What memories are made of?

Well last night I had one of my 2 year old granddaughters staying over, and what a great time we had, we was dancing a singing to Van the Man, she love music. Then today for the first time in months I had my family together for Sunday dinner. Its been a while since we have all been together for a Sunday dinner, as we are all very busy, but today here we all where, my son and daughter with their partners and my grandchildren. Even Mica my Dalmatian behaviour well for a five month old puppy.

Mica's Training

I had a good week with Mica’s (my Dalmatian) training. She is progressing very well with her sit, down and stand. I am going to bring in the stay command; this can take a very long time for the dog to learn. The walking on lead has been very hard with Mica, but now she is focusing more on me and walking nicely beside me, rather than keep sniffing the ground.

On September the 7th my obedience trainers/friends are doing a dog demonstration to do with obedience and agility training, so I will be take Mica along, I will take some pictures as this will be her first fun dog show. All in all I look forward to an enjoyable day, and I will update the blog with news of how the day went.

Sponsor a Support Dog

The Aquavet, Sheffield’s Canine Hydrotherapy Centre is holding a unique fundraising event on Sunday 14th September 2008. The special event is a Canine Swimathon that will see almost 70 dogs take part in a 12 hour swimming marathon. Each dog will do 15 minute relay of the hydrotherapy pool under supervision of the Aquavet’s staff.

As well as receiving a certificate each dog taking part will receive a gift. In addition to the main Swimathon event, there will be a variety of stalls featuring merchandise and games plus a free veterinary check for dogs visiting the event on the day.

Swimathon is 8.00am - 8.00pm
Fun Day 10.00am - 4.00pm

If you are interested in tacking part in the swimathon you need to reserve your dog’s place soon as place are filling up fast, go on Support-dogs.org

Freedom

As any Dalmatian owner knows Dalmatian enjoys nothing better than a good run off lead. Today we took Mica over Trent Park for the first time, we took her off her main lead, and put her on a very long rope lead, this way she had the freedom to run but if she decided to run off, we had some chance of catching her.
But as always with Dalmatians never disappoint , she had fun running about and made some new friends, but most of the time she stayed with me, I even did some training i.e. sits, downs and recalls, and she did perfectly.

Training at its Best

I had a great day yesterday Sunday 24th August. In the morning I took Mica (my Dalamtian) to her training class, and what a good class she had. We had to do doggy press ups, this is to get the dog to do a sit, down, sit and stand. At this early stage in training we still give the dog rewards on each exersise, so I get Mica to sit and give her a treat, then put her into a down, she gets a treat, back into a sit, another treat and then into a stand, and at this stage a lot of fuss and a handful of treats.

The next exersise was getting Mica to do a wait, we start this with some heel work and then give the command wait and just lightly check the lead, as soon a the dog stops you give them a treat. She did this extremly well.

We are also introducing the stay exersise, this can be done when the dog is in a sit or down. Choose the one that your dog is more stable in. This exerise can take a while for your dog to learn, remember be patient.

Dog Food Credit Crunch

As we all know there is a recession and everything has gone up, I replenished my supplies of my James Wellbeloved dog food today and it had gone up £3 a bag, a 15kg is now under £39. I have always used James Wellbeloved and I am reluctant to swap to anything else as it suits Mica (my Dalmatian) very well, and is excellent for food allergies. The worry is the recession is going to continue and prices will continue to go up, will our dog suffer, will dog owners have to give up their four legged friends.

Pedigree Dogs Exposed

Inbreeding of pedigree dogs is causing genetic diseases of dogs an investigation has found. The BBC documentary says that breeding dog for shows is more important than the suffering of acute problems of dogs. The documentary show spaniels with brains that are too big for their skull causing severer pain, boxers suffering form epilepsy, pugs with breathing problems and bulldogs who are unable to mate or give birth unassisted.

Inbreeding of dogs can be between brother and sister, father and daughter, Mother and son, grandfather and granddaughter. Even thought The Kennel Club says it works to improve the health of pedigrees dogs, why is it that dogs that suffer from genetic illness are being aloud to compete in dog shows, some going on to win “best in breed” despite their poor health, and the dog owner being aloud to breed the dogs, which means the genetic gene being pass down to the next generation of dogs.

Surly we as caring dog owners should be more vigilant of screening breeders making sure that there is no inbreeding of our pedigree dogs.

What are your commends on this issue

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Lazy Sunday

Not got much going on today. My puppy Mica dosen't have a training class today, so will do extra at home with her. Will see my son and grandaugther today. At the moment not much is happening with web site but I need to sort out the emails soon.

Mica News

I would like to introduce you to my four month old Dalmatian puppy Mica. Mica was born on the 23rd April and she is a right little miss, like all puppies she gets up to mischief. I started training her the day she came home, it is very important to make sure right from the beginning you put rules into place. In July she started going to training classes too. Here she can make friends with other puppies and this help with socializing. She is doing well in her training and I will keep you up date with her progress.

As you can see Mica is doing a nice sit in her training class

Walthamstow Greyhound Tracks History Ends

Walthamstow greyhound track prepares to close its doors after 75 years Wednesday, 13 August 2008 Walthamstow greyhound track, London icon After 75 years, Walthamstow greyhound track in east London has run its course, and on Saturday, the dogs will burst from the trap for a final time.Many of them should be more concerned with finding new homes than catching the hare.The boisterous east London stadium - which has hosted everyone from Sir Winston Churchill to Lana Turner, Vinnie Jones and Brad Pitt - has been sold to housing developers.The stadium featured on the front of Blur's album Parklife.The pink and red neon of the stadium's famous sign will no longer glow with the promise of gambling, fun and excitement.Walthamstow was opened in 1933 by William Chandler, a local businessman who started out operating as an illegal street bookmaker.

Dog Cruelty on the Increase

Dog unidentifiable after being starved
Birkenhead, Wirral, Merseyside
Deputy Chief Inspector Leanne Hardy
Case number 07-0117
A dog was so thin when he was taken to the RSPCA centre in Wallasley, Merseyside, that staff and volunteers couldn’t identify what breed he was. The male boxer bull-mastiff-cross had been starved to half his natural body weight.
Andrew Ward (d.o.b 26.02.83) of Alwen Street, Birkenhead, pleaded guilty to causing unnecessary suffering by failing to provide adequate diet and failing to exercise reasonable supervision of the dog, called ‘Buster’. He was banned from keeping all animals for five years, given a supervision order for two years to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay costs of £300 at Wirral Magistrates Court in March 2007
RSPCA deputy chief inspector Leanne Hardy said: “Buster was in a pitiful state when he came to our attention. He was very thin, hadn’t been exercised and had no social skills. He was really timid and frightened of everything.”
Animal centre manager Joanne Hughes said: “It was touch and go whether Buster would make it at all when he first arrived. He had to be fed a couple of spoonsful of food every few hours and it took months for him to recover physically.
“Mentally, he needed a lot of TLC, but when he left us he was a beautiful, bouncy dog with a lovely personality.”

Dog Mess 'Spies' Catch Offenders

Enforcement action for dog fouling will also be stepped up
Four people have been prosecuted in an undercover operation to catch pet owners who fail to clean up dog mess.
Wyre Council in Lancashire uses plain-clothes council staff and police community support officers to catch owners who leave dog dirt.
The council has issued 11 fixed penalty notices and prosecuted four people since starting the operation a few months ago.
The council said its methods were "well supported" by the public.
'High on agenda'
One of the dog owners prosecuted was a man found guilty on five counts of not cleaning up after his dogs who recently lost an appeal against his conviction.
Michael Pyke, neighbourhood services' enforcement officer, said: "Dog fouling is a big concern in Wyre and is high on the agenda at many neighbourhood meetings.
"Because it doesn't tend to happen when uniformed officers are around, we need to be in plain clothes to catch offenders.
"Our efforts are well supported by the public, a number of whom have come forward to give evidence against irresponsible dog owners."

A New Life for Keria

Abused Dog Makes A Difference In Iraq


"Keria with handler Yvonne Watspn"
Keria, a four-year old Springer Spaniel and her handler, Lance Corporal Yvonne Watson have been working hard finding illegal weapons of war in an effort to reduce the tensions that are present in Iraq.Yvonne, 30 is a Dog Handler in the Royal Army Veterinary Corps and Keria is a four-year-old spaniel who was rescued from abuse to start a new life in the Army as an Arms Explosives Search Dog, often referred to as a ‘sniffer’ dog. They are both on their second tour of operational duty.A victim of mis-treatment by children, Keria is still apprehensive in the presence of young people, but is an excellent search dog. They have both served a tour of duty in Afghanistan before coming to Iraq.

Called out whenever there is a suspicion that arms and explosives may be hidden, the duo deploy by helicopter, armoured personnel carrier or Land Rover to where they are needed. It is hot and difficult work, temperatures are already reaching 50oC in early May, and summer has still to fully arrive.Yvonne and Keria trained together at the Defence Animal Centre in Melton Mowbray and have been working as a team for two years now. “She is a lovely dog,” said Yvonne. “I really think that we are making a difference out here to the local people. They are trying to get their lives together and I would like to think that we are helping.“We have been very happy working together. I have applied to keep her after she has retired which is in another four years.”The dogs are housed in air conditioned kennels and even have their own swimming pool and will move to Cyprus at the end of their tour of duty in Iraq.Yvonne joined the Army three years ago after the downturn in the dairy farming industry. Her parents still live in Monikie, Dundee.