Let it rain!! Or maybe not ;-)

Skye's birthday present finally arrived today!! I'd ordered a nice Hurtta raincoat for her (which turned out to be out of stock, so took a while to get here.) I really like Hurtta dog gear, Skye has a harness by them as well and it fits her so well.

I am not really into dressing up dogs, but I think a raincoat is really practical, especially with heavy coated dogs. When Skye was a little puppy, she had one as well and it always kept her coat nicely clean and dry in really bad weather.

Her new rain coat came just in time. About an hour after the mail man handed it over to me the sun disappeared and the sky turned grey. The weather is rather horrible here at the moment. Rain has been pouring down for hours now.

I must admit Skye isn't too keen about wearing a coat. When I put it on, she just stands still and won't move a paw, looking very sorry for herself. On the photo above she looks quite happy though, but that's because I have a nice dog treat in my hand. ;-D

Fortunately, as soon as she's outside she forgets about the coat and behaves just as she always does. And when we come home after a walk she's happier too, because drying her hair with a towel takes no time at all.

Reunion

Last Thursday Skye met up with her mum, dad, sisters and Lian's other dogs at the Dogs in Need Agility Show. Skye was over the moon, getting to play with all these shelties. She turnes into a complete loonie as soon as she sees Lian and her boys and girls again.

Skye loved playing with Sipzie.

Sipzie having Skye for lunch. ;-)

Soon Saturn and Samber joined in as well.

Skye and Samber flattening Sipzie. Oops. 

But don't mother and daughter look alike!!

In the mean time Seagull looked after little Sunny. Sweeties!

It was really nice finally catching up with Skye's sisters in real life. I had seen them when they were just six weeks old and after that only on pictures. But you can definitely see they're sisters, all having such sweet little faces.

Of course we took a group photo. From left to right: Sunny, Seagull, Sizzle, Saturn, Sipzie, Sing, Samber, Tiggi, Skye, Sadie and Tiggi's mum Sally. (Click on the picture to make it a bit bigger.)

After the shelties had their picture taken by Chris the photographer as well, we had a great bbq lunch with lots and lots and lots of sausages, hamburgers, steaks and lamb chops (those last ones just for the dogs ;-D), prepared by Colin and Lian.

I looooove bbqs, can I join you?

And after that some delicious birthday cake. Phew, we definitely weren't hungry at the end of the day!

Skye and Sadie with the birthday cake.

And of course we watched some agility as well. Skye seemed to like it a lot, she really followed the dogs running the course.

Thank you so much this lovely day, Lian and Colin. We had a great time!

Lian with Skye the parrot.

Camping

Yes, we've been away again! This time we've been camping in North Norfolk for a few days. And as always, Skye came with us. The camp-site was near the beach, so you can easily guess where we went every day. Skye really enjoyed herself, running like crazy on the sand. We still weren't able to convince her to get into the water though. Well, only a bit, just to collect her biscuit, but then she'd run back out right away. She had a really good time though. I think she enjoyed sleeping in the tent as well, being so close to us. And the fact that in the tent our food was always pretty low to the ground was pretty interesting too.

On the beach:

'Come', the water is lovely.

Eeewww, that's quite deep enough for me!

Doggy long legs

Wet and windy!

Although Skye looks very much like her mum Samber, 

she's also starting to take after her daddy Sing: 

she loves chasing tennis balls!

Ready, steady ...

At the camp-site:

Relaxing at the camp-site.

That smells good, I'll have some of that!

Skye would sleep right next to me in her crate.

Pretty girl!

The weather was not great all the time, 

we had a few pretty bad showers too. 

Skye was looking very sorry for herself after getting soaked. ;-)

Celebration time!

Our little sheltie girlie is 1 year old today!

Happy Birthday Skye!!

A bit of an update

It's been a while, quite a while actually! But we are doing very well. I haven't been doing much on the blog lately, because this took all my energy:

If everything goes well, Skye will get a new friend in only a few months from now. I hope she's going to like being a big sister ;-)

Fortunately this all didn't mean that nothing has happened in Skye's life the last few months. We've done lots of fun things and Skye has seen many new places.

In March Skye and I have been to a clicker training course at 'Learning about dogs'. We stayed in the beautiful Cotswolds for a whole week, so I could learn all the basics to become a good clicker trainer. We had such a great time. And Skye earned so many treats!!! Even though the course was quite intensive, Skye did really well. She just loves to work. The trainer said Skye has a great work ethic, especially for such a young dog. She was just under eight months old at the time.

Our little training area in the Wag More Barn. Of course Skye wants 

to get started immediately and doesn't have time to sit still for a photo. ;-)

Fortunately all of the training was indoors. The weather was pretty bad: we even got caught in a hail shower.

And in the evening Skye would sleep like a baby.

In June we could finally take Skye with us to the Netherlands to meet family and friends. Because of the Pet Passport Scheme here in Britain, Skye had to wait six months after her rabies blood test, before she would be allowed back in the UK. And finally these months had passed. Skye is such a great traveller. As soon as we start the car, Skye settles down in her crate and goes to sleep. She's no trouble at all, contrary to our cats who scream like crazy, even on the shortest rides... The ferry crossing from Dover to Calais went well too. We had given her a nice chew bone just before we left the car (unfortunately you have to leave your pets behind in the car). But I think she hardly touched it, she just slept a bit more!

In the Netherlands, Skye met many of our friends and family. She also met some animals she'd never seen before. And she's so curious...

... but so was the horse.

The calves were so funny, they all ran to the edge of the field to take a look at Skye.

And then there was Spike the parakeet.

In the Netherlands we also found out that Skye can swim. Not exactly the way I imagined it, but she did fine fortunately. We went for a walk in a rural area with lots of woodland and also some ditches with water covered with duckweed. You probably feel this one coming... When we crossed a little wooden bridge, Skye thought she could just as well walk next to the plank and unknowingly jumped straight into the water. You should have seen the look on her face!! Fortunately she had her little harness on, so I could get her out of the water in a matter of seconds. She looked really sorry for herself, but was her happy little self again after we cleaned her up.

Just out of the water, soaking wet.

Getting cleaned up...

... and dry again.

Only a few weeks after we returned from the Netherlands, we were going away again. This time to the French Alps. And of course Skye came with us again. We made some beautiful walks in the mountains. 

After a walk, back at the chalet, Skye would always make sure she'd find the most comfy place for a nap.

When we went back to the UK, our drive through France went so smoothly, we were a few hours too early for our ferry. But that was good news actually, because now we could go to the beautiful sandy beach at Calais. Skye loved it, even though she wanted to eat all the little curly heaps of sand the sand worms leave behind. Yuk!

So, now you're all up to date again about Skye's little adventures. I'll try to not let you wait for so long again... ;-)