Max's Birthday

Today is Max's birthday. Well, at least we decided it is today, as nobody knows for sure.
We adopted him in October and he was about half a year, so we decided that his birthday was 6 month before we adopted him....

He had a lovely long walk today and now is happily chewing a bone.
He grew into a lovely and handsome dog. Not that I am biased at all ;)

He was found at the age of 4 month wandering the roads of Ireland, full or worms and terribly scared. He was brought over to Wiccaweys, where he went into a foster home.
I fell in love with his picture on the Wiccs website, but when we went up for a weekend to help, I was told that people where coming to meet him. So at least I had the chance to meet Max in the flesh....
He was a very scared puppy when we met and immediately attached himself to me.
The people who were thinking of adopting him then decided he is not the right dog for their circumstances....
So I was asked to look after him for the afternoon.....
And I just couldn't imagine to let go of him after that....
There was just the problem to convince Sarah and Paul, that I am the right home for him...

Well, the rest is history. he came home with us and I never regretted it. He is a lovely, but very sensitive dog. I have to be careful how to work with him, as he is easily shattered and so is his confidence...
Agility gave his confidence a real boost, if I teach him gently....

Here are some recent pictures of my handsome boy :)





His first rosette for a 3rd place in a UKA casual class (he didn't even went clear..... oops, but nice nevertheless :)
)

A picture of my garden on Sunday and a picture of Robbie in the snow...

The weeks passing by

The weekend before last I took Max and Jake to South Eastern Agility Show.
I was a bit fed up with Jake and his nonstop barking in the ring, so I decieded to run Max instead. As it was an unaffiliated show and we had no chance of winning anything, I thought nobody would mind.
We did the jumping and he did it very well except for the last obstacle, which was the tire. he just ran underneath.
In the Agility course he knocked a pole and ran underneath one jump, but he did the course wonderfully and his contacts were brilliant.

I then went home to fetch Chadiga and she ran Jake in the Accumulator to get used to running him and vice versa. Whereas I ran Max in the Grade 1-7 Agility. Max was fabulous, he flew over the obstacles, got all the turns and did all I asked him to do. The second last obstacle was a seesaw and when he was on the pivot point he slipped and fell off. Poor him. It didn't put him off though and we finished the course. He would have gone clear if he hadn't fallen off. He was such star.

As we encountered so many tires in courses recently I asked Leah to do some tire training at classes.
Max was truly worried about them.
I was stupid enough to force him through the tire and the result was he hid in the tunnel and lost all fun in Agility. I could have kicked myself.
In the evening class there was another tire in the course and though I could lure him through he seemed to have lost the spark in general.

Friday morning the boys and I set off early to go to the UKA Scrambles show in Walton on Thames.
I had entered Jake, Max and Larkin. Max only in casual classes in Larkin just in nursery classes as a little motivation push for Chadiga.
First was Max's casual jumping. He wasn't really focused, but nor was I and we got 10 faults.....
Just nearly everybody else got eliminated. Was a baby class after all....
10 minutes later we had to re-run as they forgot to take our time, this time we were better, but slower....
Anyway, we got a 3rd place for this! (I call it lack of competition :) )

Then was Jake's class, first the Steeplechase.
And he was brilliant, we got a clear round!
I put Max in the same class but then the disaster began.... He started running under the jumps.... I was devastated....
And it is my own fault... I can only hope that it was because he was so tired and that I didn't put him off Agility again and destroyed his confidence. I am so stupid!
He did the same in the jumping class, so I took him out and didn't do any other classes.
Jake was too interested in the kids while in the jumping class, as they waited ringside with Max, but got a clear in the Agility.
We were to slow for placing, as usual..... ;-)

The boys were really helpful in looking after the dogs while I was running and comforting me ;)

Chadiga had to go to school and so couldn't even run Larkin!

I couldn't attend the show on Saturday but tried to go back on Sunday, while on the M25 we were surprised by heavy snowfall
and were sitting on the motorway. So I decided to go back home, which took us 2 hours. When we came home I was so tired that I didn't feel like doing anything else. The boys went outside for a few ours and lots of snowball fights.

Today it is back to work. But we went for nice walk in the morning and I took some nice dogs/snow pictures.... hopefully ;)