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.

Training going well

Harry was doing really well through out the training he was a little more confident and was picking up new things really quickly now I was equipped with Harry's fav treats ... cocktail sausage!! :o)

We passed the puppy class and got a nice certificate and we need to carry on with the training classes, many to do we need to work our way up to advanced!!

He was started to look like a different dog, so much happier he was beginning to trust me and I was getting a better understanding of him.

Things were going well.

Time for Training ...

The 2 weeks flew by! It was time for us to start our first training ...

We walked up to the leisure centre and everyone was standing outside the door waiting to go in.
A cross breed girl came up to Harry and went for him ... oppzz good introduction! Oh well it's normally Harry that has a shout :o)

We went inside once we had shown our vac cards and began the lesson, we were doing all the basics ... sit and down etc fortunately Harry could already do this.

The bad side to this first training session was all Harry did was cry and whimper ... oh my god it was annoying!! He wasn't comfortable where he was at all, it was all too much for him ... oh well my little Harry you have to get used to being around other dogs and learn new things at training!!

Week 1 down, 5 weeks to go :o)

Training is a must ...

After Harry's 'day out' I thought it would be best to look for a training class! Harry doesn't seem to be very well socialised so maybe some obedience would be the way forward?

I googled training classes in Cannock and found one within walking distance from us called K9 Cannock. I sent an email to them asking if there was room for us, if it was ok for us to come as Harry was ... funny at time with other dogs!

They emailed me back saying that we could join their beginners / puppy class! Fab! We were due to start the training class in 2 weeks ... exciting :o) and nervous!!

Harry's First Day Out

Our first day out was to Weymouth and oh my was it a day out ...

Harry was pulling to everything and everyone!! Now he had put his weight on and was obviously feeling a lot better nothing was going to stop him!!
As we walked past people he was shuving his head up at everyone for attention (we had some lovely looks!) he would suddenly see something or smell something and he would bolt, dragging you too! I was holding on to sides so he wouldn't pull me over!

We went on the beach and let him off to let off some steam, he was doing really well following us around the beach, coming back when called until ... he saw a labrador and bolted!! He went straight to this dog and bit his ear!! The poor dog let out a cry and I went running after Harry to get him back on the lead! He had gone past other dogs but this one he obviously didn't like! Fortunately the other dog was ok and we went over the other side of the beach.

That was enough for one day I think ....

Chop Chop

Finally Harry is at the right weight to have his dingle dangles off :o) it seems to have taken so long!
We booked him in to the vets for him to have it done, I asked Chris to drop him off in the morning (I didn't want to be the bad person!) I watched my phone all day at work waiting for the vets to ring me to tell me everything had gone fine!!

Finally the telephone call I wanted! Harry was ok, everything had gone well and he was just coming round! Thank god! I know I shouldn't really have worried but you never know do you!

I left work early and went to pick him up, he was really happy to see me! The vet told me that he would probably be really quiet and distant that night and would be off his food but he should be ok in a couple of days. I wasn't aloud to walk him for 4 days and that I was to check the stitches daily.

We got home and he was running about the house!! He was crying at me for food so I gave him a few biscuits and he wanted more!! Off his food and quiet!! Ha no way!!
Over the next couple of days he started doing my head in he was really playing up to go out for a walk!
In the end I gave up and we went out for a slow walk around the block, that seemed to work for now!!

He had his stitches out and we decided to book a caravan holiday with Harry so he could come away with us and enjoy the beach!!
People had stopped looking at me funny when I was walking him (obviously thinking I had done that to him, a man actually asked me what was wrong with him and what I had done. I obviously had to explain!)
His weight was slowly getting up to what it was meant to be and his coat was getting better!

Learning About Food!

We started feeding Harry on Winalot wet food, he wouldn't eat out of the bowl we had bought him so we started feeding him off a plate as he would eat of that!
Every bit of food he ate came straight back out of him in a very smelly, runny form. He couldn't keep anything in his stomach!!

I was worried but knew his stomach probably couldn't cope with the richness of the food he was eating ... so I started feeding him little portions 4 times a day to try and see if that helped.

I took him to our local vets just to get him checked over to make sure he is as good as he could be at the time! The vet loved him! He said that he had such a lovely personality :o) I asked about getting him castrated and he said that he was too thin at the minute, that if we did it now he may not come through the operation! I didn't want that so he was weighed and I was told to bring him back in 2 weeks time to get him weighed again. He was only 21kg.

Over the 2 weeks I was not being successful with his feeding! Everything I fed him gave him the runs really bad! I started feeding him boiled chicken and brown rice. The 2 weeks were up and I went back to the vets to get him weighed. The trainee nurse was there on her own, he went on the scales and he hadn't put any weight on! He actually lost a little :o( the nurse turned around and asked me 'Have you been feeding him since your last visit?' I had to bite my tongue!! What a question!! I told her I had been feeding him but he had had the runs very badly so he wouldn't be putting on weight yet!!
I said to her I would come back when I think he has put weight on and I have got his stomach sorted and left!

Over the next few weeks I was feeding him carefully along with little bits of egg and I finally saw a whole poo!! I was so happy to see it I ran in the house and dragged Chris outside to show him. Well you could imagine his face when I was pointing to this poo with a big grin on my face, I said 'Look it's a whole poo!!!' He didn't seem excited (can't think why) and went inside the house.

He had finally started putting on a little bit of weight!

24th August 2010 - Meeting Harry

We drove up to Glebe Farm Kennels to go and meet Harry. When we arrived Sheena went over to the stable type kennels to go and get him, he had to be kept seperate from the other dogs because he had kennel cough.

Sheena bought him out to us and he looked terrible! He was so under weight you could see all his ribs and his hips were sticking out quite badly! His fur was in terrible condition, it was a combination of brown dead fur along with smelly black fur that needed TLC!
He looked at us with his big brown eyes and green snot dripping from his nose, he looked so sorry for himself.

Sheena popped a slip lead on him and said that we could walk him around the field at the side so off we went. Harry knew exactly where he was going unlike us!
As we were walking round with him I asked Chris what he thought, he said he was nice but it was up to me.
I looked down at Harry, he licked my hand ... how could I not take this little boy home?

We went back to the kennels and told Sheena we wanted to take him on a home trial but we needed to come back to get him as we didn't have any stuff for him yet (bed, bowls, toys, food etc) we would come back for him tomorrow.

We went straight to the pet shop and I picked up the biggest, softest bed I could find as well as toys, bowls, leads, food and treats. I came out the pet shop £150 lighter :o) but he deserved everything.

We got back home and I couldn't settle!! I wanted him home with us, I couldn't wait until tomorrow!! I rang Sheena and asked if we could pick him up today ... she said yes :o) we put him new bed in the back of the van and off we went.

We got to the kennels, signed the adoption form and put Harry in the back of the van (with a little hand as he couldn't quite get up). We were about 5 minutes down the road when Harry decided to have the biggest wee all over his new bed!! I couldn't believe it!! At least he knew it was his now!!

We came home and let him have a sniff around for a bit then we decided to give him a bath because he stunk!! He was so good while we were bathing him, he just sat there, I think he was enjoying all the attention that we were giving to him. The amount of fur that came out of him was unbelievable, he obviously really needed that!!

We dried him off and he curled up on the mat and fell asleep, poor boy he had had a busy day!!