Christina's Blog (or Diary of a Dog Trainer / Vicar's Wife-in-Training / Piano and Violin Teacher with dogs in tow etc. etc.!)

SEPTEMBER 2008

HOUSE MOVE 29th/30th August 2008 - The house move was stressful to say the least (and the thought that we're going to have to do it again in under 2 years time is not thrilling me either!) To start with I am not the tidiest or most organised person at the best of times and although I was trying hard to sort through my stuff into piles of 'going in the loft', 'coming with us', 'charity shop' and 'bin', it seemed to take ages. How can things that quite happily fit into a house unpacked suddenly take over that house when they are put in a box? Asaph is quite used to mess (!) and seemed to cope ok, Eze seems to cope well with most things but Ruach's little world seemed to be coming to an end. Dave found him hiding, trembling in the garage one day and I think that due to him having had 4 homes in the first 6 months of his life he was convinced that he was being rehomed again. In a way he was, the only difference was that we were all being rehomed with him! Poor boy - I hope that sometime soon he'll realise that I'd rather live in a caravan with him than a beautiful house without him! (Although at times when he is chewing the beautiful house I do have to remind myself of this!) Things also weren't helped by my car dying a week or so before moving so the dogs ended up with a brand new (well new to them,) van as well as a brand new house - all rather a lot for them to cope with.

Although the Church was paying our removal costs we were adding more money to the amount to use a more expensive, careful removal company... they were terrible! Damage to the old house, damage to the new house, rude, and damage to some of our things. It was just as well that I was left at the old house cleaning (for 2 days) whilst Dave and a good friend sorted out the new house because I think that at the point of them trying to stand my piano on its end and damaging it in the process I think I may have lost the plot! (I must say at this point that when we later complained to the management they were good and did rectify most of the damage.)

Anyway, I shall move swiftly on! We moved in with Eze who was fine, Asaph who was very clingy and Ruach who was mortified if you left his sight! This meant that shopping became rather a challenge as he went from curled up shivering when he couldn't see us, to gradually getting louder as he improved (crying to howling to barking) to finally silence as his confidence returned (this took a couple of months and we're in an end of terrace house with paper thin walls and neighbours with a new baby. All I can say is that I'm so grateful to them for being so lovely and very understanding!)

HTM (Heelwork-to-Music) JUDGING 6th/7th September 2008 - This was my second judging appointment and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was still rather nervous though, wanting to do a good job. It's far more of a responsibility than just competing because competitors put their trust in the judges to mark accurately and fairly so I always want to make sure that I get it right, but it was a good weekend. I also did a training round with Ruach and he had a happy time working and playing in the ring. Eze competed as well although I wasn't expecting him to manage very much with it being just a week after the house move. He did well and the mistakes he made were entirely due to a lack of practice. He hadn't seen his chair ( a prop) for months and I had a quick practice with him and it before going into the ring. This was a mistake! He became obsessed with it being completely convinced that the entire routine MUST have this as a part of it. I think I retired him before he could learn any bad habits and did some work outside of the ring for him to get something right that I could reward!

SHEEPDOG TRAINING WITH EZE 15th/16th September 2008 - It was a real treat for Eze and I to do training work with sheep and he LOVED it and was very keen and although I wasn't very clear what I was meant to do he did well (after teaching him that the sheep did not live in his mouth!) I am hoping to do some further training at some point in the future...

KENNEL CLUB GOOD CITIZEN TESTS 20th September 2008 - All 3 of my dogs passed their Gold exam! After all of the upheval of the house move I was so pleased that they managed to be sensible and work properly. I was slightly concerned about Ru's send away to bed because beds in our house are the sofa so a blanket in a field really didn't seem right to him in practice but he managed it in the test. Our clients also did really well I am delighted to say (in fact I was more nervous for them than I was for my dogs!) More info about the day is on our Congratulations page.

START OF TERM FOR DAVID AT COLLEGE 28th September 2008 - What a lovely day. This was the first official time that we'd met people from the college and they were so friendly and welcoming. It was a real family day and there were children making badges and playing on the bouncy castle, a buffet and then a chuch service outside on the lawn of the college. I think that moving here is rather a shock to all of our systems but everyone is doing everything they can to help us all to settle in as quickly as possible.