Chip

To continue the story of our pack this is Chip who is the smallest of us and the next youngest one to me.



Chip was found abandoned as a very young puppy only a few weeks old in a field near to where we live in early January 2008. We are not sure why he was dumped, perhaps an unwanted Christmas present or an unsold puppy. Chip was found by one of my family and has been here ever since.

Chip is a Patterdale Terrier and unbelievably well behaved for a small dog so gives Terriers a good name...

He is probably so well behaved because Dare & Auntie Breeze being Border Collies kept him in his place when he was growing up so he has never developed into one of those snappy horrid little dogs you sometimes see.


Chip was not expected to be any good at flyball as he is so very small but as the rest of the pack do it he had a go at training from an early age.

Chip has surprised everyone (but not himself) by being a ridiculously fast 7" height dog. This is in part helped by his great swimmers turn off the flyball box and that he can single pace the jumps so quickly.


When Chip first started flyball you could see the knowing smiles from the other team when he lined up to race expecting a slowish height dog but they were soon surprised as well.

This is a video of him in action in the sunshine last year.



But the nicest thing about Chip is he is such a very friendly, happy dog who is always looking to play or just to sit on someones lap to be stroked.

Dare

Continuing with the theme about the other Dogs I live with this post is about Dare.

Dare is a Blue Merle Border Collie boy who was born on the 8th of February 2007 and is the second oldest of our little pack.


Unfortunately Dare had a very bad ear infection as a puppy and had to have lots of tests including a CT scan and a BAER hearing test at the Royal Veterinary College in Hatfield. He then had a very long course of antibiotics and steroids but was unfortunately left completely deaf in one ear.

But you cannot really notice most of the time now that Dare is not able to tell what direction sounds are coming from as he copes really well with his mono deafness.

Dare is a bit of a couch potato liking nothing better than to laze about the house. Can't imagine where he learnt that from...



As you can see Dare has very blue eyes and also a very impressive Border Collie stare.


Dare's party piece is his ability to open all the doors in the house with either his paws or mouth. This includes the back door so he can always let himself (and the rest of us ) out into the garden whenever he wants.

Auntie Breeze

As this blog is normally about me I thought it might be of interest to do some posts about the rest of the dogs that live with me.

I will start with Auntie Breeze who is the oldest of us. This is her when only a few weeks old.


Auntie Breeze is a Black and White Border Collie. Her full pedigree name is Foxbarton Pop My Cork and she was born on the 10th of April 1996. She was born 1/2 the size of her litter mates, this is a picture of them all as puppies.


Auntie Breeze is still very small for Border Collie but this hasn't stopped her at all. She has gained her Bronze, Silver and Gold Kennel Club Good Citizen Awards and also had a dabble at Dog Agility as well . But this is a picture with one of her Brothers Ky to give you a better idea of how very little she is for a Border Collie.


Auntie Breezes first love however is Flyball which she really enjoys. She has gained enough points in competitions to be awarded her FDG (Flyball Dog Advanced) title and should get her Silver Milestone award when the points are updated by the British Flyball Association.

This is is a picture of her in full flight at a sunny Flyball Competition.

Why 'Auntie' Breeze you ask. Well she is the oldest and she likes to be in charge. She can be very bossy and she likes things done her way so Auntie Breeze has stuck.

More without me

They were all off again this weekend to another Flyball tournament whilst leaving me at home yet again.

To make it even worse Dare got another 1st place with his team. That's the second 1st place he has got in the last two tournaments, this him looking very smug with the rosettes.


Fortunately there are no videos of him to show, but here is one of Chip's team who came second in Div 3, (Breezes team got a fourth place in Div 6.)

This venue has a great vantage point so you get a really good idea of the whole experience of Flyball. You can tell which team is Chips in the three races as he is much smaller than the other dogs.



But not slower!

Black and Tan + Magnolia

I have had a bit of a quite week this week either stuck indoors or out on a lead for a walk.

So had a good idea to cheer me up a bit.


Why not help out with the painting of one of the bedrooms .

Well I think it looks quite fetching.

Weekend

It was a busy weekend of Flyball but unfortunately not for me. I am unusually attractive to other dogs again at the moment so its only walks on the lead for the next couple of weeks.

The rest were at Maidstone in Kent on Sunday for an indoor Flyball tournament. Auntie Breezes team came third in their Division, Chips came third as well but Dare's team got a first place in theirs.

This is Chips team, Grease Lightning check him out running last.



You will probably haved noticed on the video that some of the handlers have a picture and the name of their dog on the back of their shirt.

This is a better one of Chip and his picture.

Do you think Chips picture is actually a bit bigger than him?

Wordless wake up Wednesday

Tuggie Tuesday

The Sun showed itself over the weekend and this was combined with the start of the new years flyball training so we had all a nice weekend outside.

This is a great picture of Chip in full flow at training on Sunday. Do you think he looks like he has eaten to much turkey over the Christmas break?

And this is one of him posing for the camera.


Now you might be asking what has the title of this post 'Tuggie Tuesday' got to do with little Chip. Well check out this short YouTube video for the answer.



Obviously that was a noisy Border Collie barking in the second clip of the video...

England win the Ashes

Back in December England started playing Australia at cricket in a regular contest that first started way back in 1882. And I posted about it here in the blog in case you missed it.



Well last night we won the series 3-1 and the Ashes in the process.

Loads of records were broken along the way and it was the first series win England have had in Australia for quite a few years.

For those of you that watch 'quick' sports you might be surprised to learn that a full test cricket match (and there were 4 matches in this series) can last up to 5 days and the top England batsman in this series Alastair Cook batted for a total of 36 hours on the field and scored 766 runs, the 2nd highest ever by an English batsman.

Well done England!

It's not fair

All the snows gone in the back garden now. We had a bit of a thaw over new year and also some heavy rain so its all finally gone. So its not as pretty to look over the fence onto the lawn anymore.


In fact I think we should be allowed onto the back lawn again to play but apparently its wet and we would get it and us muddy.


Now I don't think that is very fair as I am sure we would not run the mud into the house and its much, much closer than the Park.


Sometimes things are so unfair they just make you want to...

Howl ...!

A Very Happy New Year

We had a quite a busy New Years Eve this year, me barking at all the fireworks that our neighbours were letting off and everyone else trying to get me and Chip to shut up.

Mind you I do feel a bit worse for wear today.

But here's wishing everyone a very Happy New Year.