Happy 15.5 birthday to me!!  A lot has happened in the last 11 years since I got my gold Good Citizen award.  We have more humans, more dogs, ponies, reptiles…..dad is tearing (what is left of) his hair out 😂.  

Wicket was the first dog brother to arrive 6 years ago.  I was going to have another Vizsla sister but mum's friend and my hydrotherapist had a litter of Border Terriers.  Then we fostered Freckles 3 years ago, a 5mo Greek English Pointer x who had just had hip surgery.  Mum was to take him swimming and do his exercises before sending him back to be rehomed.  Hrm, you can see that that went well.  Failed foster, successful adoption.  They keep me on my toes and playful which was kinda the point of getting more apparently.  

I still go swimming once a week and I've branched out into Low Level Laser Therapy from one of mum's friends.  I have some of the new wonder-drugs too - Librela injections once a month that help keep my arthritis in check.  I still go out walking with the young hooligans and make sure they are following the rules.  If I bark at another dog it's gratifying to see how quickly they swoop in from either side to back me up, although mum just rolls her eyes, I can't think why.  

As I've got older I'm big into My Daily Routine.  My Big Thing is dinner time.  I like to start warming up about 2 hours before it.  I give a bit of a shiver and a whine, drool a little, just so that the humans get the idea that it's coming.  I gradually shorten the time between whining and eventually escalate to barking when there's about half an hour to go.  A little childish maybe, but you've got to keep the humans under control.  

 

A Good Citizen

I'm officially A Good Citizen. On Saturday I passed my Kennel Club Gold level test! Mum is very chuffed as we have waited to get this for a long time - I was ready when I was about one and a half but I had all sorts of illness and wasn't able to train for a long time. Then we moved house and it took us a while to find a new training club but in April of last year we joined the Basingstoke and District Dog Training Club and I started working for my Gold again. Next step competition obedience....gulp... Big thanks to Karen and Lynne our trainers!

Let it snow!

It's the return of the white stuff! I had a month of it in January of this year when I went skiing for the first time. Now i'm having another month of it on and off. I don't mind it too much and mum and dad are amused at watching me tracking things when they can see the footprints too. Humans are SO underdeveloped in the scent department. Well, having said that mum is giving me a run for my money with her nose at the mo. She is expecting a puppy in May and apparently it has given her a decent sense of smell. Well I think that's what she said anyway. Hopefully it will be a fun puppy like Bess and not a boring annoying one.

Obedience

I've just started on the path to becoming more 'obedient'. Well, I'm working on my heelwork. Mum takes me to a club every week. I'm finishing up my Gold Good Citizen and starting to work on competition obedience. I must say it is good fun as it means I get to stuff my face with treats. Where's the catch?

I've been showing how well behaved I can be with my new niece (aunty?). She is my grandma's new puppy and we looked after her for a couple of weeks whilst grandma was on holiday. I was fairly fed up with her at first as she was so little, but I gradually learned to play with her and even shared my bed. She is the little black one in the corner - it's hard to see her cos she is quite small. We did play tug which was funny - I could *so* have won if i'd wanted to but I pretended her feeble tugs were stopping me. Hah.



Oh - the cover isn't on the bed and the blanket is supposed to be doing its job cos *someone* peed on it. Bah puppies.

Success in the show ring

Like all the best and most famous show dogs I get my handler flown in from across the Atlantic...it is important to have international expertise at these show things. So this is my cousin Dylan. He has flown in from the USA specially to enter a show with me. Well, ok, maybe it was so his mum could come to a wedding but I know that this has been the highlight of Dylan's trip. He says that the USA is far far away but they do have Vizslas - Brisztow, Winnie, Dennis, Miss Laila, Zoe and Mia at least for starters!

We entered 'best condition' with mum and Dylan and I came third (nice biscuits, thanks). Then Dylan and I entered 'best young handler' and WE WON!!! I like to think that my calming presence helped seal the deal but actually I think it was cos Dylan had been to dog training with his dog, Maggie, and nailed all the tricky questions they asked him about dog handling.

This was A Good Result. And kindof made up for the rather embarrassingly poor effort dad and I put in in the gundog tests. So we tried a 'long retrieve'. I was awesomely steady to the gun, sighted the dummy well, but then went 'so what'. Dad had to retrieve it for me. I have him well trained but apparently my training skills weren't up for debate. I was supposed to pretend that he had trained ME. Well pshaw. The retrieve pens weren't much better. The 'up and over' was great to start with - I mean I did ALL the 'up and over' bits. I just didn't bother with the retrieve bits. But really if you want me to retrieve then you ought to be a bit more specific in the title. 'Up and over and fetch two dummies' would have made much more sense.

The crowd had a good laugh anyway. On our way out much later they'd left a dummy next to the up and over area and we nailed it properly loads of times in a row. See. When someone explains things clearly it's quite simple. Perhaps I'll go to the next one and show them how it's done.

Best in Show

Last night my breed was honoured with the top title in the canine showing world - Best in Show at Crufts 2010. Yogi (pic from Daily Mail) is a prolific winner, and he likes to think he looks a little like me. Of course I'm a bit younger and more sprightly, heheh. He's also my girlfriend Ditto's dad!