Another year ...

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Another year, been and gone, and here we are again ... reminiscing over the past 12 months, chewing over the ups and downs, taking notes on our successes and finding the lessons in our not so successful experiences.

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Sometimes, just when you think you've got it all sorted out, someone throws you a curve-ball and your whole world is turned upside down!

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2009 delivered many challenges for me,

and many successes for Westurn ...

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... oooOOOooo ...

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Firstly, we had a new edition to the family. Something I've wanted for a long time and all I can say is "be careful what you wish for" ... "Party" (Belgian Malinois) joined us in August, threw our household into a whirlwind of chaos with her wild and crazy ways. Nothing has changed, she is still the wild child of the house and I've even heard a whisper that someone here would gladly have another dalmatian puppy instead of a "working-line malinois" puppy! now that's saying something!!! Party will continue to challenge and educate us as the new year evolves and I look forward to the journey with her as our relationship grows.

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Latest video of Party on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuaKY61BXGU

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... oooOOOooo ...

The Girls (Mum and Rene) had a really successful year in the show ring with their Papillons, earning numerous "in Group" awards in 2009 including ... Tiger (2 Minor in Groups), Genie (2 Puppy and 2 Minor In Groups), Satu (State Bred & Junior in Group) and Comet (State Bred & Intermediate In Group) also finishing his Championship Title!

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... oooOOOooo ...

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Krash (Belgian Malinois), or Mr Muscle as we call him, gained his Championship Title and continues to demonstrate his friendly personality to the judges that he has been lucky enough to meet.
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... oooOOOooo ...

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Agility has tapered down for me however we still managed a number of achievements ...

• Ticket gained her Snooker and Gamblers titles (SD & GD)
• Chilli gained her Gambler, Excellent Jumping and Agility Dog Titles (GD, JDX & AD) and also qualified in the finals at the State Trial for Agility and Excellent Jumping!
• Summer gained her Agility, Excellent Jumping and Strategic Pairs Titles (AD, JDX & SPD) and also qualified in the finals at the State Trial for Excellent Jumping!

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... oooOOOooo ...

As you all know I also ventured into a new career last year, with thanks to my friends and family who encouraged, and are still supporting, me ... the detector dogs have arrived and I start full-time "dog training" from tomorrow!

This has brought many changes ... in my daily life and also in my own personal values. I've had to make some serious sacrifices, more so than I really anticipated, sometimes frustrating my human and furry family and sometimes at the expense of my own goals and expectations ... as they say, one door opens yet another door closes and occasionally we are forced to re-evaluate our goals, to move our goal posts to a more realistic place.

2009 has brought me many new friends, many unexpected new experiences and relationships. Some will bless me forever, some will be a memory to cherish.

Roll on 2010!

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What have you been up to ???

Okay Okay …

I know I haven’t updated on the doggy stuff for a while

so here’s a bit on what we’ve been up to …

On the nose ...
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We’ve started to play with a little bit of tracking. Just simple straight line tracks for now and our aim is to get the nose down and heading in the right direction “on track”! Krash and Carrie are having a go at this stage (yes, a Malinois and a Dalmatian - what a combination!) Chilli might even get a play at it a little later on.
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Krash tends to want to run and often overshoots the food on the track, but that’s okay, so long as he’s following the track. To start with, he was a little confused as to where “tracking” started and that the jackpot at the end was the finish … after a couple of goes he had his nose down so I decided to start putting the harness on him at the start of the track and taking it off when he’d finished – it definitely helped. He worked out that once the harness went on it was time to start "doing something". I think he feels a little bit important too, with his brand new harness – a gift to him from friend Marty – Krash says “thanks”!
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Carrie also joined us to try her paw at tracking and, as you know, if there’s food involved, Carrie will do almost anything! She worked out very quickly that following a track would lead to more and more treats! All going well, we will reduce the rewards vert soon and may also be able to add some curves in our tracks next week.
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Thanks to Kath and Lisa (who are also having a go with their GSP’s learning by trial and error just like me) for trudging along with me and hunting down strange places to play at! Also thanks to Justin who has been ever so patient in answering my never-ending questions on "what to do next"!

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Puppy Stuff
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Party has finally decided that bringing her toy back to me to play with is more fun than zooming around the backyard with it all on her own! Yay - finally!!! Our training basically consists of play, and play, and play, and play … we are implementing a few control games now but I'm very careful not to make things too serious ...
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Getting to know a Belgian is quite different to getting to know a border collie (something I can compare to). They are very tactile dogs and their interaction is often very physical – teaching the boundaries of where that physical interaction becomes bad manners is the challenge. Party is also very stimulated by her environment – new things are sooooo exciting. We’ve been doing lots of flatwork, follow me/my hand and tug rewards beside me (thanks Simone!) and sending out/around cones, poles, trees for a game of chasey reward (she loves that) and sending to the tunnel for a tuggy after a lightning-speed exit!
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We will start some target training this week … hmmm, how yet, I am not sure. Free-shaping is not a Belgians favourite method of learning; they much prefer clear instructions of your agenda and then like to add their “twist” to it! So targeting will be an interesting challenge … stay tuned.
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The serious stuff that pays for the fun stuff …
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Work has been hectic, to say the least and I am sure once “Gorgon-itis” ramps up to full speed ahead we are going to be abolutely frantic! I feel like I’ve been around the world and back in the last month, working from locations all over the Perth outer-metro areas, from crawling around under huge mining machinery, accommodation units, barges and aircraft, trucks, busses, cars ... to inspecting bananas and apples ... all destined for Barrow Island!
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Good news ... the detector dogs arrive in about 8 weeks time … I’m really looking forward to starting work with them and doing what I really came here to do! We’re starting out with beagles, for the beginning of 2010, to be followed up with Labradors early next year. This training will be a whole new learning experience for me … will update when I have more ... if you’re really lucky I might even be able to manage some photo’s!

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Other stuff ...

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One good thing about being busy … I’ve be so busy I’ve managed to break my habit of biting my nails! Yay ... don't ask me how but amongst all the manual work I've managed to grow a nice set of nails (no, they are not false!)
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Also, night trials started this weekend and continue now until March next year - yippee!

Party will be going to some more shows soon (she had one today and was very excited to see the judge!)

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The heat of Summer has got us running with the lawn mower and whipper-snipper as everything decides to start growing at a rapid rate, we need to mulch the gardens (eeewww, back breaking stuff!) and the gum leaves are starting to form their little fire-hazard bundles around the block, poisoning the unwelcomed weeds is neverending and the demand of keeping everything watered is just another task to add to Mum's busy day of looking after the block … don’t even mention Christmas!

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Back to the early bird airport shifts for me again next week for another two weeks ... rising at 2am isn't the easiest time of the day to be asking your body clock to adapt to ... on that note, think I'll be off to bed to put some credit in my sleep bank ...

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All photo's on this post are "Party" at approx. 5 months old, taken today Saturday 31st Oct.

Look after your Teef!

Over the last couple of weeks my brain has been obsessed with the fact that I had a visit to the dentist coming up. Well, I am absolutely terrified of going to the Dentist, not that I don’t like dentists, they all seem very nice when you meet them, actually I don’t know exactly what it is that makes me lose so much sleep, break out into a cold sweat, tremble, shiver, shake and want to be sick … if only I knew exactly what it was that terrified me so much I would probably be able to control these feelings … maybe.

I psyche myself up and tell myself that it’s not the end of the world, it’s not going to kill me, people go to the dentist every day and come out alive!!!

Whatever, I just can’t handle it! It’s taken over my life over the past two weeks and there’s nothing I could do about it!

Well … here I am! I’ve been to the dentist (yesterday) and I’m still here! Now, finally I can get back to “normal” and get on with my life!

Anyway, before I move on to doggy posts, that have been absent whilst I had my little dentist crisis, I have to share my dentist experience with you …

The last time I went to a dentist, a couple of years ago, she told me to come back in a few months to start root canal treatment … well, needless to say, she NEVER saw me again! I ran, as fast as I possibly could, the other direction, never to return … then THAT TOOTH started to hurt and gradually got more sensitive … so I started my research to find a nice, understanding, gentle, caring dentist who might tell me something different to the last one!

Well, I found this dentist who practices “sleep dentistry”. They basically put you to sleep whilst they do all the horrible stuff! Yeah! I’m in for that … so I toddled off to meet him. He even told me that I didn’t need a root canal - just a cap (which is just as expensive!) Anyhow, with “sleep dentistry” they are able to do two or three visits worth of work …and that’s what they did. I don't have get all worked up about it again and again going back lots of visits.

All I need to do now is return in a couple of weeks to get the real cap put on – apparently a simple, quick procedure and supposedly painless! He'd better be right!!!

So I guess I’ll be making sure I keep up my regular visits to the dentist from now on, seeing I don’t have to be so terrified!

Take the weekend off!

Every now and then we have a weekend “off” … that means we have no trials or shows that weekend so we can get lots of work done around the block. So it’s not really a weekend off – it’s more like a WEEKEND of lot's of essential CHORES and HARD-WORK that we've not had time to do!

Anyhow, here’s the results after last “weekend off” … we got all the lawns done (mowing and whipper snippering), did some major pruning of trees (with chainsaw assistant in tow) because there’s a green waste collection next week, slashed the front part of the empty block next door, finished poisoning around the backyard and driveways, cleaned up all the palm trees we could reach with our long handled saw (need neck massage now), pulled up the huge double-g weeds up on the verge (they were nearly as big as me), replaced a couple of reticulation taps and connections up the palm garden and we still managed to squeeze in a couple of well deserved, icy cold beers on Sunday afternoon!

Phew! ... here’s the evidence ...

Gum Leaves!

With the Summer months having nicely dried out our Australian bush, the remaining hot days become even more of a threat, along with the Autumn winds increasing each day, the fear of fire is ever present in our minds …

We have some beautiful big Gum Trees on our one acre block and they provide us with natural shade over our dog runs and kennels - without these trees our place would be much hotter. Therefore, each Summer we spend countless hours picking up (and cursing) Gum Leaves!

Guess what we the other day? ... it looked really nice afterwards!

Fire! Fire!

I really hate this time of the year … the beginning of Summer, when there’s plenty of undergrowth in the bush after a lush Winter/Spring, everything looks beautiful and is just dry enough to BURN!

Yesterday, Monday 10th December, I received a phone call at work that there was bush fire in the area behind our property … within 20 minutes I arrived home to prepare for the onslaught. From the minute I left work, some 20kms from home, I could see the huge cloud of smoke over Canning Vale … fighting peak hour traffic, the closer I got the more worried I became and my “self talk” was getting louder, reminding me to “stay calm, think clearly”.

I was mentally preparing myself for what I might (or might not) find … I knew that Mum had put all our dogs safely inside and all the kennel dogs in their kennels.

She had turned the bore on to wet the areas around the house and kennels, closed all the windows in case of embers burning the fly screens, turned the air conditioner water on and blower off.

The smoke was quite dense and thick as I approached; Crufts Way (the street behind our house) was blocked off by fire engines and police. The Emergency Response Unit was parked at the edge of the park and jammed packed with firemen, police and other officials. The water bomber helicopters were everywhere … the sounds of sirens, trucks and helicopters was echoing in the sky.

All I could see was black scrub across the back of the park ... where the fire had already been. Flames were licking up against the house at the end of the street.

I pulled into our driveway, leaving the gate open in case quick access was needed for anyone, leaving the keys in the car I rushed inside, changed into more practical clothes and checked with Mum to see what else we could do … how hopeless you feel when the threat of fire is so close and all you can do is prepare and wait. So many “what-if’s” go through your mind ...

People could see the flames behind our block, from the house up the hill in front of us. My biggest worry was the vacant block directly next door to us – it is dry grass and low scrub and has never been burnt.

We got crates out ready for the cats and the little dogs, in the case that we had to leave in a hurry. I still don’t know if I would actually leave if I had a choice … you just never know what you would do in that situation until you are faced with it, and my gut feeling is that I would choose to fight for my property unless it was absolutely hopeless, and there's no chance that I'd leave if I had to leave animals behind.

They were preparing to evacuate Crufts Way … apparently the fire had traveled through the bush behind all the properties on the Western side of Crufts Way and dogs had already been evacuated to homes on the opposite side of the road. There were so many emergency vehicles going back and forth, with little room for residents to get in and out with cars of dogs, etc., and this time of year most kennels are fully booked so full evacuation is a huge job.

Mum went around there with our little van to see if anyone needed help but there were lots of cars with dog floats already there … rather than clog up the road with another car she just let some residents know that we had some empty kennels that they could put their dogs in if needed, and she returned home.

It is nice to know that, in the case of an emergency, the dog community always pulls together to help move dogs, evacuate and accommodate other peoples animals. People from the Southern River kennel properties had arrived to move dogs to safety, even calling in on us to check if we needed anything.

Fortunately full evacuation was not required.

The fire was eventually contained and by around 7.30pm the fireys were mopping up, however trucks were still driving up and down the streets at 10.00pm … phew! that was close!

It’s comforting to know that these “hero’s”, our fire men and women, are so quick to respond and always prepared to risk their own safety to help save the lives of others. I don’t know how many trucks came but there seemed to be a never-ending stream of fire trucks coming and going all evening … the sound of helicopters and sirens is still echoing in my head.

A quick check on reality this morning, with a glance around our home and an extra hug to each of the dogs before leaving for work … I am so grateful for what I have.