Kizzie and Gg

Gg was a little wary of boisterous Kizzie, and no wonder.  But once she had taught Kiz to sit and gimme paw they became best friends.

just when you thought it was ok to breath

Kizzie is having her first season.  I will spend the next three weeks worrying that a boy might entice my baby into having his babies.  I have my hooter ready to discourage any lotharios and Kiz will have to walk on her lead.  If I had any coloured hair left it would be turning grey right now.


These pictures were taken just 6 months apart.  Who could have know that the little chestnut coloured puppy would turn into this gloriously scruffy blonde and chocolate delight?

I wish Kizzie would obey sometimes

I saw Kizzie watching a bug walking along the path.  I ran over to her shouting 'leave it' but no, she just had to eat it.  It was a wasp.  Kizzie yelped whilst I ran around panicking.  She seemed fine so Brian took her for her morning run (with an antihistamine in his pocket, just in case).  A couple of hours later Kizzie started coughing and heaving and I had another panic but within a couple of minutes she was fine again. 

What a hardy girl.  I hope she has learned her lesson though.  I have aged so much since she came into my life......

Blackjack games day

We had a good time at the party.  We were in 6 teams of three, the dogs had to roll a dice and depending on which number they rolled we had a task to do.  Our team had Kizzie, a gorgeous little border collie (who gave great cuddles - I wanted to take her home with me) , and a cute little spitz. 
The challenges ranged from team efforts, to agility, special moves and obedience.  The spitz was a heelwork to music maestro, the border collie did agility so we got the obedience!!! 
One of the team challenges was to get the dog to run and pick up a frankfurter and bring it back to its handler.  It was very funny watching the handlers try to get the dog to not eat the sausage, and the dogs trying to eat the sausage before getting back to the handler, sucking them up like spagetti.  Three dogs did it, two spaniels and a goldie. 
Our group challenge was for the humans to make a bridge and the dogs had to walk over us.  The spitz ran across no problem, but the collie came and lay down with us, Kizzie got half way across before we ran out of time.  

Three hours was a long time for Kizzie but she did really well as long as we kept her busy.  She completed both of her tasks, walking backwards and 'down, up, sit' and our team came THIRD overall.  A brilliant result.

The team winners included the two spaniels who didn't eat the sausage and the individual winner was a staffie cross. 

puppydog

We are all a bit tired after such a busy day yesterday. 

When Kizzie stole a small sharp knife out of the sink we decided that the stealing had to stop, but how?  This month's 'dogs today' magazine has an article by Dr Ian Dunbar about training his problematic puppy.  He decided to train the dog to do the things that he didn't want him to do! 
So today when a leaflet came through the front door, Kizzie made her usual mad dash to grab it.  Brian shouted 'good girl, bring it'.  Kizzie took it straight to him and gave it to him.  Loads of good girls and well dones and thank yous and a treat of fresh chicken.   This afternoon she found one of my slippers and took that to him.  Such a clever girl.  Pity I can't find the other slipper, but 50% success rate........

It's hot here today

I wish I could show you photos of how adorable Kizzie was today playing with my grand-children.  Instead here she is encouraging her 'dad' to help cool her down.

Love and hugs and big licky kisses

Kizzie looks so innocent here.  But we know better....

                                                            

Pigeon Pie?

This morning Kizzie was out walking with Brian when she found a dead and rather mouldy pigeon.  No amount of asking, cajoling, threatening or pleading would get her to hand it over - well, eventually she swapped it for a handful of treats.  The bin at the meadows was full so Brian lobbed it as far as he could.

You know what's coming, right?  This evening Kizzie found her pigeon.  It was treasure and she wasn't going to hand it over just for Brian to throw it away again.  Luckily he had her favorite sweeties in his pocket and she swapped.  The bin is still full but he insists that she won't find it again,he threw it in some bushes.  I just know that I will be meeting that pigeon tomorrow.

Cleaned up and cleared out

We had a grand clean up today.  Put everything that is important (wallets, keys, mobile phones, watches etc) into drawers and lifted everything else up higher.  Did that sort out my little cleptomaniac - nope!  She stole the mouse from my desk.  I may have to resort to yelling.....

Spectacles

Little blighter chewed my specs

Dogs rock or dog rocks

£10 for three bits of stone imported from Australia.  Put them in your dogs water bowl and no more brown patches on your lawn.  We bought some, washed them and this evening put them in Kizzie's bowl.  They lasted 15 seconds before she took one out and ran into the garden, it got lost amongst the other 3.5 million bits of rock out there.  Number two disapeared soon after but I found that. 

Do they work?  I have no idea and probebly never will :)

I am told that one of the hardest things to teach a dog is to run away from you.  (yeah, I laughed too) Anyway we have to get Kizzie to run to a box, whilst shouting 'box'.  To make this easier, there is a tile in the box with juicy treats.  We have no problem getting Kizzie to run to those. 

The art is to get Kizzie to run back to us afterwards.  Here is Brian demonstrating how we do this.  There is a nice big piece of chicken in his hand :)

Can you see the sheep pen behind Kizzie?  I was running around inside that last week whilst encouraging Kizzie to follow me, but she was on the outside.

We train at Blackjack dog training Kizzie loves going.  We have learned loads and Kizzie is becoming the calm, well behaved girl that we want.  (Well, in public anyway)