A Christmas poem - by Molly

After our recent seasonal visits and all the chaos Molly decided to put paw to paper to give her thoughts:

Misunderstood

I love to go out visiting, I'm really very sweet,

My coat is brushed, my collars clean, so I'm all nice and neat.

And as for my behaviour, it's really very good,

And if it's not, it's not my fault, I'm just misunderstood.

I'd never seen an indoor tree with lights on it before,

I only thought the balls might look better on the floor,

And sparkly bottles are such fun when pushed over and rolled,

With humans moving very fast when I pick them up to hold.

If they put things on a table, and then don't let me see,

Who wouldn't pull on the cloth to make them nearer me?

And who would keep food scraps in a bin upon the floor,

If they did not want me to keep dipping in for more.

So now when we go visiting lots of people are not in,

Seems very odd, mum says they are really just hidin'

Mum says it's all my fault, and I must learn to be more good,

And I tell her I am angelic, and I'm just misunderstood!

by Molly - aged 2 and a bit

Christmas

Christmas is a time for visiting folk - so visiting we did!  Over the course of our visits Molly managed to remove a bauble from a Christmas Tree, search through a stack of presents under a tree like a crazed drugs dog, go bin raiding, bark at musical ornaments, discover snow globes move when whacked with a paw and last but not least try to pull off a tablecloth to get at the food on the table.  Good job Christmas is only once a year really - maybe everyone will have forgotten by next year when we schedule our next visits!!

I was also very spoiled by Mollys Auntie Marianne and a lovely generous and talented lady who took a fantastic picture of Molly.  Here is Moll investigating

What is it?

Well I have no idea who that is supposed to look like?

No look at me - me I said - MEEEEEEEE

It is a fantastic picture which captures her personality perfectly - what a lovely present!

Fun with friends

As well as physio exercises Molly is allowed as much free running as she likes so we have been meeting Auntie Tricia and her dogs Leo and Poppy for walks over Coundon Wedge.  Thankfully we seemed to have turned a corner with Mollys behaviour off lead and she is now much more reliable and checks in with me frequently as well as generally staying with me rather than going off hunting as she used to.
She has very much enjoyed her runs with the other dogs and despite her knee problems is a happy girl!!

We even managed to fit in a little posing when the dogs had ran around enough to satisfy them.

I had not thought about it at the time we took the pictures - but looks like Mollys problem with being asked to stay when she is near another dog is fairly sorted as she seems to have no problem having her photo taken so close to the lovely Leo.

Not quite right

Although Molly was recovering from her hurt I was not totally convinced that all was well so decided to take her down to Cardiff to get checked out properly.  Before the serious business of the vet check we met up with a crowd of friends for a walk as Cosmeston Lakes.  17 dogs all got on brilliantly and we had a great time.

The next day we got down to the serious business of the vet check and unfortunately the conclusion was that she has luxating patella affecting both knees and needs to build up a significant amount more muscle than she currently has.
She had some acupuncture and then a session in the hydro treadmill as well as given a whole load of physio exercises to try and sort her out.
We have been working hard on the exercises and also had some acupuncture locally and my local vet feels she has improved her muscle mass a fair amount already so hopefully things will not be too bad.

Much better

Thankfully things have been going a bit better recently and I have been building Moll's exercise back up gradually.  We have now progressed to off lead exercise again!  The first time she came off lead was probably the first time for over a month so she went wild and no birds in the park went un-chased for several minutes.  She did calm down after a few minutes of madness and started to listen to me a little more.
I was concerned she would damage herself running like a mad thing - but she seems pretty sound now with only a very occasional glance behind her as if she has a slight twinge.
Molly was a good girl today we went for a walk over the fields which is a challenge as she is a bit obsessive about chasing birds (so I often take the cowards approach and stick to the park) she firstly saw a crow on the ground, tensed ready to go after it, but came when I called her instead a short while later a second crow flew across in front of her and she tensed. watched it, but turned and came to me instead.
I did put her back on the lead for the more challenging hunting areas but was otherwise really pleased with her!!
 

Poorly girly

The last few weeks we have got rather more familiar with the vets than either of us really wanted to. 
Things started with another upset stomach which after seeming to respond to a day of starving got much worse as we went into Sunday evening with runs and sickness and then just after midnight got very very much worse with a pool of blood.  Thankfully we are not far from an out of hours vet and whilst I have no wish to ever use them again, I am very glad they were there.  She had a series of injections to settle her stomach and we had to visit my regular vet on Monday morning where they gave her yet more injections and some tablets. 
Being ill had really taken it out of her and she was pretty flat all week, only regaining her bounce on Saturday morning when I was pleased that she finally felt well enough to steal my socks and slippers. 
We had a nice weekend - right up until the point on Sunday evening when she suddenly yelped and then stood very still.  She was very, very unhappy all night, mostly just shaking and sitting very still so we had another monday morning visit to our vets.  They felt the pain seemed to be in her right hip so gave me painkillers and told me to rest her. She was also booked in for x-rays to check for visible injuries and they found nothing.  Of course nothing is straightforward and after only a couple of days her stomach was bad again so I had to stop the painkillers.  Her stomach did not improve after a day or so, so another vet visit, a whole lot more medicines and more rest. 
Bearded dogs and liquid medicines do not go well together and I am sure she ended up wearing more of it some days.  Thankfully her stomach has finally cleared up and her pain is reduced to the occasional yelp so hopefully she will soon be fully mended and we can have a few weeks without a vet visit.

Progress

Agility this week was great!!  We stayed on the same set of obstacles for the whole evening (just six jumps) but we did them in different orders, practiced different turns and pull throughs and even managed the ever elusive "wait" at the start.

Best of all Molly listened to me the whole time - we were not perfect but I was so pleased with the attention she paid me and the sheer enthusiasm she has now got for agility - she really does love jumping and has a great time when she is there.  Even when we were stood around working out the correct way to turn for various jumps she stayed with me.

On a homelier note she appears to have fallen in love with Sydney at her daycare.  The two of them have been seen curled up on an armchair together on a number of occasions as well as adopting the kennel in the garden as their very own home.  Here is her beloved in all his glory - I am sure you can see the attraction!!

Woohoo

Last night was our first week at agility for far too long - I think we have missed 3 weeks and in that time the nights have drawn in rapidly so much that it was dark when I headed over there and we did the full session under the club floodlights.

I was expecting Molly to have taken a bit if a step backwards with the missed weeks but she was great, paying attention, listening to me and only ran off once when there was another dog running wild and she went and did a couple of quick zooms with him before coming back to me (long before the other dog returned to his owner) so I could even have a smug moment about that.

The second course we had a go on seemed quite complex but once I had understood how I needed to move and the commands I needed to give we actually ran it perfectly twice - five fences and a tyre arranged in a way which meant lots of tight turns!!  I was really pleased with Molly - and she was quite pleased too since I had remembered the liver cake to reward her with!

Poorly

Not had a great week or so since my last entry as Molly must have picked up some sort of bug and has had a poorly stomach.  She seemed fine at one point I started food again and after a couple of days she was ill again so reintroduced food even more slowly the second time.  The good news is now she seems fine and has been eating everything and anything.

As she has been off colour we have not been to agility or other training and tonight was our first attempt to return to the park.  I decided I would give her lots of treats when we got near the corner she had previously been nervous about - unfortunately she decided to pre-empt me and stopped long before we got to the corner!!

Molly has been delighted to see her lovely Auntie H a few times recently.  She gets very excited when she sees her and then cuddles up to tell her all about how poorly she has been - never sympathise with a poodle cross!

.... and a new problem!

As Molly was still limping now and then we stayed away from the park until Tuesday when we went back to training class.  She was happy and bouncy as we started our pre-training class walk - right up until the point we went into the field before the one she was stung in.  At this point she ran back to the entrance and stood look back towards the cars.  Even when another dog came through for her to play with she had a quick play and then returned to the entrance.  Took me a few seconds to realise she had decided not to go this way as last time she had been hurt.  Clever reasoning I guess even if slightly flawed but as those fields really are the best and safest it is something we are going to have to try to resolve.

Training class on a very windy night after almost no run at all was ....... interesting!!  She was somewhat like Tigger on speed as she bounced and jumped around, at least I can confirm she is not unhappy in the classes.  As she was so distracted I stayed close to her on the stays and was pleased that she did those perfectly. 

She is also making progress on her bird obsession and although does still get excited and screech at times will usually now transfer attention back to me pretty quickly and has started to check in with me more. 

Ouch!

On Tuesday evening I took Molly for her usual off lead run before training class and as she was running she suddenly yelped and sat down chewing the back of one of her back legs.  It looked like she had been stung in the muscle of her leg and it clearly hurt a great deal as she was limping quite badly.  I let the trainers know we were going home and went and gave her a piriton which hopefully helped a little.

Several days on she is still occasionally not putting full weight on the leg so either poodley dogs are very wimpy indeed or it was a bad sting.

Despite that though I came out of the back door yesterday to find this:

.... and yes that position is every bit as precarious as it looks.  She is balancing with her back legs on the side of a paving slab and one of her front feet on the garden bench - and she is eating grass - despite there being a garden full of grass she has had to somehow climb there to eat that particular bit of grass!!

Getting it wrong

Things started promisingly with a visit to the KC agility festival to see some proper agility dogs and also meet up with Sian, Rhomi and Rocket.  We had a go on the small agility course for non-agility dogs to have a go at and Molly did really well, mostly listening and having a great time.

It was our KC good citizen test on Tuesday and despite lots of practice I was not totally confident Molly would do a minute stay.  She was very bouncy - but worked nicely and did everything else I asked of her so I was pretty pleased as it is just four months since I got her and they have been a pretty difficult few months without too much focus for dog training.  Slight extra difficulty for the stay exercise was us being placed next to a large mastiff type dog we had not met before and Molly was not sure of.  Anyway....



.. I asked her to lay down and stay - walked the required five paces and she stayed there - but sat up to have a scratch which means she failed the test.  Oh well!!  I was pleased with her anyway and it just means we need to stay in the class for a while longer until the next test.

Wednesday evening I decided to take her for a nice relaxing walk in the fields by Old Milverton.  I seriously understimated her desire to hunt and when she heard some rustling she vanished into the crop totally and I had to call on Marianne and Andrew to help me find her.  Lesson learned and we are back to working on the long line in areas which may be tempting.

Our final training experience of the week was Thursday and agililty.  I guess I should have predicted really - but after the fun she had on Wednesday she had no wish to listen to me at all and spent her evening doing what she wanted - which was more than a tiny bit embarrasing!!

Stubborn - or maybe not!

Last week at training, at one point I asked Molly to sit and she ignored me, even to the extent that she looked away and did her best to avoid looking at me.  After another couple of asks and moving her off the spot to ask again she did eventually sit and I did not think much more of it.  Until this week at exactly the same point in the class and the penny dropped – not bright these humans sometimes!!

We were about to do a recall so I had taken her lead off and was asking her to sit at my side.  She has no objection to the recall part of this exercise but dislikes me moving away from her a great deal so was obviously using her brain and realising that the only time I took her lead off and asked her to sit was when I was about to move away from her.  Not sitting was as good a way as any of voicing her protest – as was her lovely heelwork when I then tried to walk away from her.

Next week our good citizen bronze test with a one minute stay – hmmmm – I have a feeling we may not pass!!

On a brighter note at agility we were actually promoted into a group who show "potential" - I suspect in our case that may well be potential to create mayhem and chaos - but as long as we have a good time sounds good to me!

Andrex puppy?

Maybe it was a mistake allowing Molly to watch tv as I think she must have got ideas from watching Andrex adverts.  It was really warm at the weekend so I had all the doors and windows open to try and get a draught through the house.  An unsupervised Molly is not always a good thing - although she was rather enjoying herself.

Fun with friends

We went for a return visit to the Wedge at the weekend and met up with a friend and her new puppy.  Molly had a great time running through the fields.

Grace puppy was brilliantly behaved- as well as stunning!

Leo was his usual handsome self

and Poppy was enjoying herself too - especially the queue for treats:

Unfortunately the excitement of the wedge was too much for Molly and she decided to vanish into the bushes for rather too long a couple of times so we are going to have to revert back to the long line for a while in such exciting territory.  Please note - only one dog needed to be on the lead

 
Things have been progressing rather better with stay training and this evening at training class she managed a 1 minute stay for the first time.  Our test is in a couple of weeks so hopefully if I keep up the work we can pass!

To stay or not to stay

That is definitely the question!
We have been going to obedience classes with the goal of getting Molly the KC Good Citizen Bronze award and now have a date for the test on 16th August.  I am fairly confident about the majority of the test but at the moment the 1 minute stay is a major hurdle for us to overcome.  In the grand scale of things if she is not ready and fails the test then it really does not matter - but I would like us to be able to take it and pass so we need to spend some proper time working on stay to give us a fighting chance. 
I have never had much problem with teaching stays in the past so as ever suspect the problem has been caused by the two legged part of the partnership but I am trying hard to break it down into the seperate parts and teach properly.  I have gradually been building duration - but I don't think I have done anywhere near enough building distance so need to work on this so she is comfortable in classes when I leave her.

Just to add extra spice to our life when I went to agility on Thursday, our fourth session, we were put into a different group and told we were going to be taking a test to see if we were ready to move up a group.  It was by far the most complex course we had ever done and her first run was fab.  Unfortunately after that a spaniel came over from another class to play and after that she decided that maybe she wanted to run and play rather that doing what I asked her to.  I suspect we may have failed our test!!  But Molly had a very good time indeed!!

Friends

I met up briefly today and we included a quick walk for the dogs where Molly got to meet a few of her friends.  Firstly the new guy Sidney taking everything in his stride.

Then the regular pack from her daycare, Dan, Sally and Cash - please note, they are doing the active playing and chasing the ball, Molly just mooches and makes sure she does not get trampled underfoot.

and finally just Molly - running free and happy as a dog should be.

This evening we were invited round to a friends for dinner.  It was Mollys first proper posh dinner invite so I was alightly unsure how she would behave.  I think she charmed our hosts, despite trying to jam her head under the back gate to see if she could get out, chasing and catching a bee where we had to intervene to rescue them both from being hurt, and running upstairs and refusing to come down until she had checked out every room. 
I judged it the right time to leave when Molly started to empty the waste paper bin, eat the pot pouri and prod the glass vases with her paw to see them rock - I thought it better to leave before disaster struck!

Soggy doggy

A certain someone seems to have devoted much of the week to getting as dirty as possible this week so I am afraid it was time for a bath

She was not amused at all and reverts to a very skinny dog when wet.  Once out of the water a quick rub down and she is ready for a good shake.

She then glares at me for a while.

Before showing me exactly how bored she is with the whole thing!

The final indignity was me insisting on using the hairdrier to dry her off when she started to get shivery.
 

Bronze class

We finally made it into the bronze good citizen class on Tuesday and I was really pleased with how Molly worked in the class.  She fetched a toy for the first time in class and happily played tuggy as well as doing nice heelwork and although we still need more work on stays she is making good progress.

Agility on Thursday was also good and she worked off lead without problem although we have not done enough for her to really know what I am after so is a bit of a loose canon at the moment and she sometimes does her own thing!

Not quite the look I was aiming for

I had half an hour to spare so thought we could do a bit of clearing in the front garden.  For some reason it turned into 20 minutes gardening and 10 minutes to clear all the garden from Molly.  Horrible sticky seeds just really stick to her coat and need combing out and she was covered.

We have been doing a bit of practice on our stays though and now up to a reasonably settled 30 seconds which we practiced this evening on the common at the back of my house.

Securely fenced

I am starting to trust Molly more off lead now so decided over the weekend to give her a walk over "the wedge" which is a lovely countryside area with fields, ponds and streams.  All was going so well until we reached the small woodland area and although I knew it would be super tempting to a bird chaser like Moll I thought it was a good trial as it was "safe" as bordered on one side by a nice secure fence with a school behind.

Things were going very nicely until we reached the corner and Molly was rummaging in the undergrowth, I walked on a little and called her, saw her wandering through the thick bushes - and then suddenly she was not there any more.  Tried not to panic and just called her a few more times with no result at all - could not see her, could not hear her.  Just to add to my tension I had fogotten my mobile phone so could not call anyone for help and also would not be available if she had wandered up to someone who might try calling the number on her collar.

After what felt like forever but was probably a few minutes I decided to try to push my way through the think brambles and nettles (lovely!!) to see if I could see a route she had followed.  The clearest place seemed to be near the school fence so I pushed my way through and there in the school field was Molly!!!  Running somewhat frantically up and down as presumably she tried to find her way back out again.  I called her and she came straight to me - so recall not totally broken - but something of a problem as we were seperated by a very solid six foot metal fence, topped with spikes.

After a bit more panic and a tiny bit of thinking I managed to find a bit of the fence where there was a slight gap underneath and dug a bit more soil out which gave Molly enough of a gap to wriggle through.  Panic over but I think we both gained a fair few grey hairs with that little escapade.

Quiet week

Nothing much to report this week.  General training is going pretty well with the exception of stay and wait - although to be fair to Molly we have not done a huge amount of work on them as I tend to get distracted by doing more interesting things so I think I need to put more focus on training them.
She has now learned both left and right hand finishes and to spin both ways but do need to settle into a bit of the more serious stuff so she can do her Bronze good citizen test.

Tonight she decided she was bored - and a bored Molly looks for trouble so I decided to give her a try with the DogSmart.  She did get the idea of lifting the wooden blocks - although thought the prize was the blocks rather than the treats hidden under the blocks.
We did try some stay training after that - fairly steady stay for 20 seconds so we are making progress.

Festival!!

It was the weekend of the Godiva Festival which is a local celebration with live music and entertainment.  We were invited along by a friend so went on Friday night for a look.  Molly was pretty good at not being phased by the crowds and initially was doing her usual looking for birds to chase but soon realised the benefits of lots of people meant food dropped all over the floor and people she could persuade to say hello to her.  My friend and I got into the rock and roll spirit with a cup of tea and coffee respectively and Molly got to play with the cups when we had finished which kept her happy too.
Saturday we went into town for lunch - lovely cafe which did gluten free toasties - delicious - and then watched the carnival.  I will say Molly was not a huge fan of the carnival and we ended up retreating down a side street for a while as she thought it was a bit too noisy.  In the evening we met another friend for another evening at the festival.  It was far busier than the night before but thankfully Molly took it all in her stride and (mostly) behaved well - other than a bit of screaming at pigeons and leg grabbing that is!

2nd Agility session

Last night was our second session of agility training.  I was really pleased that Molly seemed happy to be there (once she settled down) and we did our first practice session with her on the lead where she jumped really well and amazingly had remembered the tunnels and went straight through with no hesitation.
After that first run I decided I really needed to try her off lead and she was actually pretty good and I have to say the mistakes were mostly down to me not giving her the clear direction she needed. 
Last week she had not wanted to go near the higher stuff like the A frame and dog walk but this week she was happy to go straight up them.  The flat tunnel amazed me even more as she was perfectly happy to push her way through with again no real hesitation.
Looks like I need to get in training to own an agility dog then!

Great recall or ..... maybe not!

Tuesday night and the park was pretty busy but I wanted to give Molly a quick run before her obedience class to stand some chance of keeping her feet on the ground.
We managed the first bit of the walk with her recalling nicely and paying attention when I asked her too.  Then I saw a young chap with a GSD on lead and he seemed to be trying to avoid everyone (in the packed park) so I called Molly back and put her on her lead.  What a good girl I have!!!
Then we got mobbed by a few other small dogs and I let her off to say hello and try to find one to play with - they were all a bit bemused by her speed I think.  Unfortunately brainy Molly then decided that the GSD might be a better bet to play with so off she ran at top speed.  There was no point calling her mid run as no way she would have come so all I could do was wait until she got there and then call her back.
In the meantime a fitness class decided to jog past in a long line.  As far as Molly was concerned when she was coming back it was a straight line, jogging fitness class or not - it was touch and go for a few moments but the class made it past me just before she reached them and most of the joggers had large grins as they were watching her.
After a wander round the wild field on the park I decided we had better go back on the lead to pass the fitness class again - to much excitement is not a good thing!

I can swim

Today we had a lovely outing to a local country park with a good friend.
It is the first time we have been somewhere so exciting but I am getting more confident in Molly coming back when she is called so decided to let her off lead.  I can honestly say she was fantastic, did not go far away, came back when I called her, said hello nicely to the other dogs we met, then she went round a corner a little ahead of us and I heard a splash.
She had found some ducks in the water and as it was a shallow bit gone in after them, she soon found herself out of her depth and had a brief panic with front legs going frantically.  She is a quick learner though and the lure of the ducks was enough for her to try again before I could get her back and she found she could actually swim quite well after all.  The ducks were not at all bothered and thankfully after what seemed liked an eternity but was only a few minutes she came back.
For some reason after that I decided she had better stay on the lead!!

Ladies who lunch

I had a voucher to use up for a pizza and pasta type place in town which was due to expire at the end of the month so once it had finally stopped raining we set out for lunch!  This was going to be the first time I had eaten out with Molly - thinking about it I really should have picked somewhere less busy as the place was packed and even though we were outside we had a fair audience. 

Thankfully there was a small wall which blocked her view of the pigeons so apart from a quick bark at some scary leaves which dared to blow towards us Molly behaved perfectly.  The walk through the city centre to get there was rather less perfect with several screamings when she spotted pigeons she wanted to chase.  Thankfully she is small and cute enough that most people are amused when she starts!!

After lunch we went to visit my cousins - they decided that a tired Molly is a pleasant Molly and request that I wear her out an equal amount before any future visits.

A busy week

We are well underway with our obedience classes now and should be moving into the bronze class soon - although "stay" is still very much a work in progress and we need to really work on this as it is our real weak point.  Heelwork was classed as good and only let down by my inability to walk in a straight line - I am sure Molly tutted and rolled her eyes at me when she heard that!!

Just to increase our challenge we also went for a look at an agility class yesterday and I have to say Molly enjoyed being asked to jump over things very much indeed.  The dog walk and A frame she classed as scary things she did not want to go up - apparently the only high things she likes are armchairs and kitchen tables.  So I think it is safe to say we will be giving agility a try too.

Training target for this weekend is to work on the stay in time for our class on Tuesday night - although I do have to say her current stay position curled up on my lap is pretty solid.

Sharing

One of the big problems for Molly was sharing when other dogs were around.  Thanks to her days spent with Auntie M whilst I am at work she has been merrily mixing with all sizes and shapes of dogs and this weekend was a huge first for us when we had a dog to stay with us for a couple of days.

A lovely older lady labrador/collieish type called Roxy has been sharing our home since Friday, apart from a very few grumbles here and there Molly has been quite happliy accepting this - which is a huge leap forward for her.  Good girl Moll!!

New beginnings

After the worst time of my life with far too many losses of all the most important beings in my life, I am attempting to pull things back and part of my new beginnings is Molly dog.

She has now been in my life for 2 months and is a 17 month old American Cocker Spaniel / Poodle cross.

It is a new beginning for her too as her previous family were looking for a home for her due to disagreements between her and the other younger dog in the family.

She came to me at probably the most difficult time in my life and I think it is fairly safe to say we have both pretty much muddled through the last two months as we get to know each other and adapt to our new lives.  She has also had a new name to get used to and a whole new load of rules, although on the positive side for her she also gets lots of exercise now and is starting training which she is enjoying so far.  Problems she came with include separation anxiety - a huge problem since I work - but thankfully for now resolved by a very kind friend looking after her during the day for me, resource guarding - mostly from other dogs rather than humans, but she will guard anything including leads and me!! - with much help from my friend and her dogs Molly is learning this is not necessary and things are getting easier, and her final issue - chasing - especially birds, if she is on the lead and can't chase she will scream, loudly - we are gradually making progress although still got a long way to go on this one.

Things she has learned so far include, sit, down, to sit before she can come out of the car, a hand touch and the start of heelwork - which she loves!!