It’s been a busy couple of weeks since my last post. I’m trying to make sure my body stays in that bed at 10 and up at 6 circadian rhythm so that I’m as prepped as possible for the shock to the system that will occur next week when I go back to full time teaching after 14 months off. There’s a full colour wheel of feelings regarding that but I’m content to say that the predominant one is raring to go and get back into teaching kids and coming up with plans and great ideas for my classrooms. Club instruction starts up then as well which is always fun.

Colt turned 5 months, excavated his way into much fun in the backyard, had his first trip to water and decided swimming was a piece of cake. He’s not quite fully house trained yet but he’s making progress and we are fervently hoping his occasional foray into the less than desirable cuisine of dog poop sampling ceases soon and we get past that phase 😉 A friend has already given us a tip of adding Thrive D to his dinner if that doesn’t happen. Good to know we have a back up plan.

When you go away for six months you tend to forget the surprisingly frequent, usually mundane, amount of errands, jobs and little chores involved with the running of a household. There are insurance claims to sort out, car batteries needing replacements, air con units needing servicing or fixing, tax returns to complete, reinstating the various services we use, cars needing servicing etc etc. I’ve been cramming in a few physio appointments for myself (just a niggling shoulder thing much improved now thanks to our friendly “claw” Jenny) and a few for Savvy, who in her somewhat over exuberant zeal with the idea of doing agility training again, has managed to “pull a hammy” as they say during one training session this week. She’s also in full heat right now just to make it interesting. She doesn’t think there’s anything quite wrong now, but she’s resting up from full agility training and making the most of her on leash walks and her swimming. It certainly hasn’t stopped her from romping round the backyard with her son Colt with the very misguided notion that he might “be her man”. Poor Colt, he’s very happy she likes him so much but I must admit his expression looks a little baffled from time to time.

Cypher has been in a dilemma all week – switching from the one track, nothing will divert me, mindlessness of an entire male living with a female who is hot to trot (and somehow his frantic behaviour grows as if he knows the clock is ticking on that window) to WAIT DID YOU SAY FRISBEE AND AGILITY TRAINING? I’ll give him this – he may only have two types of operational modes right now but boy each mode gets 110% whatever one he happens to be in. He loved his agility training this week, it’s been a long time since he’s been doing longer sequences and courses but he certainly has not lost a speck of enthusiasm for it. He and Colt are still good buddies despite spending some time apart right now since Colt, thankfully, is a little too young to know what Cypher keeps trying to tell him about 😉

Spryte went for a check up this week and she is fighting fit and doing some nice work for me at training. I am wallowing in the training right now, soaking it all up while I can trying to make up for the time we’ve missed. Tuesday and Wednesday nights have been most productive and at the end of the night we’ve all gone home with tired legs but very contented and satisfied hearts. Colt comes out, still on lead mostly, around the exciting dogs he watches and we’ve done some flatwork up the back and much socialising with both people and dogs. I’ve “liked” the Ann Croft Agility Coach page on Facebook and am enjoying getting stuck into the Happy Hurdle sequences she’s posting there. I do like stuff that gives you lots of options to do and you have to find the one that you think works best for you. And then working on making all the other options just as good 🙂

Here’s a sample one:

19 more days till Daisy Peel comes out to Perth! I’m putting on a very brief, 3 hour Basics of the LM style handling the week before on the Wednesday evening for those who have signed up to work with Daisy and for anyone who wants a refresher. It’s a good idea to go back to basics every so often I think, it seems to always reinject me with more clarity about what needs work. There’s always something (or somethingS) that need work 😉 If anyone else is interested – drop me an email HERE.

We have our first trial of the year tomorrow night – more like a Fun teams event, with an agility round and a jumping round. Plus the game of Snooker is on offer. That and ADAA the first weekend in Feb is probably the only trialling I will get in before our Western Classic early March. I’m looking forward to it. I love going to trials (more than watching Supernatural even, which by the way was absolutely FANTASTIC this week, even a non Supernatural watcher would have loved it – that’s a rare episode!).

Our next big…life change… I guess you could call it, is starting what will no doubt be a very long and hopefully fruitful process of research into our next property. We’ve got some very specific needs that probably are not all that common when you think about the combination of them.

First off we need a bigger house and property that house sits on.We’re looking for really nothing more than 1 acre at the MOST, that’s not too far from where we are now and not a ridiculous distance to the nearest railway station as Tim uses the train for work everyday. I have been spoilt living five minutes from my workplace for the last ten years but if my work commute has to increase so be it. We are looking to build. But this is probably going to be it in terms of moves so this will be a one off type of house design that’s for sure, any already set down display home like plans will need significant altering for us. So many things we want in the house, many of which will be influenced by the dogs and the significant fish tank set up Tim has. And as for the outside, a pool and an undercover area big enough for a normal sized agility ring is going to be important, as is a pretty massive garage. We each need our own office, we have a pool table and so on….the list will be pretty exhaustive by the time we’re finished I imagine. For now we’re keeping an eye on subdivisions and other future land developments in the region as well as having a good look around at housing plans already out there. It’s a big step and one we are never going to rush into. So feel free to send me any links to any housing plan sites you think might suit 😉

Here’s a brief THREE WEEK pictorial update of Colt’s life in the past fortnight.

There was the hope that he would not fart right at this moment:
Because his mother would not be impressed.

She was impressed with his swimming:

He was getting good at learning to bend this week:

Turns out his right turn is naturally much better than his left. We shall endeavour to balance it!

Then we learnt about uprights and how Mum would really like it if he got really close as possible to them.

We’ve started to learn the sit up – consolidating some of our core work on the Bosu ball.

There’s a lot of failing 😉 Or as I like to call it ‘trying out all the ways’

But he’s on his way 🙂

He’s getting pretty swish with the fist bump though.

And when all that play work is done it’s time for a nap with your mother in Cypher’s basket.

Occupy Cypher’s Basket is a movement that is enjoying some success.