Big girly now...

Well, I went back to uni for two whole nights and came home to find my puppy has grown! She seems loads taller, but she's still not very big for 12weeks old! On her first visit to the vets she weighed 4.9kg - tomorrow is her second visit....I've no idea how much she is now.

I'm looking forward to her visiting Drax this weekend and meeting lots of new peole....not to mention watching flyball!

Fly is doing really well, she's been learning about lots of new stuff - I bought her some super exciting things to get her used to when I was out; bells, hats (trying to avoid her being the same as Jet's hat "thing") and even a cat tent that she thinks it's superawesomewow.

The one thing we're struggling a little bit with is her tuggy. She likes all toys and will play with them, she'll chase the tuggy and grab it a bit (and we do lots of letting her win) but she seems a bit reluctant to actually tug it. On the other hand, she will play manic-tug with lots of other toys, in particular a furry slipper (random!). Anyway, my thoughts are that she either 1. isn't quite comfortable with the fleece tug in her mouth or 2. really, really likes furry things.

I guess I was a bit hung up 0n her having a fleece tuggy, as other pups seem to cope fine with them. However after some searching around about tug drive, I saw Susan Garretts blog (which I haven't been on for what seems like forever) and she talked out finding exactly the toy to suit your dog, whether it's a fly-swat like her terrier Decaff or a tuggy.

So I've gone for a happy medium and bought her one of these:
http://www.tug-e-nuff.co.uk/product_info.php?cPath=22_29&products_id=43

How can she not like this lol?

Proprioception fun!

After a day of being a crazy puppy, we took inspiration from the seminar we attended at the SMART clinic back in February with Char, and did some basic proprioception work. We made it super fun of course and she got lots of treats.

I set up some stuff in our front yard (she can't go in the big garden yet as it's waaaay too exciting!) including:

• A group of different surfaces including foil, a carrier bag, some bubble wrap, some newspaper, an ikea bag and some polythene
• Some very small poles in a pile, some crossing each other etc.
• Jet's wobble cushion
• A plant pot

We did a selection of things with each, like walking over the different surfaces to get her used to not always walking on grass or carpet. Then we walked her very slowly through the poles, so she had to think about where all her legs were at once - she did some very high stepping with her back legs, so at least she knows she has them lol! She learnt how to "step up" on the wobble cushion and plant pot which was super duper fun.

She really enjoyed all this lot, especially as it came accompanied by treats. In the end she kept going back and slowly walking through the poles herself in the attempt of another treat, and I'd turn my back to find her stood on the wobble cushion.

She's so much fun!

Another picture, can't resist:

Situation under control...

So, what does Jet think to Flybe? They get along sooo well, better than I could have ever imagined. Jet doesn't love puppies, she puts up with them, but generally has the "please remove this" attitude. However she's really taken little Fly under her wing and has turned her into a crazy thing.

Here is a video of her having discovered her bark with one of the baby toys I bought her. Sounds definitely required:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6g1PliWZfo

A busy day..!

Fly has only had her first vaccination, so isn't allowed out to see any other dogs quite yet, but as this is a vital period for socialisation we had a different trip out today. We went for a walk with Jet and Chip (with her being carried in my coat the whole time - ouchy my arms!) around the woods, and she heard lots of new noises from the quarry, barking dogs at the hound kennels in the distance and rustling leaves - she wasn't phased at all. We then went across the road to the park, where Jet and Chip went playing chuckit and we sat "people watching" for a while. She saw kids playing with balls, screaming, crying, cyclists and people with prams. Then we went for a walk around the park and she saw the fountain and the waterfall which was making a lot of noise. Finally, she met a little boy who reeeally wanted to say hello to her and she was fine. It wasn't too busy for her, but it was nice to introduce her to such a wide range of stuff.

So, she was a good big brave girl today :D.

This afternoon, inspired by reading Bernadette Bay's blog (http://obayshelties.blogspot.com/) about socialising her pups, I went and bought her loads of baby toys from the charity shop. So in the end for about £1 we ended up with loads of stuff, making different noises etc. She's a bit sleepy after her busy morning (along with playing tug, chewing up a toilet roll, playing with Jet, killing the sheep toy and playing beachball) - so she can play soon. Plus, we have to clean them up as at the moment they probably smell of yucky babies.

Introducing Fly

Introducing the new addition to our house hold and with her own blog, Fly!

Fly is an 11 week old border collie x whippet and I'm really looking forward to training her, but first and foremost letting her be a crazy puppy :)