Our sweet Yogi

They say bad news comes in threes. I only hope that this is it for awhile now, I cannot take the heartache.

My good friend Ann Marie (in NY) just found out that her young Golden Retriever has a brain tumor. Yogi is such a sweet boy and Ann Marie does not deserve this awful news. Ann Marie is the type of person that would do anything for her dogs and she always takes their well being first. She would always be the first person to pull her dogs out of a show if she felt it was not right for them; she always put them first and I always admired her for that. Why then does she have the devastation of twice losing her goldens as young dogs? Life is just not fair.

They are hoping to keep Yogi comfortable on medication for as long as he is happy. Ann Marie says he doesn't seem to be in any pain right now, Thank God for that. I think the ones in the most pain will be Ann Marie and Norman. I only pray that when the time comes that Ann Marie and Norman know they are doing the best thing for Yogi. He has had a great life.

I am so sad that I will probably never see Yogi again. I am glad that I saw him when I was home last year. Yogi has a lovely way of "chirping" when he greets his friends. I cannot think of Yogi without seeing him greet me at Ann Marie's front door with his stuffed duck in his mouth and all the while chirping away.

I had such fun helping Ann Marie train Yogi in agility. He had such potential and was a fun dog to train; he was always keen to do agility! Unfortunately he was one of those "gotta knock just one bar down" dogs! Although Ann Marie always kept things in perspective and still had fun with him. In looking back, who really cares if they knock one bar? They had fun and they were together.

Hug your dogs close and enjoy every minute training them. Keep things in perspective. Train your dogs to win but be happy with them no matter what. They are not around long enough.

OBay Family Videos

Since we had 4 OBay shelties competing at Downland on Sunday I thought we would do a little video collage. Zen, Chi and Timmy were all running the same Grade 6,7 jumping course but at different heights. Hex ran the Grade 3-5 jumping course in the same ring. But they all run so similar and with such power that I thought we would put them all together on the same video.

We are off to the Easter Celebration Agility show on Friday. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we will get lots of new photos and videos. We are taking the caravan out again this weekend and look forward to relaxing in it after the show each day.

Enjoy the latest OBay production!

Cannot wait for the Small Olympia Agility Semi-Finals!

This past weekend was another fabulous one for the OBay Shelties in agility. Zen and Hex were super on Saturday; coming home with lots of 1st place rosettes and just generally being fun to run. It was a long day as the small dogs had their first run at 9am and then their last three runs at around 5pm (all at the same time of course!) So I was glad to also have Zen to run in the medium classes as that kept us busy in between. The weather was strange; very windy and sudden bursts of heavy rain in between sunshine. Luckily the judges removed the dogwalk for the last few classes as the small dogs would have blown right off. I had decided not to run even Zen in the last agility classes until I saw they were removing the dogwalk. No class and no show is worth risking my dog getting injured. Without the dogwalk we were able to enjoy the rest of the show and our last few classes. My thanks to both judges who made that decision. It was a nice show but way too long.

But really the most exciting thing happened on Sunday at Downlands Agility Show. It was the second small KC Olympia qualifier of the year. The first qualifier was won by Hex's brother Indy back in January. There are 10 qualifiers during the year and the first and second place dogs go thru to the semi-finals. At Downland we had another Obay sheltie sweep! Hex won the class and her uncle Timmy (Zen's litter brother) came in second! This makes three OBay Shelties that will be competing at the semi-finals in the summer. Wow......could all three make it to Olympia 2007? As a breeder, I am allowed to hope and dream aren't I?

I did not get this run on video. I was waiting for Lisa to show up at the show and video us as my running order was towards the end of the class with 105 entered. But at some point, after watching about 30 dogs run, the queue was down to only a few dogs and they needed dogs. I just had the URGE to run and couldn't wait any longer! So I got Hex, warmed her up and ran! I was glad to have seen Peggy and Timmy run as they put in a super fast round. It made me realize that I had to go for it. After Hex ran I checked the times and saw that we just pushed Timmy into second place by about 4/10 of a second. Ooops....now I had to watch the rest of the class run and hope that no-one came between us or ahead of me! I would have felt bad if Timmy got pushed to third and just missed out on qualifying! A little bit of luck came into it as many of the faster dogs kept making mistakes. Whew..... and then I watched a fast little poodle go around and got a bit worried. That dog looked like it was flying. Again, a bit of luck, as she was just 1/10 second behind Timmy. Hurrah!

I have got some of our jumping runs from Sunday on video and will post later in the week.

Bits and pieces

Dennis has been trying to improve his photography as well as learn how to use Adobe Photoshop. It is amazing what he can do with photos with that program; never believe what you see in photos I can tell you!

So Dennis wanted to work on the best way to take weave pole photos in preparation for this weekend at Easter Celebration Agility show. So we took 11 year old Jordan out for a turn. Cute Jordan hasn't done weave poles in 6 years! Once she realized I wanted her to weave (well she is deaf!) she tried her best. It was sort of hit or miss; more like weave two miss one but cute nevertheless.

Johanna sent me this photo of one of Monty's puppies in Denmark. He is so similar to Monty and just gorgeous. I am waiting for more photos as there were a few pups from that litter at that agility show.

While looking for those photos above I found this photo of one of our earlier Christmas' together. It was when we still did Christmas cards! We have been lax about that lately. This is probably from 1992 or 1993. The dogs from left to right are Tess, Joy, Noel and Holly. Tess used to HATE having her photos taken and would look very pitiful when you pointed a camera at her. It is also proof that I REALLY REALLY LOVE SABLE SHELTIES! haha

Hex's winning ways

Hex and I have had three really good agility weekends. I don't want to brag too much but she is just so good! She really tries hard on every run and although she doesn't have as much ground speed as some of the small dogs, she is efficient and consistant and getting faster every weekend.

Chippenham was a great start to Hex's first season in agility. She moved up to Class 6 by winning the Open Agility with an entry of around 165 dogs. And it was made even better by the fact that the 2nd place dog was her own brother Indy! How nice of Nicky to give us this one for a change!

Anyway, to catch up on Hex's videos here is a collage of some of her runs from two weekends ago at Chippenham. I will hold off on our really really good news about this weekend until the next post! Enjoy this video.

Hex and Indy 3 jump pull-thrus at Chippenham Agility Show

I hope this works! I am trying to use You Tube to see how the videos look.

Here is a comparison of Hex and Indy doing a three jump pull thru sequence at Chippenham Agility show. I told Nicky I need work on these! She made them look easy. But even worse, at the UKA show, they had three jump PUSH THRUS which I just could NOT do. I am doubtful I can do them at all! hehe I guess I shouldn't write this as now all the judges will throw them in just for me!

Spring has sprung

We don't have many good photos of Hob-b so I took the opportunity today at lunch since the flowers are blooming. Unfortunately Hob-b won't stand for photos as everytime I told her to stay she layed down! I guess all the work I have been doing on down stays for her dinner has worked! Once she gets her coat back I will try to get some standing photos with Dennis' help.

But even laying down she is gorgeous!

Good Luck at the AKC Agility Nationals

Good luck to my sister Terry at the AKC Agility National this weekend. She will be taking her rescue sheltie Keeper. Keeper was rescued thru our fantastic Long Island Sheltie Rescue and this will be his first agility national.

Good Luck Terry and Keeper!

UKA Agility weekend

Dennis and I (and all the dogs) spent the weekend camping out in the caravan at a UKA Agility show. UKA is the new "alternative" agility organization here in the UK. It was develped by Greg Derrett and his wife Laura to compete with the Kennel club agility. The KC agility is a win-only progression so the UKA is a nice change. UKA allow progression with points gained with clear rounds as well as placements.


It was fun to get the caravan out for the first time. Although it was cold (brrrr) the caravan was nice warm and toasty. Except for around 2am on Friday night when one of the propane tanks went dry. Poor Dennis had to get out of bed and go out into the cold to swap tanks while I stayed nice and warm under the duvet. What a good husband I have!


Anyway, we had an awesome weekend. (And as much as I have grown to hate the world "awesome" I can't think of another word right now!) We had 4 OBay Shelties competing this weekend. All 4 won multiple classes and all 4 made it to the Royal Canin Finals in July. Wow! With all the sadness lately it was nice to just run my dogs and enjoy the weekend.

Hex and brother Indy won just about every class they were in. Hex went for 7 clears out of 8 runs and 6 first places. She only got one 2nd place in snooker due to my not going for full points. What a star! Indy just flew around every course and I think went 7 clears out of 8 also with almost 100% first places. Nicky and Indy are just on fire!



I need Nicky to come down and teach me how she handles 3 jump pull thrus and push thrus. (three jumps in a line like a serpentine but instead pushing thru the gaps) We had 3 jump push thrus in two classes with Zen and we just can't do them properly! I wish I could post courses on the blog so I can get suggestions from people. I certainly will be setting up those sequences this week to practice on! But I have video clips of Nicky handling a three jump pull thru with Indy from last week, so I will post that this week when we get the videos sorted out.


Zen and brother Chi also won almost all their classes. Except for the one they were competing against each other in and then they went 1st and 2nd! I don't think they had as many clears as their little siblings but were pretty darn close.


We have no videos from this weekend. Dennis has been taking a course in ADOBE PHOTOSHOP and wanted to take some action shots with his camera. He got some really good photos and I will post more when he gets home from London tomorrow. For now here are some tasters...

Indy the micro sheltie says size doesn't matter!

Hex just looking too cute for words!

Zen just being Zen........

Chi being very handsome....

And finally I cannot believe they let one of those "Hoodies" into a posh agility show! We need agility ASBOs....

Hex the super sheltie

This is a photo of Hex with her trophy from a few weeks ago when she won the C-side Challenge final. I needed a nice sunny day to get a photo of her.

And here is another photo of Hex with all her trophies earned so far this year!

Isn't she adorable?

Happy 8th Birthday Monty!

Happy 8th Birthday to

Danish Agility Champion Toven The Full Monty

"Monty"

Little Monty might not be known for his own performances. But he is well known for what he has produced. In limited breedings he has produced 2 agility champions and two Agility World Team members. All his puppies have an intense desire to work and an amazing drive to run fast!

Yet Monty himself has not done too badly! Monty has been shuffled around a bit. Initially owned by Toni Mapes as a potential show dog, Monty was just not "enough" for the show ring. He is a little boy under 14" at the shoulder. I had seen Monty and just fell for him and Toni let me take him home when he was just under 18 months old. I started playing around with him in agility and he took to it very nicely. Then the big move to England happened. At first I thought Toni wanted him back as she wanted to be able to use him for breeding. So I brought Monty back to her and just before leaving him, I burst into tears. I didn't want to let him go! Poor Toni, she thought I didn't want to take him to England and I thought SHE didn't want me to take him. What a lack of communication! I blame it on the stress of moving!

So that day, Monty came back home with me and began his amazing journey. I am so grateful for Monty as he produced my amazing girl Zen. I cannot imagine my life without her; she has given me so much love and so much fun.

Monty now lives in Denmark with Johanna. He is quite the international boy! In Denmark, he has two certificates towards his breed championship and has finished his Agility Championship. Even better, he is being used for breeding with some really beautiful girls. He is producing some pretty puppies that can work. We decided that Monty was better used and had more opportunities in Denmark. Although Dennis and I miss him, I have decided to stick to girls only from now on.

For the past year or so, Monty has been running agility with Johanna's friend Marianne. What started as a little fun has turned serious!!! Monty was part of the gold winning Danish teams when he competed with Marianne at the Nordic Agility Championships! At 8 years old, I think Monty as found his favorite agility partner in Marianne! They are just going from strength to strength. Go Monty, you rock little man!

Below you will see why Monty was named "The Full Monty". His favorite position is on his back with his legs spread! That's my boy!

Weekend stuff: training, trials and sewing needles

This past weekend was a busy one. On Saturday we went to a training day at Sue's sand school. It was taught by Nancy who also owns little Kizzy. It was a great session and everyone seemed to enjoy it. What I liked about Nancy's teaching was that it wasn't all about "handling", she was into training the dog. But then again, that is my strong point so that may be why I liked it! haha I like to try and teach the dog to do most of the work, I guess in some posh agility circles that makes me a lazy handler!

Nancy talked alot about teaching the dog to collect itself before turns and gave some good methods to work on this. I have been lucky with Zen and Hex as this is a strong point for them; their weakness being that they have a harder time going on ahead. I guess after running Pax, who turns like a Mack truck, I worked extra hard on our turns. Or, maybe, they are more natural at tight turns than Pax.

Anyhoo, everyone seemed to enjoy the training day. I even heard some comments that people were saying it was one of the more informative sessions they had been on. That will be really cool for Nancy to hear. I will go to most training session at Sues that I can get to. It is so close to home and it is just good practice for Hex and Zen. And Sue makes a good lunch! But, in reality, so many training days are not that informative, they are more like run-thrus. Because really how much can a trainer teach you in 3 hours with 9 people to train. Also, due to the large number of participants you sometimes don't get much done, it is alot of standing around and bull-shitting with other participants. But I did think Nancy's was well worth it and I am not just saying that because she reads my blog!

Here are some photos from the day. These are not the best photos, I actually have some really good ones that Dennis is working on enhancing with his new prowess in Photo Shop. I will hope to post them on another day and also offer them to their owners. These photos below are funny ones or interesting training ones!

Here is Sue's older BC Buddy more affectionately known as Buddy the Bast***. You can see why..

This is George the Golden. He is a young boy and is doing well in training. But you can see clearly that he was some rythym issues in the weave poles! What a trooper that he stays in the weaves when obviously he has to work so hard at it. Bless!

This is a young Vizsla named Boris. I thought this shot was funny as it looks like his ears are tied up in a bow!

This is a young BC cross poodle (yes, for my american friends reading this, they do these crosses on purpose! ) named Chip. They make lovely shaggy fast agililty dogs! As you can see in this photo of him weaving.

The funny thing is that at the training day we worked on a few things that I actually used at the show on Sunday! I like when that happens! Once I get the videos from the Chippenham Agility Show uploaded I will post them along with our good news.

Now after the long day at Sues, we went out for dinner with our neighbors. It was a dinner planned to thank one of our neighbors for helping us set up our wireless Internet. It was 4 couples for dinner at a local pub. The dinner was scheduled for last month, but had to be cancelled due to everyone having the flu! Unfortunately, it was rescheduled for this weekend and we didn't find out about it until 3 days before! Uh-oh! It wasn't the best time for me to be socializing having been out all day training and then thinking of getting up the next morning at 4:30 am for the drive to Chippenham Champ show. But the dinner was good and it was good to meet the 2 couples that we hadn't met before. At least if I see them in Sainsburys' I will recognize them now! They live on the other side of the field from us and I can occasionally hear their horses and donkey, so I am sure they can hear my dogs! It is quite a long distance but the sound travels because the field is so open.

We had to leave the dinner early (well early for English people!) and said our good-byes at around 11pm. When we got home I was getting ready for bed when Hex comes into the room with me. She is rolling something around in her mouth and I can hear clinking noises against her teeth. Usually this means she was picked up a pebble and is rolling it around in her mouth. I glance at her and see a glint of metal in her mouth and realize it is a sewing needle! I scream for Dennis and grab Hex's muzzle to open it up. At that point I think the needle is already headed down her throat. Dennis comes and I have him pry open her mouth while I look in (not an easy prospect when dealing with the wicked one!). I am able to feel the tip of the needle in the back of her throat and somehow get a hold of this slippery little thing. Which, it turns out, is also attached to a long piece of thread. Holy sh**! I give Hex the biggest hug and know that we really we lucky with this one. If she had not come in and shown me, she would have swallowed it and we wouldn't have known until she showed some sort of symptoms. And even then, who would think "Oh it must be a swallowed sewing needle and thread" Yikes, it is too awful to think about.

Sunday was the long awaited for Chippenham small/medium Champ show. Unfortunately, Zen did not win the champs.. boo hoo. But more about that another time. Hex was a star but I will blog more about that in another post! This post is too long already....

The saddest news

It has taken me a few weeks to be able to sit down and write this. And it still kills me to put it into words. Somehow it makes it all too real....

Sadly it was found that Zeus,the little boy of Zen's litter, was ill. It turns out that his heart did not develop properly and it was struggling to keep up as he started to grow. The specialist vets advised his family that nothing could be done to help him; no surgery or medication would help. So his owners decided not to let him suffer and he was let go before his symptoms became worse.

It doesn't seem right that Zeus should be gone. He was such a bright little boy, so happy and willing. He was so beautiful and so reminiscent of his grandfather Monty. We had such high hopes for him. But most of all, he was loved. For his entire short life, he only felt love. For that I am grateful.

All our sympathies go out to Gert and Kirsten who adored little Zeus and had to make the devastating decision to let him go. They adored little Zeus and gave him the most perfect home and we know they miss him terribly.

The joys of breeding, huh? Yeah right.

Hex at C-side 2007 Video

Hex at C-side

This past Saturday Hex finally earned her keep. We ran at the C-side show in the Crystal Challenge Final and won! Hex had qualified for the final back in November.

She won a gorgeous crystal trophy (her first!) and even better, she won CASH (50 pounds!). I think this may be my first time winning money in agility!

Thanks to Lian for the video clip. We can't get fancy with music as it was in a different format, but you get to hear all the dogs barking in the background. So turn down your volume!

Never take yourself too seriously!

This is too funny and a reason I shouldn't be left to surf the internet for too long....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC76cgkrmL4

Zen's Crufts Championship Agility video

Crufts 2007 Agility Championships

Well Crufts 2007 is over! We had a great Crufts!

Winning the medium team on Thursday was great. I do love to run at Crufts! It is a great buzz competing with all the spectators cheering.

This morning we ran the Championship Jumping. A lovely course that we should have run clear. But a handling mistake by me caused an off-course and an elimination. Bummer! But I was still proud of Zen and how she handled the course.

This afternoon was Championship Agility. (video to follow!) Zen attacked the course with her usual enthusiasm and we won the class! Her time was the second fastest time out of all height dogs and I was thrilled. Luckily this year they actually had a presentation of trophies and ribbons for the placements in the qualifiers. So Zen got to take center stage and receive a lovely crystal bowl engraved with

"WINNER CRUFTS 2007 CHAMPIONSHIP AGILITY"

That's my girl!

I was disappointed not to be able to run in the finals on Sunday night but overall had a great Crufts 2007 and already looking forward to 2008!

Crufts 2007 Medium Team Agility video

Crufts Medium Team 2007

I am just downloading the videos from yesterday's medium team event at Crufts. What a blast! It is just so much fun being out there on the green carpet with all the spectators. I just love showing off my dog. Zen is the best, I was so proud of her. She looks so little next to the other dogs. But she still does her best and makes me look good! She seemed more relaxed this year and that makes me feel better.

And, Wow, what a fabulous team I was on. Disney was the boy amoung the pretty girls and he did wonderful. As usual, those merlie border collie girls were fantastic. I can hope that our runs on Sunday in the championships go as well as yesterday! The carpet was a bit slippy, so I hope the judges keeps that in mind when the courses are built. Other than that, the new arena is great. Even though it is off on it's own at the end of the buildings, the spectators were still there. It seemed almost full each time and it holds 6000 people!

Dennis again went above and beyond in his videoing. He put together the video of all 4 runs to Toni's favorite song for Minx. I will try and get it downloaded soon.

Videos and stuff

As you will see on the last few posts, Dennis is getting good at putting videos together! There is no stopping him now. Now I just have to remember to bring my video camera everwhere!

It was so great to see Hex's video compilation. She reminds me so much of Joy, just in a black package! I really miss Joy and am grateful that I have Hex to make me smile. Whatever I ask Hex to do, she is eager to do it; what a fun dog she is. She has dabbled in breed, obedience, flyball and Heelwork to Music. But agility is our main event and she is really coming together in that. I was unsure how she would compare against some of the faster dogs in competition here; but she seems to be doing OK. On Saturday, she finished 2nd out of 115 dogs in jumping and 3rd out of 80 dogs in agility.

We had a really good day of agility at the Mid Downs competition on Saturday. It was the first real agility show of the season for us down South. Zen competed in her first KC show since having puppies. She is definitely on form and ready to run at Crufts. We are competing on Thursday in a team event and on Sunday at the Championships. I can't wait, I am so psyched! (All the Jane Savoie fans will recognize that statement, but it is really true!) Agility at Crufts this year will be bigger than ever. They have moved ALL the agility events into a larger arena that seats 6000 people. Considering how crowded it has been all the other years, I think there will be that many spectators for agility everyday. I just hope the noise level is not over the top and that Zen can hear her commands. I want to make it thru to the final on Sunday night and get a chance to have Zen on TV again. That would just be fantastic.

This will be my 6th year competing at Crufts. The first year (2002) I showed Whizz the border collie in breed. The second year (2003) I showed True the sheltie in breed. Then Pax competed in agility in 2004 and 2005. Now it is Zen who competed in agility in 2006 and this year 2007. Next year, I want to be qualified to show Hob-b in breed and Hex and Zen in agility. Goals!

A Hex Video Montage

Hex 3rd place out of 80 dogs!

14 week old Oz at Mary's training night

Hex training day videos-she is too cute!

Agility....getting the training edge..Johanna's Way

Johanna just keeps developing cutting edge agility training techniques. She is known internationally for her innovative training and cannot keep up with requests for seminars.

Now we see why.....

Oh... poor Spooky! Those Danish people are crazy.

Snow in Denmark

Johanna sent these photos today. I guess the snow is better than the mud we have! But it puts a damper on agility training. Well it would for normal people.....

Johanna likes to worry me with crazy talk about teaching One a running Aframe. (crazy blasphemous talk!) This must be her patented technique. Now we all know! How is she going to charge loads of money for seminars, DVDs and books if she keeps giving all her secrets away?

Tough days but getting better

It has been a sad few days realizing that Joy is gone forever. Each day it gets easier and it helps to remember all the good days we had with her. She had such a full life and gave me so much happiness. I will never forget all our trips to Bermuda, our trips to Canada or even just our trips upstate New York to run around together trying to learn how to herd sheep. Joy must have travelled more than most people! I think she had taken around 10 or more plane flights in her life.



I have been so blessed by having so many good friends to help me thru this. For many people, when they lose a pet, their grieving is brushed off by well-intentioned people. It is "just" a dog or you can get another ect ect. Or even if they are sympathetic, they cannot understand just how deep the loss is. When you work and train a dog, they become your friend, your team-mate, your family. The connection is so deep; you just understand each other. I always felt that I could read Joy's mind and she could definitely read mine.



Thank you to all my friends and family who have reached out to us.

• Dennis who sat down for hours and put together the slide show of Joy's photos. I don't know how he did it thru all his tears.


• Lisa and Tony who got us out over the weekend on nice long walks to the pub with the dogs. Keeping us from sitting around the house being sad.


• Diane G. and Ann H. who somehow knew in advance that I needed a boost. And sent me a goodie bag from Rhode Island which made me laugh on a really tough day. I don't know how Diane and I (who only see each other once every few years!) can be so in touch in an almost psychic way.


• My "new" friends, Andy and Nancy and Lian who touchingly sent us flowers to cheer us up. That was so sweet and meant alot.


• My "old" friend Eleanor who is donating a trophy at the ASSA sheltie national in memory of Joy. You are just so thoughtful.


• All my friends who have called or just written an email to sympathise and to share a memory they had of Joy. That means so much.

The dynamics of the dogs in the household has changed a little. They all seem a bit on edge and clingy. I wonder what they know and what they are feeling? Is it just a shift in the pack dynamics or is it something deeper? Or is that just me putting my feelings on them? Pax has never been apart from her mom, Joy since she was born. Yet, she seems to be the least effected. Was it is because we let her be in the room with Joy at the end?

We must have a million photos of Joy. She was so photogenic and just seemed to pose for hours. Most of them are "real" photos ( from the days before digital) and most are back in New York. I look forward to being able to go thru those photos on my next trip home to New York.

This photo was Joy on her 10th birthday. It is my most favorite photo of her in England.

Joy

OBay Joy to the World

4 May 1992 - 16 Feb 2007

We had to say Goodbye to Joy last night. It has been one of the hardest things I ever had to do. Joy has been with me for almost 15 years. Right from the time she was born into my hands, she has never been far from my side. She was a dog in a million, always eager and always fun. She was the dog of my heart.

Yesterday, I laid her out on the deck in the sun and she fell asleep there. She still looked beautiful. But I knew it was time to let her go, she was in so much pain. Thankfully the vet came to the house and Joy was able to leave us peacefully with both Dennis and I holding her. Her daughter Pax was also there with us.

All her obedience, breed, herding and agility titles mean nothing compared to the love she gave us. She was so beautiful and so smart. All my dogs forever will be compared to her.

Goodbye little Joy.

Goodbye to Joy

Joy Update and Fat Boy is in his new home

It has been a tough few days (and long nights). Joy has been quite ill and we really thought we were going to lose her. Somehow it is worse when you are dealing with a dog so full of life as Joy is. To see her lying flat out and unresponsive is so scary. Thanks to everyone who has called or written to see how Joy is doing.

She began with vomitting and diarrhea late monday afternoon. By Monday night she got worse aand quickly became very lethargic and disoriented. I lay on the floor with her all night on Monday and we took her to the vet on Tuesday. The vet wanted to keep her at the clinic, but we refused. They thought she was in liver failure and the prognosis was not good. The last thing I wanted was for her to die in the vet's office alone. So after some injections (antibiotic, anti-vomiting and something to bring her fever down) we took her home. She was still very poorly all Tuesday and Tuesday night. Dennis stayed downstairs with her most of Tuesday night.

This morning she actually looked a little brighter. Instead of lying on her side with her head down, she was lying on her stomach and able to hold her head up. We took her to the vet again today and they repeated the injections and also added some sub-cutaneous fluids to help boost her up. She cannot seem to keep any fluids down; when I syringe water into her mouth, she vomits it up within 5 minutes. Now the vet thinks that maybe she ate something that triggered this event. That could be likely as Joy was in the back garden for quite awhile and she will eat anything.

Anyway, that is where we are at now. Joy will be 15 in May but she has never seemed old. I am certainly not ready for her to go yet and I don't think she is ready to leave us. We will try all we can to keep her around, but know that we will not let her suffer if this goes on. Please pray that she comes out of this and we don't need to make any tough decisions.

Here is a photo of Joy taken in August at the KC International Agility Festival. As you can see in the background, Joy was "the face" of all the signs and posters at this show!

Now onto the happier news! Fat Boy (now and forever to be known as Todd!) was due to go into his new home tomorrow. But I asked Karen to come and get him today as Joy is taking all our energy. Poor Todd has not gotten much attention these past two days. He is so energetic and when we would take him out, he would do laps around the living room! He needed to go where he could get more attention.

It is both a sad and happy day when a puppy leaves. Todd was such an easy puppy (other than his birth which made him my most expensive puppy!) so it was especially sad to see him go. But singleton puppies are like that. You give all your attention to just one puppy, so you get very attached to them.

Todd has gone into a great home with a few border collies and one little poodle. Karen, his new owner, mostly does agility. Luckily, she also works from home where she helps run a dog supply company (www.doggiesolutions.co.uk) so Todd will get loads of attention. We look forward to watching Todd grow up and hopefully he will make Karen very happy!

I forgot to take a photo of Karen and Todd together (maybe Karen will send me one?) but did get new photos of Todd before he left. He shows alot of potential in many ways. He is a beautiful boy, very bright and bold. I cannot wait to repeat this breeding next year and maybe get a sable girl for myself!

Fat Boy at 8 weeks

It has been a tough night as Joy has been ill. I was up with her all night; it is so hard to see her like that. We have an appointment with the vet this afternoon. I do not want them keeping her there, as at her age she deserves to be at home until the end. I am hoping they can make her comfortable so we can bring her home.

In order not to sit staring at Joy all day, I went outside and I tried to get some photos of Hob-b and Fat Boy together. It is Fat Boy's 8 week birthday today. He is due to go into his new home on Thursday.

Surfer Todd (aka Fat Boy)

Yesterday we went to see Mary Ray do one of her dog training Cabaret Nights in Worthing. The highlight for me was seeing Mary work with Zen's puppy Oz. (previously known as Pickle!) Mary has such a way with the dogs, she makes it look easy.

Anyway, I will take more about Mary and Oz, hopefully with some videos, in a day or two. But I was inspired to go home and work with Fat Boy (who will soon be known as Todd or "OBay One Helluva Charmer") Fat Boy is now 7 1/2 weeks old and I hope you enjoy his first music video!

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Sheltie Snow Day 2007

We woke up to snow this morning. Not a over-the- top New York type snow storm but a polite English snow storm! The dogs enjoyed it and it was nice that they could run around without getting muddy! These photos are not the greatest but give a general idea of the fun they all had. I stayed inside while taking the photos!

Joy will be 15 years old in 3 months. She is still gorgeous.

Since she used to live in Idaho I think Hob-b is the most used to snow!

I love how they take the obstacles as they are running. I missed so many shots of Zen, Hex and Hob-b leaping over snow covered jumps. I wish I was a better photographer.

The snow will probably be melted by this afternoon. Good things as we have lots to do today. We have a nice agility girl coming to be bred to Timmy this weekend. Fingers crossed as this will be the first breeding for the both of them. Hopefully we will have good news in a few weeks.

This evening I am going to see Mary Ray at one of her Doggie Cabaret Nights. She does demos with her dogs and discusses dog training in general. It is a really fun night. She has started to use little Oz as a demonstration dog and at only 14 weeks old he is already wowing the audiences! This will be the first time I have seen him since he left at 8 weeks old. Gosh how I miss those little black hooligans.

This is too funny when put to music

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Fat Boy Updates

Fat Boy turned 7 weeks old today. He weighs 4 lbs 2 ounces which is a nice safe weight for his age. I think that he will neither be too small or too big... but just right!

Yesterday he took a car ride with me down to Suzuki get my car timing belt replaced and a full service and oil change. While the car was being worked on we went to visit with Sonia and Bob and their shelties. Fat Boy made himself at home and charged around the house playing with all the dog toys. He seemed very comfortable there and even Sam (who doesn't like puppies) tolerated him. FatBoy is very respectful about adult dogs.....it must have something to do with being raised with Joy, Pax and Hex the evil bitches! Those three don't put up with any puppy foolishness!

Today we had big plans to go into our local town of Billingshurst and walk around. These plans were ruined when my NEWLY SERVICED car started to act up only 1 mile from home. The car made some funny noises, seemed to run sluggish and then the smell of burning filled the car! A little scarey so I pulled over and called Dennis. I made a call to Suzuki to get my car picked up (which they may or may not pay as they say it may not be related to their servicing. ARGHHH Yeah right!!) and then Dennis picked me and Fat boy up on the road. After we drove Dennis back to work, Fat boy and I took his car to our local Tescos. There I walked Fat Boy up and down and let him watch the world go by. They are doing some building work next to Tesco, so there was lots of noise for him to hear. He watched (and chased) the shopping trollies and said Hello to some people. We played little games with bits of paper flying by and then a little game of tuggy with his rope bone.

Tonight we went over to Lisa and Tonys to do the first part of the Puppy Temperment test. Fat Boy tested well and I have no concerns about his temperment. Basically the test is just to evaluate how the puppy reacts in a new situation with a person other than their breeder. Fat boy was very social and not fazed by the new place. He has a lovely natural retrieve and does not seem to be sight or sound sensitive at this point.

I thought I would share these cute photos of Fat Boy playing with the umbrella (part of the test to see how they react to being startled by an umbrella opening near them). As you can see he was not really bothered by it! Ha ha

Zen at C-side agility show

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Here is the Zenny Zenster at the show today. Thanks to Lian for videoing for us. This is Zen's first run since August due to her maternity leave! She is looking so small with no coat! It was a simple course but she attacked it with her usual Zen style. First place out of 25 medium dogs.

Hex at today's agility show to music!

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Today we went to an unaffiliated (non-kennel club) agility show. I am going to try to put some videos on the blog. First starting with little wicked Hex. We are just starting out in her agility career but she is already so much fun to run. I am looking forward to our first season together starting in March. The runs are far from perfect (of course her PERFECT run was her jumpers run which wasn't videoed!) but I was so happy with her attitude and effort.

I was suprised at her hesitation at the bottom of the first dog walk (first run of the day) as she usually is fast to the bottom. But it does show that she needs some proofing. I also misread which way she would turn at the end of the second run but that is both our faults. She ended up in first place in both starters agility and jumping out of 63 small dogs. Not too shabby.