Pepper and Folly

WAG Jumpers Champs

2011-09-06T02:49:00.000-07:00

We had a good Saturday at WAG jumpers champs show - three clears from three runs and two 5th placings from fairly decent sized classes.
I was pleased with how she ran, still so much to learn and work on, and I know she can go faster! We had a few big wide and slow turns which cost heaps of time and in the 1st run I was sure we were faulted when I called her too hard from a jump and pulled her off it, but luck and a kind judge were on our side and gave us a clear.

Folly chilling out in her crate, with her new pink flamingo toy. She's a real dude at shows and is so far relaxed and laid back and no trouble - fingers crossed this continues.

Some of the North Shore dogs:

Bailey

Brody

Indi

Bessie

Bindi

Folly goes back

2011-09-01T21:21:00.000-07:00

Folly at 14 weeks learning to back up, she's just too much fun and I waste way too much time playing with her. We have a busy couple of weeks coming up with agility comps and doing our fist AD next weekend, which is a bit scary. Pretty sure that if we even make it to the weaves we'll get dqed at them, so hopefully they're towards the end of the course so we can get a bit of a run in.

Folly

2011-08-08T19:28:00.000-07:00

"Puppy" was finally named after 3 weeks at home, as the title obviously alludes to, she is called Folly (don't ask me why, I don't know another dog called that and it just stuck!) She's 12 weeks old now.

She is doing really well fitting into our lives. Can be a little distracted with training (walking away to sniff around etc) but she is getting better every day and is so quick and smart. Starting to love the beach and happy plays in the shallow water. Will now pretty much bring me back any item I throw, even with distractions (like seagulls and a black poddle-y dog at the beach today)

Pepper has been clingy and sooky ever since she arrived but again is slowly getting used to the new rules ad being frequently tormented and is getting over herself!

We had a jumpers champs competition this weekend and met my goal of 4 from 6 clear rounds, we also managed to get a 3rd in one class, so that was an unexpected bonus.

And Folly was great with travelling and staying away and hanging out at the shows.

Here she is keeping warm (it was freezing cold on the Saturday and poured with rain on Sunday) and playing tug with her friend Yasi (a working Kelpie)

Here is what I saw yesterday when the dreaded "quiet" descended while I was cooking.

Pepper has only ever dug one hole in her life, so it's hardly a habit. But for her to start now, and then for Folly to join in and copy her - NOT helpful for the puppy's domestic training!

And I've tried everyones suggestions about leaving comments, but nothing seems to work :(

Baby retrieve & spins

2011-07-22T22:29:00.000-07:00

The puppy has been here for two weeks (and shamefully still has no name - any ideas very much appreciated - every name so far either isn't quite right, or we already know/have/had a dog/horse/cat with that name)

She's settled in very well, although is rather opinionated and stubborn.
One of the trickiest things so far has been trying to get her to bring anything back to me - she loves running away with toys (or things that aren't toys!), and taking them off to chew them. And when training with food she hasn't been keen to also tug or pick up a toy. So I'm very pleased to have gotten her retrieving in a controlled environment.

Also, sorry I haven't commented on anybodies blogs for a long time - blogger isn't letting me. I know others have had this problem, any tips on how to fix it would be great.

A wee video

2011-07-12T19:35:00.000-07:00

The Pup (still un-named) is settling in really well. Training is really fun and whining is down to a minimum, usually only when she needs to go to the toilet. Toilet training is not going so well though!
We had a mini disaster when she got her big back upper molar stuck in the crate for nearly 5 minutes and shattered it trying to free herself. We were both bleeding at the end of that episode. The vet has said not to worry and just to keep an eye on it, as removing the tooth could damage her big tooth underneath.

A wee video of some training from her 2nd day at home

She's here.....(warning, its a bit wordy!)

2011-07-10T02:33:00.001-07:00

So we brought our new puppy home on Saturday morning (yesterday). After all my worries about her being spayed early, I got a horrible phone call on Friday (they day she was being spayed) to tell me that there had been "complications" while she was having the surgery and I wouldn't be able to bring her home for another 5 days. As you can imagine, my heart sank. The lady on the phone was unable to tell me what these complications were, so I asked to speak to the vet, or vet nurse, only to be told that wouldn't be possible as they in surgery all day. And not able to speak to the kennel manager until Tuesday as she was away. I was panicking & imagining the worst, and in a bit of a rage that no-one would tell me what had happened, when the puppy was mine, as all the paperwork, payments etc had been completed. Then, an hour later, the vet rings me. She told me that after they had intubated her she coughed quite violently for a period due to being a bit light (not enough sedation - its always tricky in small animals, hence why I wasn't keen for the operation!) and the vet thought that she had torn her trachea (breathing tube) as there was an air leakage. She said that she'd done hundreds of tiny pup spays and never had this problem ad was extremely apologetic. It sounded to me as if they used the wrong sized tube or didn't have the cuff (balloon that holds the tube in place) inflated enough, as its extremely unusual to sustain a tracheal tear from coughing. I rang round few other vets to see what they thought and they agreed that it all sounded a bit odd. Anyhow, they reassured me that if there was a small tear it would heal on its own and there would be no long standing problems (wheeffff!) I convinced the vet to let me ring her home the next day, as she was going to get closer observation her with me than at the cold pound kennels and being a person nurse I would know what signs to look for if she deteriorated.

She is a very cool puppy! Still haven't decided on a name (so far we like Spy - like Eye-spy cause of her patch, what do you think?) She has done a fair bit of whining (and her toilet training is not going to plan at all!) but after 24 hours has really settled in, and wow, what a fast learner she is.

Pepper has been amazing, far better with her than I'd ever hoped. She has let the puppy climb on her, sleep with her on her bed, play with her ball (this is awesome as Pepper is fine with food but resource guards her toys a bit) and follow her around relentlessly. I'm so relieved, I was worried she's be a bit snappy but so far so good, they're not allowed together unsupervised as the pups so small but I'm really pleased. The hardest part for her is watching me train the puppy, I think shes a bit confused about the clicker going off and her not getting a treat - any ideas about this???

We also had Misty and Bruno stay for the weekend so it was a bit full on, glad that we have the 1st 24 hours under our hats and that the puppy is healthy. Looking forward to training and can't wait until she toilet trained and not peeing and pooping seemingly every 2 minutes.

A new puppy

2011-07-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

This funny looking wee girl (on the left) is the soon to be new addition to our family.

2 weeks ago I went in to the Waitakere Animal Shelter to sort out Pepper's registration for the year (as we'd moved to a new area and needed to change some details) While I was there I was told that a litter of puppies had just arrived and would I like to see them. (This is where I should have said no!!!!) They had been left at 5 weeks old in a box on the side of the road with a sign saying "Free" beside them. They're heeler cross (probably with a short coated border collie/heading dog)

One of the hardest things for me is that they must be spayed prior to leaving the kennels, so she will be spayed at 8 weeks. I understand why they have this rule, and certainly agree that it's necessary to control the overwhelming population of unwanted dogs that they and the SPCA have to deal with. But I still feel 8 weeks is a bit young! I've done lots of thinking and research and have spoken to 4 different vets and have decided that while it's not ideal, it's also not the end of the world and that alot of the information (both pro and con pre-pubescent spay) is not based on scientific studies more just hear-say. And the vets I have spoken to have much me feel much more confident.

Let the fun begin!

My dog is smarter than your baby

2011-06-20T21:45:00.000-07:00

....

2011-06-13T19:27:00.000-07:00

What canary????

New house plus Cambodia & Singapore

2011-05-15T23:24:00.000-07:00

Its been all quiet on the blogger front from me for the past month but far from quiet at home. First of all, we moved into our first home. Very exciting, I'd been packed for about a month before we moved. The house is a renovated three bedroom 1960's bungalow, its got awesome safe and high fences all the way around, including a double fenced area around the garage (so Pepper can't get onto the road when we open the gate to drive in/out) The yard isn't huge but is more than enough to throw a ball or Frisbee or set up weaves and a few jumps.

The week we moved in we went down to Hamner (in the middle of the south island, a few hours from Christchurch) for a wedding, was a fantastic weekend and a gorgeous location.

Then the next weekend we traveled over to Singapore and Cambodia for a wee holiday (which was planned way before we brought our house, not very fortuitous of us!) I was totally unprepared for how muggy and hot it would be! We had a great time, particularly in Cambodia.

Incredible temples in Cambodia.

Cute wee dog that lived in the hotel in Siem Reap (actually not all that cute, tried to bite me!)

Singapore sling - not really all it was cracked up to be, very sweet.

Ridiculously huge Marina Bay Sands

Ben getting a fish spa! (I couldn't bear to put my feet in there, too tickley)

Singapore Zoo - amazing!

Animal tricks show!

The concept for this show was apparently a new one, the set was really cool.
The dog tricks were pretty unimpressive to be honest - the three bigger dog were elderly and overweight, they each did only one trick. This one turned on a light.

This little one did jump tricks (but had very little focus, kept running over to the crowds in between jumps)

Hoop jumping border collie

On the other hand, the cat tricks were GREAT! The cats (4 or 5 different ones) would come out of one side of the stage, saunter over to the other side, climb a pole and then run through the cat doors. They had one even jump into a rubbish bin!

And some wee rats performing too!

Cute baby pygmy hippo

On the agility front, we're having big weave issues in competition, 4 out of 4 runs disqualified at the weaves. She's definitely getting more focus and drive though and has stopped skipping round jumps.

And as for obedience, we've only had one competition. I thought heelwork was decidedly average but only got 2 points off. Then the recall, little beggar ran and sat behind me! Stays were fine. So we've been training recalls religiously since and have decided for a new "word" for the present, so instead of saying "OK, Pepper come" I say "OK, In front" as I realised that when we're walking and I call her back to me casually, perhaps to avoid a person or another dog, I say "Pepper,come" and so had been confusing her. So far it seems to be working.

Now we need to get moving on DWTDS!!!!!

Rex in the frost

2011-04-13T21:31:00.000-07:00

Here's an old video I wanted to share. This is Rex (or Fairhaven's Sexy Rexy) He was I think 5 or 6 years old in this video that was taken about 4 years ago. He was a 15hh black purebred Morgan stallion. (Since gelded) A total dude to ride but a bit of a nightmare to handle. He was particularly fond of sharking anything he could get his teeth on, including body parts, not maliciously, just cause he liked to. This video was taken from the top story of a house that overlooked his paddock, I think he knew we were watching. It was one of those days when its so cold the frost never melts. Somehow he got so much joy from sliding the bin over the ground, it went on for quite some time. The blue bin that he is carrying is h-e-a-v-y, like, I would have to use both hands to pick it up and struggle.

If it rains it pours.....

2011-04-11T23:30:00.000-07:00

Just two weeks ago I made the comment that wasn't it great that Pepper hadn't injured herself or had to go to the vet at all since November. Well I totally jinxed myself, In the past 10 days we've had to go three times. First she lacerated three of the pads on her feet again (this time they weren't too bad and I just got off by just showing the vet and dressing her paw myself).

Then three days later while on the beach she got explosive (like you would not believe!) diarrhea. We were 30 minutes aways from the car and after 20minutes she refused to go any further due to constant bum leakage. I would not recommend to anybody to try and carry a wet, squirming, sandy dog, especially one that is violently leaking out of its rear end. I was really worried so took her straight to the vet (we were in Muriwai so 40minute drive there) Of course, y the time we arrived she had made my car smell unbelievable (in a bad way) but had perked up quite considerable and was happy as a clam. A quick check up showed no temp and no sore tummy. It continued to a much lesser extent over night but fine the next day.

The final insult was yesterday when she was playing in the hedge in the back garden. She came out shaking her head and holding her right ear off to the side. I had a good look, couldn't see anything. It seemed to bother her for a couple of hours but then she seemed fine the rest of the day/night. This morning not so much - lots of head shaking/tilting and funny ear positions. So off to the vet who saw a piece of stick embedded right down the bottom of her ear canal. She needed to have an anaesthetic to have it removed because it was so deep. Since she's come home she's been hugely incontinent so I really hope that she doesn't get another UTI on top of everything.

Tonight shes still as happy as ever and was not impressed about not being able to go to training tonight, destroying one of the boxes I was using for packing to make her displeasure known!

Swimming away all her troubles

Up periscope!

To finish, some very cute photos of a friends 8 week old working kelpie puppy, Kep.

Another ridiculous trick

2011-04-04T17:04:00.000-07:00

While trying to train a handstand, I have inadvertently taught Pepper to do a wee jump on the spot. It's pretty funny.

Norwest agility ribbon trial

2011-03-21T17:57:00.000-07:00

After a very long 12 hour night shift at work, Pepper and I went out to Kumeu on Sunday morning. I spent the entire time there alternating between feeling like I was having palpitations, feeling confused or like I was about to pass out. No sleep for over 48 hours will do that to you! Thank god for Lynne driving me out and Ben picking me up as there was no way I would have been safe on the roads.

Anyway, it was worthwhile going, we had our first agility win, in Elementary B we were 1st out of 31 entries. She ran really nicely, with me flapping along somewhere behind her. North Shore club had 4 dogs in the top 5!

Then we had a good starters run, got the weaves, although still a bit slow, and had one moment where she nearly took an off course, but still clear, and we ended up 3rd out of 83 dogs! Yay for us.

Misty

Bruno

Luna
Bindi

Hiska

I was so wreaked that I can't even remember getting home but I woke up the next morning at about 10am feeling like I'd been run over by a train.

Misty, loving the sun.

And now we have to wait 4 weeks until the next show, which seems blimming ages away.

Fun with teatowels

2011-03-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

I had heaps of pictures but stupid blogger isn't working and while it uploads them it shuts down the page as soon as they appear. It's driving me nuts.

Anyway, today Pepper learnt about holding a teatowel while doing other tricks. I started doing this to try and make the "roll up in the towel" trick easier for her to understand as she doesn't really like rolling over and we hadn't got very far with training it.

The one that she really stuggled with was twist or spin. She'd get to 180degrees and then the teatowel would get flinged out far away. Something to work on!

Since the last time I wrote we've had 2 more agility ribbon trials and a twilight obedience ribbon trial.

The obedience night was good, we were in specials, although she was quite focused her right and about turns were all really wide and she lost it for just a bit when a spaniel in the next ring had a bit of a leaping and barking episode right beside her. I was really happy with her though and the judge came up afterwards and gave us some nice comments about her keenness and head position which was encouraging. In the down stay she was intently watching me and even pulled out a couple of paw crosses, oh the joys of a clicker trained dog! We got 3rd :)

The agility has been a bit of a mixed bag, its heaps of fun and I'm learning heaps every time we compete, especially about how much there is to learn and train! We've had a few clear rounds, a lot more near misses with rounds of 1 rail or 1 refusal/missed jump. We have another ribbon trial on Sunday.

Back from holidays

2011-03-03T12:47:00.000-08:00

Well we've arrived back in Auckland after going back "home" to the South Island for our wee holiday, the mood down there was understandably sombre because of the earthquake that happened two days before we flew down. The death toll currently sits at 163 people, with many seriously injured and many more still missing under the rubble in the central business district and they are presumed dead as it's been 10 days now since it happened. The city is trashed, people are homeless and it's all very shitty.

On a brighter note, we've brought our first house! Its a really nice wee three bedroom place, really well fenced and we move in at the end of April (I'm supremely impatient and just want to get moved in right now!) Photos to come once we move in, Yipee!

The trip down home was good, Pepper was anxious when we got to the airport but she came off the plane wagging her tail and bouncing around, and was really good on the trip back up, even fell asleep in her crate while we waited for the baggage handlers to come and collect her. She had a fabulous time at my parents place, we had lots of family staying, because of the earthquake, and there where heaps of kids there. She played no-stop with them. The three ear old, Zac, built a hut (it was a spaceship, a vet clinic and a zoo cage) and was constantly dragging pepper in so she could be his co-pilot/patient/lion. It was very cute and she's unbelievably tolerant, I don't think she's had her name screeched at her so much in her entire life.

Some pictures of the ponies - the red-heads are purebred morgans, this is Abraham Pepper showjumping

Thuggy galloping with his eyes closed

Abe

Went with the kids out to a wee pony club showjumping day

Pam - the biggest poser and most tolerant pony around

Jess, the black lab, having a good roll in something stinky

And Pepper helping by stealing the hoofpick.

A whole new earthquake

2011-02-21T20:13:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-20T18:03:00.000-08:00

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

2011-02-01T23:03:00.000-08:00

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!

2nd agility weekend

2011-01-30T13:27:00.000-08:00

We had our 2nd agility competition this weekend. On Saturday we had a starters run, another issue with running past a very obvious straight jump, and she popped out of the weaves the first time through. I was not happy with the next run, elementary, no focus and very slow over an extremely easy course.

On Sunday we had a couple of jumpers runs, the first one was a tricky course, finally no running past a jump and I was pleased with her focus but she had 2 rails, as you can see from the video taking the rails while turning. The tricky first half of the course is missing because of crappy videoing! The Second course was super easy, half way round, again she just ran straight past a very basic jump. Other than that ok, she seems to handle the difficult parts fine but trips up at easy jumps, I'd really like her to have a bit more drive too but I'm sure that will come with confidence.

New computer and agility debut

2011-01-26T15:50:00.000-08:00

Last week my faithful laptop bit the dust when it met the hard wooden floor one time too many. Totally smashed. Thanks GOD I had backed up my pictures and things in December so if my hard drive can't be recovered I'll still have most of them. So anyway, I've been compter-less for nearly a week but now have a brand spanking new computer yay. I've been so used to my old faithful and all its applications and photo and video editing software that its going to take me a while to figure this new beast out. We'll get there eventually.

I'm also house/pet sitting for a friend and with work thrown in I've just had no opportunity to blog or visit others blogs. Will try to get round them tonight at work (if its quiet, crossing my fingers!)

So I'm looking after Bruno, a golden lab

and Misty, a weimaraner

(plus a Guinea pig, a cat and a frog)

Walking three dogs is not the easiest thing I've even done but we had a lovely time out at woodhill forest yesterday.

Misty didn't really get on with Pepper initially (Misty was very snappy and growly to her) but they've since become the best of friends and play relentlessly for hours, totally wearing each other out.

Anyway, our first agility competition was the weekend just gone. No pictures/video (sorry!) but I still don't really know all that many people in the agility scene and felt a bit too embarrassed to ask a stranger to video, especially if we were terrible!

This was a "champs" show (so you and the dog need to be Kennel Club registered and the wins and placings depending on the amount of dogs entered, get you points to progress up the levels) as opposed to "ribbon trial" where you don't need to be registered and its a bit more low key.

The lowest level in NZ is elementary but they don't offer that at a champs show so we were in starters. which doesn't have contact equipment.

The first run was fairly straight forward except for a bit of a tricky twisty jump combination at 11, 12, 13. We had a miscommunication at jump two - after the lead out she jumped number one and then hurtled past the second jump and then back to me, so counted as a refusal (5 faults) but the rest of the round was great, nailed her weaves, no problem with the tricky jump combination, and did the collapsible tunnel (chute) which I'd been worried about as she's only gone through it 3 times ever! Luckily the wind was blowing it open a bit so it made it easier. A good start I thought.

The second round was probably easier than the first - again she did the naughty looking at and coming over to me after jump one instead of going on to jump number two but the rest of the round was good, with good weaves, although I would have liked them to be faster.

The next day was torrential rain (A section of the motorway was flooded and several houses in Auckland were evacuated) so I decided not to go, better to give her good experiences in this early stage rather than have her slip and scare herself.

We have another competition (this time a ribbon trial) this weekend, agility on Saturday and a jumpers show on Sunday, I hope the weathers better but sounds like rain is forecast for Saturday, fingers crossed it doesn't eventuate.

All Breeds Obedience

2011-01-14T23:49:00.000-08:00

Went to All Breeds for their obedience ribbon trial today and had a pretty good time. It was a scorching hot day and nice that it didn't start until 1.30pm so we got to have a sleep in. (although the pooch is always up snooping around at 7am looking for walks or foods anyway)

No videos or pics cause I was there by myself.

The first elementary class was ok - less focus at the start but improving towards the end. Good recall and stays were fine, although the grounds are right beside a busy train line and in the downs a train came tooting and roaring past and the three dogs to Peppers right (the direction of the tracks) all broke in fright which was a shame for them but I was happy that Pepper held her stay, she was looking very anxious! We came 2nd in that class.

Then we went in Special Beginners but just for training so didn't get marked. She was really good, I had the ball in the ring and we had a good play and it made a huge difference and gave her heaps of motivation.

Then we had a big wait for the huge novice class to finish and we had the 2nd elementary test. Brilliant (for us) heelwork and a super recall. And then we went in for the stays......... and she peed in the ring, haha, damnit! So that was 30 points off and alot of embarrassment. I'd tried to toilet her two minutes before but oh well. She did her stays fine. So instead of getting 1st, because of the pee we got 5th (still, it was amazing to have placed after fouling the ring!!) Another lady from North Shore won the class though so that was awesome.

Then we had the 2nd Spec. Beginners test, she was again good, a few wides in the off leash and a lag in the on leash, but again improved as she went. Another good recall. Sit-stay was hairy, I really thought she was going to down but she didn't. And we ended up winning the class! Yay, I was super proud of her.

Now shes half dead on the floor and I'm so sunburnt I can't sit on the couch. Looking forward to agility next weekend!

Heres some pics of the wee plastic pool we brought last weekend - its been so so hot and with the massive stupid fence around our house turns our yard into a windless oven, so I wanted something she could cool down in. But shes not so keen on getting in to, just likes to bunt her balls around with her nose and blow bubbles instead.

Some agility practice

2011-01-11T13:05:00.000-08:00

Heres a really quick video of us down at the park doing a bit of agility practice this morning, gotta go early (like 8am) or else its just too hot and Pepper goes off with her ball and hides in a bush panting after about 3minutes.

And some sunset photos from our walk two nights ago.

New year, lots of new things to come..

2011-01-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

Hope everyone had a safe and happy christmas and new years. Pepper loved opening all her presents - some new and some old (we wrapped up old stuffies because its the unwrapping that is the funnest part!)

My work (at an adult emergency department) was quite honestly horrendous, so so very busy. I worked over both christmas and new years and it was the busiest holiday period I ever worked in about 6 years.

Media coverage had our department on both national channels news programmes (unfortunately showing a rather harassed and angry looking me both times) imploring the public to drink responsibly and look after themselves and their friends. Which of course makes no difference. NZ has a huge problem with alcohol and if you doubt that then spend an hour at work with me on a Friday or Saturday night, where instead of spending our time, resources and your tax dollars looking after truly sick people, we spend most of it tending to comatose drunks who vomit, urinate and defecate and people with minor and major injuries secondary to alcohol. The ones who are awake are loud, obnoxious, rude and demanding. I'm totally sick to death of it. Its an EMERGENCY department. You will not get seen immediately for the cut on your hand, even though you thought that leaving the waiting room, taking off the bandage we put on and calling an ambulance to bring you back would get you higher up the cue. It will actually put you right at the bottom. And "at least 5 hours wait" does not mean half an hour or 2 hours. It means 5 hours so shut up and sit down - we're not making you wait for the fun of it - we are busy and trying to save peoples lives! Grrrrr!

Our ED on TV 3

some of the quality patients we saw on new years

Ok so rant over. This is the first trick that Pepper's learning for 2011

Handstand. We've only been working on it for one day and its coming along ok. She doesn't have great balance like some other dogs, its taken her a long long time to be able to beg without falling over after half a second so this will be a bit tricky, we'll see how we go.

We have two months full of dog "stuff" - starting on Jan the 15th with an obedience ribbon trial, then the next weekend our first agility show (gotta find somebody to measure her first though - and its not proving easy over a holiday period). It might be a bit too much of a step up as its a champs show so no elementary class to test the waters and having never run an actual course with Pepper before it will be interesting to say the least, but its time to get out competing so we'll give it a go, I'm sure we'll learn plenty. Brought a new "point & shoot" digital camera today (loving the post christmas sales!) after my old one died a few weeks ago. So I'll hopefully find someone to film our most likely embarrassing first attempts so you can all share in the misery of our hopelessness! Haha.

Woodhill

2010-11-30T02:09:00.000-08:00

Here's some pictures of us walking at Woodhill Forest (for those in Auckland that haven't taken your pooch there, you should!) We drove down the dirt road that runs parallel to Murawai beach and from there theres heaps of options for different tracks to follow.

I don't know how busy it would be in the weekends but we've been three times during the week and although the car park has had plenty of cars we never saw a single other person or dog (just some rabbits that made for awesome chasing)

And its perfect on the hot days we've been having as theres a great stream that you can follow for 20ish minutes on the way back to the carpark, looks of deepish bits for swimming in too.

There's an agility and obedience ribbon trial this weekend - we'll be going out to do the elementary obedience class and maybe spec. beginners, unfortunately Pepper is 2 weeks off being allowed to compete in agility so we miss out on that which is annoying, because she's been totally awesome in training, hasn't put a foot wrong really and she'd certainly be able to do elementary and starters without to much trouble. But oh well, plenty of time up our sleeves over the next few years for competing - I'm just itching to get started! So we'll be Helen and Snoopys cheer squad and paparazzi!

Trip to Brisbane

2010-11-26T17:26:00.000-08:00

Holiday pics from my trip to Brisbane, in Australia last week (Ben's living over there for his job for a while so I went over to visit)

Best part was going riding on Noosa beach with my friend Chloe. We hooned around on a gorgeous beach on some cool wee stock horses and it was so fun. Payed for it though 'cause I haven't ridden for a long time and so could barely walk (or go from sitting to standing without pained looks on my face) for the rest of the trip.

We also went to Australia Zoo (thats the one that was run by the Crocodile Hunter) It was a lovely Zoo but soooooo much merchandise! A gift shop at each different area of the park and the faces of the two children of the Crocodile Hunter slapped onto everything imaginable. Steve Irwin was famous for his conservation message but it really seems like it was very "forced" and that the Zoo is really just a revenue gaining venture now that he has died.

I have to say though, they put on a Free Flight bird display - it was amazing! Birds flying into the open air auditorium, landing, grabbing a fish or treat and then flying (or walking in the storks case) out again - they have Gala's, Rosella's, macaws, water birds, stork-y things and more. It was cool, most were a bit too fast to photograph though.

And of course the crocodiles

And the kangaroos were really tame too

I like the old looking ones with the sad faces best (I think they were the grey kangaroos)
And miscellaneous other creatures

And I got to meet Hsin-Yi and Honey to deliver a collar custom by Helen, which must have had some kind of special zoomy magical powers if Honeys dancing the next night was anything to go by!

Fireworks

2010-11-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

This is what we think of them

Pepper has been a nervous wreck this fireworks season, poor thing. We had fireworks shot over the fence beside us in bright sunlight while on a walk on Wednesday and since then she's not been herself, just spending heaps of time sulking on her mat. Our neighbour spent 4 hours setting them off on Friday night. Totally ridiculous. We're supposed to be in a "recession" and yet people can still manage to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars on glorified sparklers.

So many animals get injured at this time of the year. A live blackbird had four firecrackers strapped to his chest. Worse, a horse at the pony club next to our dog club broke both his front legs when some kids snuck into the reserve beside his paddock and starting letting the stupid bloody things off. He spent the entire night lying in the paddock in agony, was found in the morning in huge distress and was obviously euthanised. So sad and such a horrible way to die. Makes me sick and my blood boil.

And then to make matters worse I have to deal with all these idiots at work, patching up their drunken firework induced burns, Grrrrr!

Kakamatua

2010-10-23T18:55:00.000-07:00

Its a 3 day weekend here this weekend with Monday being a stat holiday. Of course being a nurse, we don't get holidays like everyone else and I'm again on stinking night shift the entire weekend and on into Monday. And of course the weathers gorgeous, meaning every man child and dog is out and about, mowing their lawns, trimming hedges, being noisy. I mean come on, I'm trying to sleep! So yesterday instead of wasting my time trying to sleep I went out to Kakamatua beach/inlet with Helen, her husband Noel-John, Leilei, and our dogs:

Pepper
Snoopy

Arrow

and Kaha

It was the first time I'd been out there and it truly is awesome. A wee foresty walk that opens up onto a streamy sandy bit that leads to a big inlet with is a huge sand flat at low tide. The dogs had a blast, running, chasing and being chased, getting wet, getting sandy, going loopy. It was really great. Much better than sleeping, although it made for a rather long night at work last night!

Within moments of getting off the leash:

Oh, look! Water!

Woohoo!

Weeeeeee

Ahhhh!!!! Deep!

Help!!
Phewf, dry land, careful Kaha, that waters dangerous!

Gee Snoop, its not deep, you've just got to get longer legs!

Racing

The water on the sand flats was so warm, as Leilei put it, it was like someone had peed on the sand!

LOTS of zooooooming
Checking stuff out

No one's throwing my ball, I'll just get a stick

Chasing ducks

Pepper, jumping stuff again
Beautiful Snoop Finally, some ball time

(Sorry Arrow, I didn't click fast enough to get you in!)

Weave

2010-10-21T14:08:00.000-07:00

This is what we've been working on for about the past two weeks

We've trained the weaves vaguely using Susan Garretts 2x2 method, training was pretty sporadic at first because of the stupid weather. Initially I used 6 garden stakes covered in white tape, and because of our small garden we were carting those stupid poles to all the parks we go to. But as Pepper got the idea and got faster (which happened surprisingly quickly) the poles weren't cutting it - she was running right through them as she could just bash them out of the way. So a lady who is in the same dog club and who I also work with very kindly offered me her "proper" competition weaves to borrow - just the nicest thing, and I'm so so grateful. The above video only shows 8 poles as that's all we can fit into out garden (we have a back yard too but its an annoying shape and part concrete.) but we've been training with 12 at the park down the road (these weaves are a little less portable than my flimsy poles!) Mostly we train using a toy for drive but someone ate someones last ball yesterday. I'm really pleased with how she's going, now to work on proofing entries.

Pepper got an awesome new collar this week - courtesy of our friend Helen from "AroundaHound" - she makes gorgeous handmade martingale collars out of cool fabrics, they're so well made and now Pepper's pretty much the hippest dog on the block - so thanks heaps Helen, can't wait for my next one!

We meet up with Helen, her husband Noel-John and their dogs Snoopy & Arrow for a f-r-e-e-z-i-n-g cold walk at the beach earlier in the week. It was getting dark so the pictures are a bit blurry. Peppers not terribly sociable with other dogs - she'd rather play with her ball, but when Snoopy's around it a different story, man does she love that dog! While we froze they had a blast and acted like looneys.

"Ready Snoopy?"

"Gooooo!"
Arrow was very restrained and the only dog to stay still to have his picture taken!
It's hard work training and playing, can't go past a good snooze in the sun to recover.

Oh and this "I love my AroundaHound collar" photo got an extra smile courtesy of Leilei - thanks :)

Starting agility and a 3rd prize

2010-10-17T00:17:00.000-07:00

So we started agility training finally last week, after having to wait an extra 3 months because of Peppers scabbie paw problems. The instructors of the class we're in seem really nice, so friendly and helpful and totally positive and into clicker training. One of them has the most awesome beautiful black and tan Kelpie that I think I'm in love with and want to steal. They take things really quietly for the first 8 weeks, with more focus on handling the dog correctly rather than equipment at this early stage which I think is the right approach.

We went to our second ever obedience show today, was originally going to go for a walk to the beach with the "aroundahound" crew but the weather wasn't playing ball so I decided to head out to Ardmore for a look at the last minute. We entered elementary and Pepper was great fun again - two lapses of attention in the ring during the short bit of heelwork, outside she was very very good though, and certainly an improvement on the last time. Again a perfect recall and nailed her stays. We always seem to be right beside a dog that breaks - this time we were in the middle of two, very nerve racking but she was a good girl and didn't move a muscle. We got third! (cue obligatory ribbon shot)

And won a sweet giant tennis ball that was rapidly destroyed and partially consumed.

And in honor of Bodies tongue tied blog post a few days ago, here is Peppers super unsophisticated side tongue effort.

My dog is an accident waiting to happen

2010-10-04T17:55:00.000-07:00

The weather finally seems to have turned – after what seems like literally months of persistent heavy never ending rain, the sun has come out! And its been sunny for 4 days in a row (and counting!) I love love love summer.
We haven’t been to the off leash dog park just down the road for many months, its just been too wet there, the one time we did venture there the mud was over the top of my gumboots in some spots, and it’s a pretty crap place to go at the best of times anyway. But its passable for when I’m working night shift and haven’t the energy to go far.

So, anyway. We popped down there 2 days ago and Pepper was doing the whole “zoomy zoomy” dog thing speeding around when “crrrrrack” she smacked right into a really big rock that was hidden in the long grass. It made such a sickening noise and she somersaulted twice and then started crying and wouldn’t get up. As I ran over, oh god, all I could think was broken leg. Then she was up and not weight bearing. And then……. She ran off chasing another dog. Totally fine. I know she hit it hard but man she’s a real drama queen. Way to give me a heart attack.

We've been exploring different beaches as because of daylight saving starting some of our usual ones are off limits during the day. Today we went to St Leonards Beach in Takapuna, it was gorgeous, we stayed for nearly 2hours cause there were heaps of other dogs that were good players.

And the long haul up the steps to get home.

Dumbbell & Backy-upy

2010-09-22T14:31:00.000-07:00

We started training a formal dumbbell retrieve last week and its been (so far and touch wood) surprisingly easy to train. I had attempted to teach Pepper a hold command with normal objects about 6months ago but she never really got it, so I imagined lots of dropping and chewing of the dumbbell. But we just started right from the beginning with tiny baby steps and she rapidly (within 5 minutes!) had a good sustained hold with no mouthing. Such a good girl. And man does she love the dumbbell, we worked lots on building drive for it and now she starts to screech and bounce and yowl when I get it out.

Because its been so wet we've done most of the training inside, I can tell you that a wooden dumbbell vs wooden floors isn't the best, wish we had carpet!

Last night I taught her the turn around and back up between my legs trick. She thought it was very exciting, although would get a little confused and start offering the occasional backwards circle (which shes never been taught) or would just spin and leap.

No, she didn't topple the palm tree, it fell down in the storm we had last week. But its been a source of amusement, with lots of bits to rip off and drag into the house. Such fun.

Cross-country Dog

2010-09-20T18:20:00.001-07:00

Poor Pepper. I'm taking my horse withdrawals out on her.

Found an off leash park on the road out to Murawi beach that also has an arena and a cross-country course, so naturally she was encouraged to play horsey and zoom around and over some of them.

Weeeee over the wall

Down a bank

Bigggg jump

Its actually suprisingly difficult to co-ordinate getting the dog over jump, while holding/throwing the ball and trying to taking pictures.

And this is what I would really like to be doing again :( Soon hopefully, when I'm rich and own a farm.

Weeeeeeeeeee

2010-09-15T14:45:00.000-07:00

Big bad earthquake

2010-09-05T22:27:00.000-07:00

Everyone in NZ will know all this but for those of you that don't live here, there was a big earthquake on Saturday in Canterbury (which is in the middle of our South Island). It struck at 0435am and was a 7.1 on the Richter scale. It has caused widespread damage to property across the region but incredibly and thankfully there has been no loss of life (although a Lemur did die at the zoo - he drowned) We used to live (and work) in Christchurch and our families live south of there. I imagine it's been a pretty horrible two days for everyone, especially my old workmates in the Christchurch Emergency Department.

Pictures of the devastation

Now something lighter - I saw how lots of other people had taught their dogs to get a tissue out of the box and and bring it over so we played around with this one afternoon (and destroyed an entire box of tissues in the process) Such fun! Such mess......

And Pepper has another poor sore paw - its on the big pad in the middle of the right leg this time. This is the third separate pad infection in 6 weeks so discussed with the vet today and if another one crops up we're planning to do biopsies to see if there's anything weird (like an auto-immune disorder) that causing them. Back on yet more bloody antibiotics in the mean time.

Nose bridge

2010-08-23T21:10:00.000-07:00

Haven’t posted a training video in a looooong time but we’ve been doing lots of inside stuff because of the atrocious weather. Here’s just a short clip from a while ago of us starting to clicker train a nose bridge – it’s the very first two sessions we did. The start is literally the fist time we tried. She picked it up straight away. I thought it might take a while as she already has a nose “touch” (to touch my hand with her nose and get close when in heel) and apparently when training a bridge dogs can get a bit confused and frustrated and just keep bumping and touching your hand instead of holding and pushing for a bridge. But I think it was easier for her to understand as she has already learnt to push against a target for closing doors and cupboards. Anyway, I was able to increase the threshold extremely quickly and she was giving me good nose pressure as well. Easiest thing I’ve ever had to train! I was watching some “professional” trainers videos on you tube about training this and many of them suggested to do away with the clicker and manipulate the dogs head into position (using one hand to hold the collar under the dogs chin and one to hold either side of the muzzle) and hold them there for a period and then treat/reward. I think plain old clicker training works better for me.
There’s also a bit in the video of us playing our eye contact game. Basically just holding out a treat and then rewarding for eye contact to teach the dog they are rewarded for looking at you and not for sniffing/licking/looking at the treat. I do this a lot especially in situations like sitting round waiting at training, where she has tendencies to bark (read scream/squeal) at me if she’s wired and bored and doesn’t have something to do. It’s just so easy and really helps with focus. We’ve started doing it with the ball too but the ball is still just so exciting that the wee eyes go like pinballs back and forth between me and it.

I hope someone appreciates the music hahaha.

And here are some more beautiful beachy pictures. We have to drive a bit further to do to the beach at the moment because people have found poisonous “Sea Slugs” one of the beaches close to us on the east coast – last year a couple of dogs died and lots more got really sick after eating them so to stay safe we’re making the trek over to the west coast beaches to get our fill of surf and seagulls (and to be honest they’re much nicer, bigger and wilder than the ones close to home)

First obedience trial

2010-08-22T16:40:00.000-07:00

As I'm sure I've said before, I'm new to the whole "doggie scene"having ridden and shown horses all my life. I'm really keen to get involved and have a go with obedience, so we decided to go out to the NZKC centre in Ardmore on the weekend to watch a trial and see what it was all about. Although I was working night shifts so coping on only 1 and a half hours of sleep made for a dopey me. We ended up entering the elementary test (which is for beginners and you can just enter on the day without having to be registered with the kennel club) and we had great fun. The other people in the class, as well as the judge and steward were so supportive and encouraging and happy to answer any questions. Pepper thought the whole scene was rather overwhelming at first but quickly settled and was happy to lie quietly at my feet.

She was a great wee dog, lots of attention in the heelwork (we got 5 off for stupid me having too short a lead - we do these days to learn so I will never have a tight lead again as we would have had a perfect score if not for me!) and her recall was great (it's what we've been working on the past 2 weeks - getting a quick, enthusiastic recall, she used to just amble in slowly) She nailed her stays too. We got 5th but I was just so pleased with her attitude.

We did go back the next day (no video) but had a bit of a different time with the heelwork. Loud (torrential) rain was pounding on the roof and she's a bit noise sensitive and was cowering a little, as well as Ben accidentally showing her the ball (which is more important than anything to her) 2 minutes before we went in. So focus was about 5% on me, 80% on looking for ball and 15% on being scared of rain. Oh well haha. Recall was still great, and it wasn't a wasted effort because we had some interesting distractions in the stays - the GS beside her in the sit was whining and then got up and walked past right in front of her her - she didn't move, such a good girl. And then in the downs a dumb bell went bouncing past and was enthusiastically retrieved right near to her in the next ring and again she stayed, so all very promising.

The worst part was that I couldn't stay to watch Cinnamon and Mint dance because I had to start work early that night :(

Pepper was just happy to come home and chew her favourite ball in the sun, which we haven't seen for what feels like weeks.

Aussie and one spoiled pup

2010-08-18T02:43:00.000-07:00

So, I've finally gotten around to actually writing something! Have only had one day off work since getting home so there's been not enough waking hours to get things done.

We had a great time away, Ben dropped Pepper off to her holiday destination (with a wonderful lady who takes dogs into her home as daycare and holidays) because I had to work up until when we left, I'm glad I didn't have to drop her off, I hate leaving my animals and I would have been an embarrassing, blubbering mess.

We stayed in Sydney with my brother (also called Ben) and his girlfriend, they’ve just gotten a puppy. I was in a state of shock when I heard this, my brother was never an animal person and his girlfriend is scared of dogs. Charlie is a 15week old staffie.

I’m not a fan of staffies but she had heaps of personality and was very sweet, very trainable too, I got her doing sit, down, stay and paw in two days. (they thought I was a ‘dog whisperer’ it was quite funny). They’re doing all the right things, going to puppy class, have brought books on puppies, booked her in for spaying, vaccination etc. But….. I found it very hard as they feel that she is an “outside dog” at night (allowed inside while they are home) and I really didn’t cope with the fact they shut such a small, short coated baby outside with only a small lean-to for shelter and a wee unimpressive bed that was occasionally wet. There was a big storm one night and I couldn’t sleep for worrying about the poor wee pup. I certainly made my feelings known. Numerous times. But there's only so much you can do when its not your dog.

Anyhow, they live right near centennial park which is HUGE and there’s off leash areas so we took her down there for some socialising, she’s very bold, bouncing up to much bigger dogs and playing, it was nice to be round a puppy again.

We went out for fabulous meals, shopped and also walked around the waterfront of Bondi - saw a bat just hanging out in the trees, so cute.

And of course did all the touristy things - Harbour bridge, Opera house etc.
We then flew over to Perth where we caught up with some friends and went down to the Margaret River area, which is famous for wine, generally spending our time drinking and eating our way through the week, it was great! And I found a Pepper statue!

This is the beach where just two days ago a man died after being bitten by a shark - glad we didn't get in the water.And I spotted a Kookaburra on the side of the road so made Ben turn around so I could take pictures, he was very cheeky.

This is the famous Freemantle prison that we toured around.

There was a not so nice part to the trip - in Freemantle we stayed in an apartment that had an extreme sewerage issue - basically toilet flushings were flowing out from the shower - HIDEOUS! The owners had left no contact details and on getting back we asked for a partial refund (fully justified I think!) and they have just been so rude and unapologetic. Grrrr.

Anyhow, we got back last week, it was so good to see Pepper, I didn't buy anything for myself while away but Pepper got a new collar and lead, a tug toy and a ferret ball (brought from the airport on the way home with left over Aussie coins)

And her sore paw is all healed up now which is a relief.

The poor sore paw

2010-07-26T16:48:00.000-07:00

It's been a bit of a miserable time in our household. I got the dreaded 'flu last week and while still feeling pretty dreadful worked a weekend of night shifts (in a busy Emergency department weekend nights can be fairly challenging, trying to look after intoxicated vomiting teenagers while you feel like vomiting yourself is hardly my idea of fun!) followed by having wisdom teeth pulled out on Sunday morning after finishing work. So while I've been moping around feeling extremely sorry for myself, Pepper has just been such a good girl, she just lay around all day with me while I was sick and didn't even complain about not going for a walk for a record 3 days in a row (I'm such a mean owner) I thought she'd go crazy and destroy the house but she just hung around like normal, not a hole dug or a dead shoe in sight.

Well, now she's the one who's stopping us getting out for walks. She has had a wee sore on her front left dew claw pad for a week or so and had started licking it incessantly. Vet recommended just to cover and keep an eye on it which we dutifully did, but she is a determined pup - ripping everything off as if it was a game, and it she couldn't rip it off she'd gnaw a hole in it so she could get her tongue at it. So over the weekend it got worse and worse, and a bit pus-y so off to the vet yesterday for antibiotics, cone-of-shame and super enforced bandaging.

Check out our awesome plastic gumboot! (made out of a used IV fluid bag)
We're off to Sydney and Perth in Australia next week for 10days and I've got everything crossed that it heals up by then, although I'll be worrying either way.

It's raining, its pouring.

2010-07-05T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's too rainy in Auckland - bring back summer! We're still managing to go for a short walk a day but it's just not satisfying enough for Pepper! So we've been doing lots of training and playing so she doesn't go completely loopy.

These pictures show how ridiculous the weathers been. The rain photo was from one side of the house and the sun photo was from the other side of the house literally 4 seconds later - pouring down in one place and sunny in the other, it makes no sense!

Even a cool new shark stuffie doesn't make up for a lack of zooming around outside.

Last week Pepper learnt to weave through legs and cottoned on pretty quick, she's much better when you get the ball out but it's hard to train her to go fast inside cause we have slippery wooden floors.

She's got her paws crossed hoping that it will stop raining soon!

We had a friend come and stay for the night last week - Sode is a 3 year old lab cross, her owner is my friend Kate who is going away to be a Dr in a war zone for a few months (scary!). Sode's like a small black ball of muscle and was immediately the alpha dog, the second she came in she collected up Peppers toys and balls into a corner and wouldn't let her near them. Pepper is very submissive and just accepted this and carried on wagging her tail and watching Sode systematically destroy all of her rubber chew toys.

And finally, have you ever heard of anything so stupid? I got Peppers new registration tag yesterday and while trying to bend it into shape (they're really stiff) it fell out of my hands and into the heater. Honestly, it could only happen to me. So it was well and truly stuck inside and to make matters worse its the only heater we have and it was freezing! It took me nearly three hours to extract it and I can tell you it was one of the most frustrating experiences of my life.

We love the beach!

2010-06-29T18:55:00.000-07:00

It's a gorgeous day here today (which is nice after seemingly endless days of rain) so we went out to a beach on the North Shore, just a 15 minute drive from our house The beach is gorgeous and all off leash and also has a great man made walk thing that goes round the bottom of some cliffs to link up two beaches.

There was a bird (a shag I think) that was swimming around not far from shore and ducking under, popping up in random spots. Pepper spotted him before I did and was off swimming after him (I thought she would swim out to sea and never come back!)

Speak!

2010-06-27T23:20:00.000-07:00

We've tried to teach Pepper to speak for a while but couldn't find anything that riled her up enough to get her barking, until Ben discovered last week that blowing at her got her going, so now she speaks on cue, although the cue is a little odd - a pursed lip and quiet blowing noise.

There's also a shot of her zipping through her new tunnel - its way too ridiculously long and hardly fits in our yard but she loves it - I'm going to try and chop it in half because two 5 metre tunnels will be much more fun than this one giant one.

And heres a couple more birthday pictures - we had to wait for Ben to come home before she had her cake of course, so thats why we didn't but these pictures in the last post. It's a veal muffin with cream cheese topping, she went nuts for it!

Happy Birthday to Pepper!

2010-06-23T20:42:00.000-07:00

Today is Peppers 1st birthday!

Obviously she is highly embarrassed about being made to wear a party hat, and rightly so, she looks ridiculous. Oh the shame.

We went to a shop we have just discovered, Miss Maggies and got some cookies and a liver muffin (we wanted to get a cupcake but they didn't have any today) We found out that they sell Possyum - a possum meat dog roll that we used to use for training treats in Wellington, its really stinky and holds together well when in small pieces so is ideal for training but we hadn't found a place to buy it up here - I'm so happy to find a place that sells it and they're just down the road too.

We went for a walk in Waiatarua Reserve and as I let her play in every muddy puddle/bog/stinking water hole that we came across. She made the most of it too and ended up smelling like a toilet. But she was a happy toilet so that was ok. We also went to the "Big King" for the first time and climbed up a wee hill to look out over Auckland. It was cold but a nice walk and great view plus lots of other dogs to play with.

So my wee funny looking puppy is now a dog, still (almost) as cute though!

Meeting Snoopy, Arrow and Kaha. And some naughty goings on.

2010-06-18T22:38:00.000-07:00

Today we were invited to go for a walk at Craigavon park with another blogger friend Helen and her two dogs, Snoopy the rescued pig dog and the ex speedster Arrow the greyhound. Helen's friend Leilei also came with her dog, sibord Kaha. When we arrived Snoopy and Pepper hit it off straight away - the two of them tore around in large circles playing chase, with Pepper displaying her extremely embarrassing high pitched squeals and yelps. All the dogs got on really well, although Kaha did take a little too much of a liking to Pepper towards the end! (this is a common problem for us with male dogs - we think probably because of her issues with her reproductive bits)

Go Kaha!
There was another dog playing too - he was a sibord like Kaha.

Craigavon park has some permanent agility equipment - tunnels, tyres, a wee dog walk, and so we played with the dogs around the equipment.

Snoopy struting her stuff on the dog walk

And Pepper through the tyre.

And out of the tunnel

Snoopy making herself smell delicious!

And I didn't get any pictures of the beautiful Arrow (except for the half one above) so we'll have to meet up again so I can papparazi him too!

We also wanted to show some incriminating evidence. Pepper is normally very mellow and "well-behaved" when it comes to being left at home alone, or in the car or in the yard. The only time she ever seems to do "naughty" things is when I'm working night shift and sleeping during the day - she must get so frustrated that I'm not getting up and playing that she takes to mischief! This is from last weeks efforts. I was woken mid-morning by a pair of extremely muddy paws bopping me on the face (not to mention the linen) and then this is what I discovered - excavation work had begun.

The dirt was flung for miles on either side of the hole. The time before she dug up three out of four fern-y type plants and shredded them to pieces Obviously she hates night shift nearly as much as I do.

You'd think butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. Not quite.

Saturday afternoon breakthrough

2010-06-04T22:24:00.000-07:00

Pepper finally cottoned on to how to limp today, sort of, only getting one step at a time, occassional flying leaps and not too much forward movement but at least she gets the concept!

New helpful trick

2010-05-30T13:41:00.000-07:00

I've been a bit slack with posts, life just keeps getting in the way!
But since we left Wellington Pepper has learnt a few new tricks - we're plugging away with trying to learn "limp" but it's proving to be a bit tricky (hehe) and she's learnt to cover her nose with her paw, and this weekend she learnt to put her toys away!
Here's a video of that one!

Also, we went for a walk with the fabulous Cinnamon and Mint yesterday in Conrwall park. I couldn't believe how big and beautiful the park was and we were so glad to have been invited by the beagles! We had a great time and it was a gorgeous day. I had so much fun I didn't take any pictures (sorry!) but Cinnamons Mum got one so hopefully she'll post it. We can't wait to go for more walks.
PS - Mint is even more cute in real life than in pictures

The plot thickens ......

2010-05-21T13:30:00.001-07:00

Yesterday morning, when Pepper was dropped off of by the "dog catcher" one of the first things he said to me was, "Does she ofter wander when she's on heat?" @@$%??#??!! Well, you can imagine my surprise - Pepper was spayed at 3months old (the SPCA spay their puppies pretty young and she was spayed about 2 weeks before we brought her home), she couldn't be on heat!!!??? My heart sunk, did they pick up the wrong puppy? But, sure enough, there's Pepper in the back of the van. And sure enough, she was bleeding! First thought was that she was bleeding from her bladder, but then she peed - normal colour, no blood in it. All very odd. So onto the phone and an appointment with the vet that afternoon (boy, she stunk like they'd disinfected her at the pound too, yuck, start into the dreaded bath, it wasn't much of a home coming hehe)

You may remember that since Pepper was little we've had some problems with urinary infections and a little bit of incontinence. Also, shes had episodes of really yucky pus coming out of her girl bits. We thought that we were getting "on top" of this problem after lots of vets seeing her and investigations and medications. I have been increasingly thinking that her problem was not bladder related but more female reproductive related. She hasn't had any incontinence for months and her infections have become milder and less frequent. But she has never had any bleeding from that "region"

When the vet saw the amount of bleeding (he imagined just some light pink from licking too much or something) he was most surprised! So she had cervical swabs (and the vet said that that is definitely where that bloods coming from) and we are all still left scratching our heads. She's a mystery. One theory is that some ovarian tissue was left behind or that if they have just done a tubal tie as opposed to a full "removal" spay the tie may have come loose - I rang and spoke to the vet who did her spay - she said that her notes indicate a routine full spay with a healthy puppy and no complications. The vet nurse said she was so funny when they took her to do the swabs - she just lay on her back straight away, wagging her tail saying "Rub my Belly!!" It's so nice having such a friendly people loving pup.

We've started her on some pretty hard out broad spectrum antibiotics in case there is a infection above her cervix - she is on 4 different types - until we get the swabs back, but due to the weekend it will take a few days so better to part with a few more dollars and just cover everything. She doens't have a uterus so she can't get pregnant, so we can still go walking and things. In the mean time Pepper is her normal happy playful energetic self. A bit confused as to why I'm obsessively following her round with a towel and all the mats are up off the floors! Thank god we have wooden floors.

If anyone has had experience with anything like this I'd love to hear from you.

Oh, also, the Dog control people inspected our property - they agreed, its a bit of a Fort Knox, definitely too high for her to jump out and very very safe, so they didn't charge us with a fee (phewwf!) So now we're still head-scratching as to how she got out (or who has let her out)

Thursday night nightmare

2010-05-20T14:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I was working a 12 hour shift from 11am until 11.30pm. I got a phone call at 7pm -it was Ben, he'd just got home from work "Hi, Um have you done anything with Pepper today?" me - "No, why, what do you mean???" (quietly panicking) "Ummm well shes not here, she's not at home" (Now I'm really panicking) My first thought was that she was lying sick somewhere, it was dark and had been raining too, so I got Ben to get a torch and look under all the bushes and under the house while I became mildly hysterical and told my boss I needed to go home (Puppy obviously being much more important than sick people). Ben called back - she was no-where to be found.

As I left work I turned my cell phone on (no reception in the emergency dept where I work) and a message was there from an hour ago from the Dog Control people - a member of the public had found her and she was at their kennels. While relieved that we knew where she was and that she was safe I was so confused. We spent over 3 months looking for our new place, the most important thing for us was that it was fully dog proof and this house is just that, even a bit over the top. The fences are 2 metres high at their lowest, the driveway gate only opens with a remote, the only other access is a gate that automatically closes and locks and can only be opened with a pin code. I'd left home at 1030am, Pepper had been happily munching a pigs ear on the front steps. I always double check the gate when I leave, although there's not even a need to do that because it slams itself shut anyway! So I have no idea how she escaped. The only clue we have is a courier card that was left - do they have the gate code and accidentally let her out? I'll be ringing them today to find out.

These pictures show our fences, they go all round the property. It's like a flipping doggie proof dream yard.

The dog control people said it was too late to pick her up last night (even though I protested and offered to pay if someone would get her out for me) but they said no. So I've been up since 6.30am pestering them on the phone to get her back - she needs her medication and I want her home! They don't have anyone at the kennels until 9am, so I'm still waiting to hear back from them. Poor Pepper, I feel so guilty (and still confused). Thank god for microchips, ID tags and registration tags to allow for easy dog identification. Hopefully they have the name of the person who found her so I can take them a thank-you present. I wish Pepper could talk and tell me how the heck she got out!

Yes, we're still here!

2010-05-17T23:24:00.001-07:00

Sorry it's been so long between posts, getting our internet sorted out (and my computer connecting!) was a minor struggle

But we're here, in Auckland, in our great new wee house. (I'll post pics of that next time)

But here are a few pictures of our move.

We had a last play at our favourite beach

Check out these wicked dance moves

We were so lucky to have Bens company pay for a moving company to move us - they took care of everything but best of all carried everything down all our stairs in Wellington! Pepper was a great help of course, making sure the boxes behaved themselves and offering the movers a game of ball every time they came back up the steps

The trip up started out a little dicey (due to a big night the night before saying goodbye to friends) but it was a lovely drive.

We stayed in a rather outdated but comfortable and importantly dog friendly motel in Taupo on the way up, just to break the trip up a bit.

We stopped at the at the Huka falls - we checked with the information people and they said dogs were allowed so Pepper got to check them out too!
Ben & Pepper stretching their legs after being stuck in the car

Can you see her on the bridge? She was very brave!

Autumn in the central North Island
With Ben and a big giant dog!

Checking out the Mare & Foal with me in Cambridge. She was very wary of this, growling, hackles up, totally confuzzled. She took a bit of convincing that they weren't real, although she's never growled at a real horse, she always just wants to lick their noses.

So far I give Auckland a big thumbs up - for the weather at least! I HATE the cold and it really is so much warmer up here, especially compared to the South Island, were we're from originally.

Sadly Pepper has had some continuing urinary problems. (Ever since she came to us she's had very mild incontinence but it was causing her to have bad and recurring infections) I thought we were on top of things since starting on Propalin 3 months ago. I had been reluctant to start this medication due to her age but she has had no incontinence (and hence no infections) at all since being on it. When we picked her up from the boarding place last weekend they mentioned she had been straining, had increased frequency (all signs of infection) and some yucky discharge, although Pepper was still her same happy wee self. We went straight to a Vet that weekend and lucked out by striking a knowledgeable, kind and gentle vet called Gareth. He suggested doing a raft of new tests - bloods, bladder contrast xrays and bladder biopsy (we've already had ultrasound and urine cultures in Wellington) and we booked an appointment for that in a weeks time. Over the week at home however the frequency and straining had pretty much stopped and when I went back yesterday I explained that I had reservations about undertaking invasive procedures if she was well and that I felt possibly she had a cervical infection (due to the yucky discharge). And the Vet agreed! After reading her notes he felt it was probably not a bladder problem and that it would be a waste of my money doing these investigations (what a breath of fresh air it was to hear that!) So we will aim to do bloods & vaginal/cervical swab, try a special food to keep the urine at the right PH and go from there. He agrees with my thinking that stress may be responsible (stress & change in toileting leading to incontinence and then infection) and that we could try some herbal stress remedies if she does have to go into a kennel or has a "lifestyle change" again. She must really internalise her stress though, as she is such a laid back dog almost all of the time. So we don't really know whats going on still but it's great to have a vet that's not going to push for unnecessary procedures and is keen to give her a bit of time.

Sorry for the rant, its been great going and catching up on everyones posts!

We've Arrived!

2010-04-26T23:26:00.000-07:00

but have limitied internet and my computer refuses to work with the hotels connection. I have heaps of pics of the trip up and will post as soon as I can - Pepper was an angel.
We don't move into our house (in Westmere) for 2 more weeks so the poor girl is staying at a kennel (albiet a lovely one - Pets in the City)
I miss her so much :( Its even harder because I don't start work for another week so have nothing to occupy myself with.

1st Rally-O link

2010-04-21T16:11:00.000-07:00

Rally in NZ is a really new dog sport, there are only a handleful of clubs that actually offer it.
Lucky us that we found one (and sad that we're leaving)
Therefore in order to allow for more competition there is a "Link" course set every month. Basically every month participating clubs are sent a new rally course, they can pick the time/day to set up and do it. A member from the club judges and the scores from all over the country are sent in and compared against each other. We had a go for the first time last night.
Pepper had had a terrible week at club last week - she had another UTI and she spent the whole time with her tail between her legs & kept wanting to hid under the bench. Poor wee girl. So I wasn't sure how we would go this week
But she was almost back to her normal self, happy and full of fun!
I was really proud of her - a bit slow to down in the moving down, we had quite a lapse of concentration during the 1, 2, 3 steps and she hardly even increased her speed for the fast pace but aside from those wee things her attention was on me most of the time, her left turns were ok and we had heaps of fun! I'm hoping one of the Auckland clubs will get with the program and start to offer rally so we can keep going.

Oh and the club had their lights fixed (after vandels smashed them) only to have them all smashed again two days later. Unbelievable.

Time to start saying goodbye

2010-04-20T15:26:00.000-07:00

Our time in Wellington is nearly up. We're off to Auckland in two days, we're driving up and staying the night in Taupo on the way. Although all our furniture is going tomorow so its time to say goodbye to our two furry neighbours.

Louie

And Amber, my rough playing buddie

Check out those ears!

We went to watch Ben play his last game of rugby in the weekend. Pepper hates sitting around and often gets frustrated & barks but she did really well and was pretty much quiet the entire game. It helped that for the last 20mins she had a group of wee girls playing with her, wish I'd taken some pictures cause they were so cute but I was too busy trying to make sure she didn't jump on them or lick them to death

I got one, the little girl was sitting there telling Pepper about how her dog could fly a spaceship. It was very funny.

Tonight we're going to have a go at doing a rally-o course at club, it will be part of a national link competition. We'll just go just non-comp with treats but hopefully we have fun. I'm making my sister come to take pictures and video so will post when able.

Tag Game

2010-04-15T00:59:00.000-07:00

Thanks Bodie & Mrs Magoo for tagging me into the game!
So because Peppers only a puppy and I've used many of her puppy photos on the blog already I thought I'd just choose the first album on my computer and post the 10th photo from that.

And its horsey (of course)

This is me & my old horse Molly in all her muddy finery. It was taken in July 2006 (winter for us down here) It was freezing, and had been raining for weeks. It was too wet to ride in the paddocks but I wanted to use my new camera and take a few quick pics. And I know, no helmet, I'm naughty.
Here's a couple of "after" shots to show that we weren't always covered in mud! She was potentially the most over photographed horse in NZ for about 2 years.

In my hand is a Pukeko that came to a show with us one day. Our friend Jenny is a crazy bird rescuing lady and so all the wee rescue birds that she has have to come along so they don't miss out on their feeds. Lilly-Jane was her name and she was hilarious. We also had 1 or 2 magpies along for the ride that day. Here's Lilly-Jane up close.

Not to leave Pepper out though, here's some beachy pictures from yesterday.

Firstly a rather serious looking Pepper checking for seagulls before we set off to walk there (Seagull checking is a very important job, apparently)

Happy and tired on the way home.

We want to tag Elbow and Hauwii to play the game too! (10th photo from your first album and tell us all about it!)

Trip down South

2010-04-11T12:42:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a lot of traveling we've done over the past 4 days!

The wedding we went to was incredible, such a gorgeous setting.

Groomsmen.

Our good friends Rach, Ollie and Andrea

And Te Anau turned on 3 cracker days of perfect sunshine

We stopped off at my home town on the way back and stayed with my parents.

Of course Moby was there, he looks very old all of a sudden.

And this is Mobys friends Marley who was staying at our house.

I managed to squeeze in time to ride to pony club with my good friends nieces

And of course say hi to Jess & Cocoa (lab attack)

And give cuddles to all the horses.

This is Max, the "Wild" stallion.

And two rather large foals that really need to be weaned (according to their long suffering mothers!)

Pepper was so happy to see us when we picked her up last night, she was absolutly filthy (so had obviously had a great time) and totally tired

Wordless Wednesday

2010-04-06T22:46:00.001-07:00

We're off to a place called Te Anau (down the bottom sort of on the west coast of NZ) for a wedding tomorow and Peppers off to spend her first time in a boarding kennel (well, its not really her first time, she was at the SPCA for 3months)

So we'll be away until Sunday, hopefully Pepper has a good post-easter break!

Head Down

2010-04-05T20:47:00.000-07:00

Here's what Pepper learnt last week:

Last night she was sitting in the most ridiculous "split legs" position, playing with one of her favourite things - a tiny ripped off leg from a stuffie (in this case her nemesis the hedgehog) She plays with these tiny pieces for ages, carrying them around, throwing them in the air and hiding them under the couch for us to "rescue" Silly pup.

No easter for me

2010-04-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Yep, because I've been working the whole time. So no time for blogging either
This is just a quick one - up at dog club last week, we arrived to find vandals had been (probably late the night before) and the had tagged everywhere - on the club house walls, the inside lights the doors. But worst off all they had spent quite a considerable of time smashing all 6 of the brand new big lights that are for lighting up the area to work the dogs. Totally disgusting and heartbreaking. The amount of time it took to try and get the glass picked up off the astro-turf wasn't nice either. (and we couldn't get it all, so its dangerous for the dogs now) The club had worked for years to fund those lights and some little thugs come along and destroy it for nothing. Makes me sick to my stomach.

Wordless Wednesday

2010-03-30T22:22:00.000-07:00

We're on the move.......

2010-03-23T15:52:00.000-07:00

Last week my partner found out he had gotten a new job, and its in Auckland. Sooooooo its another move up the country for us. What a hassle moving is, even within your own country! Having to resign from my job (it will be sad to say goodbye) and apply for a new one, organise the end of the lease at our house etc etc.

The hardest thing of all though is trying to find somewhere to live that will take Pepper, what an absolute nightmare its turning into. We don't want to buy at this stage and it seems anywhere that will take a dog is hideous and run down or too far out of town (for Ben's liking anyway - I'd be supremely happy to go live out in the country but he doesn't want to have to commute into work everyday) I'm sure something will crop up eventually but in the meantime its stressful and frustrating.

Anyway, here are some happy ball time photos from the dog park that's just down the road from us.

"Are you ready Pepper"

And shes offPretzel legs prepares for takeoff

Good Catch!

Oh and we had a funny experience at pet store yesterday (one of a well known chain of stores her in NZ that offers puppy classes as well as a in store vet) I needed to buy a new clicker because my old one had given up on me. I took it up to the counter (Pepper was with me of course) and the lady there said to me "Is your dog trained with this, I've always wanted to see a dog that knows it" and proceeded to point the clicker straight at Peppers face and click it rapidly 7 or 8 times. She then looked at me (I was nearly hysterical with trying to hold my laughter in as Pepper was looking at me like "What the hell just happened there?") and she said "why isn't she doing her tricks?" Oh dear. I was about to go into a rant about how clickers are used to mark a behaviour, that the click won't make her "do" anything and that if she is going to click at my dog like that she can treat her thank you very much. But instead I just gave her the wee booklet that came with the clicker and suggested maybe she read it one day.

Update

2010-03-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Heres this mornings efforts - we're getting the door clicked shut today :)

Closing the door

2010-03-21T20:15:00.000-07:00

First of all, Pepper got a new collar because someone chewed someones other collar to pieces.

We've been working quite a bit on targeting this week - foot targeting an icecream lid to start with - we've got quite good distances, about 6metres after 2 sessions, and targeting it up on the couch, on a chair etc.

Then I decided to try and teach her to push the door shut with her nose - we've done lots to "touch" targeting with my hand but not nose-to-object targeting.

At first I was using the command "touch" but then she was getting really confused, looking for my hand so I stopped that and started using "hit it" but then sort of stopped that too. She figured out to touch the piece of paper quickly, but getting her to actually p-u-s-h the door took a bit longer. After the first nose targeting session we spent some time learning to push my hand with the touch command and clicking after she put pressure on my hand for prolonged periods of time. Today when we went back to the door she pretty much got it straight away! I love watching her think! She's so quick.

Still a work in progress, only had two sessions so far...

Edit to add - The videos pretty long and boring - quicker version is in the post above :)

Oh and we had our first rally-o class last week.
Pepper had absolutely zero focus to start with: plastic ears, head in the clouds type of thing. Normally she's pretty switched on to me whenever I ask but after some great tips from Sonia our instructor she was much better and heeling with lots of attention.

I was really happy that for the entire hour we were there we only had about 3 episodes of barking (as apposed to barking the entire time we were at club only 6 weeks ago) so we're making progress there.

Rally-o seems to be a really great "sport" and I think Pepper & I will really enjoy it. I like that you can talk away to your dog as much as you like, it seems to be laid back and friendly. I hope it takes off in New Zealand as very few clubs offer it at this stage.

Pony post - Before & Afters

2010-03-16T21:05:00.000-07:00

I wanted to share some pictures today of two horses I've had in the past that came to me in a not so wonderful states. The first was a 14.3hh 5yr old morgan/TB cross called "Aidrey Lassie" (or Lass to her friends). She was brought sight-unseen by a lady that I worked with and when she arrived off the truck her new owner was horrified - she was in terrible condition. The new owner was not very experienced with young horses and Lass had really not done alot so I agreed to take her on to school for a few months.

This is what she looked like the day she arrived to my paddock (about 1 month after her owner had brought her)
And these pictures were taken about 8 weeks later!

Its amazing what good feed, good grass, regular exercise, grooming and a pair of scissors will do! She was a cool wee horse, we had alot of fun.

The next is my favourite wee pony ever - Panda an miniature timor pony. My friend Chloe and I brought her when we were 14years old for the princely sum of $25 from a horrible disgusting hideous man who had neglected a large number of miniatures he had inherited from his sick father. Our non-horsey parents didn't find out about her for 2 weeks - they were horrified! She was a bag of bones, riddled with lice & worms, had a terrible skin condition, awful feet and was just miserable. She also had a horrible cough due to having a deformity to her soft palate.

These pics were taken the day we brought her.

But with proper treatment (worming, shampoo's, farrier, feeding, covers etc) she soon picked up and became the happiest (slightly out of control) creature on the place. We loved her to pieces. She came everywhere with us and our "big" horses and was a such a character.

Sadly she passed away 6years ago from pneumonia (gosh time goes fast, it only seems like yesterday) and she is buried in our garden.
RIP little savage pony

Another visitor

2010-03-14T12:29:00.000-07:00

When we got home from the beach yesterday there was barking coming from behind one of the doors - it was one of the boy's friends who had brought her dog around to visit - Cocoa, who is half foxy half miniture pinscher. She's only really little (she weighs 5kg and Pep weighs 21kg) and is quite overweight which is never good for any dog, but especially for her because she has hip dysplasia, so the extra weight she is carrying won't help her hips at all.

Cocoa was not at all like Pepper's other friend Cocoa (one half of the lab attack), she was all snarly and yap yap yappy, Pepper was not too impressed because this is HER house and what right did this tiny yapper have to tell her off for coming inside!?!?

So she ran away and hid up in the garden where Cocoa couldn't yap and nip at her.

But eventually they sorted things out in the ways dogs always tend to do, although Pepper still wasn't keen on playing with her.

We also got given a blog award from Lou at Talisman Farm (thanks Lou!)

We can't remember the rules but we want to give it to El'bow & Hauwii because they have great cartoons

Where did summer go???

2010-03-12T01:04:00.000-08:00

Today in Wellington (where we live) a big storm came through at about 4.30pm. The weather dropped 10degrees (Celsius) in less than 15minutes! Brrrrr. I was lucky enough (not) to be walking home when it "hit" and it was freezing and I got very wet and wind swept. Lucky Pepper was cuddled up on her bed when I got home, and she looked decidedly pleased with herself when she saw me looking like a drowned rat.

Here are some pictures from the news websites of the storm rolling on in, pretty chilly stuff but made for some amazing photos!

By around 7pm it had stopped raining and the wind was gone so we were off to the golf course for a quick walk and to make sure the bunnies were behaving (but they were all hiding tonight, the thunder must have scared them away)Pep found a really good pine cone though so that made up for no bunnies.She loves chewing, carrying & chasing pine cones. (We try not to let her bring them home because the mess she makes with them is totally out of this world, you end up picking up pine cone pieces for days and weeks) so they are just a special golf course toy.

Haven't had a chance to test out the new-but-old movie editing software yet (thanks Hsin-Yi!) but here's a quick video of Pepper practicing to wait with the pine cone.

We start our first Rally-O class on Wednesday, I can't wait. We're even going to be skipping the beginner class and going straight into the proper class. (eeekk) I keep reminding the instructors that I'm a horse person not a dog person, so even if Pepper seems to know what she is doing, I haven't really got the foggiest haha. Hopefully I don't embarrass Pepper too much. All the people at the club are just so nice, friendly and laid back. They love their dogs and they're all about positive reinforcement & reward based training. Last week at training Pepper and I stayed behind for an hour and chatted with the instructors while the dogs played and it was so nice to meet a group of people that aren't in it for glory and aren't overly competitive, they just want to have fun with their dogs and help others do the same. We really like this club :)

Dog training class upgrade!

2010-02-25T11:29:00.000-08:00

Another coastal walk

We had training class two nights ago, again Pepper was naughty by barking pretty much non-stop while we were standing around listening (I'll have to put up a video of her barking, its like a high pitched loud yap, occasionally interspersed with howly type noises, quite terrible. Peppers Dad says that it is highly embarrassing to have a dog that makes that kind of noise.) But whenever we had to "do" something, again she was all focused on me and a total star. At the end of the class the instructor said to me that he would like to grade me out of this class and put me straight into the intro to obedience class (so skip the next 6 weeks of this class (grade 1) and then skip grade 2 as well) Yay Pepper! We have to wait 2 weeks until the new class starts so we will keep going to this class cause its good for Pepper to socialise (and try and get this barking thing sorted)

Here are some pictures of the pups playing at the end of the class - sorry for the blurry-ness and terrible quality - my camera was dropped with the lens open onto a stony horse arena recently and hasn't been the same since (I'm working on getting a new one)

This is Pumba who Pepper lived with at the SPCA and Bugsey, who is 7yrs old. As soon as all the dogs get let off the leash he goes straight for the nearest dogs "ankles" and just latches on, no matter how fast the other dog runs. Brings the term "ankle biter" to life!

The white dog below is Kelly, her and Pepper get on really well, and the giant brindle is Aries, who belongs to one of the instructors.

Check out the blurry levitating pup on the right, weird.

Pep running round and round like a mad thing.

Eastern Walkway

2010-02-16T18:59:00.000-08:00

Today was grey and cold and miserable. I'm working night shifts this week, which means that if I wants to sleep during the day without Pepper being a pest I needs to give her a good walk no matter what the weathers doing.We drove out past our usual beach to one of the walkways on the other side of the peninsula. Its called the eastern walkway and is another off leash dog walk area.

We ended up pretty much climbing a mountain (definitely didn't realise what we were getting ourselves into!)

But it was worth it, at the top were views of all sides of the peninsula (although it was pretty foggy so not too much to see today, on a clear day you can see all the way to the South Island)

And there was also a memorial to the soldiers that died in Gallipoli (which is a place in Turkey where lots of New Zealand soldiers died in world war one)

Vroooooooooooooooooooooom, time to go down the mountain!

At the bottom was a nice wee fresh water stream to paddle in and have a drink.

It was fun, we'll definitely do that walk again.

Another day, another trip to the beach

2010-02-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

We go to the beach nearly every day. Pepper looooooooves it. loves it loves it love it!

On Honeys blog she had a picture of her face covered in sand (and a bit of slobber I'm sure). Well heres a beach-face photo to give her a run for her money!

When we got home look at who was waiting on the steps for us. Louie!
Where are you going? I'll be friendy, honest. I just want to lick you!

Tomorow night we start our first dog training class, its at a place called Central Allbreeds and we are doing their basic class called Grade 1 Canine Introduction that goes for 8weeks. We've both been really looking forward to starting, I really hope she behaves herself (but I'm sure Peppers just hagning out to ignore me so she can run around like a looney with the other dogs)

Evening walks at the golf course & more pony pics

2010-02-08T19:02:00.000-08:00

How much is this doggie in the window? Not for sale sorry :)

We're pretty lucky where we live. We have a wonderful dog beach just 5 minutes drive away and less than 1min walk from my front gate is a huge golf course. Dogs are not allowed on the course itself but there are two tracks that run around and through it - the golf course loop and part of the city-to-sea walkway and dogs are allowed on those.

Its been pretty hot here during the day so we go up to the golf course after dinner, its really nice and a good chance for to practise loose lead walking on the way there and back.

Pep spotted 3 bunnies up on the hill and was after them!! But they were magical and disappeared somewhere and she lost them.

Some Toi-Toi which is fun to grap and let the fluffy bits get stuck everywhere
Don't know what this plant is but we thought it looked interesting

Also, I was sent some photos from the wee girls I used to help with riding. They went for a trip to a show and won lots of ribbons and also went riding at the river (I'm green with jealousy, I really hate to miss out on fun stuff like that!)

They also sent some pictures of me riding before we left to come back up North. I'm riding Denver who is half thoroughbred half Morgan and 5 years old. The children and I drove down to a wonderful place not far from my parents place in the South Island to do some cross country riding, which Denver had never done before. She was a super jumper and a real star.

Oh and congrats to Clive for being best in show! And to Honey and Cinnamon for all their winnings as well!!!! Well deserved :)

Pepper can Swim!

2010-01-27T11:11:00.001-08:00

Yesterday when we went to the beach (which we do nearly every day) I accidentally threw Peppers ball a bit too far into the sea. Normally she just paddles in the shallow bits that have no scary waves and stays well away from anything deeper than her knees. But today she had her brave big dog paws on and she went into the sea! She had sooooo much fun. She even did some swimming, & loved it so much she even started leaping in and diving through the waves! I was jumping up and down with excitement and I think all the other people on the beach thought I was a bit mad.

The signs we have at Wellington off leash dog walking areas.

Check Pepper out!!!

Here's a very short video in one of the shallow areas

Shaking it off

And I thought I could enter this one in Tuckers Sit Stay Competition. What do you think?