Anyone for skittles??

What a start to the working week. This morning I was completely bowled over by the pupster...in the most literal sense of the term. I recalled him, and he came whizzing back to me at an alarming speed. The problem, however, was that the beastliest of grey beasties didn't deem it necessary to slow down on his approach, ran straight into my knees and shins and sent me flying 'base over apex' into the mud!! What else can you do when lying in a most undignified manner in a muddy field neighbouring the cycle path but laugh?! Usually when James or I sit on the floor at home Jet climbs all over us but this morning he seemed to realise the gravity of the situation and skulked around until I got up and reassured him that it was ok. Perhaps he was nervous because he didn't recognise the words that came out of my mouth as I hit the deck..! Ahh the joys of dog ownership! Still, it was a lightening quick recall so I should be pleased about that and turn a blind eye to the aches and pains in my arms and legs and the mud that is currently coating my trousers.

What do you do....

...when you're stuck for somewhere to walk the dog? James and I were in Poole at my youngest cousin's wedding last Sunday. In the break between the wedding breakfast and the cutting of the cake in the evening we popped out to take the hound for a run. The only problem was that we were at a very posh hotel and all that was surrounding us were other hotels, the road and the sea. Not to be deterred by such details, James suggested that we get on the ferry that crosses the entrance to Poole Harbour between Sandbanks Peninsular (where we were) and Shell Bay in Swanage!

We embarked the ferry, still dolled up in our best wedding attire, with the grey beastie doing his level best to make me look as daft as possible, tottering along in my high heeled sling backs and strapless dress! (To be honest I think he did a pretty good job of it too judging by the looks we were getting)!!

Once safely on the other side we set off towards the beach that luckily for us was dog friendly. At this point I was having to carry my shoes as their design wasn't exactly conducive to walking through sand and climbing up sand dunes. Stange that. Anyhow, the main thing is that Jet had a great time jumping about in the sand and running around as though his life depeneded on it.

This is the view of the beach from the ferry...

It was probably quite fortunate that we had to turn around and make our way back when we did as we later discovered that further along the bay is a nudist beach!! On the return ferry journey we stood next to a chap who told us he liked dogs. Good job really as Jet decided to copy what the man was doing and promptly stood on his hind legs, put his front paws on the edge of the ferry and looked over into the water, then back up at the chap standing next to him. It was quite comical to watch and when I turned around I saw that the people that were sitting in their cars were smiling.

Ahhh, bless!

Despite being 11 months old, it would seem that our boy is still just a big baby.

Wellies in Wales

As we we'd entered the WKC champ show in Builth Wells, we decided to make a bit of a mini break of the weekend trip and booked a pitch at a campsite near the show ground at Fforest Fields. What an entertaining stay we had! The first night it rained so hard it sounded like rapid machine gun fire as the water droplets hit the tent, the wind was howling and to top it all off, our noisey neighbours (see below) kept breaking into choruses of baaaa-ing. Believe me, if we'd taken a BBQ there'd have been lamb chops all round!

Jet had the right idea...(yes that is a sheep bone he's got in his mouth...)

We awoke on Sunday morning - the 20th August - our first wedding anniversary, and the day began like this (just passing were you Jet?):

Actually...that's not strictly true; to say that we "awoke" would infer that we had slept and I'm fairly certain that's not the case! When we left the show we went for a lovely walk in the hills surrounding the campsite. The photo below shows one of one of the smaller ones with Jet and I at the bottom for scale. To some this may not seem much, but to a family that lives in the notoriously flat and hill-free Fens, this was a veritable mountain!

The appearance of a patch of blue sky was enough to warrant a photo as it's the only bit of sky we saw that wasn't covered by rain clouds for the entire day!

Wellies in Wales - part 2

The following day - Monday, the day we were due to leave the campsite, low and behold, the weather was glorious! Are we surprised? Not a bit of it. Anyhow, at least it was dry to dismantle the tent and pack away our gear. Here's Jet taking it easy in his camp bed..



Later in the day, after a trek on horseback across Pennybont Common, we drove down to the Brecon Beacons - what a beautiful part of the country. Needless to say, Speedie Gonzales (aka Jet), the fastest and most intrepid explorer in the East, had the time of his life whilst we tootled along behind taking in the spectacular scenery.

How is it, by the way, that our dog can detect water or mud, or even better - a combination of the two, where ever we are - even half way up a hoofing great hill?!!

He must have a built-in 'how-to-get-dirty-as-quickly-as-possible' radar. Infact I have a feeling these come as standard in all weimaraners...

Welsh Kennel Club Champ Show

On Sunday Jet was placed 3rd in Novice Dog at the WKC championship show. It absolutely p'eed it down with rain, the ground was like a bog and we had to show the dogs under cover. What better way to spend your first wedding anniversary..!!

Come on, let's go!

Yikes!!

Just look at the expression on Jet's face! Ha! It looks as though he's just realised how big Max's teeth are and that they're headed straight for him!

Weimaraners á trois

Bunny Weims

Just look at those ears! This is Jet with his best mate Max, having a good old game yesterday.

Beautiful Skye

Look at Jet's gorgeous sister! This is Hollieseast Primaperle, known to her family and friends as Skye. Isn't she a sweetie! Thanks to Mike and Adehl for the photo :)

What a dummy...

Just thought I'd share this with you - one of those situations that's really annoying at the time but you can't help but look back and laugh...

I took the boy out for a walk when we got back from the show and the long old drive home from Bournemouth. It was blowing a gale, but no matter - our little man had behaved very well at the show, strutting his stuff in the ring and doing us proud, so donning my winter coat and boots to venture into the great outdoors was the least I could do in return. Jet, being a true gundog through and through was of course completely undeterred by the inclement weather, leaving me trudging along the footpath against the head wind to get straight into the river. I'd brought along his newest dummy and since he was so keen to be swimming (mad animal!), I decided to do some water retrieves with him. Now James is always taking the mickey out of my throwing abilities (or rather lack of them..), but on this occasion it would've been with good cause. Whilst aiming for the middle of the river, I somehow managed to throw the dummy into the reeds near the bank. Jet went leaping in to the water in hot persuit of said dummy, expecting it to have gone further out and unwittingly pushed it beneeth the reeds in the process, rendering it no longer visible. To be honest I was fairly thankful of the weather conditions as it meant that I was on my own and no other dog walkers were about to witness the ensuing struggle to retreive the dummy from its underwater prison. After much gesticulation towards the site of the dummy saying "fetch it" on my part and much swimming around in circles in bemusement on Jet's part, I decided that the only likely sucessful course of action was to get the s*dding thing myself. Of course, as you'd expect in such a situation, the dummy was just out of arm's reach - and can a stick be found when you need one? Like hell it can! So there I am, crouching down, literally teetering at the edge of the riverbank, prodding at the dummy with a piece of reed that just kept bending in a very uncooperative fashion, the spineless plant! After a good deal of patience and perseverence, slowly but surely the dummy was brought closer. I made one final reach to get it and ended up immersing my foot and indeed my right leg in the water. Please note than when I said I was wearing boots, I mean the walking sort as opposed to the wellignton variety. Naturally...

Anyway, despite my soaking foot and jeans I'd got the dummy back so it was a worthy cause. I recalled the dog out of the water, made him sit on the bank and wait whilst I threw the wayward dummy back into the river (properly this time) and it went a good distance. What I had failed to realise was that there must have been a rip in the material, as no sooner did the dummy hit the surface of the water, it bl**dy well SANK!!!!!!!!!!!! Aaaarrrrgggggh!! This confused Jet no end and bless his heart he swam up and down, across and back in a tireless search for that godforsaken dummy. Eventually I managed to get him out of the river and we continued on our walk (step, squelch, step, squelch...). On the way back Jet made one last ditch attempt to find it, diving back into the river and doing a few more lengths just to make absolutely sure. When we arrived back at the car, whilst towelling off the dripping wet dog...yep, you've guessed it..joy of joys, the heavens opened and the rains came down with a vengeance - so then we were a matching pair (of drowned rats).

Never let it be said that I'm not a dedicated dog owner!!!!

Bournemouth Championship Show

Latest show news: Jet was awarded reserve (4th) in the Novice Dog class at Bournemouth yesterday (what I probably shouldn't mention is that there were only four dogs in the class, ha ha...!). Oh well, nevermind, we still took the best dog home.....leaving Jet behind....

Just kidding! :) He's still our best boy.

East of England Ladies Kennel Society Open Show

Hurrah! We left the open show today with a first in the puppy class and Jet's fourth Best Puppy in Breed :) The judge loved him so much I thought she was going to try and take him home..!! She told me afterwards that she'd considered him for Reserve Best of Breed when we were in the ring with the adults but unfortunatley we missed out as he was a big fidgety on the stand. Ah well...to even be considered for RBOB was great in itself! It was a hot day but Jet did well and moved better than he has been of late so that's good progress.

Puppy Love

Look at this pair of cuties! I think Jet fell in love to day with a girlie weim by the name of Tasha. They were absolutely adorable together. They copied one another and had to have whatever the other one was having - including water. Tash decided that water tasted better from Jet's dish than her own so every time I poured Jet a drink Tash would drink it....and he stood back and let her! (So I had to keep taking him to one side to give him water, lol!). As the afternoon wore on they lay down next to each other and Tash fell asleep with her head on Jet's leg. Very sweet to watch them together.

Family success

Unfortunately due to a prior engagement we weren't able to go to the National Gundog Championship show today but if we had been there I'm sure the judge would have liked our boy as his dad (Sireva State Coach) won the Limit Dog class and went on to be awarded the RDCC (reserve best dog), whilst Jet's half sister (Sireva Statement about Minstergate) won the Junior Bitch class :)

Movin' on up

Yesterday evening, much to my surprise and delight, the head instructor at our training club informed me that she was moving Jet and I up a class next week - into the COMPETITION OBEDIENCE group!!! Flippin' 'eck! He did beautiful heel work with changes of directions and halts, his recalls were spot on as were his sit stays and down stays, so off we go up to the next class :) He'll be doing his Silver Test in a few weeks - the next in the series of the Kennel Club Good Citizen Dog Scheme - he's been ready for a while and so should pass with flying colours (famous last words.....)!! I shall keep you posted x

Blimey!

Well, we really seem to be getting somewhere on the gundog training front and after lots of work on the stop whistle Jet finally seems to understand that it means 'stop where you are' rather than 'come back to me and then stop'!! (Bless). On this afternoon's walk, even though he'd locked on to a large, fast moving white object that was flying across the field (turned out to be a plastic bag..!), he remained in the sit after I blew the whistle like a clever boy! :) I also managed to stop him at a distance of about 15 metres, used the hand signal for 'lie down'...........and he did!!!!!! Hurrah! (Then he was naughty and ran through the hedge to get to his friend the GSP bitch who was in the field next door...but we'll over look that!).