Ettomogah Pub 3

A long time ago before we were born, a magazine produced a cartoon about a fictitious pub at Ettomogah. It became so popular that people built a copy of the pub that didn't exist in the real world, as a tourist attraction. Then more people built more copies of the non existent pub so that now there are 5 of them. We have been to the one in Queensland, the one in Western Australia, and now we are at the one in New South Wales at Ettomogah near Albury. The cartoonist lived in Albury so this is as close as possible you can get to the original. Don't think too much about that last sentence or you will get a migraine.
Anyway, the top pic shows us outside the pub, but we are so small Keith had to magnify us in the inset and put an arrow to where we were. The cartoon pub had been faithfully reproduced. There was the truck on the roof, the writing on the wall, the crashed plane, the wobbly construction and Bandit the Dog's kennel. They had filled in the rabbit warrens and traps for safety reasons.
The bottom pic shows us trying to talk to Bandit. We heard him bark but he would not come out. He was not very smart, he just went "Woof" if you tapped on his kennel. Eventually we began to think he was not real, just a machine that made a noise like a dog, but we kept checking just in case he was real.

Albury Winners

We are back in the Winners Circle! Tiffany won 1st place in Masters Jumping qualifying with a time almost 3 seconds under the standard course time, and then we went in Strategic Pairs and we won the Excellent class. Unfortunately we  were over time due to a quick game of chasey half way through, but we did all the obstacles. The whole trial thought we were good though, said it was the best laugh they'd had in ages.
Neither of us did any good in Agility. Tiffany was over excited and Keith lost control, then I went in and there were some very interesting sniffs and a dog walk that I had never seen before and I had to try it out.
The pic shows us with our sashes and our prizes of Dog Biscuits.

Trains and Ned Kelly

We have been traveling again, We are in Albury tonight, but to get here we have traveled for 3 days, not because it is a long distance, but because there are lots of things to see and do. We stayed a night in Ararat, then Sheperton and finally got here. One of the stops along the way was at Elmore where there is a miniature railway. Hannah and I waited on the station  (see top picture) but the train didn't come so it must have been a model of British Rail, Keith said.
Later on we reached Glenrowan which was the home of the famous bush ranger and artist's model Ned Kelly. He must have been huge because the pic shows us sitting by his statue and we are only as big as his boots. You have to look closely to see us.
The Albury caravan park is next door to the dog club grounds where we are competing on Saturday, so this means we wont have to get up too early on the weekend.

Tiffany's 7th Birthday

Tiffany was 7 years old on 7th March 2016. She has had another good year doing all sorts of things that keep a dog happy. In the agility ring she became a Masters dog, she has a Tracking Dog title and 2 passes towards her Tracking Dog Excellent title.
We have also been traveling around Australia a lot too. We went to the Kimberly's in Western Australia and went along the Gibb River Road and back across the Tanami Desert.  Add in a few country trips to Mildura and Whyalla and that was a busy year for a dog.

The big news since Tiffany's birthday is, We Have A New Kennel. It is in Tanunda in the Barossa Valley. We will not move in until May because KnK have to do things first. In the mean time we are in Warrnambool for a week end of dog trials, and then we move on for more trials next week.
The pic shows us on our walk along the pathway next to the Warrnambool caravan park where we are staying. We walked to the harbour where we stopped for the photo.

Barossa Tollers.

We have been running and playing in Nurioopta which is in the Barossa Valley Wine district. We are away in the caravan for the weekend. KnK have been looking at houses so we have had to sit in the car while they look, but they do  not leave us for long and we get lots of walks at different dog parks. Fortunately it has been cool and we are always in the shade with water. The pic shows us at our favourite park in Nuriootpa by the steam engine. We run and chase the ball, chase each other and just mooch around the big park here until we are too tired to move, then we just curl up and go to sleep while KnK try to find us a new home.

Toller Beach Day

We had a morning at the beach yesterday, with lots of other Tollers and a few ring ins. We have a Toller gathering occaisionally during Summer but this was the first one we attended.
We had a great time. We swam, fetched balls, frisbys, dummys and anything else we could get the humans to throw. We chased each other up and down the beach, raced through the waves and investigated everywhere we could.
There were about 20 dogs there and it was hard work getting round to sniff everyone, but we did our best. At the end of the day we were too tired to move.
When we got home we both had a bath to get the salt and sand out of our fur, a thorough grooming and then we were allowed to sleep, and we slept like logs. When we eventually started to move about again we had to go slowly because we were stiff and sore from all the exercise, but not too stiff or sore to demand dinner at 5 o'clock.
The pic shows just a few of the 219 pictures Keith took during the morning. Tiffany top left, Hannah top right and then two shots of the crowd at play.

Tiffany ADM.

Last night Tiffany passed her 7th Agility Masters trial and qualified for her Agility Dog Master (ADM) title. It was a cool night, a good flowing course from Judge Brian and Tiffany was very keen to run. Keith, however, was a bit under the weather suffering from dizzy spells if he turned too quickly. During the walk through, Keith worked out a way that he could run without doing spins. Round the course Tiffany was flying, while Keith was doing his 'avoid spins' path. It worked because Tiffany came third overall and second in her height class (to our dad Rio) and gained her title.
My run was not as spectacular as Tiffany as I got a couple of jumps wrong, and had to repeat a jump too. The good news was that with all those errors I was only a couple of seconds over the time.
The pic shows us at home playing on the practice jump doing 'Synchronised Jumping', it will never take off as a sport.