My dogs are Melting

It’s really very hot here right now. I hope it cools down a bit for the weekend, but the BBC are cheerfully informing us of all the nice sunny weather we have to look forward to. Really not great for Mollie! The weather seems to have induced all the dogs to blow their coats, so the garden is currently covered in giant Mollie-hair tumbleweeds.

Dylan has been doing a bit more boxwork this week, we’ve made a huge amount of progress in the past 7 days. The jump has really worked for him, he’s snapping around a lot faster. I’m now releasing him from 40/50ft away from the box and we didn’t have a single mistake last time. It looks like we’ve hit 100% on this stage of training! We’re going to the park again tonight and, depending on how it goes, I might try phasing out the cone a smidge towards the end of the session. I really want him to be able to do this, but equally I really don’t want to rush him. He has plenty of opportunities for Starters comps yet and I’m not sure I’m mentally prepared for running him in Open at the moment. Too much to worry about!

He was also a lot better at agility this week, the course we were working over was a lot more suited to him. Dylan definitely has a preference for certain obstacles — weaves are a big favourite, and contacts, of course! — much like Kim really, so perhaps it’s actually me. Tunnels are at the bottom of the list at the moment, not sure why but he’s just not a big fan. Really pleased with his weave entries too, he’s picking them up nicely and I feel like although I’m helping him out sometimes, I’m not babying him at the moment.

Kim seems to be coming around a bit now, she’s still a bit lethargic but I’m not sure whether to put it down to all the sunny weather. She’s also sneezing a lot when we go out for walks so maybe it’s hayfever; I seem to remember something similar happened to her a couple of years ago because of the sudden pollen increase, but I may be making that up. Can dogs get hayfever? She had a bit of agility training, really just for me to assess how she’s doing. She was sassing me some around the course so she’s obviously feeling a bit better! I’ll skip training with her next week and then see how we go.

Finally, the dogs found a football yesterday. It was floating innocently in the river, and created something akin to a feeding frenzy. I had to carry it home with me because they would not leave it. They wouldn’t even leave it to play with Alfie, and they love Alfie. (One day, Alfie will get his own special post of awesome). The football is now the most treasured possession of whoever gets to it first. Footballs don’t usually last this long, Mollie has some kind of ball-vampire-ism thing but unfortunately this football seems immune.