Although Tom’s visit to Julia was very positive there was a bit of doom and gloom which means making some changes to Tom’s agility career for the time being. She was really pleased with his progress as he’s more in proportion muscle wise, not Arnie at the front and Mr Muscle at the back anymore, and his patella’s clonk now and don’t grind which is apparently a good thing! He didn’t actually need much treatment, in fact Dudley had the most as after getting kicked by Fenella he was left with a bit of whiplash which is now sorted out.

After their treatment we talked about the way forward for Tom and the conclusion is that as he is he could probably get through half the season but may then be back to square one so I have made the hard decision to pull him out of Leah’s Thursday night session, which is a shame as I’ll miss Nancy moaning about all the running Leah makes us do (I’m going to finish this course running Dudley so will have to record some of it to get me through the rest of the year) I’m going to still run him once a fortnight or so on a Wednesday alternating with Suzi as this class isn’t as intensive as Thursday. I will still be doing shows with him but will stick to one or two runs a day plus we have been thinking of exercises to do to use his back legs more independently, I thought of the Elephant trick but Julia was thinking more of things like walking him sideways across slopes and trying to get him to walk sideways away from me crossing his legs rather than shuffling, not sure that made sense and to be honest I’m not having much luck with it so if anyone has any ideas I would be grateful.

Here are a few pictures of Julia working on them, they don’t usually wear collars and leads while being treated but Dudley pushed in. I love the first one of Duds and he has a really smug look on his face, the second one looks as if she’s strangling him but you can see he’s nearly asleep. The one of Tom is funny as he wanted to play with Dudley so is very wild eyed but look how shiny his nose is. Julia would only let me take photos if I promised to only have her hands in them and not her face!





I’ve started training Suzi’s dogwalk with a flannel halfway between the start of the contact and the end and have been working with her to get her to step on it on the way through rather than leaping over the whole thing plus Mac thinks I need to work wider of the dogwalk, stand more upright and slightly behind her and Wendy says not to shout ‘Yeah’ quite so deeply as she looks at me in a very shocked way plus I’m trying not to stare at her on the way down as this seems to slow her down and then launch herself off.

What with Tom’s legs and Suzi’s contacts looks like I’m going to have to rely on the ankle biting Dudley this year and after he nearly pulled me over in the woods the other day by ambushing me and grabbing the tags on my wellies I’m hoping that the rest of the club can get us into the premier division of the Agility Club league for next year.

The Dog Brick was a roaring success but I got it a bit wrong as to their reactions, Tom quickly got the idea that there were treats available and also how to open the door but lost interest very quickly, Suzi did just sit and look at me for a while but after she’d seen Dudley who was a bit like a bull in a china shop to start with but got the hand of it the quickest of all she seemed to understand that she needed to get the doors open but struggled a bit pushing them and resorted to sneaking in under Dudley’s head and pinching the treat once he’d opened the door. I know they should probably have been kept separate while playing with the brick but Dad kept two amused while I sat with the one working out the doors but Suzi has the speed of a striking snake and was there and gone before any of us realised what she was doing. I really wish I’d videoed it.

I know Leah has tagged me but I’m going to wait until I can look at my pictures at home before I reply to it.