Friday, May 25, 2012

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!

Sunday, May 20, 2012

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)

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

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!