Pretty tail!

Brax is now doing some little walks and is due to get her stitches out this week. As the area is healing so nicely however, the scab is getting very itchy so we are still watching her intently to stop her scooting on her bottom! I took her purple tail bandage off yesterday (possibly cut a bit of tail hair as well-oops!) and rather than put another bandage on it, I decided to put my plaiting skills to good use! I'm sure her tail would be ok left down but just in case her tail hair made the area dirty, I have done a horsey tail plait to keep it out of the way. She does look funny with her bucket on her head and her little stick of a tail! Brodie is very concerned about his sister and keeps sticking his head in her bucket and kissing her - awww.

Brax being out of action has meant that Brodie has been perfecting his some of his skills. This is him practising a 'hold' with cardboard tube - he does love to work! Brodies motto is work hard, play hard and then sleep lots!!

Lovely surprise!

After a busy day at work I got home to find a pile of post and the top letter was for Bracken!! Awww, what a nice surprise from Saturn her pairs partner (clever boy - always knew shelties were smart) which was a homemade card with the cutest picture on it of Saturn holding a daffodil. Thanks so much to Saturn and his mum Lian for cheering up wee Brax!!

Brax update

Little Brax is a bit better today and doesn't seem to be quite as sore. She went back to the vet who says she is doing well but NOT to let her scoot on her bum - arrgghhh!!! Anyone who knows Bracken will know that she is very fast at scooting and will go for miles on her bum!! We will have to watch her all the time and crate her if shes unsupervised as the vet warned she'll want to scoot more as it heals and gets itchy. Oh and her buster collar has to stay on for a least another 10 days so hopefully she'll learn to negotiate the furniture by then!

Poorly Brax

Bracken is having a bad week. She seemed to be scooting on her bottom more than normal and appearing constipated but on investigation, we found that she had an abscess on her anal gland. Poor Brax! She had to stay at the vets yesterday to have it cleaned out and drained properly. The abscess was huge, about the size of a 50p and the vet has stitched one side and left the other side open to drain. Brax is on loads of drug and is very cross about having to wear a buster collar and a purple bandage on her tail! The vet was very kind and saved as much butt hair as possible! Unfortunately though she is on cage rest for three days and then not allowed to do much, certainly no agility for 2 weeks :(

Old photos!

I was looking through some old photos the other day and came across these pics of my old girly Bramble. I'm afraid that they are photos of photos so they are not great quality but she is the sheltie that started it all! She never did proper agility as she would have only just measured large and struggled over a whole course of bigger jumps. She did love her jumping though!! She was a whizz at jumping picnic tables and benches in the local park. Bramble was a wonderful aunty to Bracken and kept her in line when she was a puppy. Bramble was my 13th birthday pressie and the best one ever!!

Training on Crufts surface

Brax and Saturn have qualified for CRUFTS!

We all had so much fun training yesterday! Matthew and I took the shelties for a training session so that Brax could practice running on a surface similar to the Crufts surface. We met up there with Lian and Colin and three of their shelties, Sing (whose also going to Crufts), Saturn (Brax's pairs partner) and Sizzle (Brodie's relation). It was so a lovely day and it was so much fun to play around with different dogs and different courses. We all took turns running our dogs and had a swop around as well. Brax and Saturn were fab and it gave Matt and Lian a chance to practice handing over the baton.

Thanks to Lian for finding such a useful training venue and organising it as well as taking some amazing photos of Brodie strutting his stuff! It was interesting watching how the dogs adjusted to landing and turning after the jumps as all of them slipped a bit to begin with until they got sure of their footing. I'm very proud of my little Brodie as he ran for Matthew and Lian. Considering he has never ran for anyone else, he probably went faster for Lian than us, certainly in the weaves!! Cheeky boy -he loves his Auntie Lian!!

We got our letter from the Kennel Club this week to say that Brax and Saturn had qualified (in first place!) for the mini/mixi pairs. Its all very exciting!! Brax has been to Crufts before on a dog pass for a trade stand and the atmosphere doesn't bother her at all, as long as she doesn't realise that my Mum is watching her. She adores my Mum!