CHAROITE SIBERIANS

The dogs didn’t get a run this weekend. Decided to trust the weather forecast which suggested the temperatures weren’t going much below 17 from Friday onwards so didn’t even bother setting the alarm for stupid o’clock. It was actually a nice change not waking up before 5 on a weekend. It’s set to be a lot cooler this week so might try a pre work run with them, just wish the cool evenings would hurry up.

I had a major D’Oh! Moment on Friday evening and managed to reverse the van into the side of my own car. Nice little dent and the mirror is currently gaffer taped together. Thankfully, it was my car and not one belonging to any of the neighbours. It was only a gentle brush (the dogs in the van didn’t even glance up) but apparently a gentle brush with a huge white Transit leaves slightly crumpled Citroen’s in its wake. If I still had my old Fiat, the van would have come off worse. The Punto was indestructible.

I decided to reorganise the dog run on Saturday which involved moving the free standing pen inside to the other end where there is better shade. This was almost an epic fail as at one point I had rearranged things in such a way I was blocked inside the dog run by kennels and nothing would move a centimetre further to let me get out ! I have one huge fabulous coated galvanised kennel that cost a fortune and is as heavy as you like. This wasn’t going anywhere and was the key to everything else fitting where I wanted it. I may not be strong but I’m determined. I managed to climb over the boxes and squeeze out of the gate so I could fetch some rope (a snub line) out of the van. No, I didn’t harness up the dogs and get them to pull it although the thought did actually cross my mind. But the rope and a lot of sweating helped me shift the thing and everything else went nicely into place.

The dogs were very excited, bless them. Maybe the feng shui is better.

Watched Shutter Island with Kev. Different. Felt more challenged than entertained but definitely more to Leonardo Di Caprio than Jack Dawson.

Decided to go along to the Open Day at our local Jerry Green centre on Sunday. There is a fun dog show and I took along Tigerlily who loves meeting people and getting lots of attention. It all started out very well - it wasn’t even too hot with lots of cloud blowing around to keep throwing the place into shadow – until someone started doing the old “Testing Testing” routine on the PA System. Tiger had a fright at Aviemore as a puppy when the person doing the start timing’s voice suddenly came out of the loud speaker she was walking past. This obviously had an impact as from then on she would get hysterical every time she heard someone speaking through a microphone. She isn’t bad about noise in general so I assume it’s something to do with loud disembodied voices that disturbs her.

After her first few classes as a youngster, I stopped showing Tiger as she would dissolve into a wreck in the ring anticipating the mystery voice would boom out to scare her at any moment. Not nice to see a lovely dog with her tail between her legs and trying to move as quickly and flat to the ground as possible. However, somewhere along the line, her confidence suddenly grew and she seemed to – while still not loving the loudspeaker – come to the conclusion the pay-off of loads of attention and treats was worth braving the scary mystery voice. I still only show her lightly but she usually charms the judges with her cute antics (as well as being a very nice little Siberian who floats around the ring) and has an adorable way of stamping her feet into place to stack herself. Tigerlily has even been to Crufts and came 4th out of a class of 20-odd dogs.

Unfortunately yesterday wasn’t a good day for her and her flight mechanism kicked in stronger with each announcement. It’s a shame, I’d told Tiger about the biscuit catching class and she had been looking forward to it but the bloke with the microphone just would not shut up ! When I told her we were leaving, I’ve never seen a more relieved little dog as she dragged me all the way back to the car. At least Jerry Green got her entry fee !

I would rather not listen to loud scary voices, thank you !