A whole new earthquake

For everyone who doesn't know, today at just before 1pm there was another huge earthquake in Christchurch in the South Island (there was a 7.1 magnitude earthquake there in september last year - that one struck at 4am and there was not one single loss of life) This earthquake was a 6.3 but was very shallow and the destruction, devastation and injury toll has been huge. It's unknown yet how many people have died but this appears to be far far worse than the one 5months ago. Speaking to a friend it appears Sumner and surrounding area has been totally destroyed and is unlivable, but the area is unable to be assessed at this stage.

Please keep the people of Christchurch in your thoughts as the aftershocks continue to roll.

Busy week

This weekend the club I belong to, North Shore, ran an agility champs show in association with another club. We had gorgeous sunny weather both days and were so grateful for the big shady trees at the club grounds on the Saturday as it really was scorching hot. Pepper ran in Starters and Jumpers C both days, we had a clear in jumpers C, despite Pepper getting well and truly stuck in the floppy tunnel the first time through it. Starters she decided she didn't know how to weave and I had to try four times (!) to get her through the poles, she even missed her super basic entries twice, which is something that never happens in training. Weaves aren't faulted in Starters but we were two seconds over time so no clear.

On the Sunday we again had weave "difficulties" it took three tries this time, but otherwise it was counted as a clear round. We got dq-ed in jumpers, my terrible handling meant Pepper missed a jump and then she jumped it backwards when I stopped her.

Flying Hiske

Bruno, using his ears to assist in getting over the jump.

Misty, gorgeous as always.

Flying Brody

Bessie getting her contact

Awesome weaves!

Go Bindi!

Hiskes 2020 contact

The weekend before we had two days of obedience that I think I'd rather forget. After having such a great time at all-breeds a few weeks ago she was like a different dog, just not interested in paying attention in the slightest, no focus, lots of trying to sniff. Her recalls were terrrrrrible! We trained elementary with her toy and she was much better though. Back to the drawing board I think. She really seems to struggle up at the club grounds (were the show was) She's not usually a sniffy dog but on training nights she seems to like to have her nose shoved in that grass more than up in the air, I don't know how Beagle owners do it!

We're flying back home to the South Island this weekend for a bit of a holiday, Peppers going to come too. We've had her travel crate out for 3 weeks and she's choosing to spend a lot of time sleeping in it, even overnight. Today I brought her a Thunder-shirt as even though she's flown quite a bit before and has seemed to have been absolutely fine, she has had some noise anxiety over the past year and I know that the hold of the plane is quite noisy with the banging of the wheels and things, so hopefully this helps her. I put it on her for the first time today and literally as soon as I did it up her eyes closed (while she was standing) and then she just sank to the ground and lay there asleep! Weird.

Also, last week we won the most amazing and hugest bag of chompables from Bodie and Mrs Magoo - thanks so much and we hope you don't get all starving because your human gave away all your treats.

"Oh god, why does this stupid women try and make me "hold" stuff for photos. She knows I get my depressed dog look on when somethings forced into my mouth. And this bag is way too heavy for me to hold anyway. Idiot"

Little blue sheep dog with the free sheepskin we got when we brought a new crate mat.

Some clicker work

Just a short video of some tricks training - today we started to train crossing paws, just with the right paw to start with, will hopefully have the "end product" soon. I've also started to train a left and right cue - initially to turn around an object (just using my crappy plastic jump stands) but in the long run will use it in agility. At the moment we have zero discrimination between the two but its only been one day! Also a little bit of handstand work, which hasn't progressed much at all, we'll keep trying but I don't think she has the balance to maintain a handstand like some more nimble canines. (as an aside, the new computer has the most annoying and un-user friendly video editing software, its driving me to despair!)



We started back at obedience training last night and back to agility tomorrow, can't wait to start training some real courses!