Dovedale

(I know it's a bit late, but) on Sunday it was grey and drizzly, so rather than sit at home and mope, we took off up to the Peak District and went for a walk round Dovedale. It gets a bit crowded in the Summer, or on sunny days, but on Sunday it wasn't too bad.

Mollie thoroughly enjoyed it - chased her ball along the riverbank, played with a few other dogs, grinned at everyone she met and got run over by a lovely pack of whippets. We enjoyed ourselves too, it's a lovely place to walk a dog and although our knees hated it, it's such a nice place that the drizzle and rain just didn't matter.

Walk in the park

On Sunday morning, while Tracy was at work, I took Mollie to Elvaston Castle, Derbyshire. It's South East of Derby, just off the A6, and has beautiful gardens which are open to the public.

We went to meet a virtual friend, Bev, from the D For Dog forum, and her beautiful whippet Katie - we'd never met face-to-face but since we only live half an hour apart it seemed daft not to get together. Bev forgot her camera completely, and I forgot that I had mine with me so didn't take any pics until we got half way round!

Here are Katie Whippet and Mollie. They didn't really want to pose. Katie was busy watching everything and trying to remove her Halti, and Mollie was just busy, as terrierists always are.

The Border Collie below is Maggie. Maggie likes to sit and watch the ducks, and herd them back into the water if they come out, apparently. We called her to get her to look at us, but if you look closely you'll see that she stuck her tongue out!!



When we were nearly back at the car park, we met up with another of Katie's friends, Ryka. He's like a whippet sized version of a Pharaoh hound, with the most amazing ears, and he took to Mollie straight away. It was mutual, and they spent quite a while chasing each other round the field and playing with the tennis ball - stealing it off each other. A couple of times, Ryka tried to mount Mollie (although he apparently doesn't quite know why he's doing it yet!!), but she just gently told him off and moved away, then rugby tackled him for the ball!

The fantastic thing about all this is that, apart from a quick woof at Katie when they first met, Mollie was fine with all the dogs. And Katie doesn't normally like strange dogs either (I witnessed her threatening a GSD pup!) but was instantly friends with Mollie - which is great news, because we fully intend to meet up again, this time with more photos!

On the way home from the castle, I dragged an exhausted Mollie into a big pet shop (well known chain store but I'm not going to give them free advertising!) in Loughborough. I'd never taken her there before as I was worried that she'd bark at everything, but she was incredibly well behaved. She didn't steal anything, even though all the interesting toys were on the bottom shelf, and didn't bark once. As a reward, I let her sniff all the different dried meats to see which she wanted. She selected dried chicken fillets, and has now become addicted to them - as have the cats!

Oh, and while I'm praising Mollie, she went straight into a sit when told to, when bikes & horses came past, and even a down once! (ah, the power of the tennis ball!) And with the help of tiny bits of chicken jerky and doggie choccie chip cookies, she's been learning paw. If you hold something out in a closed fist, fingers upwards, she will paw to get it. Next step - associate the command with the action...

Oh, nearly forgot - Mollie gained a new nickname, from Bev - "Mollie chops". She seemed to quite like it!

Country dog in the city

As far as I'm aware, Mollie had never been into a city before yesterday, and so I was a little nervous - my mum, sis and I had decided to go to Aylestone Meadows in Leicester which is an urban wilderness park type thing. We walked from my sister's house, across two busy main roads. At each one, Mollie sat when told to, and waited until released. The only bark, despite all the strange new smells and noises, was at an off lead GSD - Mollie was on lead at the time so decided to tell him that she was dangerous in case he came too close. He waited until he was at a safe distance before shouting back...

At one point, Mollie was mugged by the most gorgeous brindle and white Cardigan Corgi, whose owner also fell in love with Mollie - although when I said she was a Jack Russell, there was the almost inevitable discussion about Parson's versus Jack, KC breed standards versus JRGB etc etc. The corgi's owner also had a bulldog x mongrel bitch with her. She was white with a patch - in fact virtually the same colouring as Mollie - but looked just like a Staffy except for the jowls. She wasn't in the slightest interested in Mollie and just stood behind her owner looking bored and absent mindedly sniffing a bush. Mollie was completely enamoured with the corgi and even gave him her ball! He didn't want it, he just wanted to give her a good wash. It was very sweet!

We had a lovely walk all in all, although we inevitably lost the ball in some nettles, and on the way back to my sister's she was just as calm again, except for barking at an electricity box that jumped out at her.

A few months ago she would have been incredibly agitated the whole way there and back, and I would barely have trusted her off the lead. She's so much calmer, and I think the harness helps as well as she seems to feel safe with it on.

Bradgate Park

We took the doggit up to Bradgate Park today. She was panting in the car, although I think that was as much from excitement as anything - but she had some water after we'd parked up, just in case. We went in at the Woodhouse end, near the entrance for the Broombriggs Farm trail - it's not so busy as the other entrances, and there's loads of shade to park under. There's also no proper path. Anyway, we got there probably around 12.30 and it was scorching!! It's such a beautiful place, and Mollie loves it - acres of space to run and explore, usually loads of dogs to gossip with, streams and pools to jump in... what more could a hyperactive dog ask for on such a lovely day?



Of course, even though there were lots of pools, like this rather lovely one, she refused to jump in without the enticement of a thrown ball (which we left in the car - oops).








Do excuse the presence of my behind in this photo, but it shows how sceptical she was about the whole thing.. (you can lead a dog to water, etc)


Eventually, at a different pool, we came across these sweet, bouncy little spaniels - Cavaliers I think.
They wagged and squeaked at her until she ran round to say hello, then eventually she went in up to her knees. We stayed there for a good 10 minutes watching the three of them play, it was great to see, especially since Mollie has historically been fairly worried about strange dogs, even small ones. But today, she said hello to quite a few, although she did say hello to one that growled at her - she was quick to bark back though, and beat a hasty retreat.
All in all, a lovely, if very tiring walk, and Mollie of course collapsed in the shade as soon as we got home.

Did she 'eck as like!! How could we possibly expect her to waste such a glorious day?!