Humidity

The humidity is high at the moment which makes sleeping hard.  The garden pixie misses Stuart and has started giving me cuddles.  He is worried she has forgotten him.  Poor Stuart was doing really well after his surgery but has had a set back with bowel and bladder problems.  Hopefully they are sorted now and he can come home on Tuesday.

Jake has come to visit and has that big tail of his bolt upright.  He smells very earthy so I think has been under the house.  We have had a bit of rain which cooled things a little but it heating up again.  We have Roxy staying for the week.  She is a border collie/ retriever cross and has been coming to stay since she was a pup.  She is a bit older than Rocky.

Norwest

We went to Norwest agility champ show this weekend and had a good time.  Shilo is starting to run better and managed to get a clear round in Starters both days.  She ran her first Novices today and I was really pleased with her as she stopped nicely on all the contacts except the A frame which was a bit slippery.  Rocky started off on Saturday knocking most of the jumps down.  I was told by someone that he needed to lose some weight.  He has a big coat and doesn't need to lose weight.  He did a lovely run in Senior and only had one jump down.  He had 5 faults in the Jumpers today and really enjoyed himself.  Rocky really loves his agility and is not really competitive now as there are so many really fast dogs out there now.  I will keep running him as long as he is enjoying it and is comfortable doing it.

Stuart has his surgery tomorrow and is currently holding Chloe, his little Princess.

Chloe

Here the Garden Pixie.  I wasn't fast enough with the camera.  Somehow she walked along the sill of the windows to the end of the car where she tried to turn around.  This little girl is amazingly agile.  Both her and Jake have taken to sleeping under the front seat of this car.

Shilo went beserk last night barking at something up the garden.  I raced out to look thinking it might be a wild animal and only spotted the back side of a stray cat running away.  Today Stuart found a dead stoat lying under the camilla's and thinks that may have been part of what spooked Shilo.  We think Arnie may have caught it.  It was a big one.  A previous cat brought home 2 baby stoats and Arnie had come home with a weasel once.

Agility training

Photo of Shilo with Jake and Chloe on the bed.  Shilo desperately wants to play with the kittens but her style of play is not theirs.  Every now and then Jake chases her and she thinks he is playing.

We went to Cheryl's last night to do some agility training with Shilo.  I want her to compete in Novice this year so want to get the contacts sorted.  She is certainly different to train from my previous dogs.  We can't use a toy as she totally focuses on that and food works but again it hard to get her back to the exercise at the time.  She did do some good contacts and I have to develop yet another style of running for this little dog.  At least I no longer compete with Casey or I would get totally confused out there in the ring.

She is more like Rocky in some ways but in others not.  Rocky at least does the course without distraction.  Shilo is so busy looking around at other things so misses the entrance to the tunnel or goes past the dog walk.  i now have to go right in to the middle of the cross over or she cuts the middle out and jumps from one ramp to the next.  Somehow I think running at Norwest is going to be interesting.

We got home late last night and the kittens were inside asleep.  We will keep locking them in at night for some time yet but was pleased they were in without actually being locked in. Chloe is definitely Stuart's cat as she calls out to him for attention but seems to avoid me.  It could be interesting next week when he goes in to hospital for his surgery.

Tree Climbers

Here is a photo of the Garden Pixie.  She was right up a cabbage tree and managed to walk across a ponga frond without falling.  Chloe loves to play.  Stuart has made her 2 possum skin toys and she picks them up in her mouth and throws them around.


Arnie brought in a baby rat again this morning for the kittens and once agin Jake was busy playing with it while Arnie watched.  Stuart tells me that Jake brought in a duck feather and was growling when anyone got close.

Jake up the tree.  While Chloe was up there, he climbed up a couple of times to play and then came down again.

I finally put the jumps and weaves out and did some training with Shilo.  She was terrible on the weaves so I must do more as we are competing in 2 weeks time.  There was a lot of barking which got Stuart out of his swing seat.

The Garden Pixie

Over the last couple of days, Chloe hasn't wanted to know me.  She runs off if I try to pat her or pick her up.  She does however go to Stuart and give him big loves.  It is fortunate that Jake is the opposite and comes to me regularly for cuddles.  This morning while I was on the swing seat, chloe did come over and let me pat her.

Last night Arnie brought in another baby rat for the kittens.  I finally got up at 3.30am to investigate and there was Jake playing with a dead baby rat and Arnie was watching like a proud father.  Chloe was beside him watching too.  Jake is a mean little hunter and is certainly showing signs of the Maine coon's reputation of being good vermin killers.  I removed the rat outside and with the cat door being locked, all cats went to bed.  Arnie and Jake with me.  Arnie is now in bed sleeping off his night time activities.

Shilo has found more duck eggs and currently doesn't smell too nice.  Just when I thought it was safe to leave her loose when I wasn't around.  We have never had a dog that raids eggs like she does.  She is very devious about it and you don't know it has happened until it is too late.

Another sleepless night

The Garden Pixie and her mate decided to play early this morning.  I had opened the cat door at 5am when Rocky needed to go out so I thought I would return to sleep and wake naturally since it is my day off.  No such luck.  Jake came for cuddles several times and was very persistent and then they both started running about and managed to knock the pot plant off the windowsill again.  They seem to like company when they are playing and once we were up they were quiet again.  Arnie the older cat went back to bed and Chloe (the Garden Pixie) joined him for a while.

Yesterday Chloe was right up a cabbage tree and somehow standing on a dead ponga frond without it breaking or falling.  Jake went up to see her several times.  It was very entertaining watching all their antics.  Some photos to follow.

Animals

I have worked over New year and now on to day 7 out of 9 in a row.  One of the things that keeps me sane is coming home to our beautiful bush block here in Waitakere and the lovely animals we own.  We have 3 border collies, 3 cats, 2 rabbits, 1 guinea pig, 2 ducks, 3 roosters and several hens. 

Shilo my 3 year old border collie is still in training for agility.  Last year we competed in Starters and we plan to compete in novice this year.  We need to do some serious training though.  Shilo has been trained using different methods to the others and I must say I have enjoyed her more for it.  She is a midi and I didn't start competing with her until she was 2 years old.  Casey started at 18 months which was a mistake as she was strong willed and was a steep learning curve for me after my first dog Tess.

Casey is retired now in her competing years, had a total of 16 clear rounds.  She won out of Starters as the 2003 NDTA which was a major thrill for me.  When Casey went clear she won a ribbon.  I did Obedience with her and she eventually won out of Special Beginners.  Casey is a fast learner and knows lots of tricks.  She makes lots of noise when excited and was often heard doing agility.  At home she my constant companion.  My husband uses her as his gun dog.  She doesn't retrieve but will put pheasant up and help find game.  Casey will be 11 in March.

Rocky has been competing in agility since he was 18 months old too.  He will be 9 in April and is a big male border collie.  I started training him in Obedience at 10 weeks old and he showed real potential.  I started him in Special Beginners and was going to stop competing with Casey, however when we went in the ring he didn't perform at all well.  I was given a photo of him competing and he looked really miserable so we gave up Obedience.  He love Agility and has done well over the years.  He is in Senior and although he is no longer competitive we still enjoy it.  Rocky is and independent boy and will entertain himself. 

Sleepless night

It was a horrible humid night and I was drifting off to sleep at last when I heard Arnie meowing like he had caught something.  Next thing I knew there were noises downstairs like one of the kittens was playing.  I went down to see Arnie and Chloe watching Jake with a baby rat.  The rat was very much alive and Jake snatched it back growling when Chloe got too close.  He took it under the table and let it go again.  I got the brush and shovel and managed to scoop it up and and put it outside where it made a dash for it.  At night we keep the cat door locked so the cats couldn't follow it.

At 5am Jake came to see me and was being a pest.  He has mastered turning on the touch lamp so suddenly I was in the light.

 We are getting a lot of pleasure from the kittens.  Stuart rang me at work one day to tell me that Chloe was really good at soccer and was picking the ball up in her mouth.

Kitties

On Friday 13th November 2009, we brought 2 kittens home.  They are Siamese/Maine Coon crosses.  Chloe is a Siamese in stripes and Jake looks like a Maine Coon.  There were 6 kittens in the litter and 5 had Siamese bodies with tabby markings.  The mother was definitely a Siamese.  Chloe and Jake have settled in to our home and delight us every day with their antics.
The picture shows Jake on the left and Chloe on the right.  They are very cuddly with each other and us.  Chloe adores my husband and will seek him out for cuddles.  Jake likes to sleep on the bed and wakes me early for cuddles.

We have an adult cat called Arnie who has accepted these two well and even brought in livestock for them to practice on.  The kittens have accepted life with out 3 border collies.   Casey is the oldest and will be 11 in March, Rocky is 9 in April and then there is Shilo who turned 3 in November.