Just a quick update, as it's been almost a month.

I seem to have given up on obedience classes. I can count the number of times I've been since last summer on one hand....it's just money I can't really afford just to give them a different envionment to work in.

I've not been well for the last couple of weeks so haven't really done anything with the boys, but I showed Elton the dumbbell again and he still didn't really want to know - so now I'm trying to make it exciting and fun again, fingers crossed he's retrieving enthusiastically before too long!

Apparently I forgot to mention it before, but I took Solei to a chiropractor on 19th January. Despite what the vet said, I've been less than convinced at least some of his problems aren't skeletal - so I finally found one, and off we went. She found a few things, one area quite badly out of line. Solei seemed to enjoy the session and although he had a fairly severe reaction a couple of days later since then he's definitely better. The major bowing has stopped!

He screamed at me the other day, so he's going back next week (6 weeks since his first session) and I'll be interested to see how he compares.

Big exciting news, if she's happy; we're going back to agility! We started agility two years ago and then it fizzled out, I've been desperate to get back to it ever since. It was a pity, as Solei was just starting to enjoy it (he likes to be sure of what's expected of him, so takes a while of doing something before he really enjoys it), though he wasn't the quickest. Although it makes me feel guilty, I'm actually hoping there was something going on with his back then so that now we've sorted it he'll be much better.

It seems as if it was meant to be - earlier this week I was looking for something totally unrelated to agility, that I knew I'd seen on a website somewhere but couldn't remember where. I thought it might have been on an agility website I'd been looking at a couple of days previously, so I went back to see. I didn't find what I was looking for, but upon looking for that I discovered a notice posted two weeks previously advertising spaces at the club I'd intended to go and have a look at - starting next week!

So yesterday I rang up the number, and after we'd chatted briefly we discovered we actually knew each other....and not only did we know each other, but she'd even given me a lesson once. So that was rather fun! Also awesome because A) I know I like her methods so I feel ok going along next week without having been to look at the club beforehand (no opportunity to go and look before next week), and B) the wheelchair is ok :-)

So chiro permitting he starts 3rd March, which is actually the day before his appt but because it's the first lesson and we're not picking up where we left off - we're going as if we've never done agility before - there won't be anything more strenuous than he'd encounter on a walk, and he's fine to go on walks. That also gives him a week to recover before lesson #2, and I doubt there'll be anything strenuous there either (will just skip it if so - but after his first appointment I was told to gradually increase his activity but she'd expect him to be pretty much back to normal after a week. It took more like two because of the reaction, so we'll play it by ear as (hopefully) the adjustment'll be a lot less severe this time.)

I'm so excited to be going back to it - just hope Solei takes to it and really enjoys it. He turns 7 this year, but for a Phalene that's barely middle aged so he hopefully has a good few years of agility left in him yet!