Bark Be Que

It was the end of term party today at training.  30 dogs, 15 children, about 50 adults and 3 barbeque's.  And surprisingly no problems!

As we were waiting for the barbeque's to heat up, we done some training easy training.  Well, with the puppy classes as well we couldn't do anything too testing.  Some walking on lead, sits, downs and round some of the agility equipment.  Alan went very easy on us!

We settled down to some food and spent a very relaxing couple of hours generally chilling in the field.  It was really nice.

We then had the award ceremony, I collected my bronze certificate with pride!  I was secretly pleased to note that no one from my (intermediate) class passed the gold.

Alan is unsure whether he will continue the training in September.  I hope he does.  The crowd of people there are just so nice, and no one really cares about anything, except the dogs.

Vet trip

On Monday, we noticed Tommy was rubbing his eye more than normal with his paw and that there was 'sleep' on it.  I cleaned his eye with water, but within an hour the 'sleep' had returned...a vet visit I feel...

Booked him in for earlier today.  I was dreading it after the Silver Award which we don't talk about but tried to put that to the back of my mind - calm assertive behaviour otherwise it will go down the lead.

It wasn't Mr Gilmore who saw him which was a bit of a shame.  Tommy skulked round the examination room but I put him on the table once I'd explained what was wrong.

The vet put some drops in his eye and looked through an ultra violet light.  I was holding Tommy's head.  There were no scratches or anything so the vet thought he'd probably just caught his eye when running through the long grass.

The vet put a treat on the table which Tommy ate.  And then I realised the examination was over!  Tommy hadn't freaked at the vet!  I was so pleased...

The vet also mentioned that next time I could bathe the eye in tea (no milk or sugar) for 24-48 hours and that might clear it up without having to use drops or pay for the examination fee!  I never knew that tea could do that!  One to remember I think.

Don't Do Dock Dogs

We had the Robin of Sherwood (!) country show on this weekend, they have a massive 'Discover Dogs' theme throughout as well as Mountain Bike displays, ferret racing and Falconry display. I've been a couple of years, but have never managed to get their early enough to try Tommy on the 'Dock Dogs'. This year would be different!

I got in the queue at about 2o'clock and waited for my turn. Typically, we'd turned up just as a competition was about to start - so annoying! So we waited. Whilst waiting, a couple of staffies joined the queue and I think the bitch was in heat - Tommy was desperate to say hello - so unusual for him as he normally ignores Staffies. When I was kneeling down he pulled me over to try and get to her! And he was play bowing and barking, he needed to smell this bitch! I tried to get him to sit, he even ignored the ham I waved under his nose!  The owner of the bitch seemed oblivious, or didn't care. One of the two.

Anyway, after about 1/2 hour, it was our turn. I thought this would be easy, throw the ball, Tommy would jump in after, win / win situation and we'd all go home happy. It was not to be. Tommy was very interested in the ball, just not interested enough to jump into the pool or be distracted from the Staffie. Squeaky toy, not interested. The guy running it said maybe we could try him on the slope - he still wasn't having any of it. All he wanted to do was escape and sniff the Staffie. Which he managed to do. So I had to go and claim him back.

I'm a bit surprised Tommy didn't want to jump and swim for the tennis ball - I'm even more surprised he wanted to sniff the Staffie! Sometimes I wish he would focus more on what I want him to do rather than his very focused terrier / male dog instinct to do sniff dogs on heat! I mean, it's not like he could do anything, he's had the chop! FFS