Ptolomy

Good luck to everybody over the weekend

Gees Sas I am thinking of sending you Cider to train for stays. There is no way any of my kids could cope with what was thrown at Dante. A job well done Deal and I'll send Dante to you and you can make him look like the heels your dogs do! LOL at least I wont have to bend over to reward him

Huski I sense a small amount of negativity sneaking in - what has changed over the last few weeks - what are you not happy with - anything we can help with? PS - nice SFE by the way

Staranais - tell us more about your puppy. Hold old, where is it from and what are your plans for the future?

Gees Sas I am thinking of sending you Cider to train for stays. There is no way any of my kids could cope with what was thrown at Dante. A job well done

Today was a very sad day for WA Obedience as we learnt of the passing of Sue H's golden retriever, Torravean Moonspinner. Spinner was like a BIG teddy bear as he pranced around the ring in perfect timing with Sue. I lost count of the number of perfect scores this combination achieved, and I have to say they were responsible for teaching me a lot of what I know today. Spinner left a lasting impression on many people and the combination of him and Sue were responable for the change in training attitude that has happened in WA. I am not sure if Ness or anybody else has any footage of Sue and Spinner working - if you have I would love to have one last look.

Sorry - orders closed last Sunday

The latest from Clean Run..... Hi Sandi, Just got an email that they will be here on Friday ... so I'll get them packaged and weighted and we'll figure out shipping so we can get them out to you on Monday. P So as soon as I know final costs I will PM everybody. This weekend we have the Western Classic so I will be fairly busy but luckily I have Tuesday off ;)

I am sorry I just can't make it happen any quicker

I have put in an order for not so spicy chips this week to have with the drinks Oh and more smartie chocolate

This is the email I received this morning from Clean Run Hi Sandi, I had to special order them as our stock was low. Will have by the end of the week and will figure out shipping at that time. Pam So it is probably best we wait to get the final costs - rather than everybody depositing and then me either having to refund or ask for more. So stay tuned

LOL Commission whats that - Unfortunately I am going to have to keep up the day job for a bit longer, or at least until I win lotto . The bottom line is that I was going to order some i-squeaks myself anyway so an extra 200 won't make that bigger difference I would be interested in feedback when you do get your order - to see what your dogs think of them. Maybe if they don't like them I can buy them back at half the price

The value of the i-squeaks is under $1000 its the postage that bumps it up

OK - Perth Distributor couldn't do any better with her prices - so looks like we will go with Clean Run. Just waiting on confirmation of totals from Clean Run including postage but at this stage we are looking at: $4.20 small i-Squeak $5.20 medium i-Squeak $6.20 Large i-Squeak I did opt for the cheapest postage - which means that the balls will take a few weeks to get here. Squeaks will be delivered to me and then I will then post them to individuals or if you want to save on postage a group of squeaks to a central location or for people in WA you can contact me to find out when I will be at K9 and can pick them up from me. For postage around Australia a 500g postage bag costs $5.70 and with a medium i-Squeak weighing less than 30 grams I should be able to fit a fair few in each bag. So if you want to combine postage with some body can you let me know ASAP. Also if you want me to hang onto the balls until the Nationals just send me a gentle reminder. 3kg bag is $9.90. Now the biggie - since the order is over $1000 - I will require payment prior to ordering. Sorry if you have issues with this BUT I don't want to be out of pocket. When I hear back from Clean Run with confirmed prices I will send each of you a PM with a total cost and payment details. Ideally I would like to place the order by this time next week. I will endeavour to keep you all informed of the squeaks trip across the seas and will definitely take photos of Lexi's face when they arrive and I open the box ;)

Lalalalalalala I wonder who that could have been

OOps - I have fixed the error 16 paws. Sorry

I tend to practice stays with at least 2 dogs at the same time - so I usually mix it up sometimes have them next to each other sometimes have dogs inbetween. I will always make sure that if I reward 1 I will always reward the other. Sometimes I will return to one and then leave and return to the other one. I have a release word and they must not move until they hear that word - so I tend to say exercise finished a few times before giving the release word. I have started doing "stays" I use the term very loosely with Cider - I started with just one of the other kids next to Cider and I am now up to having all 5 in the driveway. At the moment I am practicing her not moving - so I turn and walk away and return and reward all the kids and give another verbal and walk to the end of the drive and return starting down the other end of the lineup rewarding. At the moment the reward rate is really really high and I am hoping that this will just reinforce what the older kids already know. I also don't tend to do down stays very often. Because most of the people I train with have their own dogs to do stays with I don't tend to get people to help me at training very often. Its on trial day that I sometimes have to call for help - and thanksfully Rubystar put her hand up on Saturday and I have to say she did a tremendous job. I used to give other people Blaize to handle in stays as I could bet my house on the fact that she would stay put - it was just getting her into the ring and avoiding other dogs that was the problem. I tend to always handle Scoota as he is a bit of a handful.

Thanks to everybody who has expressed an interest in a bulk I-Squeak order. The final tally is........ Smalls 83 Medium 114 Large 21 TOTAL 218 Yesterday I received an email from the WA distributor, however on doing the sums on an order of this size it works out $380 cheaper to get them from Clean Run and that includes postage and converting from US to Aust $. I emailed the distributor back asking if she could do us a better price. I will give her until tomorrow morning to respond. I am also off to the post office this morning to work out postage costs around Australia. I am looking at pre-paid postage bags for the majority of orders. Please check back in tomorrow morning (Tuesday)- where I will post costs of the balls and will give everybody 24 hours to change their order. Unfortunately I am not accepting any new orders.

I have Caffy to thank for this one..... Bean's first successful directed retrieve Beans' open heelfree - she even managed to stay in heel position while sneezing ;)

I thought it would be quite obvious from the lack of yahoo's on my end that we bombed She was just way too distracted so I pulled her out of the ring literally 5 seconds after we started the heelwork. In Fairness to Rubystar, who has a very bouncy girl, it was a tough ask at novice level leaving the start post and going straight into the figure 8 where there were 2 stewards waiting to be jumped on. So guess whats on the training agenda for Monday

Today (Sunday) will be the last day to order - just waiting to see if we hit the perfect 200 mark First thing tomorrow I will do the final tally and will ring the distributor to see what they can offer and will let everybody know what the next move is. Note to me from last night - add 2 medium and 2 smalls to the order and just in case we do go down the track of ordering the balls by State is it possible for people to update their profile with which state they are in please. You can remove it in a few days or PM me if you don't want to add it.

Terrific news Zug Zug - so have you pencilled in your first open trial yet?

Caffy has a brag which has been a long time in the making and is well worth telling the world about - well done mate. :D Bedazzled has 2 brags from tonight Its easy to see why Brookie is the top obedience dog in the State with performances like this. I had all three kids pass open and I got a perfect directed retrieve in UD Thanks Caffy and thanks to Rubystar who handled Lexi in the group stays for me. Little does Rubystar know she now has a permanent job.

Rat - any time Friday night - its the top 10 dogs in each ring, so I will be running from ring to ring, so if I can't chat, just hang 5 and i will reappear probably with a different dog on the end of the lead

Come by the bottom oval on Friday and say hi :p