Well its been a while since I last posted, we have been a little busy trying to plan Christmas presents amongst other things, with 5 children we have a bit of a hectic time coming up to it.
Ghia arrived safely from France and has settled in wonderfully, no problems at all. She is very much like Gaby in her ways, I now have 2 Laekenois on my bed, not quite sure how that happened?
Looking through Paul's phone to see what pictures he had taken, i came across a little video that my daughter Jordan had made, not sure what planet she was on but at least you can see how Ghia has settled in.

On Sunday 9th Nov I was at Discover dogs with Leon and Flame, Pat came along with Barney. We had never done this before so it was a bit of an experience. The dogs were all brilliant and loved all the attention. I had planned to take some pictures of the event but the time seemed to go so quickly before we new it the day had gone. At least we got a free royal canin rug out of it. Ghia has took a shine to it and will not move off it.

On Tuesday we went to see Mary Ray give a demonstration on clicker training. I had seen her before but was so impressed I thought I would treat Paul and Callum to a night out, they both thought they would be bored rotten but were very pleasantly surprised and thoroughly enjoyed themselves, needless to say I ended up coming home with a bagful of clicker training devices.

I think Callum was a bit star struck

Here is a small piece of Mary Ray giving her demonstration

Snow in October

Wednesday saw snow in October, much to the kids delight, unfortunately it didn't stick, but who knows we may get a white Christmas at this rate.

Some very sad news tonight when my old german shepherd, Rosie passed away due to old age, she would have been 13 in march.

A very strange thing happened later, i had put rosie in the back room until we can bury her tomorrow, one of the other dogs who was close by started barking and cowering up the corner, even though she had been lying there all night, when i looked at the clock it was 12 midnight, 31st october, Halloween.

Makes you wonder!

Lotty , the rescue malinois went to her new home today which left us with mixed emotions as we had grown very fond of her but we are glad she has found a nice home.

Friday we went to Midland counties ch show. All the pups behaved them selves impeccably, apart from Adonis who thought everything on the floor was food and every bag he could get his nose into belonged to him. They all showed great and took it all in their strides.

Paul leaves for france this week to fetch Ghia home, so that should be fun and games.

We went to the shetland Sheepdog club ch show at Godmanchester on saturday, it was a very nice venue with a realy friendly atmosphere, much better than showing Belgians, no stress, no walking on two legs,no noise but still we would miss them if we had'nt got them.Harry and Liar went well for their first show and Jack had 5th in post graduate, which considering the size of the classes we were well pleased with that.

Sunday,Pat went to cheltenham open show and had best puppy and reserve best bitch with coral (Belsharose Chardonnay)

Wednesday night i finaly made it to stafford to obedience class.They have started clicker training classes there which is what i have been looking for,Gaby went in first and was excellent, took to it like a duck to water, next it was Zara's turn to do a bit of agility, she was not amused at first but evetually started to come out of her shell and relax.

Adonis on film

Just found this video on the Express & Star website. Look through and see Adonis at his first show on sunday at friends of animal welfare companion dog show.Here he was up for the challenge of best puppy (because he came 2nd in junior) but lost gracefully to the Daschund.

Smethick companion show

We went to smethick companion show on sunday to give the pups a taste of whats to come. It turned out to be well worth going.

Coral had 2nd in puppy,

Adonis had 2nd in junior,

Gaby had 1st in non spoting,

and Giorgia had 2nd in open.

Then to top it all Gaby went

BEST IN SHOW.

oops forgot Barney came 4th in non sporting

After Lotty 's little adventure last week she settled in almost immediately. She will make someone a fantastic pet. She gets on great with the other dogs and the children, she is also very affectionate. pictures will be posted on here shortly.

Paul went to the club open show last week alone as i have had some kind of flu bug.
Velvet came 1st in post graduate bitch, Leon came 2nd in limit, Barney came 1st in post graduate dog, and Gaby came 2nd in open bitch and reserve best of breed. so not a bad day at all.

I went to Walsall open show today to give a bit of moral support, it was Coral

(Belsharose Chardonnay) and Pat's first show.

At only six months and 1 day, coral took everything in her stride and was not bothered by anything which is more than can be said for pat who could have done with a stiff whiskey. How ever she did very well and after a first AVNSC and best puppy she then went on to get 2nd in the pastoral puppy group. Not bad for their first show.

Leon saves the day

Saturday was a nightmare. Paul went to oxford to pick up a rescue Malinois, bitch. She was a little nervous but otherwise settled in quite nicely. She took an immediate liking to Leon, as you can see on the video, I thought they were doing a bit of tap dancing. All was going so well I decided to take Lotty (as she is known) for a walk over the fields ( on the lead of course) with a couple of the other dogs to help her settle some more. Not the best decision I have ever made, as we stepped out of the gate, the collar broke (you would think I learned my lesson after the episode in France with Gaby).Any way off she went, flat out, within seconds she had disappeared, great start to my job in rescue. We searched every where but having fields every where she could have been anywhere. Around 8 0'clock on the evening I spotted her run across the field, at least we knew she was still around which gave us some hope, however she disappeared almost immediately again,and boy did she pick a good night to run off, the hotel up the road decided to have a disco outside with fireworks, then the helicopters from the airport were out in force and to top that off the neighbours over the road decided to have a firework party as well. Go live in the country for some piece and quite, you must be joking. Around 12 am we decided to check out the front of the house, no luck then as we came back in we saw her in the neighbours drive, we were so close, but no, she took one look at us and of she trotted up the road, luckily we do not have much traffic at night but by the time we got in the car she was gone again. By 2 am we decided There was nothing more we could do but leave some food out back for her and hope she would stay close for the night.

7 am next morning we looked out the window and saw her, knowing she would run off again if we tried to get close, we decided as she had taken a shine to Leon we would let him out into the fields and see if she remembered him, it worked like a treat, their eyes met across the horizon and it must be love, they played together like pups for about twenty minutes then he came trotting back with her.

She has now settled in wonderfully and is a very sweet, loving dog, no aggression just a little nervous at times. She will make someone a fantastic companion, as long as they do not go walking with her on the first day and make sure the collar is strong!

What a glorious day, has summer finaly arrived?

The fields behind our house have at last been cut and baled. It makes walking the dogs so much easier, and as you can see they thought so to.

Best make the most of it before they plough it up again.

We all had a morning at the car boot on sunday, the weather finally picked up with some glorious sunshine. Gaby took a fancy to Kai's ice cream, he was not amused. All the pups took it in their stride even though its the biggest car boot I have ever seen. What sad people we are to spend the morning buying other peoples junk?

Companion Dog Show

The weather held out today for the second day of the boating festival and the companion show that was held there, run by our ringcraft club of which Paul is chaiman.



Callum judged the Junior handling classes.






These two made me laugh in the fancy dress class, in case you don't know they are the Blues Brothers.

Here we have a long haired Akita.



It was a very good turn out and everyone seemed to have a good day despite the ground being a bit of a mud bath.

Netherton Boating Festival

Should have gone to Darlington Ch show today but after last weeks mud at Richmond, I really couldn't be bothered,(although according to the results on Higham Press, we won the junior class with Gaby?) as we are holding a companion dog show tomorrow at Netherton Boating Festival we thought we would

go and check the venue out instead (its a 2 day event.) Its a big gathering of canal boats plus funfair and other attractions. Cerise, Scarlet, Gaby, Zara and Giorgia came along for the day and thoroughly enjoyed their selves with all the attention they received, although we didn't see much of Gaby as Callum went off with her for most of the day, Lisa, my personnel agony aunt, came along and became the puppy walker, as she normally shows Poms, this was a bit of an experience for her, but she took it all in her stride and I think I am half way to convincing her to get a real dog (only joking). As you can see the kids had a great time also, the sun was out in its full glory which seems to be a rare occasion nowadays.So all in all we had a very pleasant day,

lets hope tomorrows weather holds and we get

another great day.

The 'Tour of Britain' bike race went past today, the speed these guys travel is unbelievable and I have never seen so many police.They travel around 160 KM a day in just under 4 hours. They started the race in London last sunday, they then travel through Burnham on Sea, west midlands, up to yorkshire and scotland then back down to liverpool by next sunday, not bad going on a bike!

Ringcraft Training

Just got back from ringcraft training, as you can see from the picture Harry (the sheltie) had worked so hard he needed to chill out in Charlie's arms (Barney's owner). In the other picture Coral is also flaked out. Such a tough life eh.

Richmond Champ show

Well we went to Richmond and boy was it wet, mud every where, we took our waterproofs much to every one's amusement although we had the last laugh when they were all wet and cold and we were snug as a bug in a rug.

Any way the trip was well worth it, in Groenendaels, Leon (Nadjarah's Don Corleone for Belsharose) won open dog, best dog and BEST OF BREED, his daughter Velvet (Belsharose Messina) won Junior bitch and RESERVE BEST BITCH. Then on to Laekenois, Gaby, (Gabrielle D'Eroudur avec Belsharose) won post grad bitch, best bitch and BEST OF BREED, so we had a great day and i would like to say how pleasant it was under the judge, Mrs Eleanor Bothwel, who's happy and courteous manner made it a pleasure to show.

We also recieved our trophy for winning BOB Laekenois at the BSDA club show, which was under going a overhaul at the time.

When we arrived home my daughter, Jordan, thought we had won the world cup.

Just to finish the day off nicely, after arriving home at 10.30pm, paul took the dogs with him to see to the horses, he arrived there at approx 11pm at 12.30am i got a phone call to say he had run out of petrol, so off we go again to tow him home!

Welcome to our new blog

Hi everyone, thought we would have a go at this for a bit of fun, hopefully we will be updating on a regular basis of our hectic lives, hope you enjoy and come back for more.

Here scott thinks he's a pirate also see if you can spot the belgians doing their daily thing and a brief appearance by Kai.