Labrador Retriever

As I type this, Star is lying in a patch of sunlight in front of an open door. This is one of her favourite positions. She likes it best with the door open, so that should the need arise, she can potter out into the garden, but she will accept a door closed situation. Eventually. Today though, the door stands flung open, because on opening it a lovely spring day, complete with warm sunshine, was waiting for us. (It had been waiting an indecently long time in fact, as we tend to lie in on a Saturday morning.)

You know some people say that dogs and children don't mix? Well in my opinion dogs and violins don't mix. I have recently started to learn to play the violin. I can play piano a little, and quite a few woodwind instruments ( it's all the same basic concept - a tube with holes to make pitch variations), but stringed instruments have always eluded me. I was bought my first guitar when I was under ten years old. Now, quite a few years later, I still only know a few chords, and most of those I get wrong. I also take ages to change from one chord to the next.

So I decided to ask for a violin for Christmas. Not Christmas just gone, oh no, this was way

We've had snow this week, which has brought fun and problems. Working from home, and home schooling too meant no snow days, but we managed to get out and have some fun. The dogs were so excited by this sudden covering of strange white stuff, and ran around exploring it. We have learned from experience not to let Star go out in the snow for too long. We learned this late one Sunday evening when we were so excited ourselves about an unexpected snowfall that we were all out in the garden at ten o'clock in the evening. Because it was dark, we didn't realise until we went back into the house, that Star had amassed a huge amount of little balls of snow in her fluffy coat.

Do you have blogs that you like to follow? Well obviously, in addition to this one! There are various ones that I like to check in with regularly, and I thought I'd share some with you.

We were off to training today, and I wanted Buddy to “toilet” before we went to the class. I always feel (based on experience) that he concentrates better without a full bowel impinging on his brain. The same could probably be said for many people, but I digress.

So this afternoon, in what the media and weather forecasters are describing as arctic conditions yet again, Buddy and I were pounding the streets near the training venue. I repeatedly issued the command to “hurry up” which is our code word attached to toileting.

I mentioned Lee Gibson's new DVD last week, and it was while we were working with Lee that Buddy did one of the funniest things he's ever done. We were completely new to agility, and so we started where Julie Andrews recommended starting - at the very beginning. Lee believes in getting the basics right; of teaching your dog the commands for each piece of equipment, teaching a right and left command, teaching a pause on the contact points, and a priority is learning to trust your dog, and giving him the space to let him get it right.

It's an approach that pays dividends. You simply can't

I suppose every dog owner thinks this, but I think that I live with the nicest dogs in the world. I'll give you an example of what leads me to think this. When our dogs are asleep, obviously we try to avoid disturbing them, but sometimes it can't be avoided, and sometimes it happens by accident.

The other night I was busy sorting out my clean dry laundry, and putting it away. I was walking into the bedroom with my arms full of "smalls".

Oh dear, Kevin McKidd has given us another celebrity example of how to get it wrong with dogs. Kevin is the Scottish actor you may have seen in the television series Journeyman, or the films Trainspotting, or Made of Honour. He has two dogs, which he obviously thinks a lot of, as he flew them out to LA with the family when they moved. However, Kevin's dogs are male and female, and he just didn't manage to remember to get them neutered.

Well, you know what happened don't you?