Half term activities

barley has had an odd sort of week, but enough about that picture time

These are some photos of the dog show we went to last weekend

 Reinforcing his leave command, and being a bit mean to him, he was very good and stayed still

The making of barley's breakfast 

the end product of barley's breakfast

The eating of barley's breakfast

This was barley's dinner today, left over veg and potato from our roast chicken yesterday

To finish of some photos of ross that i took the other day

Pupdate

sorry i have not posted for a while had a hectic week anyway, barley is having his raw day tommorow cant wait, just been and got his stuff out of the freezer to defrost. We have a confirmed place at dog training classes starting with an introduction next friday then he will start to go to classes the following friday, cant wait. We have worked out that it is his left back leg that is causing him problems, we are considering taking him to the vets as it seems to be causing more problems but he is having longer walks but for his own good as he needs to loose some kg's and his food has been cut down enough as it is. it is half term this week so lots of time for walks, training, playing, massage, washing, grooming and lots of other stuff. we are going to do some scent work on sunday.

Clacton dog show

we were at a show today. we came home with 7 rossetts our best success ever.
Barley got
2nd for most handsome male
3rd for fastest sausage eater
3rd for junior handler
5th for best crossbreed

Ross got
5th for best little dog
6th for any variety non-sporting

They both got
3rd for Irish brace ( most different pair of dogs)

we won some treats and that was it, both dogs are now shattered and so am i, they ran the pedigree and novelty classes at the same time so lots of rushing about between rings, dad handled barley for 2 classes ( best rescue and best crossbreed) and ross for 1 ( best condition)

We entered 10 classes overall and got placed in 7 of them so a very good turnout, the other classes we entered but did not get placed were
Ross
best condition

Barley
best rescue
best big dog
This takes barleys rossett total up to 53, rosses up to 5 and he has only been to 2 shows with us (so far)
will post some photos tommorow as i am very tired

Our walk 2

We had a lovely walk this morning, lasted just over 2 hours, he is now shattered. We walked round the park and met loads of other dogs he had some off lead time the rest was on extender  just as we were about to leave his boxer friend came in so we stayed and walked round with her for a bit, this is a boxer we have know for just over 2 years now and she has helped 'rehabilitate' barley round boxers and not see them as a threat, she is 9 but acts like a puppy and barley is  4 1/2 and acts like an old man. He is going to a show tommorow so groom time this evening, first show in a while, cant wait, ross will be coming as well. Will get dad to take some nice pictures, he did get very tired by the end of his walk and kept tripping over his own feet so i only did one round of the park with the boxer then went home, we had a lovely conversation about dog nutrition, luckily he is not a bakers feeder as i would advise him off that but instead she is on gilpa have heard of it before but do not know much about it. We are going to be doing some scent work this evening as well as we have not done any for a while. We have also started walking barley on a harness as he feels more comfortable and spooks less, must be a security thing.

Heres todays picture

 And some long overdue pictures of crufts, looking back at these photos i can see how stressed barley was, excuse my unhappy faces i was very tired and all the things that happened are still very raw to me and they have left some bad memories, nobody knew how much him being there meant to me and how much that winning would have meant for all that he and i have been through and how we were treated.

our walk

We had a lovely walk this afternoon, well i say it was a walk but it was more training than walk. We worked on watch me, come, tricks and sitting at curbs. He was very well behaved and did not spook at all, but saying that there was nothing to spook at, we also worked on his speak as dad will not let us do this at home as he creates such a racket when he does. he is now snoring on his bed.

Last night he had his tea in his kong, he has not had food in his kong for ages as he used to leave it until someone held it still for him, but yesterday he done it all by himself and licked it clean, he had a packet of wet food in it, just enough so that it was not stuffed to tightly or to loosely. this evening he had a little bit of coconut oil with his food as you have to introduce it very slowly, he really liked the taste of it, hopefully it will improve his overall body condition and help him loos some grams ( more like kilos (; ).

Week pupdate

Sorry i have not posted for ages, had a very busy week.

Barley took a turn for the worse last week with his legs but seems to have settled down now, but we are still looking into some stronger joint stuff. We have not done any scent work the past week as i have been very busy.

We went for a nice walk today, we went for a run instead of a walk, he spooked three times, but had many more opportunity's to so he is getting slightly better.

Will update later as being nagged to get of computer

Shopping spree

Was out shopping this morning for barley, very pleased with what we got, dad was not so pleased because of the price tag but he did nee the stuff.

He got:
18 packs of natures menu wet food, 3 of each flavour ( chicken, lamb, rabbit, fish, lite and sensitive)
pack of 100 sensitive wipes
New flea comb as his was disintegrating
2x bags of treats, they are mini bone treats ideal for training as they are very small
Water less shampoo, for when he does not need a full bath but still needs a good clean
flexi XL, this was his special treat as his old one is on its way out and dad wanted a new one

The total of all of this came to just over £60 but we got £10 of our pets at home VIP voucher.

Below are a few pictures of us when we went to the beach the other weekend and sunbathing barley

Scent work

Well barley has been doing very well in his scent work training, he is picking up on it really quick, well it is for his dinner. He has 3 boxes put out 2 blank and one with scent on, something like toothpaste, cinnamon, paprika, garlic, basil and so on. he has an 'article' to sniff which has the scent on then he walks down the line of boxes and should indicate which one it is by sitting by it, we are still working on this as he is slow at sitting but does know which box has the scent on. Soon he will move onto 4 boxes with one decoy scent. It is really hard work and a lot of time has to go into it, but it will be worth it in the end. he will be doing about 3-4 months of box work until he can move onto 'real' searches so that i know that he is only sniffing for one scent and that he is very willing to work. I will update this every time we do some more work or has done something very well. He does three box runs every other day, in each of the boxes there is some wet food (his dinner) so he has to find the one with the scent on to get the food not just indicate on all of them in the hope that he will get the food, he has been doing this for about a week now, so is doing well.

Pack love

Barley is now on pack love, it is an invite only site and i have one invite left, if you would it please send me and email

http://packlove.com/barley-1

He also has a new bed, mum made him one, it is a bit small but it will do for now

He had a good groom today and i got 2 carrier bag fulls of hair out of him, he is diffidently moulting

His back legs are not good at the moment and are causing concern, but hopefully his joint supplements will kick in soon otherwise a trip to the vet for some high strength stuff.

Bad books + good books + Food + exiting news

Well barley is in the bad books for chewing his bed (again) but this time to the point of no return and amount of sewing will make it a bed again, he complained last night when he did not have his bed and would not sleep all he wanted to do was curl up on the sofa which he is not allowed to do, he eventually settled down with lots of moaning and huffing and grumpy dog glances.

Well he is also in good books for training, we have started scent work with him and he is progressing well, he has good go's and bad goes but when he has a good go it is really good and he is a quick leaner but when he has a bad go he just cant be bothered, he is currently only working on one scent, toothpaste but will at some point start using a diffrent scent and using multiple scents on one go.

We have also finally found a solution to his allergies, it was all in a change of diet, we have changed him to a grain free dieat and he is doing very well on it and has completly stopped itching ( for now) hopefully this will be long term and once we have got rid of all of his food we should be moving to raw as he stopped itching on that as well.

Exiting news!
the descion has been made that next summer we will be getting a puppy for me to train as a SAR dog. the plan is that we should be getting a toller pup but no certainty of this yet it does just all depend on what pups are availible at the right time, what ever breed we get it will be a bitch, for barleys sake as he can be grumpy with male dogs and i really want a girl. I cant wait as we never had barley as a puppy puppy as we got him at 8 months old so did not have the little cute bundle of fluff causing mass destruction everywhere ( well barley done this anyway). This pup would be my own as braley is supposed to be a family dog but more like a me and daddy dog. We have not decided if we would get her spayed cause we might have one litter with her, but no descions have been made yet.