29 October 2017

On Friday, Finlay was 20 weeks old - 4.5 months old and growing up fast. When we meet people locally they keep saying "hasn't he grown".

I've been a bit remiss this last week with no blog updates, but it has been a busy week with the puppy. He went to another ringcraft session on Tuesday. His first session was just an introduction so the second visit was a chance to see how he would settle. I think he is fine on the table with the judge looking him over. He is very waggy and just wants to make a big fuss of the judge, which although endearing, is something he will have to rein in a bit. His journey around the ring needs a lot of work though. Right now there is just so much distraction from other people and dogs. Fin just wants to stop and say hello to everyone - there were a couple of good moments where Deb got his attention and he moved nicely.

Deb has been doing some practice with various commands whilst out on our walks, he has done lots of "heel" "watch me" and "stand". In isolation he can do all 3 when he is on top form. All he has to do is do this whilst at ringcraft, it seems like a big ask right now, but he will get there. Bearing in mind he is one of the younger puppies at ringcraft, a lot of 'puppies' seem to be around 12 months old.

We have also been working with him off lead some more and this is certainly very promising. With a trailing lead, he has had many romps with dogs of all shapes and sizes and he is loving every minute. People are so taken aback that the cutest fluffball ever can get stuck in and play with their much larger dog without fear. They clearly don't know Tibbies!! Finlay can be recalled pretty successfully now, not perfect, but work in progress. I took him out on Friday, he romped around the park and got absolutely soaked and filthy, needless to say I had to dry him out and brush him before my wife got home!! #HideTheEvidence

I've had an instance where we've been out and Fin was called a "Chug" which I had to Google (a crossbreed between Chihuahua and a Pug), I was also asked what he was a cross between. To be fair most people just ask what breed he is and most haven't heard of a Tibbie, which is quite nice.

It is also that time of year which I dread, Fireworks. We've had two Tibbies previously and one ignored fireworks completely (Nemo) and the other was crazy scared of them (Louie). I won't go on about it too much because I have blogged about it before in THIS BLOG. The summary of the story with Louie is that he was fine with fireworks for a couple of years, but got scared out of the blue by them, not even in fireworks 'season'. So my fear isn't so much that Fin will get scared now, but at any point in his life. But right now he seems fine with them. We had loads on Saturday night which he largely ignored save a few woofs at the really loud ones. We had quite a few tonight too and he totally ignored these, although we had purposely given him his pizzle stick and we know that nothing gets between Finlay and his pizzle stick :-)

Finlay also hit one of his personal targets this week, being able to get up onto the sofa unaided, which I must admit I hadn't expected quite yet. Someone on Facebook did say Balgay puppies were renowned jumpers, well Finlay is certainly that. Deb was in the kitchen when she heard a resounding 'thump' from the living room, only to go in and find Fin proudly sitting on her chair, the thump was probably him hitting the back cushion at some speed!! Way to go Finlay.....

As always, let's finish with a few photos from the week....

As part of the fireworks preparations we bought Finlay a nice den to snuggle up into just in case. Regardless of whether he uses it to escape fireworks, he loves it anyway. He went straight into it and has spent a fair bit of time in there. Here he is showing it off:

As he settles in with us, we've both had a couple snuggly cuddles with him on the sofa. This is him in my arms, he decided to put himself on his back.....but having got there decided he wasn't so keen on the idea, hence the big wide eye:

Finally, Finlay and some broccoli. Finlay likes to try all sorts of food, so as we eat quite a lot of broccoli, we wondered what he would make of a big thick stalk. Well, he mouthed it and chomped it a bit, it kept him occupied for 10 minutes. I don't think he actually ate any, but he seemed to enjoy sucking it!

23 October 2017

The boy is growing up.

We've noticed Finlay gradually changing over the last couple of weeks. He is more affectionate, he has sat on both of our laps and today even had a 20 minute snooze on my wifes lap. We wouldn't expect a Tibbie to be a lap dog necessarily, if he turns out to be then so be it. More than likely it is a phase, but it is nice he is settling into being a bit more laid back with us. He is also cocking his leg now, a sure sign of growing up and his 'boy' hormones starting to kick in.

Part of his problem I think is still teething. He is getting better with throwing his teeth around and he is being more gentle with us now. But clearly on some days he is desperate to chomp his chew toys and this will no doubt continue for a little while to come. He also is quite itchy and we aren't sure what is causing this. He is moulting out puppy fluff at quite a rate of knots right now, but it could possibly be because of his food. I know a lot of people recommend a 'grain free' diet to help with itching. So we have slowly introduced him to some different wet food and kibble to see how he does.

Some photos from the last few days:

Finlay still knows how to attract our attention, by "threatening" the items on the telephone table

He has also discovered the stream near us. He doesn't want to splash through the stream just yet, which I'm pleased about, but he is intrigued about it. So it is an area to be explored.

This next video made me chuckle. We have found a couple of places that are safe to let him off lead. I know Tibbies are notoriously unreliable off lead, but I believe that you have to try them when they are young, walk with a handful of tasty treats and make yourself someone who is going to be an attractive proposition to recall to. So far this is working. It is nice to see a dog off lead and free, but it has to be in the right place. Right now, I can outrun Finlay if he strays, but I won't be able to for much longer as he gets older/faster so let's get the training in whilst I can still catch the devil - I know the theory is you are supposed to run in the opposite direction if they leg it....but still! This video shows him almost doing that obedience, however this was a new place for him and he has discovered rabbit poo. I guess it does look a bit like kibble and it must taste better than what we had!!

22 October 2017

Another busy week for Finlay, particularly Friday. We had set up a puppy play-date with another Tibbie called Jinpa who is a little older than Finlay at 8.5 months old - so still a puppy in his own right.

Whenever you meet up with another dog you never entirely know what to expect, will they get on, will they just ignore one another. That said, we've never met a dog Finlay hasn't wanted to say hello to and to play with. We knew from Jinpa's owner Morrigan that he was pretty full on too. So it was time for our dogs to live up to their reputations. And boy oh boy did they live up to their expectations!!

You would expect some play then perhaps some rest, then perhaps things to settle down as they relax into each others company. Then by the end of the walk, they were calmly walking along together like old buddies. That's not quite how it went....

We decided to meet at Itchen Valley Country Park near Eastleigh, which is a large open space with lots of space to run. So a pretty safe place to let your dog off....an ordinary dog anyway. Tibbies of course are not 'ordinary' dogs and are never entirely predictable when let off the lead. Currently I can run faster than Finlay, although of course that won't soon be the case. It has to be said though, for such a young dog to be let off the lead, Finlay was really good and did have a good level of recall (ahem, better than someone else I could mention!).

So going back to the puppy play-time. These two dogs duked it out for over 2 hours, they played and played and played. When I say "play", things did look quite serious, albeit hilarious. I don't think I have laughed so much on a dog walk, ever. I think I can say that for all 3 of us humans. Jinpa was quite excited and decided to hump Finlay, which you may have thought may have thrown a 4.5 month old pup off his stride. But no.....Finlay having been taught the move by Jinpa decided he could do it too. So they swapped humping moves for most of those 2 hours.

So in-between the playing and frolicking, there was a lot of humping. Lots and lots of humping. I'd love to share some of the pictures with you, but they don't look the best. The main thing was the boys had fun. We had a cuppa in the cafe afterwards, and the boys did have a bit of a rest too. It is a shame that we don't live closer and couldn't meet more often, not because I want to see more humping, but hopefully they would eventually settle into one anothers company. Plus Jinpa is a gorgeous boy, so it would be good to see him again (and Morrigan as well of course....)

I had a such a good afternoon, and it was fantastic to see Finlay meet another Tibbie and have fun. Let's hope we can do it again one day in the not too distant future.

18 October 2017

To show, or not to show......

We hadn't intended to show Finlay when we bought him. Deb tried it with Nemo when we had him, although he showed pretty well his colour (tri-colour black, tan and white) was not favoured at the time. So after a short while we gave it up.

We went along to a show the other week in Havant and we wondered again whether we should try Finlay and see how he goes. He is a gorgeous dog, but that doesn't necessarily win dog shows! So we had a chat about it and decided to take him to ringcraft classes and see what he makes of them. We went to our first one in Upham last night and Finlay was actually very good....not so much with the ringcraft but the whole experience.

He was a lot more civilised that we would have expected. Of course he wanted to say hello to all the dogs, but he did so in a little less full on way than usual. It was almost as if he understood that he was there to learn rather than to play. He fell in love with 'Ebony' the Chow Chow.

His first experience at being looked at on the table went ok, he seemed to really like the 'judge' and therefore she had to be wagged at and kissed with gusto. Perhaps that is the way to a judges heart? But as it was his first time it was more of an experience than anything. He then walked around the circuit not too badly, very fixed on the treat that Deb had with her. 

Some of the people there were pretty serious, it seemed to be Red Setter and English Bulldog night, as there were about 6 of each there. In fact there were so many dogs there, in excess of 20, we only got one go in the time we had. We will go again.

This is Finlays time on the table - photo in focus except for the tail, which didn't stop wagging the whole evening:

16 October 2017

The spirit of the dog.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't change a thing about Finlay, his mischief and sheer will of character are so charming. He is utterly gorgeous. But I thought you'd like to get an idea about how single minded this Tibbie is, probably like pretty much every Tibbie.

They breed them well up in Scotland, from the moment he saw the fencing he resented it, Finlay has made it his personal mission to overcome the fencing and not only get over it but destroy it. As I have said before, it was only ever temporary, to get him through the worst of the chewing and eating phase (don't worry, he isn't left alone to chew this wood, we stop him before he gets chunks off. Not that he has that many teeth yet). 

This was Finlays mood today:

He decided he was now big enough that he could just hop over the fence, and hop over it with utter disdain he did. He then goes about destroying the posts that support it. This is an action photo of him jumping back over:

Ready....

....over!

The other things that are on marked time, are the pigeons. As shown in the video, he plots how he can get through the gate in the fence, then stalk and kill his prey. He has eyed up the lie of the land, he knows how fast he can run and how far it is.....one day soon he'll be flying through the air, inches behind a pigeon....

15 October 2017

So what has the boy been up to today? He went for a paddle....

I'd love to call it a swim, but it wasn't quite one of those. I have seen videos of Tibbies who seem to love water and go swimming, maybe Finlay will become one of those. Our previous two Tibbies were never that keen on the water. Louie would paddle at best and Nemo wasn't much different. Nemo used to go to hydrotherapy and would swim but it was never his ideal day out, he never jumped into the water of his own accord.

We will have to wait and see if Finlay becomes a swimmer, but he was brave enough to go in at least. If you are ever in the area I thoroughly recommend a walk along the Titchfield Canal which if you didn't know any better looks like a stream. It runs from Titchfield village out to Titchfield Haven nature reserve. Finlay is too young to do the whole walk, but we wanted to take him to where he could experience a splash around in the water, where it is easy to get in.

Initially he wasn't keen, but along came a spaniel who jumped right in, so Finlay followed. It went up to his chest, and he kind of froze there for a while, not really sure of what he had just done. But as he stood there, he saw lots of leaves floating by and if there is one thing Finlay loves doing, it is chasing leaves. So with trepidation off he went, and seemed to get some confidence as he went. Once he had got out, he shook himself off and pretty much ran all the way back to the car. He did seem to enjoy being towelled off at the end. So that is another experience ticked off. He also met LOADS of dogs today, including a Bernese (who was a bit scared of Fin) a Great Dane and something that resembled a Husky x GSD. He loved them all and the owners were most surprised such a small dog was so keen to say hello to the giants.

This is Finlays first paddle....

13 October 2017

Finlay is 18 weeks old today....

We made a decision today, that we would not take Finlay to puppy romp this weekend. He enjoys it, but the purpose is supposed to be two-fold, to socialise him and to get some basic training done. 

The first item is well covered, he meets loads of puppies and enjoys it very much, but as for training.....when Finlay is playing with other puppies he is in no mood to be trained. He goes deaf! So we decided to use some of the advice given, but to use it down our local park instead. Deb had successfully tried letting him off when she took him out on Thursday and all seemed well.

So we put a trailing line on him, took lots of treats and let him off the lead. He quite happily ran between us and came every time he was called. He seems to have a natural 'distance' that he is prepared to let us go before he checks on us and then comes running. This behaviour is totally absent at puppy romp, in fact there, we could have left and gone home and Finlay would not have noticed.

So without too much distraction, Finlay is obedient. Then along come some other dogs. He greets them quite boisterously but he is calmer. The dogs he met were big and small, young and old. He had no problems at all with them and the key thing was that we could get his attention if we needed to. There was no puppy deafness. So we are happy this is a better way to go with Finlay right now, the puppy on puppy action is just too much.

Finally, let me introduce you to "cow". Finlay loves cow, he brought the toy from Perth with him and the toy is a firm favourite. It has been remarkably resilient considering what Finlay puts him through.

11 October 2017

My day off today, so walked Finlay over to a local playing field which was largely empty except for a few other dog walkers. He met and played with those, and wandered around the field checking it out. All normal so far.

Then something happened, that had not happened before.....

Finlay cocked his leg up a goalpost!!

He has been sniffing around posts and bushes for the last couple of weeks quite intensely, he knew he was supposed to be doing something but hadn't quite figured it out. But today around one of the goalposts, there was some bushy grass growing. He kind of darted around in an excited manner then suddenly stopped and cocked his leg. Now it was a kind of 'puppy leg cock', it was very quick and the leg wasn't properly in the air, but it was nevertheless the real thing. Finlay was chuffed with himself.

Then we had our first encounter with a different animal species. Next to the playing field is a field with 2 ponies in, they've been there for years. Finlay spotted them and sat down to watch and consider. What they got was moofed at, in a slightly unsure way. This is a good thing, because being cautious around ponies/horses is wise for a tiny puppy. I'd have thought that being brought up in rural Perthshire with ponies he'd have been more prepared.

Next time Finlay, maybe next time.....

10 October 2017

Nina Ottosson puzzles, Finlay has had a go at one. If you don't know what they are visit Nina Ottosons site to find out more. They really are fantastic ways to keep your pet amused (other toy sites are available!). We preferred to go with the all plastic variety as they are easier to clean and with our previous Tibbies, they would have just chewed the wooden ones whereas the plastic version we have is pretty durable. Not indestructible, it isn't a toy we'd leave Finlay with unattended.....

The puzzle we have is classed as "moderate" level difficultly. Our previous Tibbies had a mixed experience with it. Nemo was a lazy boy and really couldn't see the point of doing the hard work and would just look at you and say "do I have to"? He would get there in the end, but he would just plod through it and would rather give up if it was taking too long. Louie on the other hand was persistent and would work at it, it was food after all, although he took a while to figure it out.

I've said enough about Finlay and his intelligence over the past couple of weeks, so can you guess how he did with it?

Naturally, there's a video.....

9 October 2017

More Finlay ball playing antics....

This time with a full-size football! He came across an abandoned football in our local park, even though it isn't much smaller than him, he decided it was time for a kick around.

How a 4 month old pup with a small mouth manages to grab hold of a football I don't know, but he does. Clearly he is very pleased with himself.....

I said I'd report back on the puppy romp from last Saturday, well it didn't go entirely to plan. Finlay was excluded for a short period for being too much of a hooligan. When he goes off to play he plays a bit rough and goes totally deaf. The dog trainers are adamant he needs to change his ways and I can see their point (they are erring on the side of caution).....but what is a 4 month old puppy to do when let loose in a field full of other puppies?! It is a tricky one, when there are no distractions he will come when called pretty much 100% of the time. But not at puppy romp. I think it is a matter of time, he'll get there, but he isn't ready yet. It was a stressful time for us, but Finlay loved it. We'll probably go again this coming Saturday, so look out for another thrilling episode of "Finlay annoys the dog trainers" :-) 

8 October 2017

Finlay had a busy day today, he went and met a few other Tibbies at the Portsmouth & Southsea dog show in Havant.

It would have been the first time he had seen other Tibbies since he left his birth home in Perth and he certainly recognised his own kind - I think all dogs do. It was a joy to see him interact with them, dogs and bitches of all ages saying hello to him, he seemed more tuned into them than he does with other breeds of dog. He did try his classic 'mounting' trick on a lovely looking lady, who told him off in no uncertain terms - which was just what Finlay needs, a lesson in manners. He was in love, but I think the message was received.

It was really interesting to see another breeder, Pauline Bevis, give Finlay a quick workout, getting him to 'watch me' and stand when asked. It was great to see how quickly he reacts and it seems entirely possible that he could be trained to go in the show ring. We know he is clever enough as he picks up other commands quickly, but seeing someone else work him was great. Mind you, the big lumps of chicken (not sure what it was actually) probably helped. But still, we are giving some serious thought to trying our hand at showing Finlay. We need to find a local ringcraft session so we can try him out. He is only 4 months old and you can start showing from 6 months, so he has a couple of months to practice. Right now, he is definitely not ready, he'd want to go play with all the other puppies.

We spent a happy couple of hours at the dog show before Finlay was obviously getting tired, so we went home with a very snoozy pup, didn't hear a peep out of him in the car*. I think he was a bit hit with the other Tibbie owners there....

*Car-wise, I think we have cracked it. He whines briefly at the start of the journey, but soon settles. On the 25 minute journey to Havant, he barely made a sound, this is good.

When we got home, we did indeed have one tired puppy. He just about made it inside the front door before he crashed.

Later on, we "rollered" him. This isn't something we do seriously, it is just for fun. We had to sticky-roller our clothes off from the dog show, as Fin is shedding puppy fluff at a rate of knots right now, so he is getting frequent brushes. After we've done us, Fin comes up and asks we roller him too. So with a not very sticky roller, he gets done and loves the attention.....actually I'm really not sure what he likes about the process, but the approach is very deliberate on his part.....this is the result:

6 October 2017

Finlay was 17 weeks old today. So what are the latest developments at the Finlay household....?

Pigeons, they are being sized up. From his side of the fence, he sits and stalks them, I think the pigeons are being far too casual in their disregard for Finlay, his time will come. Fair enough some of the wood pigeons are pretty much the same size as Finlay, but I've heard rumours that Balgay Tibbies can catch pigeons....I can't say I'm looking forward to that, but Finlay will most certainly give it his all.

We may actually have ourselves a ball chaser. Our previous two Tibbies couldn't care less about balls and fetch, they just never really got it. And yet Finlay not only knows what a ball is, he will both chase and fetch it (and of course chew it). I wonder if it is just a natural thing in some dogs and not in others.

There there are those fences, Finlay has never liked them. They prevent him from going where he wants to go, he has made it his mission to point out exactly where the weak points in our fencing are, constantly. He has gone over, under and eventually will go through. He really quite enjoys this area of life I think. The main borders of our garden are, we believe, pretty safe. The fencing we have installed is only there as a temporary measure to keep him from getting up to mischief, and he would most certainly get up to mischief. Everything must be chewed, tasted, crunched (including snails) and generally ripped to bits. It is funny to watch, but it is also a bit annoying.

This weekend will bring another puppy romp, so will report back on that in a day or two.

So close to that pigeon, one day Finlay, one day....

He's got his ball, and he knows what to do with it....

Down with all fences! He may look small and cute, but there really is some power in those back legs. It's really quite frightening, this beast we've taken on :-)

3 October 2017

There won't be something interesting to say about Finlay every day, but there will almost always be something he does that makes you smile. Unlike our previous Tibbies, Finlay is very reactive to stuff he hears and sees on the television or sounds coming out of my phone. For instance if you record him woofing and play it back, he immediately rushes around trying to find the invader in his house.

So it is when he sees himself on my phone screen. We decided to try and take a puppy selfie today, and of course he could see himself being filmed. This led to his 'paw waving'. This is an action that he does, which many Tibbies do, where they wave their front paws in a certain way. This isn't a perfect example, but it gives you an idea of what he does quite a lot to attract your attention.

The other thing he does is verbalise a lot, grumbling, moofing and woofing as he sees fit. 
I'll wager this is the cutest puppy you'll see today.....

2 October 2017

We got Finlay's proper kennel name through today, he is 'Balgay Kitang Po'. It means excellent/first rate in Tibetan. I think it is a great name and describes him perfectly, but then I am biased!

So, what Finlay merriment have we been treated to today?!

When he first joined us, there was a telephone table in the hallway with a phone and a broadband router. It didn't take him long to work out how to knock the router off the table, this made Finlay happy.....He would woof at the piece of plastic on the ground and take pride in being a destructo-puppy. After the 3rd time the router hit the deck, I decided it was time to move it somewhere else, as it had managed to survive 3 tumbles but wasn't likely to survive any more.

So now the table only has a telephone, plus a few less cables. We've never had a cable chewing Tibbie before, but this one does like to. Finlay also likes it when I rush to stop him messing with the remaining cables (great game), so I have tidied them away as much as possible. Now there is nothing much left to mess with, he just goes under the stairs and woofs for the sheer hell of it. As the video below will show. 

I think he is just biding his time before he hatches the next grand plan!

1 October 2017

Well, Finlay is still proving that he has bags of energy and it is pretty hard to wear him out. The trouble is when he has all that pent-up energy he has to take it out on someone and that someone seems to be me. He loses his bite inhibition and the ability to obey the word "no" when he is at his worst, and it is something he only seems to do with me, not my wife. Don't get me wrong, this isn't something he is doing all the time, just when he is at his most wound up. One of our previous Tibbies was the same and he grew out of it and I'm sure Finlay will too.

I have previously said that nothing fazed Finlay, but yesterday we found something that does. A new dog coat. Now we aren't one for dressing up our dogs, but bearing in mind Finlay's fur coat isn't entirely weather-proof yet, we thought we would get a coat to keep him dry when he goes out on the rain, seeing as how it seems to be the rainy season already. Happy with his new coat, Finlay is not!

He stands there in a kind of "I can't move with this on" fashion, he whines and looks sorry for himself, something we've not seen before.

Quite different to the dog that was fearlessly playing with 'Nero' the rather large Doberman puppy earlier. Nero was very good with Finlay and didn't play too rough, although Fin gave it his all naturally. He did squeal once when Nero trod on his paw, but that didn't stop him. But his new coat did. So we have some acclimatisation to do with the new coat. Strangely he managed to be naughty and escape through the stair-gate upstairs in his coat, so he still has enough courage for that!

Look at that face.....what is this bloomin' coat!

The only time his tail has been up wearing the coat....when he was being naughty...

Finally I wanted an excuse to use this photo. I accidentally took some photos in "burst" mode on my phone, and I use Google Photos which automatically backs up my pics to the cloud. Every now and then Google 'auto-creates' a photo or video out of what I've taken and it created this Gif. So I can't take any credit for the auto-create, although I took the original picture. This look I call "oh god, dad has got that blimmin' camera in my face again"....