15 December 2017

Finlay is 27 weeks old today, now into his 2nd 6 months!

He went for his 6 month checkup today with the vet who gave him a clean bill of health. She said he is teething quite badly at the moment and she had a right battle to look around his mouth, it is the one area Finlay is really unhappy about right now. He has lost 3 of his 4 razor sharp front canine puppy teeth, thank goodness! Those are the ones he would catch you with when playing. He has a lot of adult teeth coming through now.

Finlay was weighed at the vets as 6.7kg, so he is growing up fast and it is getting really noticeable now. No chucking him comfortably under your arm any more and he is feeling heavy. There is a picture below which highlights just two months growth in the boy.....

A big thing happened on Tuesday night, it was the Ringcraft Christmas dog show. It was a fun night where you go along, bring some food and raffle prizes and the club lays on a judge and you enter your dog in a class and do some proper dog showing, it's what Ringcraft is all about after all. We entered Finlay into puppy and 'non-sporting'. The judge was Mary Small and she seemed to really like Finlay, indeed he really liked her - he gave her lots of kisses on the table and a big hug. Way to go Fin, that's the way to endear yourself to a judge....not sure how that goes in a 'proper' show though. To be honest I don't really care, it is so cute because he is such a friendly dog with everyone he meets. It is who he is and I hope that is who he stays.

Well.....he came 2nd in his puppy class, we were chuffed to bits. He had some good competition from all sorts of breeds and on the night although he was pretty good on the table, he didn't walk very well. At the moment he has three speeds, too slow when he waddles/wriggles along, generally distracted. Too fast when he gallops along, generally soon after being too slow. In the middle of those two speeds is "just right" and we see it a lot when we're out walking Fin, but not that much when in the show ring. He is still too distracted most of the time, the tastiest of treats does not lure him away, liver, chicken, sausage, frankfurter.....we've tried them all and he's ignored them all. Only practice will cure it I think! He also came 2nd in non-sporting, but there were only two entries! So he has his first rosettes - lets see if he can win any more at his first show in Taunton early in 2018.

Here is Finlay on his favourite box. For some unknown reason he is obsessed with getting up on this box, has been ever since he was a puppy. You can see how much he has grown in just 2 months.

Same dog, same box, 2 months apart

Here is the boy with his first rosette, the first of many who knows!!

Check me out with my rosette!

Just to prove Finlay is a "go anywhere" dog, here he is last weekend. It was horrid weather, a lot of the UK was having a white out with snow, but here on the south coast it poured with rain. But Finlay was undeterred, out we went in the pouring rain through our local woods, Finlay got filthy, but then why not. Our previous Tibbies loved getting in amongst the undergrowth, Finlay would soon tell us if he wasn't enjoying his walk.

9 December 2017

Today is the day - Finlay is 6 months old!! Many happy returns to the 9th June 2017 Balgay/Jazpiper litter!

I'm going to try and tell Finlay's life story so far in GIFs, let's see how this goes:

Finlay arrived with some toys from Perth, this one was a firm favourite.

This toy is 'avin some!

Something Fin has just about grown out of thank goodness, playing tug of war with my trousers!

Grr, dad's trouser legs

What he most certainly hasn't grown out of, are puppy zoomies, which is good really because they are fun to watch.

Woooohooooooooo!

The first time he was presented with a Pizzle stick chew, this is one of my favourite videos. He will still play bow and toss 'unknown' items around for a bit.

Grr, Pizzle stick!

Bless him, he really loves his brushes now - "are you going for a brush" will have him running for the grooming table

I'll give you a brush mum, grrrrr

Just shows how much he's grown, you can barely see him here, and this pot isn't very big!

I've got this.....

He's got "the wave", I can't tell you how much I love the wave (as does everyone he does it to)

Cooooeeeeeee!

Another item to attack, a butternut squash this time

Don't know what it is, attack!!

Yes, it is the "he's got that camera in my face" look!

What you lookin' at?

That is just a small selection of Finlay GIFs for you. He is a gorgeous pup, who is starting to look like a small Tibetan Spaniel now, rather than a puppy. He is without doubt a challenge sometimes as is any puppy, but how can you not fall in love with this boy. Thanks Aileen McDonald for letting us have Finlay and to Spencer for your genes :-)

17 November 2017

Finlay is 23 weeks old (5 months) today and now weighs 5.8kg - so has doubled in weight since we've had him.

He's still going to ringcraft every Tuesday, which he absolutely loves because he gets to meet loads of people and dogs. Performance-wise he is showing glimpses of what he could do, but there is still a long way to go before he strolls around the ring like a pro. He can walk to heel very well when we are out on a normal dog walk so that is promising.

Big event announcement......!! I have talked before about the razor sharp puppy teeth. Well as does happen with puppy teeth, Finlay has lost two of them this week, the boy really is growing up. He actually brought me the 2nd one, I was washing up and he dropped something on my foot and then mouthed it around the floor. I asked him what he had and he picked it up and showed it to me, sure enough there was a tooth. Related I think to the lack of teeth, he does stick his tongue out a lot, it looks a bit comical. Hopefully it isn't something that will continue!

When we are out on a walk, the vast majority of wee's are now leg cocks, in fact every lamp post, telegraph pole and bollard has to be visited. Fin does still 'dip' to go for a wee, but these are getting less and less.

As I said at the start, he has doubled in weight since we've had him and people are telling us he is growing up fast. Here he is asleep in his bed, it isn't obvious here but this is a larger bed than his first one:

Tibetan Spaniels are always able to provide some humour, Finlay is doing so every day. He likes to lay on the hearth and entangle himself with the gas fire.....the fire isn't on I hasten to add. You can see from the picture below that he looks a right sight.

Finally, we went out for a walk one evening around a posh local estate, outside some big gates were a couple of stone dogs, very large. The Great Dane statue was probably 5 foot tall. Finlay initially hadn't spotted them, but suddenly did and froze. He obviously recognised it as a dog but of course it didn't have any smell. So he nervously walked a bit closer and laid down sniffing the air. After a short period he decided the best course of action was to run away, pretty reasonable really. We'll have to take him back there in the daylight where he can see better. It is one of the few times when we've seen him back away from an encouter:

1 December 2017

Well dear reader, Finlay is now 25 weeks old and 6.5kg. He is just one week off his 6 month birthday. Incredible.

This week saw another milestone for the boy. He has begun continually breaking into the other part of the garden, he is now too tall for the defences so he glides over them with disdain. So we have opened the gate and allowed him access to all of 'his' garden. He is investigating every last corner with glee. More to the point, he isn't being destructive or potentially doing himself harm by eating things he shouldn't. So it won't be long and the dividing fence may well come down.

He is a very agile dog, more along the lines of our first Tibbie, Louie. He is able to easily get onto the sofa and chairs in the front room and up the stairs. He is a glory to behold. Of course this agility does come with pitfalls in terms of him growing up to be a right escape artist, but we'll see.

He is finding his feet as a young male dog too, being very assertive at times, so we are having to keep him in check as best we can. It is really difficult because in the one breath he can be SO cute and in the other a little git. He still throws his puppy teeth around with gusto at times, so stern words have been dished out. Those puppy teeth are still falling out and he is growing a fine set of adult teeth too.

He has been on lots of different walks now and he is enjoying exploring his patch. He is not afraid of mud (likes to drink out of the muddiest of puddles) and undergrowth....he is a go anywhere Tibbie!

Having said Finlay is very confident, and he is most of the time, I think he is at that second fear stage of his development. He does woof a bit in the garden at night, which is a cross between defending his territory and woofing at what seems like nothing. We have had foxes in the garden before, but I don't think there is now. Finlay is also reactive to strange sounds on the television and outside. Hopefully just a stage he's going through and he'll grow out of it. He has been trying out his woof for size quite a lot, we don't want a woof-ey dog really, our previous two were pretty quiet dogs. Finlay has a woof for every occasion.....

This is Finlay in the back of the car after a walk, looking suitably cute:

Demonstrating just how easy it is to get up onto the sofa. Trouble is getting down is seen as a great game and stern "off" words don't always cut it. He has been known to growl slightly when gently pushing the bum off the sofa. That kind of behaviour won't be tolerated, don't let the butter wouldn't melt look fool you!

This next one is just a random quick photo, just to show the ear fluff development, he'd been brushed not long before. He's still got that white flash on his chin too....