The weather gets the better of us

We’re all feeling rather soggy…

We live in Scotland, we expect rain, but do we really have to have it every single day? It feels like it’s not stopped for months now.  A few weeks ago we suddenly had a morning of sunshine and in a panic, we cut the grass. Of course the rain wasn’t gone for long and it came back with a vengeance.  The grass lay on the ground sopping wet and getting trampled by happy dogs who were delighted that they now had a clear view of the swallows right across the field and maybe a sporting chance of catching them!

A few weeks on and we had another morning of sunshine, panic again, turn the grass to fluff it up and let it dry out a bit, and then in the afternoon, out with the baler, avoiding the really boggy areas so we didn’t get stuck.

We were quite pleased after a couple of hours when we had 150 bales, that was until we tried to lift them.  Each one was weighed down with water and extemely heavy.  It was also getting dark but we had to get them under cover. We soldiered on in the pitch black until we had them all under a tarpaulin and then crawled off to bed.

Each day if there is a glimpse of the sun, we uncover them. Of course once we turn our backs the rain starts and we have to rush out to wrestle with the soaking wet and flapping tarpaulin. It is highly unlikely that they will be edible so we shall just have to bite the bullet and buy some in. Somebody out there must have had more luck with the weather than us!

On a more cheerful note, we picked up our Suffolk tup for this year and introduced him to the girls, they didn’t reject him quite as badly as last year’s tup so he must be better looking, maybe the Brad Pitt of the sheep world! We put a crayon on him so we can tell when he’s done his thing and make a note the ewe’s ear tag number. That way we will have an idea of when they are due to lamb next year. Already there are some red rumps out there so we know he’s off to a good start!

Due to the awful weather, we haven’t been able to do much tracking with Toby, so instead we’ve been working with him indoors and here’s his latest Tobeo!

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Track and train

Toby tries tracking…

We are always looking for new things for Toby to try as he likes to be busy!  A local trainer mentioned she did tracking classes and we were keen to have a go with the boy.

She came over to give us some pointers to get us started and it wasn’t long before Toby was fully engaged.  We started by stomping out a trail, dropping cocktail sausages on the way and leaving a jackpot at the end.  He loved it and couldn’t contain his excitement, and proved to be an excellent tracker.  We decided to train a few times a week, and found that in the afternoons (our designated training time) he was pacing the house and whining to get going!

Then we hit a bit of a snag.  We started off by using fields where the grass was pretty long so the trail was easy to see, both for us and him.  We added complications like curves and doubling back and also crossing tracks from previous sessions, and we were convinced that it was his nose he was using, not his eyes.

However, then we moved to a different field where the sheep had recently grazed.  The grass was shorter and there were lots of other distracting scents to throw him off.  Firstly, we could no longer see the trail we had made, so it was difficult to ensure when we backtracked we were following exactly the same route, and secondly, when we set off with him we found it harder to tell if he was following the trail correctly!

We also introduced an “article” for him to find, which might have confused him further.

We will need to take a step back and try again when the weather is better, to ensure he has a good grip on the basics (standard practice when training new skills or behaviours), otherwise he will become discouraged and frustrated.

Speaking of the weather, thanks to daily rain, we have been unable to cut the grass for haymaking and the way things are going, we could end up with none this year!

Here’s Toby in action:

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A trip to the other side

We get away…

Sadly, this month we lost our milking goat, Betsy.  One evening she had an upset tummy and the next day she was gone.  It was quite a shock for us and we are left with only two goats, neither of which are in milk.  We find ourselves running out of milk constantly as we can’t get used to buying it from the shops!

She was milked twice a day every day and therefore we could never really leave the croft for very long.  In fact we haven’t both had a night away from here for the last 13 years!

As we had relatives staying with us who could look after the dogs and keep an eye on the rest of the menagerie, we took the opportunity to snatch a few days break on the West Coast.

We stayed in a lovely B&B and spent our days sightseeing at Fort Augustus, Fort William and of course, we couldn’t miss the great glen, Glencoe. The weather wasn’t great but it didn’t rain too much and thankfully, the midges were nowhere to be seen.

Now our batteries are recharged, we are ready to tackle hay making, should the sun ever decide to return.

In the meantime Toby is reaching the adolescent ‘naughty teenager’ stage in his life, and as he is also getting bigger and heavier, it is important to try and maintain his training while he works through it.  Not easy for us, particularly as his training classes have finished and the incentive to show off his week’s work has finished with them!

Thankfully he has one particular trick to fall back on, which he perfoms twice daily at feeding time – ‘Bring da Bowl’.  Once all of the dogs have finished eating, we line the bowls up and Toby fetches them all one by one!  Here he is in action:

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Board Meeting

Our dogs take their work seriously…

Once again this year, we were the proud sponsors of Bring Your Dog to Work Day on 23rd June, in aid of two charities, All Dogs Matter and Animals Asia.  For dogs all over the country it must have been a revelation to discover where their humans disappear to every day.  Hopefully there weren’t too many mishaps and all participants arrived armed with treats, water bowls and, of course, poo bags!

For us it was business as usual, as our dogs are lucky enough to be with us at work all the time. However, we decided to have some fun by giving them all a “job” and taking taking pictures in various poses.

Daisy was our Call Manager

Archie became the Dispatch Manager

Toby began by tackling the Paperwork, but was so clever we promoted him to Presentations

Jack, although a member of the Board, already has a day job – rounding up sheep!

It was quite a training challenge persauding them to pose for the camera, but there is always a way to achieve what you want and the clicker proved a great asset.  That and some tasty treats of course!

If you have pictures of your “working dogs” we would love to see them.

Burnt offerings

We produce our first pizza…

After many years on the back burner (no pun intended) our clay/pizza oven is finally operational. Hoorah!

Earlier this month, with great trepidation, we scraped out the sand from the centre, keeping our fingers crossed that the whole thing wouldn’t collapse.

It didn’t and we fired it up.

We were so impatient that we failed to let it heat up long enough before we slid in our first pizza.  It took an age to cook and then the base wasn’t crisp but very doughy.

We learned two things – we needed to allow more time for it to reach optimum cooking temperature, and the pizza base should be thinner.

On the second firing, we lit it at 9am and put the first pizza in at 12 noon.  It was done in minutes, the edges charcoaled and the pizza stone cracked in half!  Not quite what we had in mind.

Number 3, we let it heat up for 2 hours, then pushed the embers aside and kept them alight by feeding in small sticks.  We also used a pizza crisper tray rather than a stone.  This time the base was perfect but we took our eye off the top for a few mintues too long and still ended up with a charcoal rim!

It’s obviously a work in progress and we will continue to strive for the perfect pizza.

Now the oven is finished, our next project is a bench for the garden so that we can sit comfortably and enjoy that “perfect pizza”!

The clay oven

It’s been a long time coming…

Way back in 2011, after attending a clay oven workshop and filled with enthusiasm, we embarked on our own clay oven building project in the garden.

We constructed the base and then left it to dry.  In fact we left it for several years!!!  It has been a bit of an eyesore in the garden ever since, covered in plastic weighted down with bags of clay that we dug from the ground.

Since the weather had been so good, we decided to finally finish the job and set about building the oven itself.  Inside the bags, the clay had grown a covering of moss but was surprisingly still usable when mixed with water to become pliable.  We made a dome of sand in the centre of the base, spread newspaper over the top, then set about covering it in the wet clay.  It was a case of slapping it on with our hands.  The second layer applied a week later was a mixture of clay mixed with sawdust and straw to insulate, and then finally the following weekend we put on the top layer (just clay), which was a bit wetter and threatened to slide off!

So, do we now have our clay oven?  Not quite.  It has to dry inside and out and we are nervous about raking out the sand, in case the whole thing collapses.

It will be a while yet before we cook our first pizza in there, but hopefully we’re talking weeks not years!

Toby Pup’s Marathon

Toby Pup enjoys a (KONG) Marathon play session!

With Toby Pup’s episodes of high energy occurring at regular intervals, he really benefits from having something to focus it on. Thankfully, the KONG Company’s range of Marathon toys play right into his paws!

These fun rubber toys have a recess in the side that is shaped specifically to hold a Marathon treat firmly in place. The treat is mostly beneath the surface of the toy, and whilst Toby can still reach and taste it, it is deliberately difficult for him to get a good hold on it. Also, as he does manage to wear the treat down, it goes deeper into the toy and becomes harder to reach.

One added bonus we found is that the toys are hollow, allowing for small additional treats to be hidden inside as an extra incentive!

Toby has used his Kong Marathon Ball several times now, and although he has obviously got better at it, it still keeps him very well occupied.

Here he is in action:

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Wet, wet, wet!

Toby becomes a water baby…

This month has been particularly wet here and pretty warm too.  Sadly frosty mornings, where the dogs come home dry, seem to be a thing of the past. At the end of every walk, the “dog-o-matic”, otherwise known as a watering can, comes out and they all get a cold shower.  Soaking wet towels, litter the porch and we can’t dry them fast enough.  The hayfield has developed a couple of large puddles or mini-lakes and we discovered that Toby loves them, he’s a real water baby!  The others avoid paddling but he rushes in with such enthusiasm and sprays us all in his wake.  Unfortunately, he’s quite partial to a mud bath too!

Because of the poor weather conditions the ewes and lambs are still inside as we don’t want to risk letting them out into the sodden fields.  However, they are all in one large pen together so the babies have lots of friends to play with.

Toby finished his puppy classes with flying colours.  He performed his “Bang Bang” trick at the end of term party in front of everyone.  We were worried that he would be too excited to go through with it on the night, but he did us proud.

Next month he starts Junior classes and we are looking forward to continuing his clicker training as he is doing so well.  Notwithstanding the fact that the journey too and fro is a bit of a nightmare, as there have been so many road closures with diversions of up to 20 miles along winding roads.  This has caused poor Toby to be sick on the long drive there.  Thankfully, on the way home, he’s usually so exhausted, he sleeps all the way!

His relationship with Jack, our Border Collie has improved 100%.  They are now best friends and wrestle together for hours, albeit rather noisily!

See Toby’s water antics in the video below:

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Toby Pup and the Treat Ringer Orb

Toby Pup tries out a Treat Ringer Orb from Starmark

Toby loves trying out new toys for us, and today we introduce him to the Treat Ringer Orb from Starmark.

Starmark’s Treat Ringer toys are made of firm plastic and they have a wide outer with a hard to reach rail inside.  Edible Treat Rings are pushed onto this inner rail for your dog to try and remove. Not easy!

The Ringers are supplied with some treat rings, but they are available separately too for when you need to refill.

For most dogs it can be quite a challenging toy at first and during Toby’s initial 20 minute session he did not manage to remove one singe ring. However, during play the rings do become softer and easier to work.  Plus, as with most toys, dogs become more adept over time so in subsequent sessions he does manage to remove the treats eventually.

A couple of months on, and Toby still loves it!

See how he got on in our video below:

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Lambing begins and ends

We experience a pain-free month of lambing, although the ewes may disagree…

Lambing began unexpectedly at the begining of the month with the first ewe giving birth without our intervention.  She had two healthy boys with no problems at all.  As we hired a Suffolk tup this time, instead of the usual pure white lambs, we had a mixture of black and speckledy faces.  It pretty much continued in the same vein, with most of the ewes coping by themselves, which is just as well, as we couldn’t get the CCTV cameras working.

As a result, we haven’t had a single sleepless night!

The last one was due on 28th but she lambed two days early, so we are all done for this year.  We’ve never had such a quick and efficient lambing season!

We didn’t get as many as we hoped for and we also got more boys than usual, but we will certainly keep some of the girls for future breeding.

Toby’s training is coming along very well, although he can be a little demon in the evenings when we are all ready to sit down and relax in front of the TV.  He has other ideas and stalks around the lounge like a thug!

He is so bright and clever, it’s a real pleasure to teach him.  He missed one training class due to illness but quickly caught up with the rest of the group.

For his last session, there will be a party and every pup is expected to perform a trick.  We decided to teach him the Bang Bang trick with a variation: we ‘shoot’ him (or rather, we say ‘bang’) and he goes round in a circle and then falls flat to the floor.  He’s just about got it and you can see him demonstrating it in the video below.  Whether he will be willing to do it on the night in front of an audience is anyones guess!