Wordless Wednesday - Rocky and the balloon video

I have been a VERY slack blogger lately!!
Here's a video I took today, of Rocky playing with a balloon at work.  He still hasn't popped it!

A Very Overdue Catchup - with photos!

Whoops, I have been a very slack blogger, again.  Tho as I was thinking about it, so have many others lately! hah!

There's been lots happening.

On Sunday morning we went for a big fun dog walk in Woodhill Forest with Jasper and Lexi the Great Danes (and their human Laura), Pepper and Folly (and their human Emily) and Mint the Beagle (and his human Manako) - unfortunately poor Cinnamon had been at the vet the day before, so wasn't able to join us on our walk.

We all had a great walk, the dogs got along famously, and the rain held off for us too.

A couple of pics that Manako took on her phone:

Rocky and Lexi up front, then Jasper and Mint, followed by Pepper and Folly.  Snoopy was off somewhere hunting bunnies!

 One of the few times we got our feet wet due to flooding.
See that white dot in the distance, to the right of Emily's head?  That's Snoopy - off hunting bunnies again.

It's been winter here, can't wait to see the other side of it.
Here's a typical evening in our household:

And today is Rocky's 11 month (so very nearly 1 year) birthday!  I've got the dogs at work with me today, and Rocky's enjoying chewing on a very sad looking pink stuffie.

I've decided to stop attempting to do agility with Snoopy, we're not getting anywhere, and she just switches off and doesn't seem to enjoy it.
Rocky and I are booked in for the beginners class starting on October 16th, so he'll be 13 months old then.  No full sized jumps until he is 18 months tho!

Remembering Velvet, and Jerry filling her pawprints

 Yesterday was a year since we buried our lovely little Velvet cat, she'd gone missing on the 1st July and our neighbour found her on the 9th, under some shrubs at the front of his house - she had been hit by a car :(  We only had her for two years, but she was the best little cat in the world, she had so much character, and was so gorgeous.  Everyone loved her.  Those of you who used to read the 4 Legged Wiums blog, will remember reading of her antics!
RIP pretty girl xxx
A few photos of her:  

 With her friends Snoopy and Arrow:

 Getting to know Snoopy, not long after Snoopy joined our family:

Jerry has certainly taken the job of Velvet's pawprints very seriously, and he does a pretty good job of it too.  He's nearly as special as Velvet was.  He's about the polar opposite of Velvet as far as brains and intelligence goes though ;-)  Velvet was very clever, and loved to hunt things, Jerry is the dimmest cat we've ever met, and has never hunted even a moth!

Here's a few photos of Jerry and his pack that we've taken recently, they enjoy sharing the warmth from the fire!

It's nearly Jerry's gotcha day, so this can double as a happy gotcha day Jerry post too.

Jerry the dimmest cat in the world

Yesterday I was doing some training with Snoopy, and Jerry decided he'd like to come along and see if the dog's treats were worth eating.  Yet he NEVER eats anything except for his kibble from his bowl.
Have a laugh on his account :-)

Windy Walk at Piha

This week has been lovely, both my husband and I have had the whole week off work - just to relax!  And also because our last holiday (at Christmas-time) was spent looking for Snoopy, so not relaxing at ALL!

The weather has been dreadful this week, but yesterday morning we managed to head out to Piha Beach (on the West Coast of Auckland, it is an iron sand beach like most west coast beaches in the North Island) for a good long walk with the dogs.  It was very windy out there, but it was a lovely walk - and we only saw two other people on the whole beach, the whole time we were there!  Pretty amazing, as in the weekends the beach is full of people, especially if the weather is nice.
It was high tide, so was hard work for us humans walking in our gumboots.  Snoopy and Rocky had a great time, it was Rocky's first time at Piha.  The beach is split in two by a large 'rock' called Lion Rock, North Piha (to the north of Lion Rock) is off-leash, so of course - we walked there.

I didn't take my camera, but had my iPhone with me, and was surprised with how well the photos turned out, especially the ones taken of the dogs running!

Rocky and Snoopy posing, part way up North Piha

 meandering along

 Having great fun playing 'bitey-face' and 'zoomies' together

Me and the terrible two

 Noel-John and Rocky (and a stick)

Now I just wish that I could have every week off work!  sigh, back to work on Monday will be hard!

(photo collages created at www.picmonkey.com - check them out, awesome photo editing and collage creater for free!)

Wordless Wednesday

Sewing for the Dogs

Snoopy needed a new collar and, and I had a couple of metres of this pretty purple/pink webbing left, as well as this cute ribbon that I'd bought.  So I decided to make her a new collar and lead, and recycle the metal hardware from the old ones.
Below is a photo of Snoopy modelling her new collar and lead (begrudgingly, she didnt' want to get off the new bed)
That evening I also made two new dog beds, for their crates.  Snoopy is lying on Rocky's one, and her one (the pink flowery one) is in the background.  They love them, and rush into their crates at night to sleep in their cosy new beds!

Wintery Wordless Wednesday

A Walk in the Park

Today, for the first time in a couple of weeks, we had some sunshine!  It was lovely for a change!  So we took the dogs for a wee wander in a local park.  This park is particularly special to me (Helen), as before it was turned into a park, I used to keep and ride horses here - so it has many memories!
Noel-John's been practicing Rocky's loose leash walking, as far as puppies go, Rocky is very excitable - he's taking a while to get the loose leash walking perfected.  Anyway, Rocky hadn't had a walk with Snoopy yet (only by himself), so today was a bit of a test.  He was pretty good really!  Sure, he'd still get to the end of the leash and have to be reminded what he's supposed to be doing (which you will see at the end of this video), but we're making progress.
Here's a wee video of Noel-John and Rocky practicing loose leash walking today at the park. (with a little bit of heel work in there too)

Oh I've been a slack blogger lately!!

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately, I don't really have a good excuse either, just not a lot exciting to blog about!

Here's a recent pic (taken yesterday) of the terrible two, they got to come to work with me and had a great day in the office.  There were lots of visitors here, including Melinda Merck from the States - she's a veterinary forensic specialist, and was here doing training with other SPCA inspectors from across New Zealand.  Both dogs got a lot of attention and love, and it was great for Rocky to be in a new environment (lots of people, food, noise etc) - he took it all in his stride and LOVED all the attention.

At lunchtime I took them for a walk at a local park, the autumn trees and leaves are so pretty at the moment.  I got them to pose for a photo - tho they were more interested in watching a lovely rottwieler playing ball.

As you can see, Rocky is growing like a weed, he has nearly doubled in weight since we adopted him (nearly four months ago now), on Tuesday he weighed 19.2kg, when we adopted him he weighed 9.8kg!  He will be eight months old next week- wow, time flies!
His training has been a bit stop-start unfortunately, but he learns so quickly!
I've made a deal with my husband (Rocky is supposed to be HIS dog) for him to train Rocky, he's got a timeframe in mind, and the faster he reaches the goal we've set, the better.  He's got a monetary 'reward' for him to go and buy some toys for himself, that will depreciate each week that it takes him longer to get there.  We'll see if this motivates him ;-)

Snoopy's agility is going okay, we're supposed to be aiming for a competition on the 9th June... I'm not sure, as our last attempt at a competition failed so miserably, that said, it was a year ago now. (wow, didn't realise it was that long ago....)
We're definitely not doing fabulously by any stretch of the imagination though, we seem to be somewhat slow in the learning department!  how embarrassing!

Jerry's becoming even lazier now that the weather is cooling down, he's enjoying snuggling up on the bed with us at night, and not wanting to wake up in the mornings!

A fun walk on Friday, with some friends

 On Friday, I had the day off work, as I had a friend's wedding to go to in the afternoon.

So, in the morning, Snoopy, Rocky and I met up with Jasper, Lexi, their human Laura, two of their friends' dogs Bailey and Reid.

We originally planned to go for a walk at our favourite dog beach, but stupidly I forgot to check the tides and it was high tide - so no room for dogs to run!  Instead, we decided to go to Bethells Beach, but when we got there we saw that there were people with horses preparing to go for a ride on the beach... as we weren't sure what Rocky and Jasper would do with the horses (probably just want to play, and scare the horses!), we decided to back track and go for a walk down the stream towards Lake Wainamu.  Lake Wainamu is surrounded by dense bush on three sides, and HUGE sand dunes on the other side, so our walk down the stream had bush on one side and the dunes on the other.  If it hadn't been so sunny, we could have gone straight over the dunes, but the black iron sand gets much too hot for any dog's feet! 
I'd been there many times as a girl, but never with the dogs....

Whoops, we got halfway along the stream and found a NO DOGS sign!!  then the park ranger drove past us, and waved at us and our SIX DOGS (he had his own dog on the back of his ute).  So we decided maybe it didn't matter that we were there after all.

Anyway, the dogs had great fun!  Snoopy had too much fun hunting for bunnies and rats, that she was banished to leash walking for 3/4 of our walk, as she decided it was more fun to chase things than to listen and come back when called!

It was Rocky's first walk in a pack, his first time meeting Great Danes, and his first time meeting a Chihuahua.  He was very good!

I've stolen a few photos from Laura's facebook, I'm sure she won't mind me sharing them on here

Rocky zooming down the shallow creek

 Rocky trying his best to keep up with Jasper and Reid

Jasper and Reid's bottoms, and Rocky's pitiful face! haha!  he didn't want sandy watery muddy stuff in his face!

the five of them posing (less Bailey the Chihuahua)... Snoopy the poopy didn't want to sit in the water!  grrr!!  She was being a right madam on the weekend!

A Very Surprising Obedience Class!

Tonight after work, I took Rocky to his very first formal obedience training class.  The only other class he had been to was his puppy preschool - which was VERY basic!

We went back to the club where we used to take Snoopy and Arrow (which was over a year ago now!), called All Breeds, which is only 10 or 15 minutes from our house.
There were a lot of firsts for Rocky tonight!  It was his first outing when we left home in the dark (he has been to agility with Snoopy and I to watch before, but that was before daylight savings finished), his first time working in a group of dogs outdoors, his first encounter with a train (!! The club grounds is right next door to the railway, so three trains whizzed past within 20 metres of us!) - he was very good!

Now for the surprise... When we arrived, I went and paid and signed up, and then went and found where the 'first timers' go.  Though after walking one circle with Rocky paying perfect attention to me, we were promoted up TWO more classes into the first competition class!
Which was a nice surprise, there were only two other people in that class, so there wasn't lots of standing around doing nothing.
Rocky learned to properly 'heel' (not to be confused with loose lead walking), ie- him to be stuck to my leg with his head up looking at me - bribed by treats at this stage.  We did a few sit-stays (though he was tired by then and wanted to do down-stays!), and some 'proper' recalls.
So, we have come home with plenty of homework.

I either need to figure out how to train Noel-John too, or just take Rocky along on Monday nights to obedience, then Noel-John can take over a bit later on, once it has all gelled in place in Rocky's head, and Noel-John's not so busy at work.
I'll work on the homework exactly the same with Snoopy too, a little extra training on top of her agility homework, won't hurt :-)

I've also learned that brain work tires Rocky out an awful lot faster than just physical exercise. 
If we take him for a walk on the beach and he just runs around or chases a ball, he'll get home and still be wanting to play with Snoopy - even if it's an hour long walk!
If I do some full on training (loose lead walking, clicker shaping, or like tonight, 45min of obedience class), when we get home he is knackered!
He ate his dinner (half size, since he had lots of food treats at obedience training) and went straight to sleep on the bed he shares inside with Snoopy:

Yep - he's getting big, weigh-day again tomorrow (I'm weighing him weekly, just for curiosity's sake).

A walking success

I think finally we are making progress with Rocky's loose leash walking!

I'm now walking him with a pocket full of treats and the clicker (very full hands!). Tonight was the second walk in this fashion and i managed to walk about 1/3 of the way around the block successfully with me clicking and treating him every so often.

Feels so good to finally be getting somewhere!

Easter Weekend - lots of pics!

I did a bit of sewing, as it's now dark after work, (in anticipation for when Rocky will walk on lead well enough around the block), as Rocky is such a dark colour, I thought some hi-vis vests for the dogs would be wise.  Here they are modelling them

Today we went for a drive up north, to visit Noel-John's parents.   Rocky's first ride in the big car, not in his crate - he no longer fits in it!  As you can see, he thought it was most interesting being able to see out of the back windscreen:

 On the way we stopped at Stanmore Bay for a walk to burn off some of Rocky's energy before our lunch at the inlaws, and to make the most of the amazing autumn weather we've had all Easter weekend!
Rocky found some seaweed:

 Posed for a picture:

Chased his ball:

Snoopy took in the view from atop some rock pools:

After lunch, we went for a walk at Arkles Bay - the beach down the road from Noel-John's parents house, with his family and their elderly Border Collie called Glory.

Rocky really wanted to be friends and play with Glory:

 Obligatory photo of Snoopy:

Pretty Glory and her stick

Rocky had a go at playing soccer with the balls, he soon got a hang of the game, he had to get to the ball before one of the boys, he got pretty good at tackling it off them:

Thursday... Two Minutes with Jerry

A walk on April Fools Day

I've been such a slack blogger lately...

Yesterday was the first day of winter-time (ie. no daylight savings) :-(
It was a beautiful day though, we'd had a very busy weekend, so didn't have much energy for a big walk, so we took the dogs for a wee meander around the Onehunga Bay Reserve, which isn't too far from our house. It's an off leash dog park and mostly fenced, when the tide is in it's great for dogs to swim.

on the other side of the shrubbery on the right, is a motorway, the main motorway to Auckland's airport, so it's pretty noisy!

Posing dogs, they are pretty cute

Turns out, Rocky can swim! And he swims after, and retrieves sticks

naughty boy, he's not supposed to be jumping anything!

very tired when we got home!