the tale of the poor pigeon

I wasn't really going to do a post on this, but then I remembered the reason why I blog about my pups at all... this is my diary on them, on what they get up to in their little lives :)

So, lets all start the tale of the poor pigeon. My girls killed one. That's right, killed it! I was horrified and they definitely could tell that it was something they was not supposed to do again. They have quite a strong chase instinct, and living in the countryside and all we have numerous birds visiting our garden every day. Jess will usually do a bit of a chase and a bit of a bark and then the bird will fly away but this time, they caught up with it and before the poor pigeon had chance to fly away, it was in my girls mouths. They didn't bite it or maul it... it had no blood on it what so ever and was fully intact, they just treated it like it was a toy and ran with it, but when you're a fragile animal that was enough to kill it.

They've never done anything like that before but my dad being quite the bird lover meant there was some awkwardness that evening! Me and the girls swiftly got out of the house for another walk to get out of the way!

In other news, here's a picture of Molly doing a winky face... who couldn't forgive this?

Don't worry about the muck on her, she was fetching her ball in the bushes and this was the mess :)

throwback on Molly's teenage years

Well... I know our pups aren't 'teenagers' for years ha ha but Molly well and truly went through that phase. The times when her legs are waaaay too big for her body and her ears don't yet fit her face (who am I kidding, that's still now! ha ha) and also the time when they decide they no longer want to listen to their human/mum!

Molly was the best behaved puppy out of Jess's 4. She was the quietest and to be honest, she just loved cuddling and having people fuss over, very different to Scooby and Millie who were complete rebels from the moment they could walk. But when Molly hit about 6 months she decided she would turn in to the most stubborn little thing around, maybe it's the border in her? she was very difficult throughout a few months so I now always refer to it as the teenage ages, we went to doggie school and I think she tested the teacher too ha ha!

It's well and truly a phase that is gone now, as she listens to me more than Jess now and is very in tune to me but I'll never forget her rebellious in-betweener stage :-)

family party fun

Oh my gosh! I'm so proud of my girlies.

This past weekend we had a family party of 17 people round at my home. J&M's home :-) 10 of these people, both dogs had never met! At first I was kinda worried that it would be just too much for them. Two of the people were terrified of dogs and one of them was so over in love with them, he was kind of the one I was most worried about. Like... he was seriously in love with dogs, and hugs, kisses and cuddles were all over my pups. I'm constantly hugging my girls, but they're my girls, and I spend most of the day, every day with them. But for a stranger to come along and be the same, I was worried it may be too much!

I really shouldn't have worried though. Both my girls were fabulous. Jess was as calm as anything, she acted like there wasn't even a family party taking place and by the end of the night she was sat on her bean bag like she does every night haha. Molly was crazy, but in a good way! She licked those guests so much, she cuddled and did tricks to get treats from the buffet. It was lovely to watch my girls entertaining everyone.

Here in the North West England, we're currently in the middle of a massive rain storm that has lasted 3 days up to now! It's so bad, I've not been able to walk to work and when I tried in my lunch break my feet were soaked even though I was wearing boots! Nearby towns are flooded so we haven't had any walkies since Sunday!! I'm hoping tomorrow will be a little clearer but otherwise we will be working on some tricks (we're working on 'peek a boo') and maybe playing some hide & seek.

I've also started writing up training notes. After every walk, big event or training session, I write up notes on how the session went... the good and the bad!

I might pick the top few and start making them into a monthly post here so I have an online diary on the girls good and bad points.

The importance of one on one

Recently Molly has been a little down, I'm not 100% sure as to what it is but after watching over the dogs carefully I have noticed that Jess is alpha and what she says goes.

For example if Molly is playing with a toy, Jess has come over took the toy off her and Molly just sits there sad but as Jess has her own issues with toys I've learnt I can't correct her when she plays as she was never taught it when she was younger and the little play she does now could get ruined.

So I've come to the solution that I will have, every day, a portion of time that is Molly and Me time.
Maybe we'll have a game of fetch where we're the only one's in the room or we'll do a bit of training or play hide and seek... something that lets her be her without Momma coming in.

Come to think of it, her and Jess play together, sleep together, have walkies together, eat side by side together, have training together... they practically do everything together!

So it's probably best that they do get a one on one time with just humans. Jess too!
I've never had a mother - daughter duo before so I'm really just hoping this will work perfectly and everything will go great and back to normal..... I hope, hope, hope - I want my Molly's spark back!

Just as I was writing this post I lured Molly onto my bed where cuddled her till she was snoring, it made me realise how I don't do that enough - Both dogs sleep in my room every night but we never cuddle the way we did tonight, for once Jess didn't start crying because she wanted the attention and Molly got some uninturrupted time. I did worry I was mythering her though but once I stopped stroking and she would paw me to carry on I knew she was happy with the extra snuggle time so I did it till she slept :)

Here's hoping she'll be back to silly happy Molly on my next post!

We're off to the Plato tomorrow, she hasn't been in a while so I'm hoping that will cheer her up quite a bit!