Blogville Olympics 2012

Wow I am so excited for this great event!

This is me flying the flag for Team GB

I have entered six events : Equestrian; Extreme Weather Sports; Synchronised Snoozing; Crazy Singles Snoozing; Couch Potato Peeling and my favourite Monster Chewing :-)

I am so looking forward to seeing all the other competitors and taking part in the Parade of Athletes tomorrow. Click on the logo below to see the list of all the events - there are over 40 different sports taking place - thank you to all the kind hosts of these events!

My brother Crybbe and my sisters are wondering why I'm getting so excited.

Crybbe looking cross because he's not entered anything.

Aoife getting a comfortable seat to watch...

....and Trilby wondering if she could have entered a hen-chasing event.

Coffee, Cakes and more Mini Schnauzers

Can you see me and Trilby at the back hiding by the table? On Saturday it was such a lovely sunny day for the first time in ages that we went out for a coffee to a village near us called South Milford. They used to have a tea garden - a garden where you could sit under the trees and enjoy tea and cakes - and dogs were allowed too! But the terrible wet weather this year meant they couldn't keep going so the tea garden has gone - but the peeps who ran it now do tea or coffee and cakes at the village Post Office and dogs can sit outside - so we did!

Leigh had a big slice of chocolate cake and Judith had fruit cake served with local cheese:

Me and Trilby would have liked to try them both but we were not allowed as chocolate is bad for dogs and so are raisins..we did get a morsel of cheese and biscuit though :-)

As well as cakes the shop sells fruit and vegetables from a stall outside.

and the post box is in the wall!

After refreshments we went back to our own village and stopped for a stroll on the green and who should we meet but 2 more mini schnauzers who live in our village too:

Here they are saying hello to me.

Their names are Millie and Monty

That's Millie at the front and Monty behind her. They were finding the day very hot :-)

We had a good sniff and nose about and then Trilby and me said goodbye to Millie.

Maybe we will meet them again another day.

Awards Friday

 


 Wow - I have been honoured with 2 more awards! Thank you to Basset Momma for the Sisterhood of the World Bloggers Award which requires me to tell you 7 facts about myself, to share the love and link to the person who gave me the award and to nominate 7 more wonderful blogs...and not forgetting to link to the nominees in my post and leave them a comment on their blog letting them know they won!

So here goes:

1. I like having my tummy rubbed :-) - this was when I was a puppy and met Leigh's nephew Euan for the first time:

2. I enjoy playing in the snow:

 3. I love chewing meaty bones:

4. I enjoy messing about on the river:

5. I have a beautiful daughter called Trilby who lives here with us:

6. I like to try out my jumping skills in the garden:

7. My favourite thing of all is a day out with the family:

And my seven nominees are:

Four Miniature Schnauzer Girls and a Maltese Boy

Finn Howard

Downunder Daisy

Yuki and Rocket

Susie-Belle the Foodie Schnauzer

The Adventures of Two Doodles and a Dane

Rubie A Miniature Schnauzer

For this Award I have to thank my good friend Haopee at My Dogs Love Me

and to accept this I have to share an interesting fact and nominate 5 other blogs - well I think I am going to have to let my 5 blog nominees be included in the above this time :-) but I will give you another interesting fact about me. Well actually - as you may know -  I had 4 puppies earlier this year and when they were born 2 of them were the colour "pepper & salt" - like me and their father Luke -and 2 were "black & silver" . For this to happen it meant that Luke and I both had black & silver genes in our pedigree which were passed on to those 2 boys :-). We knew Luke had the gene as his brother is black & silver but now we know I have it too!

My black & silver boy Otto

and his brother Malfi....

and not forgetting my sweet little pepper & salt boy Smudge - as if we could!

Caoimhe's Day Out

Some of Magic's blog  followers may have noticed that her younger sister Caoimhe hasn't been blogging or even turning up in the blog posts for a bit. I thought I would take over a post to just explain what has been happening with her this past few months. We had struggled a lot with what we thought was her bad behaviour - screaming at other dogs; attacking our cats; hyperactive on walks etc. After months of training, herbal remedies; Thunder shirts etc etc things were just deteriorating. Caoimhe was so fearful of everything even a leaf falling off a tree near her frightened her. She never rested, was always on the alert and so different to Magic in every way. We tried to remember when this all started as she was not at all like that when we first had her as a puppy - laid back, happy, playing with our cats...and then someone suggested it could be related to her vaccinations.

To cut a long story short, the timing seemed to fit and, as our usual vet was unable to help with this, we took Caoimhe to a holistic vet practice some miles away where as well as being trained in conventional veterinary medicine, they are trained in veterinary homeopathy. We saw a lovely American vet who after a 2 hour consultation prescribed one dose of a homeopathic remedy which has shown amazing results! Caoimhe is now 3 weeks on and has calmed down hugely, she walks well on lead (most of the time :-)) she will rest and snooze like the other dogs, she is better behaved around the cats who are now coming back into the house. It seems that Caoimhe must have suffered encephalitis from the live distemper vaccine (she was given this  as part of her vaccination programme at 8 and 10 weeks old) which has caused some damage to her brain and triggered the terrible fearfulness she suffered. Sadly she may never get back to the laid back happy dog she was as a pup but if we can get her more stable, less fearful and able to go out and about with the others it will be a huge step forward. At the suggestion of the vet we made a change from the routine we had been sticking to up till now and took Caoimhe for a day out to Castle Howard, a dog friendly stately home not too far from here, on her own, to see how she coped and all went well. Here are some more photos of her day out:

Castle Howard

Watching the Koi Carp

Balancing on the fountain's edge

A bit of furtling

Enjoying some strawberry milkshake

Caoimhe relaxed after an enjoyable day out.

Meeting A Shropshire Lad (and Lass) in Yorkshire

Well this picture should let my secret out in the open! Guess who I met today at the Wolds Way Lavender Farm...Tess and George the Lad!!!

After all the rain we have been having here in Yorkshire the sun came out for the morning and me and Trilby and Crybbe travelled to the Lavender Farm to meet up with George and Tess and their peeps and we had a wonderful time exploring together. I am sure George and Tess will be blogging about their holiday before long and will have some super action shots of the day but here are some of the photos Leigh got of our time together at this lovely dog-friendly lavender farm:

There were lots of walks through woodland and fields with lots of wicker sculptures like these deer.

There were also some scary monsters that I tried to warn George about but he is so brave they didn't bother him...or Tess!

And we found some giant games to play in the Maze while we were trying to discover how to get out:

George had a go at quoits and then we tried a game of chess:

It was getting really hot by this time and George decided to have a rest :

And then he and Tess found just what they wanted - some water to jump in!

Well you weren't going to catch us getting our paws wet so we made our way back through the wild flower fields:

Past the railway crossing:

"Come on everybody - let's go to the tearoom!"

And we all went back for a rest at the teashop before we had to go home.

Crybbe and Trilby saying goodbye to Tess.

It was such an exciting day to meet George and Tess in the furs and extra special for Crybbe because it was his 5th birthday too!

PeeS - I also had the chance to get in a pawsome photo opportunity for one of the Blog Olympic sports - pics on the way soon :-)

Puppy Tales

The weather has been so wet here recently we haven't been going out and about so much but yesterday my little Trilby had an explore down the end of our garden. Here she is checking out the hens' run.

And sniffing the stone face:

and checking out the scented flowers:

She is really growing up now. And good news this week - we heard from the peeps who have taken my puppy boys to live with them and they are all doing well. Little Smudge has been trying out a paddling pool and been away on holiday. Otto is settling in with his new schnauzer family and having fun and games with them. And Merlin now has a new name as well as a new family. He is now called Malfi which is very smart and he has just started at puppy training classes. Crybbe tells me that he went to the very same puppy class when he lived up in Newcastle (and all the other schnauzers from our family did when they lived there)! It is a very good puppy school and I hope he gets on well there. It is called Positively Pets and you can click on the name to check it out.

More exciting news next week I hope as it's holiday time and if the sun comes out - or even if it doesn't - we might be off somewhere special and I am secretly hoping to meet one of my bloggy friends :-) !!