Birthday - wooooooooooo

Boxing Day - aka Ferdinands Birthday

Today Ferdinand was two :)

He was so tiny when we brought him home and he has not had the easiest of starts - he is in house number 3 (but the final one), the early days were all a bit confusing lots of people then not lots of people (my Mum lost her battle with cancer) and he was attacked earlier this year by a neighbours dog.

Physically he is all healed now - we discovered training and Rally after his attack (looking for a new Rally class at the mo but its not proving easy in our new area so thinking we might have to switch to agility). That makes it sound like he had never had any training doesn't it - well he had I am not a first time dog owner but I have never been to an organised training class before and I certainly learned lots of new things. And Ferd really enjoyed it and got on really well no problems at all. We then worked up to our first group dog walk - he was nervous at first as the big dogs were all barking and he stuck close to me, we kept at the back of the group, then when he was comfortable I let him off the lead and then well the best sight he joined all the other dogs (bigger than him) to play. He even went on a doggie holiday this year, we shared a cottage with some other dogs and there owners it was fantastic. He still is unsure sometimes - he doesnt always know how to deal with other dogs. Its the barking that confuses him.

But I love that we can take him for walks now and let him off the lead and he will happily run about and play (we are still cautious with certain types of dogs). As it was his birthday we took him on a new walk - we drove to a country park thats not far from us, we were planning on heading further into Derbyshire and the Peak District but I havent been very well and knew that I wouldn't be able to cope with a longer drive and long walk. I dont think Ferd minded there was a pond that he was allowed to go have a little paddle in, open fields and lots of charging about.

It was a lovely walk and we were surprised at how popular the park was - wonder if its like that all the time or just because everyone had been dragged out for 'the' Boxing Day Walk.

The afternoon was rounded off with a lovely group nap on the sofa :)