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!!

FCI Training

One of the things I had been looking forward to (and obviously hoped Kiah was fighting fit for) was the FCI training to be held with Nancy last weekend. I really enjoy the way that Nancy trains people, as she is just so constructive and positive with her comments, puts so much of her own personal time in to helping us out which I really appreciate, and every time we are finished I really feel that we have been tested, yet learned so much. The training was centred around full FCI courses and then breaking them down into smaller parts to practice and improve on certain bits where we had made errors or made things more difficult than needed.

Kiah worked great in the full courses, getting me out of trouble more than a fair few times, and not getting eliminated in two out of the three rounds, but there were also lots of things to improve on which was the best bit about the training, these were able to be identified so we can get better at them. Things like weave entries, early cueing of equipment, tunnels under the dog walk, layering, body language, all sorts to take away. One of the most simple things I think a lot of people can take on board, is to never give up and this training session really helped me to believe that even more. There are three more FCI training sessions with Nancy that will follow on from this one; there's one coming up very soon and a couple more in the new year too, we can't wait!!

So on to this weekend, we were at training this afternoon - fortunately it was indoors as the gales, storms, rain and hail were a little extreme - but Kiah was just awesome!! There were a lot of fast straight line exercises at different spacings so she really had to think about it and was just perfect, as well as doing full recall weaves!! Another change that I am starting to try and re-teach (myself not her) in our training is that I want her to start going on from contacts without me - as unfortunately up til now I have always got her to do her nose touches then release when I am up level with her. This just wastes so much time as I'm always miles behind so though I still want her nose touch and stop 2 on 2 off, I want her to be able to go on too, its going to be really fun to train, as its me not Kiah that needs to improve and change my timings.

We have another busy and full day planned out tomorrow as we are taking a trip up to London along with Rusty and Tia, to take part in the Discover Dogs exhibition - for the Malinois breed stand. All three of them love the attention from the visitors there, and its great to be able to tell the public about this awesome breed too. There may even be a little smidgeon of time to do a bit of Christmas shopping too!

Back To 'Normality'

If there is such a thing when you live with a nutty Belgian like Kiah... but who would change her, not me!! So anyway, after a fair few weeks - more than I care to remember - I think I can safely say normal life is starting to resume again, and we are enjoying getting back into it - thats why I have posted this picture of her pretty smiley face, she looks so happy! The reasons that Kiah and I have been doing so little recently is because first of all she was injured with her mystery shoulder issue and I wanted to rest her as much as possible so she was on lead walks and no jumping about (well you tell Kiah not to jump about!!), then secondly she came into season for a couple of weeks, which has now finished too. So touch wood and fingers crossed her shoulder seems ok now, and we are slowly getting back in to agility training which we are both loving being back at. I am however resting her from any agility shows for the rest of the year, cause I don't want to be silly and take any chances, and I think all dogs that work their socks off like the Belgians do need a break every now and again so they don't burn out. I promise I will do a further update in a couple of days with what else we have been up to over the past month!!

Patience...

Due to Kiah's injury a lot of her time recently has been taken up with resting, stretching, massages, on lead walks and generally other than that eating or sleeping, oh and of course her all time favourite which is definitely belly rubs! For the benefit of her health and wellbeing, all agility was postponed (aside from important events or specially pre-booked training sessions) and I must say Kiah has been very patient throughout the whole of her rest/time out, she is a very versatile, adaptable little girly and I am very proud of her :))) as always.

Obviously I have been entertaining her in other ways as she hasn't had agility to play at, she likes doing her basic tricks with her clicker (awesome invention!) such as beg, walk backwards, rolly over, dance on her hind legs, and sad face rubbing her face with her paw. I must train her to do the elephant trick too, haven't done that one yet its very clever. We have the odd play fight too, lots of biting, teeth and growling from me and her, she loves that game and of course I always win ;) hehe. Kiah also has her treat toys filled with tasty bits and pieces for her to think about how to retrieve (16 toys at last count), oh and we also play find the treat and hide it somewhere so she has to hunt it out with her nose, as she is so obsessed with food!

Kiah must miss her agility though, both training and competitions, its not the same as just walkies or brain training, so I'm sure she can't wait to soon get back into it. I just want to start her back up slow and steady to make sure of a full, solid strong muscle recovery, back to 100%. Here are a couple more awesome pictures of Kiah, taken by Candice at the selection day.