Sooshine Border Collies

Archived entries:

1. Cesan's first Tracking lesson
2. A field full of Dogs
   
3. A walk in the woods
4. Kennel Club Herding Test
5. Hallowe'en
6. November Training
7. Christmas 2008
8. Snow Dogs
9. More Snow Fun
   
10. Starkids 10th Birthday
11. Sad day at Sooshine
12. Cesan's First Birthday
13. Camping in Somerset
14. Surgery for Bliss
15. Kay retires
16. Bliss Again
    

A happy, healthy and successful 2010 to all our friends.

Well quite a bit has happened sine my last blog update.  Bliss has had a lot of expensive blood tests tand so far, everything has come back negative to serious pro0blems.  It may just be that she is getting senile and age is creeping up on her. Hard to believe that she is 14 otherwise, She does not look it, has hardly any grey hairs and still has a lovely thick, glossy coat.

For now, we are just monitoring her carefully and spoiling her loads.

We did have some very sad news for one of her daughters just before Christmas.  Holly was diagnosed with terminal cancer and had to be given sleep just a few days before Christmas. A great and sad loss to her loving family and we feel for them at this time of year. She will be sadly missed but leaves some happy memories I am sure. Sleep well little Holly.

We had a quiet Christmas, just trying to keep warm.

January images

The field behind our house

We, like many other areas of the country got a good snow fall the week before Christmas, and as of 7th January we still have plenty of the white stuff on the ground, and are feeling the cold. Well, the humans are, the dogs think it's great to play and roll in and do not seem to notice the cold.

Frozen landscape

Kay

Roy

Jedi

Cesan

Bliss

Bliss and Drift

Because of the weather, Cesan's training has been on hold for a while, but will soon resume and Barrie hopes to be entering him in his first trials before too long.

Bliss has been having a few bladder problems recently and our vet thinks she has cystitis. She is on antibiotics for now and already seems to have improved after just one day, so we are hoping it is nothing more sinister.  She herself is fine, is still looking good and quite youthful and enjoyed her visit to the vet as it meant meeting new people !

We will have to see how she fairs after the antibiotics have finished.

All the other dogs are fine and enjoying the muddy weather far more than I am! 

Cesan is now 18 months old and Barrie hopes to start trialling him quite soon in the New Year.

Sadly, Barrie has recently made the decision to retire Kay from trials. This is a disappointing decision as she is a very good nosework dog, but her career has been held back by her "sendaway" hang-up in competition and recently she showed signs of being stiff on some days, as well as starting to appear to be finding the jumps more demanding.  Rather than risk her health at such a young age (7 years) Barrie felt that she should live out the rest of her years in comfort rather than risk her ability to continue to enjoy life.

This is especially sad as she has really started to settle down in TD and shown signs of being more confident on the sendaway recently, despite losing a couple of tickets on this exercise, and we did have hopes of being able to gain her title, but it was not to be.

So, young man, Cesan, it's all up to you now !