesterday. We went to "Pets at Home" and he got thoroughly spoilt. Then the Ann and Marks in the evening to pinch some more Odogene from them! He said "Hi" to Indi through the bars of his car crate.

Just as he has started to get into a routine I am whisking him of to Dorset today to spend New Year with my family. He will be meeting loads of people and Wanda's three Doggies so it will be excellent experience for him. I'm just not looking forward to the 3.5 hour car journey. Let's hope he sleeps well?!

He's home !!

I picked Reno up from Lisa and Chris at 9am. He travelled really well - just a little bit of squealing at the beginning of the journey and a little sickly when I took a roundabout to quickly. That'll teach me to drive better!!

He's loving his kennel. He takes himself into it voluntarily along with as many toys as he can find.

I've introduced him to Kiros and Ronnie really carefully. Kiros is a little bit stressed at the moment but he is determined that Reno is not going to get more attention then he does.

Ronnie was a real concern due to his poor bite inhibition. I was so worried that he wouldn't get on with Reno but am so happy to be posting these photo's.

Toilet training isn't going so well! Dr Ian Dunbar reliably informed me that if I took him out every hour he would "perform" outside and give me the opportunity to praise and treat him. So every hour from getting him home at 11.30am I have been outside with him but nothing happened until 4.30pm when I brought him back in and he wee'd in his kennel. Back to the drawing board!

Olympia

Words cannot describe the feeling of walking through the tunnel into the Great Hall at Olympia. The noise of the crowd is deafening.

Kiros, Ann, Ade and I had the most amazing day yesterday. My darling boy definitely didn't let me down and made up for all the handling errors that I made!Unfortunately I got completely in his way in the speed jumping which slowed him down and made him take a pole down so we finished in 9th place but luck was on our side in the final.

Despite the fact that I was extremely nervous and couldn't run fast enough we managed to go clear. Then Sherie and Shadow, running two after us, put in an amazing clear putting pressure on the other competitors to beat their time. This resulted in a lot of the other dogs making mistake and us coming away with 4th place.

I have to mention Dave and Rusty as they really were the starts of the show. Running second from last their time appeared unbeatable but was matched, down to 1000th of a second, by Mark and Ruby! How Dave kept his cool in the run-off I cannot imagine but he did and this time his run really was unbeatable. Well done Dave and Rusty, you're both real stars.

Thank you to everyone for your well wishes and support.

Remember the Dog that pooed in the ring during his first Agility run? He's now come 4th in an Olympia final! Can you believe it?

Agility Nuts ..........

Went really well. Kiros did an excellent, controlled Agility run. I stopped and held him on all of his contacts. He still managed a 3rd place. What a shame I got him eliminated in his other runs!

Ronnie, on the other hand, seems to have forgotten how to run in a straight line! I really wish I could work this lad out.

Tuesday night at NADTC we played party games. Kiros was on top form. He really enjoys the atmosphere on nights like this. I'm hoping he'll enjoy Olympia as much.

We were on the winning team in the team relay, won the individual knock out and decided to let someone else win the individual course. (wink!!!)

Thank you to everyone who has wished us luck at Olympia. We are of to London tomorrow evening, staying in a Travelodge over night. I still find it really hard to believe that we are going to be competing there. I hope I don't let Kiros down. I know he will make me proud.

Countdown to Christmas - Part 2

Last Sunday we went to Lincoln Christmas Market. It was lovely, cold and frosty but dry, real Christmas weather. I went with the aim of buying a couple more baubles for the tree and came back with 10! I have no will-power.

Last night we went to see the St Petersburg Ballet Theatre's production of "The Nutcracker". Ade didn't know the story (How can you not?...Having said that he thought he was going to see an Opera!!) and found it hard to follow the plot. He was, however, very impressed with the two intervals as he got to spend more time in the Bar!

This afternoon we are off the Belvoir Castle. It should be lovely as they always go to town with their decorations. Shame the weather isn't Chrismassy today!

It's Agility Nuts show tomorrow. I'm not looking forward to the exercise area!

I'll leave you with some more puppy photo's.

Introducing Reno

Not much talking today as I know you all want to see the photo's so here he is.

I'll post more photo's when I have time to go through them later.

Countdown to Christmas!

Ade and I started our Christmas festivities with a trip to Chatsworth House last night. We had a nightmare journey there (an accident on the M1 caused hold ups on all the surrounding roads) but we did see a bit of snow on route. The house looked amazing. It was difficult to imagine it was the same place we went to in September.

We bought some lovely toy soldiers for the tree from Chatsworth's gift shop.

I've almost finished decorating our house for Xmas. All of the lights are up and on at the front of the house and I'm hoping to finish the lights at the back this evening.

Of course a blog entry wouldn't be complete without a doggie photo so here's Kiros checking out who is admiring our lights!!

Clear round "Blackhole"

I'm having a bit of trouble with Agility at the moment. Went to Agility Nuts last weekend and managed to get Kiros eliminated in everything. I put this down to spending to much time helping on the rings. Then we suffered the same fate at Newton Heath yesterday! No excuses this time. On the positive side Kiros stopped on all his contacts (practicing for Olympia!) and the last time I had an unlucky run like this it finished in Kiros winning Grade 6 Agility so I'll put up with it if this is the outcome.

The best run I've had over the last 2 weeks was with Ronnie at Nuts. Only one pole down in veteran jumping and a very reasonable time.

Country Elves.......Staring Kiros, Ronnie, Ruby, Bart and Ollie!!!

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The best thing about living in Nottingham is.......

being just 20 min's away from this!

I only had one hours work booked in today so decided to take the boys on my favourite walk along the River Trent between Burton Joyce and Gunthorpe. You really can't believe how close you are to the City here but if you look closely you can see the skyline glistening through the trees.

The weather was dull to start of with but brightened up as we went along. Kiros and Ronnie had a lovely time chasing the ball and saying "Hi" to fishermen.

It seemed like an appropriate time to see if Kiros could swim by himself? After all he has had 6 lessons now and thoroughly enjoys it at Canine Academy so I tossed the ball into the river to see if he would retrieve it. The answer was "No!" so we finished the walk minus one ball.

To make up for the loss Ronnie decided to take home the biggest stick he could find. Bless him!

Discover Dogs

Kiros and I went to Discover Dogs yesterday. Wow! What an experience. It was the first time I have taken a Dog to this type of event and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The drive to London was interesting with the M1 closed but we managed to get there on the M40. Thank God for Sat Nav!

By the time we got into Earls Court and settled on the bench I was in serious need of some Rescue Remedy.

Our first run was at 11.20am and by that time the little arena was packed with spectators. The course was nice but compact and I walked it worrying about how Kiros would cope running on the carpet. I really needn't have been worried as he didn't have a problem at all. He used his claws to grip (I could hear them) and ran round every bit as fast as he does on grass. Two obstacles to go and we were clear then "shock horror" Kiros missed his Dog Walk contact. How could this have happened? He has only missed two in our last 3 years of competing?!! Seriously, I think I may have released him a tad early! Never mind. We finished 5th and I was so proud of him.

I spend the next few hours wondering around and trying to shop when I could drag Kiros away from all the people trying to fuss him. He's a real tart.

Our second run was scheduled for 3pm. The arena was now full with people queueing to get in. I was determined not to make a mistake with the contacts again so stopped him on every one. We were clear with one jump to go when Kiros spotted the timing wire and, thinking it was his lead, made a beeline for it! You should have heard the crowd? So another 5f, 5th place and an exceptionally proud mum.