its all so quiet...bit too quiet!

Good evening everyone!

So I have finally got my first module for my animal first aid course and oh my lord I have a lot to study! Looks fun though because you have to take photos to show you know how to do certain things, like wrapping bandages. They say you can either use a stuffed toy for this or a trusting animal...I am sure Darkley would be amused if I did this! Excited to get started though!

So update on Holly, she now knows "stay" and "lay down"! awesomeness! As she is still settling I haven't been doing full on training sessions but just making sure I use commands a lot in day to day activities so she slowly learns them..she is picking them up fast though as she now knows, sit, paw, down, stay, bed, go out, get down and we are nearly there on her recall. She she is better on her own on walks..with darkley it is still a nightmare (I turn up to clicker class and agility all flustered and annoyed as the walk with them two does me in a bit!) I have the weaves set up in the garden for practise and I asked Holly to come try them..she followed a treat through the weaves like a pro then she trotted off to herd her basketball! Even though the vet is saying that she hasnt put on weight I really do think she has..her ribs aren't showing as much at all. She has also gained another inch in hight and is now 22inches shoulder to paw! just one short of Darkley! All in all she is doing very well I think and I am proud of my little girl!

 
This week Darkley has become a Cranefly/ daddylonglegs eating machine! Those bugs dont stand a chance.. he leaps up in the air and nom..gone! It is impressive to watch! So I have been working on Darkley's weaving and he is making some progress.. changed the command (by accident!) and he now enters the weaves better-ish! He is responding to hand signals further away from me now too so I don't have to be right next to him. The main issue I am having though is that when I tell Holly off for something Darkley always thinks I am telling him off even if he is nowhere near me and even if I use Holly's name. He also freaks out when Holly barks and attacks the lawnmower..he ran off and hid in the kitchen for ages! (I told Holly to bugger off and she sulked back in the house and kept an eye on the lawnmower from there!) Darkley also clipped a claw in a playfight this morning and has been feeling sorry for himself about that..no idea how he did it!

Something I haven't mentioned on here is that one of my rescued geckos ( Rain) is pregnant..they are unfertilised eggs (unless drizzle has been sneaking in to their viv at night!) but she has gotten heavy and huge! It isn't even the time of year for them to be doing this..so I am on gecko egg watch at the moment!


so nothing too exciting going on with the animals but the last time I said that drama came around! 

proud and ranting!

Right so this post is going to be a mixture of things!

Firstly who saw the dog training on bbc ones “the one show”? It is on bbc iplayer and it is on about 30minutes in. I heard a lot of comments and complaints about what people had seen and had to look at it. Frankly I think it was irresponsible of the BBC to air that. They showed a small dog with food aggression and the cure to that is to stick your foot in its mouth? Really? Apparently they have had a lot of complaints concerning the segment on the show (including dogs trust and other charities!) but they have also had a lot of people asking for that man to “train” their dog.  The guy was there for 3 hours apparently and I don’t believe for a second a behaviour like that can magically be dealt with within that time.  They made it look easy and made the guy look like he could be a quick fix for their dog’s problems. When it comes to dog training there are SO many different methods out there and it can become confusing for dog owners to know what methods work best or work at all. I never rule a method out until I have done my research on it and I would never try it on my dog unless I was 100% happy with it. A lot of people are against Cesar Millan methods (an idol of the guy on “the one show”) as he uses dominance techniques such as pushing a dog down etc etc. I bought his books and I went to one of his shows and I learnt a lot. I now don’t humanise my dogs (as much!) as I used too, his books taught me the importance of keeping calm around my dogs as they will feel what I am feeling and that the best way to teach your dog boundaries is to be confident and consistent.  I don’t however use dominance on my two or pin them etc!  My main point is, do your research please and do not try things with your pups if you are unsure what you are doing. If you go to a trainer or get advice do your research there too. If it looks like an easy fix, it most likely is. End rant! Haha! 

On the subject of training and food aggression I had a tiny breakthrough today with Darkley. He still shields raw food from me and other dogs, but that is all. No snarling, biting or growling anymore and if I had to take some food away from him for some reason he would let me. (such a proud pup mum!)  So today I gave them a raw bone each for lunch, I shut Holly in the kitchen and Darkley was out in the garden eating his- giving them their own space to eat. Darkley finished up first and strolled in and lay down and the crunching stopped in the kitchen. Holly starts whining to come out, so I let her out  and she sped off to be reunited with Darkley. Darkley spots a bit of bone left in the kitchen and decided to finish it off while Holly plays in the living room -not bothered by it at all. Holly then slinks off ninja style to the kitchen and I see Darkley wander in to the living room and lay down. Holly then follows with the bone in her mouth! Darkley did not seem to care and curled up and settled down for a nap! Not a huge breakthrough but enough to make me proud of my boy.

Holly went to the vets today and they are happy with her and we are going to try and cut down her medication soon. She has lost more weight though! When we got her they said she was around 17kg when we picked her up, she dropped to 16kg two weeks later and now down to 15kg. The vet just said to feed her up more as he would like her around 18kg. I have been giving her extra food but I didn’t want to throw too much at her straight away, so I am adding in a 3^rd meal and see how it goes. 

Haven’t mentioned my terrible twosome Buddy and Buzz much, but my two little budgies have started to get night terrors bless them. There were a few rumbles of thunder and flashes of lightening the other night which gave them a fright. They are covered up and in a room with the curtains closed so I am guessing it was the noise that frightened one of them which in turn set the other one off. Since then they have been having the odd fright now and then even with a light left on for them all. Hoping they will settle down again soon the poor little guys!

Right I think I might have a cheeky nap with a pup that has fallen asleep on my knee!

busy bee...

Been busy busy! With work and going away for a few days to London I haven’t had time to update much!

Oh how I missed my trouble makers when I was away. Like a worried mum I called home to check up on everyone.  Thankfully they weren’t too naughty for my mum so I think she would look after them all again if I asked very nicely! Holly went on a pear stealing binge. We have a pear tree and the pears are ripe and falling so we have been trying to pick the pears up before a certain pup can get them. My poor mum tried to get as many as she could but Holly is sneaky! She finds the pears and collects them up in a pile and then sneaks over and nibbles at one!

Darkley was in full sulk while I was away. He refused to play much, barking at all noises and generally being an “old man”. This morning my mum told him “Mum is home today” and Darkley ran and sat at the door excitedly, he is too cute. The welcome home from him and Holly was awesome.

The only other animal to play up was Drizzle my Gecko boy. I have wedged paper in his glass to make sure a certain Holly pup cannot open the vivarium with her nose by accident when she is being nosey. This is not stopping Drizzle from trying to escape and my mum found his glass door slightly open….sneaky little thing!

I popped in to The British Museum yesterday and went on a hunt for animals in history. Took a few interesting photos which I shall have up soon. I was outside a club in Soho on Friday night, surrounded by a lot of drunken people and a guy was just standing there chatting with his old Labrador just hanging out next to him …took me by surprise! The dog did not care at all about the mass of drunkenness around him! I also saw a very preened and polished Boston terrier strolling along with a very polished a preened guy in the middle of Oxford street.

Hopefully get this blog back on track soon!

it was way too quiet in the house...

Oh my it has been one of THEM days! I should of just of hidden under my covers and stayed in bed I think!

So Tuesday marks me having Holly for a month and so far she and Darkley have only been on short walks around the block together. They are still a pulling nightmare but our walks are short enough that it doesn’t get overwhelming for me and frustrating for them. We also do not tend to bump in to many people or dogs on the walk….oh and there aren’t pigeons about too! Today I was brave and thought I would take them to the park at the end of my street. Soon as we got half way up the road someone saw us and crossed over and then a woman was walking towards us with her two dogs that went mad and started fighting with each other because they saw my two! The woman gave me a horrid look and snapped at me “don’t worry I will cross over!” Nice. So we get in the park and Holly spots a group of pigeons and starts getting worked up and Darkley spots a dog the other side of the park and becomes all alert and desperately wants to go look at the dog. Suddenly from behind me a cocker spaniel runs past and starts barking and chasing all the pigeons. Holly loses it and Darkley starts yanking even harder on the lead. A woman strolls past me on her phone ignoring everything that is going on, while I am entangled in leads and trying to gain some sort of order in my dogs. The spaniel comes flying over to my two who were polite but bouncing with excitement. The spaniel runs off and my two try and follow (dragging me behind them!) and are only stopped when this woman’s second dog comes over and plonks itself down between my two and won’t leave. Finally the woman notices she is a dog missing and half-heartedly calls its name and it trots off. I take a deep breath and drag my two to the nearest bench where I sort out their leads and try and get them to calm down. It took ages but we ALL calmed down finally and I was dragged home with my tail between my legs.

So as the weather was semi nice I thought I would hose down all of the bird cages and give them a good scrub. Both pups were lurking about and Holly thought she would help by trying to eat the hose/water. She yaps and runs about like she is processed which scared the hell out of Darkley who ran and hid behind the tree and refused to come and play. So I hose the last thing down and Holly leaps in to a muddy puddle that has formed next to me resulting in mud everywhere! There are splashes of mud over everything I have cleaned, the patio doors and me! So I rewash everything and dry it all and get it back inside and call Holly in to dry her and notice she smells a bit…nasty! She must of jumped in to something while hose chasing (even though the garden was poop free to my knowledge!) ugh! So I take Holly upstairs and try to bath her, she was not having any of it though! Darkley came in the bathroom with us and laid down and watched as I wrestled Holly in to the bath. Soon as I turned the shower on she bolted over my shoulder and sat looking distraught at the bathroom door. I kept her in the bath for five minutes until she leapt to freedom again but this time covering me and the bathroom in soap suds and water. I plonked her back in and calmed her again to get the bubbles off. Finally I dried her down and let her out and tried to make the bathroom look presentable again and not covered in muddy paw marks and fur. Darkley had run in to my room and sat by the hairdryer as we usually blow dry his fur after a bath. So he didn’t feel left out I dried his tummy down as he had gone for the hose a few times earlier. Holly decided that me doing this meant I was trying to kill her even though I was not anywhere near her! She ran about my room trampling over bags and other random mess on my floor before diving across my bed and trying to hide under my pillows. I rather abruptly told her to get the hell off the bed to which she responded by dropping on to her belly and laying as flat as she could on my bed, as if to make sure she could get the bed as wet as possible.  Mojo was watching from her vivarium with a smug look on her face as if to say, “See you should have stuck to keeping just lizards!”

So I finally got Holly off the bed and I tried to finish cleaning the birds out. Holly is still fascinated with them all, which is not her fault as they are pretty exciting little birdies to watch! Holly however is still hyped up from the bath disaster and comes running in to the living room and jumps up to see Casper. She knocks the cupboard under Casper’s cage which makes a loud thud just as I shout at her to go to her bed, resulting in a very freaked out Holly. She did however run and lay in her bed, which is a command I did not think she knew yet! While running away she knocks over a seed pot and there is now seed all over the floor.  Great. My mum keeps an eye on Holly as I finally finish cleaning the birds and I turn around and then kick the same half empty seed pot that goes flying across the floor spreading the seed over the other side of the room. Great, now I have to vacuum cleaner out and freak Holly out more.

My friends have been awesome though today when I nearly lost my mind on the walk. (I have made some awesome friends through my pups!)  Going to attempt to walk to clicker class tomorrow with both of them and try and get Holly started on learning her manners and to remind Darkley of his. I have to say though that Darkley has been pretty soppy after getting in from the walk, lots of cuddles and kisses from him!

I do hope the rest of today is uneventful…that would be nice..

Zombie Caterpillars!

"A single gene in a caterpillar virus sends its victims running for the treetops, where they die and their bodies liquefy, sending an ooze of virus particles on their brothers and sisters below."

wait what?! a virus is turning caterpillars in to zombies?! and they then ooze puss?!

full article is here http://www.livescience.com 

oh nature you can be creepy sometimes!

all quiet in the house for once...

So some of you know that the only job I could find after leaving university was two night shifts in Sainsburys. It is one of them jobs that is the same thing every week. I turn up, the shop is a mess, I clear it up and it is back to being a mess when I start my next shift. I have wanted to work with animals for a while now as it is one of the main things in my life I am passionate about but I have needed that push to get me going. So today I enrolled in an online Companion Animal First Aid Course! I thought that if I do this course it could help me in many animal related jobs as well as helping me with my own animals. My two pups are as clumsy as I am so I know it will come in handy even if I can’t get myself in to a job!

For those who saw my Holly pup on the Dogs trust website you will see that the first words they used to describe her were LIVEWIRE! In all fairness in the kennels she was and she definitely is super hyper when she wants to be. Today however her “greyhound” side shined through and she was lazier than Darkley! (even me saying that Darkley is lazy can shock people!) I have been snoozing for most of the day after doing a nightshift and Holly has been snoozing next to me the whole time- even though she slept all of last night! In the house both of them are so super chilled out, they have bouts of playing and running about but they are nothing like how they are when they meet people!

The welcome I get when I get home from work or from going out is amazing. Darkley bounces about (doesnt jump up anymore yay!) and Holly wags her tail that much that her whole butt wiggles about! She also just gets so excited that she sometimes yelps out she is so happy and today she even grabbed one of my shoes and ran down the garden with it! 

So me and the animals don’t have much planned this weekend, doing a full clean out of the birds and lizards which was a lot easier without two pup noses poking in to everything! Holly still needs to learn “lay down” which she is really struggling with, she is doing well though with stay though which is awesome. Just bought a dog tricks book so might see if I can get Darkley doing something new too! Hope everyone has a great weekend!

fact of the day!

Random fact for you all!


Darkley was originally called Darky in the rescue center. This did feel slightly racist to me and I really did not want to be shouting that down the street!


At university I studied film and watched many random films but I was drawn to one in particular because the love of my life Robert Downey Jr was in it, it was called "A scanner Darkly"

its okay for me to a photo on here of him..it HAS got a dog in it! haa!

So I added the L and E and Darkley got his name! Also discovered there it a town in ireland with that name and Darkley is Irish!