Pepper Passes Her Bronze Test !!

Pepper is doing really well in training, she is picking things up really quickly.
She had finally chilled out around the dogs and didn't get over excited when she saw other dogs now which meant she was fine at doing a down stay without moving!!

Jewls at the K9 Club asked who would like to do the Kennel Club Bronze Test, I put my hand up. If Pepper wasn't going to do it now I don't know when she would as she was doing well!!

I practised lots of down stays in the garden and heelwork with out treats all week to make sure she would be able to keep focus, it was all looking good!!

The day came and I was soooo nervous!! I few deep breaths and a couple of times running up and down the road with Pepper outside I'd calmed down.

The test began, there were 4 of us doing it ...

We did the walking around the room and Pepper paid no attention to anyone but me (brilliant!) we did the waiting at the gate, again brilliant. We did all the others fine too, then it came to the down stay, my heart was in my mouth as there was one dog there (Bailey) that she hadn't met before. Would she move to say hi or would she stay down ...
We put the dogs in a down and walked across the other side of the room, I could see her looking at me out the corner of my eye are I recommanded 'Stay down'.
It was the longest stay in the world!! Finally Daz asked us to return back to our dogs, she had done it!!

I gave her the biggest cuddle and she gave me a very sloppy kiss lol!! She was very pleased with herself. Now both Harry and Pepper have passed their Bronze test .... Silver next then ....

Our New Addition

It's been a while since the last post ... I now have a very nice one :o)

I thought it was about time we had another dog :o) Chris wasn't too keen to be honest but I was!

I had spent a lot of time with my trainer's rotties and had fallen! I read up about the breed and decided the next dog would be a rottie.

I spoke to my trainer who said to have a look on Rottweiler Welfare as they had a fair few in at the moment. That night I did ... and there was Pepper ... she looked and sounded lovely!

Straight away I sent off an adoption form as we needed to have a home check etc done ... I had an email back :o) within the week a home check was done and I was able to find out more about the lovely Pepper :o) she was in Wales. I spoke to Sue at the kennels in Wales about her and I liked everything I heard, some things needed working on but nothing that a bit of guidence and training wouldn't sort out.

Pepper had been in kennels a year! She is only 3, her owners had had her from a pup and when she was 2 her owners son was very ill and was put in a wheelchair only being able to move his mouth ... it was too much for her owners so they gave her up.

I wanted to go and meet Pepper and fortunately for me Daz my trainer said he would come with me as he had a better understanding of Rottweilers than I did.

It was about 2 hours ish down there and some of the journey was like an adventure ha ha wind was blowing the van around, rain hammering down ... once we had gone through fields and winding pot hole road we got there! They bought Pepper out to meet us, she walked into the room with a swagger which bought an instant smile to my face. It was like hello I am here, she was a cheeky little madam who was desperate to be centre of attention and was climbing on chairs and boxes to try and be :o)

I asked if I was able to get Harry out and let them have a run around, they agreed obviously. Harry was a little unsure at first as Pepper didn't waste anytime in showing him she wanted to play. They had a little play in the yard, Harry chasing after Pepper ... that was good enough for me she was coming home! I signed all the paper work and gave my donation to them and back home we went.

We bought her straight through the house into the garden so she knew where she had to go to the toilet. After sniffing for 5 minutes she did her business RESULT, lots of praise for her! :o)

We came back in the house and I left her to it, sniffing around. She did eventually lie down and fell asleep.
We have had her 6 weeks now and it's like we have never been without her! She has started her training on the 4th Jan at the same place as Harry but obviously the beginner group (K9 Cannock)http://www.thek9clubcannock.co.uk/ and is picking things up really quickly!
I thought she would be a little bit of a nightmare as she gets really excited when she sees a dog and with all the dogs that were going to be in her group I thought it would be a challenge. She has been really good though, lots of learning for her to do now :o)

Her and Harry are getting on too!

Holiday to Somerset

From the 5th - 10th September we were on holiday to Somerset. Really I had booked it for Harry because there were loads of fields for us to walk on that I knew that he would love :o)
When we arrived we were very happy with the barn conversion I had chose as the garden had a lovely view of the surrounding fields.

Harry was in his element he loved it, we went exploring round not sure whether we could walk where we were walking but did anyway :o) it was so peaceful!
Harry spent hardly any time on his lead other than when there was cattle in the fields.

We were walking around 8-10 miles a day with him, he was so well behaved bless him. Well not that there were many people around or dogs around for him to play up lol. It was very quiet! BLISS!!
He was getting very good at going over and through the fences to get to the next field.
Harry really enjoyed his walks through the fields, when we got back to the barn he was pooped :o)

He wouldn't quite rest totally though just incase he would miss us going back out without him lol.

The day before we had to leave we went out where we normally went, Harry knew where we were going. We climbed over the fence that we normally did and carried on walking down by the river. We were walking past the cows that we always walked past when Harry decided he would investigate what these cows were he had been staring at all week!!! Straight through the barbed wire that was on the fence to chase after the cows (bare in mind mr farmer was in his tractor at the top of the field!) he ran after them to play and couldn't understand why they were running away! I died!!

He had walked past the same cows all week and now he had to run into the field with them when the bloody farmer was there! We called him a few times and he did come running back out, looking as if to say ' mom they are boring they won't play ' ! Fortunately I don't think mr farmer saw us lol!!

Needless to say though we had a lovely holiday and Harry loved it which was all that mattered to me :o) I'm sure he could get used to that life!





A day out to Stourport

We went up the Cannock Chase sunday morning so that Harry and Lola (our new foster girly) could have a good run. It was a lovely day, sun shining perfect! Harry and Lola look like brother and sister :o)

While we were walking round Cannock Chase Chris's mom rang us to ask us if we would like to come to Stourport with them. With it being such a lovely day how could we not :o) we had a 4 mile walk around Cannock Chase and headed back home to give the dogs a drink and rest before we headed back out.
We headed off about 2.30pm, a combination of Harry being excited in the car whining and Lola hating being in the car whining was a fun journey!
We arrived and the sun was lovely! Harry was excited to get out the van to see where we were and Lola was just glad to get out lol.
We went for a walk down by the river with the other 3 doggies we were with. I let Harry off the lead and he bolted to the front of the line, as he would as he has to be the leader/protector :o) I put Lola on an extendable lead so she could run around with the others.
Harry decided it would be fun for him to play the other girl dog Lola (little terrier) up and she kept snarling at him so they had a little fight by the river! With a combination of Harry leave her alone, Lola stop it and NO! It stopped lol.
Once we had given the dogs a nice walk we went and sat by the river with some chips :o) it was lovely and Harry and Lola looked very interested in the chips too :o)

Once we had eaten our chips we sat and enjoyed the sun for a bit. Lola was watching the boats sailing in the river

 

Harry was basking in the sun, posing for the camera:

We had a walk over the bridge to the pub over the other side of the river to have a nice refreshing drink (much needed) where Lola was helping herself to Chris's moms lager and black and Harry was trying to get at Chris's pint ... bloody alcoholics! :o)
A lady walked by with her dog that barked like mad and Lola, Harry was not impressed and stood up by Lola and barked back. Bless him, looking after his girly :o)
Before we headed home we walked over to a big field where we let all the dogs off for a run around, they loved it! :o) It was lovely to watch. Unfortunately couldn't take a picture as they we all running around so fast.
We got home around 11pm and we had 2 very tired doggies, didn't hear a peep out of them all night :o)

Harry Passes His Good Citizen Award

After all the hard work both me and Harry have put in with all the training we have done it finally came down to the day we had to take the bronze good citizen award.

I was sooo nervous because I wasn't allowed to use treats to keep Harry's attention!! For those of you who don't know Harry he will do anything for food!! That power I had felt like it had melted!

We did every step bit by bit and I have never used such a high silly voice to keep Harry's attention on me but it was working and that's all I cared about.

We finished all the tests and stood against the wall waiting for Daz the trainer to tell us the outcome ... we passed!!!!! I felt so proud, all our hard work had paid off, we flew through it!!

Harry seemed very happy with himself too when I showed him his rosette!

Harry's Tail Goes Up!!

Ok so this may seem a very small thing to most people as their dogs tails are always up in the air when they are walking but when we had Harry his tail did not go up :o(

It did make me feel a little down because I didn't know whether he was happy or not as his tail didn't show any emotion .. hardly wagged and never went up when walking.


But it finally happened .. I took Harry out for a walk to the chase. He loves the Chase, popped him on his extendable and off he went. I did a doule take when he was sniffing the bushes ... his tail was up!! I was soooo happy I could have burst, may seem very silly to people but I could see my baby boy was happy and that made me sooo happy!!

His tail has alot of emotion now, up a lot of the time and waggs like it's going to fall off :o)

Up the Chase we go

We took Harry up to Cannock Chase, we were going to try him off lead for the first time!! Nervous!!

We went up there and started him off on the extendable lead, he loves going up the chase, so many new smells for him :o)

I looked around to see if there were any other dogs ... well you never know do you lol, there weren't any around so I let him off. Suprisingly he didnt bomb off he just carried on as normal, he really seemed to be enjoying himself bless him.

We were out walking for ages! We did see some other dogs and at that point we put Harry back on the lead until they went past just incase.

When we got back home he was pooped! He fell asleep within 10 minutes on the floor, bless him.