Today is the start of half term! (Yay!) and the start of our sparkling new blog. I managed to drag my 10 year old from his dark gaming hole, on the understanding he must come out once a day for a walk, and that he could spend the rest of the day doing what he wanted.

Quick google last night and I saw Southey Woods were only a 10 min drive from Maxey. Who knew? So after spending 20 minutes chasing Buddy around to get his harness on, realising I had forgotten the cocktail sausages, and running around like a headless chicken looking for car keys, we finally made it to the woods. What a beautiful day for it!

Free parking at the front, and the huge bonus is that the main walkway, even with all this rain, was pretty solid and mud free. Buddy managed to find every mud puddle going mind you!

We bumped into a couple of dogs off leash which he handled really well, and two people with a cap and hood in the distance, who he was super awesome about. Usually he would have barked at someone with a cap so this was a great improvement. I’m hoping the DMT technique I’m doing (distraction, mark, treat) through joining the Absolute Dogs Training Academy (you can find more info about them here) at strange things, or cars, noises and moving things like birds, is actually working.

I also realise I really should have got more pics now that I’m blogging. 🙈

Later in the afternoon we paid a visit to our local pet shop in Market Deeping called Pet Stop. Huge, and locally owned, they literally have everything.  I spend a small fortune in here and probably come twice a week. That’s without the things I buy online and training.  Yep folks owning a dog that you want to be super cool is expensive! 😆

We popped in, as thanks to recommendations from Nikki at On the Ball Dog Training, we bought our second pack of nutriment raw. We stick it on licky mats and in hooves! He bloody loves it! It really promotes calm and helps him to relax.  What a fab little border collie he’s turning out to be.

He couldn’t really settle again this evening due to reacting to noises on TV etc so he went in his crate at 8pm and slept all the way through like an absolute star! He did however seem very chilled at dinner time – here is a rare chill moment watching me cook tea! Could it be down to this A-OK9 powder we have started him on? Who knows only time will tell – more on that soon!