The walk for the Irish rescue doggies

Just back from the walk.
It was a really lovely day - after the weathermen telling us it was going to rain we had a totaly lovely time.

Mia had a little trouble at the start as we were on a narrow windy path where she didnt have much warning of dogs coming, but then after a couple of miles it opend out and she calmed down lots

When we set off walking we had about £700 pledged and that rose quite a bit by the end of the walk. Currently the total stands at just over £1000!!
Which is just fantastic
I will post the final result when we get it - of course we are still collecting - if you want to sponsor Mia and Ben please paypal me at pamduthie @ hotmail.com - even 50p will help the doggies lots

Here is the group after the walk - Mia is right on the end - but I never would have thought she could be so calm with so many dogs!!


I think about 6 of the dogs on the walk were Irish pound doggies, all happy in their new life and most training to be the agility stars of the future



The girl who organised it for us gave us theses cute certificates at the end


The bottom bit says (and beware - I was blubbing like a girl)

The reason

I would’ve died that day if not for you. I would’ve
given up on life if not for your kind eyes.
I would’ve used my teeth in fear
if not for your gentle hands. I would have left this life believing that all
humans don’t care
Believing there is no such thing as fur that isn’t matted,
skin that isn’t flea bitten,
Good food and enough of it, beds to sleep on,
someone to love me, to show me I deserve love just because I exist.
Your kind
eyes, your loving smile, your gentle hands Your big heart saved me…..
You
saved me from the terror of the pound. Soothing away the memories of my old
life.
You have taught me what it means to be loved. I have seen you do the
same for other dogs like me.
I have heard you ask yourself in times of
despair why you do it when there is no more money, no more room, no more
homes
You open your heart a little bigger, stretch the money a little
tighter, make just a little more room…
To save one more like me. I tell you
with the gratitude and love that shines in my eyes
In the best way I know how
Reminding you why you go on trying.
I am the reason. The dogs before me are
the reason as are the ones who come after.
Our lives would’ve been wasted,
our love never given
We would die if not for you

Sorry there are not more fotos of the walk but working a camera and keeping 2 dogs calm onlead just wasnt easy today

Announcment - Mia update

I wrote this blog as an update for my felt animals and Bens agility training. It was written by a dog lover for dog lovers. When Mia came along I though it would be a good place to update her progress aswell - and lots of people were very supportive and asked for updates for her.

It has been brought to my attention however that there are posts on this blog that might be seen by non dog lovers as me condoning agression in dogs.

Which as all of you that know me will know that is not the case.

To that end I am slowly looking through the blog and removing any references or fotos that can be missread.
That includes fotos of playing where teeth are showing - of course all dog lovers would recognise these as dogs playing but it seems that can be missread

I would like to point out that Mia is not an agressive dog
Mia is a fearful dog, her fear manifests itself like Scrappy Doo with lots of shouting but on a walk she has NEVER attacked another dog - she shouts from a distance. On occasion other dogs take a dislike to her and have charged her and pinned her down, although there is a lot of noise in these situations NO BLOOD HAS EVER BEEN DRAWN - it is all show.
Mia is also not in any way agressive to people, on the couple of times when another dog has her pinned on the ground when myself or the other owner have gone in to break it up she has turned round as if to snap then seen that it is not another dog and inhibited her bite

Her and Ben had a few spats in the early days - this was due to her resorce guarding and me missreading situations. With training and them building trust with each other that is now not and issue - and again with these spats no blood was drawn. To demonstrate the extent of the 'problem' they have had one 'spat' this year that was broken up v easily and they were lying paw in paw washing each others faces in no time.

I thought that posting of Mias progress would be a good reference to me to see how far she has come - and it has been, I also hoped it might be helpful to people who might be going through the same issues.
It never occured to me that non dog lovers would have any interest in reading the blog, or that if they did my words could be missunderstood to such an extent.

So I am sorry for any missunderstandings. It will take a while but I will check every post and edit it if needed.

Help the other Irish pound doggies

I am sure some of you rem that my Mia was rescued from the Irish dog pounds by a fantastic Irish charity

As a reminder here is the foto that won my heart - the little lady herself in the pound with less than a week to live


Dundalk dogs is a charity with no government help, they do such heartbreaking work visiting the pounds and trying to find homes for the dogs they see - and then hoping they can get the dogs out and somewhere safe in time
They then foster the dogs, quaranteen them and get all the medical work done before shipping them off to their new homes

My agility club is doing a sponsored dog walk this Sunday
Around Strathclyde park 10:30 am if anyone wants to say hello

and to make it a challange I am taking Ben and Mia - we have been working with her fear agression but it will be a big challange to manage the walk without putting her under too much stress

But I am rubbish at getting sponsorship! cannot ask people face to face!

I wondered if any of you kind hearted people would help?? I need to raise at least £5 to enter - and we are hoping between us all to raise £1000 - which is the amount the charity needs every month

You could either donate directly to Dundalk and let me know how much - or if you have paypal then you could send to me and I can send it all over in one go (and save them the processing fees)
There are so many kind hearts on here that even 50p would be fab


Paypal me on pamduthie @ hotmail.com (remove the spaces)
I will (if I can work the camera and 2 dogs) to post up fotos of our walk

Thankyou all in advance

Avon agility comp - well done Ben

This weekend was our 2nd ever agility comp and our first ever outoor one.
and the sun was splitting the trees - with my pail Scottish skin I covered myself with lashings of factor 50 - and I am glad I did, lots and lots of lobsters about.
It was pretty tough to try and keep the car and Ben cool as well. I parked the car almost in a tree and I wrapped ice cubes in a bandana for Ben and dipped his paws in water whenever I could (dogs only sweat through their paws)

It was a 2 day show with 4 runs a day.

Satarday

Run 1
For a little warm up I decided to go for the grade 1-7 Olympia qualifier - not expecting much at all!
Lots of people told me it was a tricky course but we went for it anyway and he ran really well
Only problem we had was the weaves were right after the longjump so he was flying into them - and just popped out and so we got faulted - and time faults too
But really not bad considering!

Run 2
Graded agility
Nice fast flowing course. 12 weaves - Ben popped out on the 11th so I tried to put him back in but got it wrong and we got a big fat E

Run 3
Combined agility.
Course a little tricky looking with quite a few turns - I knew I should have done a front cross before the tunnel - but didnt so Ben spun round to check I ment him to go in there - bless, and he nailed his weaves!!

3rd place

Run 4
Graded jumping
Everyone was saying this was a difficult one - but when I watched they all seemed to be taking a silly line - so I remembered our trainer telling us to ignore what everyone else was doing
I did and we really went for it

1st place!!!

Not a bad day 1

Sunday

Run 1 combined agility

Did a not bad run - Ben was not so good on the weaves but a few hand signals from me ment we didnt get faulted - a fairly good clear round
Then we got called back to run it again cos someone had made the long jump too short - so we ran again, Ben popped out the weave and when I put him back again we must have cut through them or something cos we got E'd!! - appart from that it was a better run!

Run 2
Graded jumping
Heat was getting to me a bit and I wasnt giving clear instructions to Ben - great weaves but he ran past a couple of jumps and we were faulted

Run 3
Graded agility
A nice tricky course for us, I went a little wrong and I thought Ben had run past a jump a little - but when I checked in the book later not only did we get clear but also
we got another 1st place!!!

Run 4
Combined jumping
v tricky course, lots of twists and turns - I made a couple of mistakes - bet it didnt look pretty to anyone watching - but wee went clear
5th place

all in all not too bad a weekend
and the scary thing - in his 2nd show that is my boy up to grade 3!! pretty amazing!