Happy Christmas Everyone!

I hope that everyone has had a wonderful Christmas and got lots of lovely presents from Father Christmas this year, and had a peaceful and enjoyable break from the usual hustle and bustle of usual life, spending time with families and friends?? All four of us went down to mum's for Christmas and Boxing Day (today) and it has been lovely and relaxing just doing nothing and having the time to take the doggies for really long walks down at the sea front - this is the doggies on their Boxing day walk earlier today.

Well we all received some lovely gifts, I got given a magazine subscription, along with some funny things, a laptop case, lots of socks - always good :))), some clothes, paint shop pro for my computer. Alex got lots of nice things too - clothes, music, items for his car, aftershave, and of course the doggies got spoiled with lots of toys and treats! Overall we had a great time, back to reality now as Alex has to work up til the 31st :((( but time for me to tidy up the house and get ready for our New Years' Eve party!!

Happy Birthday Princess!!

Today is Kiah's 4th birthday, i can't believe how quickly the time has gone, it only seemed a little while that i was picking her up to come home for the very first time!! She really is the best dog for so many reasons - far too many to mention, and I owe such a lot to her over the past four years, she is just a star and there will never be another dog like her. We had a massive walk on Sunday in the snow, this is Kiah just about to do some sledging!!

Kiah and I would also like to wish her brother Chase and sisters Vienna and Chatter a very happy birthday for today as well, hope they get lots of spoiling too! So... HAPPY BIRTHDAY beautiful princess Kiah, there's a big juicy steak waiting for you for your dinner tonight!!!

Serious Snow!!

We have had some really serious amounts of snow over-night last night, not that I am complaining at all; I love snow its just amazing, fun to play in, and to throw at people ;) and it just makes everything look so pretty and clean, and I am seriously now hoping for a white Christmas too if anyone can arrange that please?!?!?! The dogs love it too, we took them over the pristine white covered park this morning and they both had a long run around (read - spaz attack) Kiah especially likes to do her funny Belgian-run-around, so they both came back tired and happy and ready for a snooze.

Lots of people hadn't taken the risk this morning to try and drive in to our work - better to be safe than sorry for one day and especially so close to Christmas - though I made it in to our local office after a careful drive in as none of the local roads had been gritted. However around lunch time the managing director phoned up the office and said that whoever was there/left could go home as a half day (thank you!!) which was just totally awesome, very excited about that!! So the doggies got another mega long walk over the park, I don't think they minded that the snow wasn't quite so pristine as it had been in the morning, I could tell they still had a great time!!

Getting Into The Christmas Spirit!

The month is running headfirst into the festive season, which I love every year without fail even if this year it is racing up rather too quickly and I'm not ready for it!!! One of my favourite parts that happens at the start of Christmas is getting all the lights and decorations up - especially the outside lights as they are just so pretty to see and look at when I get home from work. It seems to quickly be becoming a tradition to get them up approximately around the date of my birthday which is just great, possibly it is maybe a little early (6th) but who cares, they look nice, and Christmas only comes once a year and therefore I must be as festive as possible for as long as possible!!

We also have a 'mini' Christmas held with my cousins a couple of weeks beforehand - who we don't generally see on the 25th, so this year it happened over the weekend just gone and the dogs came down to mum's with us. A lot of the weekend was spent walking on the beach with the dogs which was just amazing all four of us had a great time, it was chilly but lovely and sunny - nothing resembling the rain that we had endured a couple of weeks before. It's not a very festive picture but the doggies were watching the seagulls and being photogenic in the sunset so I thought it was rather nice.

Anyway, that part of the family are more 'cat' than dog people - I think part of the issue is that a lot of people who may know one dog, is that it is a complete nutcase and has no manners - and then automatically think that all dogs are like that which just isn't the case! I like to think my poochies are well mannered, yes they are nut-cases and I wouldn't have them any other way, but they also know how to behave in polite company. Well this weekend - usually they are good - but they were the best, just absolutely perfect poochies - they even helped us unwrap some of our presents and of course each had their own little Christmas dinner too!

FCI Training Part 2

Last Sunday we had the second (out of four, two more in the new year) training sessions with Nancy to train some more FCI style courses and handling which I really enjoyed again, and so did Kiah. The main focus of this training session was to practice European style runs that contain both massive power sections and also control sections, so a need to use techniques for both power and speed yet control. For Kiah and I, it really was a step up from anything that we have ever really done/practised/competed on before. We made lots of errors mainly due to my timing which is not brilliant anyway - and of course it doesn't help especially when little Kiah mostly enjoys the fast bits of the courses and sometimes forgets that she needs to turn! However the skills needed to work spread out courses like this is something that we both need to improve on. We won't just use it for FCI but also using similar or the same handling and timing over here when Kiah is frequently miles ahead of me on a course - so I found the whole session very beneficial, thank you Nancy.

Dark Horse!

We had arranged to go on a long weekend break back to Belgium, just to see Alex's home country, to get a little bit of Christmas shopping done, see some of his friends, eat lots, and generally spend some quality time together, all of which we did and it was a lovely weekend. Even the weather was lovely, it stayed dry, warm and sunny (apart from light rain in the evenings) - which is very unlike November and certainly nothing like what Brussels is renowned for. Kiah meanwhile got to have her own little holiday while staying with Dave and Candice for those few days - really appreciate you guys looking after and taking care of my special princess, thank you.

So, back to the title of the post - Alex certainly IS a dark horse (for all the right reasons) as he had arranged lots of different surprises, all for me and none of which I had any idea he was doing so I must tell you about how wonderful it all was!! The first was the hotel, too many star-ratings to count, and it was right in the middle of Brussels city centre. The whole hotel was lovely, and the staff were very attentive and friendly too. The second was the room - or should I say mansion, it was on the top floor, one of the best suites with its own lounge, massive bed complete with red rose :)) and marble bathroom. The third has to be the view from the room which was just amazing and looked out over the city - the picture explains it all. Well, then came the biggest and best surprise of all, on Saturday evening in the middle of the grand place - the famous square with the spire of the building in the photo, Alex proposed!! I really didn't see it coming but of course I said yes, it really did make a good weekend just perfect, I'm very lucky, still :)))))) smiling lots, and very happy!!!

Discover Dogs 2009

Discover Dogs was a very enjoyable event this year at Earls Court 1, we had made a few personal changes to the stand to make it a bit more up-to-date and appealing to the public. We just added a few new pictures of various dogs in different disciplines (showing, agility, working, playing, puppies, all sorts), had lots of Belgian flags up, made some fun stickers to give out, and informative colourful leaflets which people seemed to like too. It was the first year Alex had come along to DD, it's useful that he's so tall to assist with putting things up really high that no-one else could even nearly reach :P but aside from that it was lovely to have him there and I'm pretty sure he enjoyed it - he was born and raised in Belgium so there's another connection there too!

The day was made even better by the three Mally superstars Rusty, Kiah and Tia (with us assisting!) manning the Belgian Malinois booth on the Sunday, it really is lovely to be able to showcase the dogs and tell everyone about this fantastic breed year on year. I've got the pictures of Discover Dogs through now and they have all come out really well, but here's one of the ones I think is the best. Its of course the stars of the show (L-R) Tia, Kiah and Rusty showing off their creations on the stand. Well the doggies were impecably behaved, they clearly had a great time and were very welcoming to the public who all came to fuss over and ask about them, and got a big waggy hello in return!!