Spring time fun

We have had a lovely day today out and about in the beautiful sunshine. For a change we went along the river, a walk we havent done for some months and I think I now know why!! Every 2 minutes you bump into someone along the tow path and it can be very frustrating letting her out on the long line only to reel her back in again shortly after to let the joggers and cyclist past. Mind you its all good recall work for her but not much fun for us.

Spring is definatley here as we saw an abundance of daffiodils and various catkins and buds as well as greenery popping up. There is also lots of song birds singing away in every single bush we went passed. Bird watching has become a little hobby of ours as we often see lots of varied birds whilst out and about. We are very lucky in the fact we have so much on our door step practically and often see something exciting. Today we saw several buzzards, mostly being chased by crows with their distinct call echoing around the valley. As well as numerous great tits, blue tits, coal tits, robins, black birds, thrushes and geese.
So to avoid the constant meeting people we turned off from the river and up along the woodland and fields and this was much more fun. We did come across a very excitable black Lab who suffers from the same deaf condition bella has, but both dogs were having far too much fun chasing and playing that we let them for a few minutes and then carried on our ways.

On reaching this part of the walk, we decided to carry out some more training. Keith carried on walking with Bella in the attention exercise (below right) and as you can see she is nicely beside him on the loose line. After he got so far ahead-almost out the picture he let her recall to me and I managed to snap the pic I have been dying to snap for months. A action shot with her in focus :) very impressed.

 Heading home we had a worn out Beagle and for the first time Ive managed to catch her panting, she neevr normally runs about enough to pant but today she has been on the go non stop and in this pic she is almost smiling :O)

Since getting home she has made herself nice and comfy on the sofa and apart from getting up for a little roast dinner, she has been asleep for the last 5 hours :O) what a end to a lovely sunday afternoon. xx